A new decade demands a new way—and a new mayor

I had a very insightful meeting today with one of the country’s leading information strategists, which put things into perspective for me regarding the mayoral race.    His thoughts (though not exactly his words): Wellington has almost always voted for the right person at the right time. We needed someone like Mark Blumsky to give […]

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Yay for ‘None of the above’!

You have to love the thinking behind the local newspaper in Wellington when it comes to the mayoral election. We have five people shown here in their poll, one of whom (Councillor Foster) hasn’t declared his candidacy.    Spot anyone who’s missing?    I’m very glad to say ‘None of the above’ is leading at […]

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Thoughts toward 2020

This weekend was spent in recovery mode after getting some weird stomach bug before Anzac Day. Without getting too gross, let’s say it took a lot out of me. That’s right: I was energetically drained.    But it’s not to say that the campaign has stopped or slowed. Things seem to be proceeding at a […]

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A campaign fund-raiser on Thursday night

It’s been an exhilarating few days. First up was speaking to the residents of the Rita Angus Retirement Village last Friday—a very fruitful discussion to cement further some of my ideas for the mayoral campaign. Saturday, meanwhile, was Residents 2010 and Public ACTA—two conferences which were both very important to Wellington’s future and representation. More […]

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On Wellywood, Murdoch and English accents

The good news today is that Wellington Airport is officially in two minds about what type of sign it will put up on the Miramar cutting, which means that the ‘Wellywood’ sign protest has had a victory of sorts.    I’m thrilled at the news because it shows people power—especially people like Anthony Lander who […]

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Vista was just a duo today

Due to others’ appointments, the Vista Group meeting today was a mere duo: myself and Jim Donovan, Esq., who will give up blogging in 10 days. It meant it was the second-least well attended meeting in our history. Jim has never let us forget the least well attended one.    I have always said that […]

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The rise of the city brand

I don’t have the other writers’ permission to show their side of this Facebook dialogue, but we had been chatting about growing the creative clusters here in Wellington as one of my mayoral policies.    I wrote: Mostly by focusing on growing creative clusters and taking a bigger slice of the cake. So it is […]

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I need to listen to some Fred Dagg before I go on

To be confirmed is an interview with the BBC, in my politician guise. I have not been on radio in the other hemisphere for something like seven years, and that time it went to some of the most way-out places (it was UN Radio). I have one reservation only: my accent goes all over the […]

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The ‘Wellywood’ sign: people power gets things done

That was a very interesting 30 hours. I found out about the ‘Wellywood’ sign yesterday afternoon, through Twitter, and Tweeted to say I hated it. Little did I know then that there was a huge Facebook group—6,000 strong at the time of writing—where Wellingtonians were making their voices known.    And when I got there […]

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A spoof ‘Wellywood’ sign seems out of touch to me

I was interested to see a Tweet today (via Daniel Spector) asking if I would object to the erection of a ‘Wellywood’ sign in Miramar that would parody the ‘Hollywood’ one in the Hollywood Hills, Calif. The answer is: yes, I would.    For numerous reasons. First, it’s naff and tacky.    Secondly, why do […]

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