Winding down after a busy, post-campaign 24 hours

At our campaign after-party: self, Karen King, and Chloe Oldfield and Aaron Hape. It is perhaps no surprise that the last 24 hours saw more Tweets to me than any other period in my life, as the results from the local body elections came in.    I was overwhelmed by the messages, which were very […]

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Paul Henry is only the tip of the redneck iceberg

Yesterday, I began watching the Indian media get hold of the Paul Henry story. Indians are, rightly, up in arms with the TV host’s insult of Chief Minister Smt. Sheila Dikshit’s name—this, plus the incident questioning whether Governor-General HE Sir Anand Satyanand was a New Zealander, shows a pattern where Henry thinks poorly of people […]

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By all means, enforce parking, but it’s not a licence to write fiction

Today was a good reminder why we cannot trust a foreign company to look after our parking, and why things need to be brought back under council control.    Parking enforcement is not about profit. Karen was unduly issued with a parking ticket in a P5 space after hours. And I received one today. You […]

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The other time Paul Henry had it in for someone with Indian heritage

Paul Henry isn’t alone on this: a lot of New Zealand media have been making fun of Delhi Chief Minister Smt. Sheila Dikshit’s surname, purposely mispronouncing it as dick-shit and then giggling away. (For the record, the pronunciation is close to dixit.) Though after his comments about HE Sir Anand Satyanand earlier this week, it’s […]

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Endorsements from Sir Michael Fowler and others—and why the Paul Henry débâcle matters

Yesterday, as some of you know, Sir Michael Fowler endorsed me, saying that I am the ‘intelligent’ mayoral candidate and he likes the programme I have outlined for our city. It goes beyond what is on my campaign site, of course—the programme includes plans to bring Waterfront Ltd. back under council control, increased transparency through […]

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A tribute to Bernard Schwartz—that’s Tony Curtis to most of us

I can’t let the passing of Bernard Schwartz—a.k.a. Tony Curtis—go without some sort of tribute.    I’ve bitten my tongue a few times this year on writing what I wanted to on this website. And with hindsight, I really should have just gone for it, as someone who preaches transparency. Yes, I do indeed have […]

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