Posts by Ian Fish
-
My wife & I have changed from being daily cyclists in London in the 80's & 90's to regular (sometimes not so regular) cyclists in Auckland now.
My wife has been looking at getting an e-bike for a while, her commute ends with riding from the NW cycle lane at Kingsland to half way up Mt Eden & it has tended to put her off doing it too regularly.
We rented some e-bikes in Waiheke a few months ago and found it amazingly enjoyable, it completly took hills out of the equation. And a great way to visit the vineyards!
Have spent a while looking at what's on offer in Auckland, she ended up going with a tasty Grace from Flux in Charlotte St, Newton. The guy there is friendly & knowledgeable. The Grace's aren't part of the Mercury $500 off offer, but for a while he reduced the price by $500.
We found the knowledge of many shop assistants about the e-bikes they were selling was not great, was definitely better at specialist e-bike places.
Also got to ride a Mostache when we met a guy at the John Renyolds exhibition who had one and insisted we take it for a spin. That was very nice, but in another price catagory!
So the main differences so far are my wife's keenness on cycling to work, and me struggling to keep up on our recreational rides! -
Done, happy to support you and rest of team
-
Been away over Easter but small donation winging its way to your account now.
Thanks for fighting the good fight! -
Hard News: Meanwhile in Epsom ..., in reply to Andre Alessi,
Voting a bit skewed in Epsom, lots of Labour/Greens voters (including me) voted for Richard Worth last election (that went well!)
However the area I live in (between Mt Eden Rd & Dominion Rd) there was a decent amount of party votes for Labour/Greens -
Any sensible political discourse relating to our drug laws has just become alot more unlikely with the selection of Mike Sabin as the National candidate for Northland. It is probable that he will be our next drug tzar / Minister of Police, and his 'lock em up and throw away the key' attitude to any (illegal) drug use doesn't bode well.
-
Also on That Summer was Ian Dury and the Blockheads and The Members. I recall it was a Virgin Records sampler disc from their early days.
Glad the fish has gone however, I don't need another one! -
Laneways
Interesting to see Ticketek having main gate problems after the fiasco at R&V gate due to problems with e-ticket. People I talked to implied you go with Ticketek or Ticketmaster to avoid those f***-ups!I thought Sam was starting to get a bit panicked at the end of their set when he was trying to remove the 'burqa', he was stumbling around and it looked like he could topple.
The XX were great, a bit of Joy Division mixed with some Cure.
I'd been blagged backstage to see my buddies, and the headliners didn't really make much sense to me from the side of the stage?
drunk all their rider by then huh :)
They hadn't finished drinking their rider at that stage, they were hard at it on stage. However Florence was fabulous.
I'm slightly worried that my 8 year old daughter's favourite song is Florence's "kiss with a fist" - I think my fav song at that age was 'Crackling Rose' by Neil Diamond. Guess my parents had slightly different musical tastes to my daughters!Biggest letdown was was after about 15 minutes into the NASA set when they shut down the sound system, that was shaping to be a really good set.
Even managed to bump into Russell in the queue for the toilets in VIP - Hi again - the toilets seem to be the main selling point for these VIP areas. We didn't even try to get food, was a complete waste of time. Having to buy a minimum $30 of drink vouchers (with no refunds) was taking the piss.
-
An increasing number of real estate agents now talk about "powder rooms" instead of toilets in their ads.
I think it is as in 'powder your nose'
-
I (& my wife) have mobiles on contract with Vodaphone, but they still charge a per call fee to check my voicemail! So we don't use.
My wife had her first day as a 'paid' zookeeper at Auk Zoo on saturday, fortunately she got out of having to go in on sunday! I cycled over with 10yr old son to visit (on Sat), and we got to meet the kaka's, the male loves sitting on your shoulder and nuzzling under your ear while preaning himself, but his partner has a habit of latching on to any part of your body that is accessable with her beak and seeing how long you can bear the pain!
I don't really consider myself a zoo person (apart from the fact my wife works there, and she is trying to turn me) but I grew up with Kashin. She arrived when I was a kid, I still remember the competition to name her. She has been unwell for some time, and I believe some of the NZ news agencies have had her obituary prepared for some time (NZ's answer to the Queen Mother rather than the Peoples Princess?)
The zoo was free on Sunday, a saving of $54 for a family of 4 like ours, so along with the emotional attachment many Aucklanders felt towards Kashin it is not surprising there were so many visitors.
Celebrations like this are what makes for a diverse city! -
3D = crap for people who wear glasses...