Our Chief Reporter at The Auckland Star never stopped reminding cadet reporters how important weather news was to readers. We sighed - there seemed to be more important things happening. But we dutifully drove to the Met Office and returned with the Weather Forecast. Later we sidled self-consciously down to Queen Street with an embarrassment in our hands: a foot-long barometer. Then we scurried back to the office to write the noon temperature. How things have changed. When Australian bushfires can create sepia skies over Auckland, it’s tangible evidence of climate change - and interest in this phenomenon intensifies. Our insistent Chief Reporter was right after all.
Data is being created all the time without us even noticing it.
Much of what we do every day now happens in the digital realm, leaving an ever-increasing digital trail that can be measured and analysed.
Just how much data do our tweets, likes and photo-uploads really generate?
Bet you didn’t know it but the World – yes the World – is turning Black. Must be true ‘cos the NZ Herald says.
From Hansard, September 21 this year and in no particular order – questions, serious issues, flippant put-downs – and not much else….
What is it about Jeremy Corbyn that sends shivers up the collective spine of his fellow MPs? An alternative to Maggie Thatcher’s, Tina (There is No Alternative) embrace of the Market, that’s what.
‘Humanity washed ashore’ wrote a cartoonist as his brush strokes re-created the heart-stopping photo of three-year-old Aylan Kurdi.
They say you should never go back or try to recapture the wonder of places and experiences of your youth. But, while not replicating the original, sometimes the passage of time can make the outcome rewarding and interesting.
Much has changed between my occasional visits to Christchurch in the last four and a half years.
On my first post-earthquakes visit I was awed by wrecked buildings, broken roads, tell-tale see pages that told of cracked water-pipes, portable toilets in the streets, tangles of steel reinforcing on what looked like bomb-sites, barricades, soldiers, and silence in a city echoing sorrow.
In Nelson, the City Council has appeared hell-bent on introducing shared pathways – where walkers vie with bikes.
Hell-bent? In February 2015 the editor of Nelson Mail in Don’t get carried away over cycle ways appealed for common sense.
I should begin by saying I am but a beginner beekeeper, so these are just my observations. I don’t keep them for honey, but for pollination, though my kids would tell me the joy of sticking their heads under a giant honey tap in harvest season is a hard reason to beat.