Posts by Hebe
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Pandemic
Covid
Washing the groceries -
Hard News: Towards new human spaces, in reply to Bart Janssen,
YES!! “Shared” paths are lose-lose for all users.
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Pedestrians and cyclists sharing paths is infuriating. Try walking with a dog and two pre-schoolers and three adults as we have done at times over the last year before the pandemic threat. No wins for anyone.
Add a codger with a quaked knee and it becomes almost a matter of life and death.
Who decided it was okay? No-one asked the little people.
The increasing number of electric bikes has made the paths around here even more lethal. And no I didn’t hear the bell because you tinged it many metres away and my hearing is dull. -
Peace be with you
Christchurch
Buyback -
Hard News: These things we must now change, in reply to Russell Brown,
But I saw too many people on social media blaming Christchurch and apparently forgetting in their rage that it was Christchurch that was attacked.
Yeah thanks for that. It’s still happening.
Columnists and opinion-makers who usually know better : two sickened me before I gave up reading the thinks: Guyon Espiner’s experience of living in Otautahi 25 years ago. Ali Mau’s recycling tired tropes that refer to the well-known export to the North Island.
How does that go down with locals? I am fucked right off actually. We’re told on social media by out-of-towners that we know nothing about what people in our city are suffering because we’re the wrong colour, religion or are not expressing our grief in the approved manner.
Do these people not understand that many families still have not had their dead returned to them,. That the victims have not been buried. That people of all colours and creeds have dead friends and family members.
How incredibly disrespectful. How graceless. How insensitive.
Leave the arguments and the twisting of this massacre of good people for your own ends until after the funerals and mourning period ends .
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Ah Russell, arohanui to you and yours. I had not put together how hard the year has been overall for you. I was rapt to see a Newsroom piece praising you this week: it’s much deserved and well overdue.
And the music: The Beths! Marlon Williams geeking on the beach at South Brighton!
Lovely writing.
Thanks. -
Hard News: We are, at last, navigating…, in reply to Russell Brown,
Yep.
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Excellent work Russell. Everything about moral panic you say rings true from my own experience. Last year family were clearing ancient parents’ house after they had lived there for 30 years and readying it to rent on their behalf. It was very habitable and comfortable. We got the local letting agent around for a chat.
Within five minutes he was getting more and more exercised about the need for P testing: “You never know who’s been in here!!! Half of [upscale suburb] is on P!!!! We test EVERY house for P!! It’s essential.”. At which point I pointed out that two 90-year-olds had lived there for 30 years and that it was not going to happen.
He changed tack to: “Well when the new tenants move out, it will HAVE to be tested. We (the rental agency) require it.”
Partner and I inserted fleas in both his ears and told him to go. We were very much left with the impression he had a stake in the testing business.
In comparison, the next - reputable. - letting manager found no need to mention P, other than to ask an obligatory question on the form.
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Summery autumn. In The Gardens again.
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Hard News: Big Night Outage, in reply to Moz,
It was more about the effect of the 7.1: it hit Christchurch city, and we sure felt it, but it was centred out at Greendale and fortunately given the magnitude and shallow depth the damage to people and buildings was much more limited.
Many of us regarded that shake as a fortunate escape, for Christchurch when we saw how many of the unreinforced old brick buildings were badly damaged. (It seems incredible now that demolishing the old insurance firm building in Manchester Street caused much protest.)
It was clear we had dodged a bullet. Of course five months later that all changed.When February 22 hit Christchurch had had a rehearsal, and it saved many of us. We had emergency kits, we had the local well piped to the street, we knew the drill, and the emergency services and CDEM and government had much more concrete plans how to respond.
It was even down to the level of my partner and I having a clear emergency plan and having scoped potentially dangerous buildings on his routes around town during his working day: not spending much time in the cafe across the road from his work may well have saved his life when that building crumbled at lunchtime.
