It seems so long ago, but what our cricket-loving Governor General had to say in 1960 because he had noted the first signs of our material yearnings. In his New Year’s message he warned: It is the greatest mistake to imagine that mere material progress is getting us anywhere. On the contrary, the predominance of economic interests and motives in any civilisation is always the forerunner of moral decline and social disintegration”.
What went wrong? We were conned by the same interests the GG referred to. But now, post COVID-19, social change is not just wishful but in some societies a new reality.
I’ve been all over the place on this issue. I began by being unhappy with the current New Zealand flag, largely because I could never remember if it was us or Australia who had the extra star. And while this is no excuse for my lazy ignorance, I know some born and bred Kiwis who live with the same confusion. So I was ready for a change until John Key put me off.
It’s been described by many as Samoa’s “architectural gem” and sits proudly in Apia’s centre with a beacon-like dome overlooking the harbour. And the Catholic Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception of Mary is not only a very significant building but is also an important tourist attraction.
There are times when I sleep through the nightI but such nights are rare. So thank heavens for TV 3, for sacking John Campbell and giving him the opportunity to return to Radio New Zealand.
Some years ago a lifelong devotee of yoga brought together the residents of her retirement home to teach them this 4,000-year-old relaxation and meditation technique. She was 90.
What a difference benevolent government policies can make to a society.
Venezuela’s low-cost housing programme is building new homes at a breakneck pace of over 200 a day, according to the government.
Here, Statistics New Zealand figures show more than 21,000 new dwellings were approved last year, 26 percent more than in the previous year.
When Freda Du Faur partied at The Hermitage in 1909, they moved the piano into the dining room, rolled back the rugs and everyone danced. By Christmas that summer, The Hermitage overflowed with mountaineers, adventurers and artists. One year later, Freda was the first woman to reach the summit Aoraki/Mt Cook.)
These days The Hermitage Hotel is more likely to see Asian bus tourists stretched back in chairs, ensconced in a 360 degree cinematic experience – viewing the night sky in its Digital Dome Planetarium: See the night sky like never before. Leave Earth. Fly to the edge of our galaxy and far beyond to the reaches of our known universe. So the promo goes.
Went shopping for a hat-rack the other day. No big deal, this was a need rather than a want – my hats had multiplied in direct proportion to my vanishing hair.
I rang a store which stocks everything from rope to paints and plants, and asked for a hat-rack.
“No we don’t sell any” said a South African accent a little too emphatically, the way some people do when they want you off the line.
“Really?”
“I’ll put you through to hardware” she said, and was gone, though Hardware was displeased.
Baby-boomers might just identify with the description of this country:
…’it maintains a welfare state — a set of government programs designed to provide economic security — that is beyond the wildest dreams of American liberals. It provides universal health care; college education is free, and students receive a stipend; day care is heavily subsidized’.
The country is Denmark. The writer is American Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize winner for Economic Sciences. And many of those state-funded programmes paid for by taxpayers were once also ours before the 1984 election.
The ends (oops… no pun intended!) that marketers will go to promote that wonder drug, Viagra.
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Just when we had got used to calling the landmark One Tree Hill, None Tree Hill, we hear that nine trees, not just one, will finally be planted on the volcanic cone.