blogging it real

1/ Anyone who thinks a waterfront stadium ("Stadium Aotearoa, ouwww") can be built in five years in this country obviously hasn't seen the glacial pace of construction on Spaghetti Junction. The official website states that construction began in '03 and will finish this year, but I swear I can recall serious road works beginning there in '99, and from the looks of things I can't seem them wrapping the project up in the seven weeks that remain in this calendar year. On another note, I'm still not entirely sure why we can't expect the successful commercial enterprise that is rugby union to pay more towards any stadium. And if we're going to all this effort, is there any chance we can cover the damn thing and thus prevent fog-bowls, mud-bowls and general wash-outs? Personally I'd love to move cricket under a roof ... not because I want to cancel out interesting climatic variables, but because I'm sick of losing so much time to rain!

2/ Only one million New Zealanders live in "poor conditions"? Ms_Red and I can recall the day we finally felt warm in our house for the first time ... because it was last Saturday. We moved in mid-June, and have felt cold-to-freezing ever since. This is in spite of my installing some serious insulation in the ceiling (on top of, and at right-angles to, the original 1970s batts), and despite our fire place being used to provide heat to the 1/4 of the house which we make most use of. The floors remain cold in the mornings even now however, and a summer job for me will be to install foil underneath the floorboards. The point of this sad story is that we live in a "normal" house in "warm" Auckland ... so where are there 3 million New Zealanders who don't live in poor conditions residing? Me thinks Mssrs Williams and McAuley (authors of said report) are erring on the side of generosity.

3/ Best line on Outrageous Fortune last night: "I don't want to spend the rest of my life in the Waikato!!" Touche!