blogging it real

I've been struck lately by a mediocrity in the national character ... a "we can't do this" and "we can't afford that" mentality which undermines improvement. I'm not talking about the bloody Whangamata Marina, or Project Aqua, or other proposals that might have fallen afoul of legislation intended to protect what's left of the natural environment - but rather the more routine, humdrum aspects of life where urgent progress is needed.

Like the state of New Zealand houses, for example, many of which could aptly be described as shacks or "trailers on foundations", with much-needed improvements deferred for decades. A cluster of townhouses we lived in still had an unsealed drive 35 years after the original occupants moved in, for example.

Or like the state of New Zealand highways and motorways, where upgrades take years (decades?) because no one is willing to bite the bullet and pay for 24-hour construction (3 crews working 8 hours each) wherever possible. I'm estimating it's over 5 years they've been buggering around with Spaghetti Junction, for example, in large part because the work sites are idle for the majority of the time. Why? It's not like there's any local residents to disturb with noise at night, except for a few pigeons maybe. And when an addition is finally completed, albeit belatedly, you find it has one bloody lane. Honestly, what kind of country builds one-lane onramps and offramps in its busiest city?

And don't get me started on our state highway system, where they're too bloody cheap to bypass towns like Timaru or Cambridge, so you have to wind your way through suburbia at 50kph for miles on end. I would say: 1/ If you want to build on, or live adjacent to, SH1 you'll have to put up with cars going faster than 50kph; and 2/ Where the damage has been done, as in the two foregoing examples, build a bloody bypass!