Immediately after planting a range of herbs out on the balcony, spring burst forth in windy glory. It didn’t matter which corner, there was wind everywhere, going everywhere. The first casualty, sort of, was the mint. The main stem snapped in half before the end of the weekend. Thanks to the magic of the internet, I instantly learnt that mint can grow from cutting. Into the wine glass it went.

Within a week, the first roots started appearing. After the second, it’s ready to plant into real soil. Interestingly, the plant is also significantly taller than at the start. At a guess, the new growth is coming from auto-cannibalisation of the lower leaves, which are well submerged and obviously yellowing.

Naturally, my curiosity got the best of me this past weekend – should I reserve a bit of basil from the bunch we’d bought for soup? Sure. Will it grow? We’ll see.

While flipping through some twitter-provided political news, I saw someone use government as a verb. I couldn’t tell if it was intended – there was a sic attached to it by some editor.

I think that government as a verb should be allowed. It takes the concept of to govern a bit further. It is more about the institution than about the leadership/stewardship. To government is to flex political muscle and knowledge of the system to achieve a result. It will probably be a transitive verb – act on something like a policy or an entity.

To use it in a sentence:

With a deadline fast approaching, the councilors governmented a plan that removed striking from the union’s list of options.

A previous tennant of the apartment that I live in seems to have left a lot of postal references unchanged. I receive a lot of mail for him. On this particular occassion, I wrote ‘No longer at this address’ on the appointment notice and dropped it back into a nearby delivery box. It arrived again two days later. It seems as if I wrote the note on the wrong side of the card and the postal system accepted it a second time – on the same stamp. I wonder if NZ Post realises that they’ve stolen 50 cents from themselves.

I saw this combination in Auckland over the weekend and couldn’t help the result.

As of this morning, there is no bus service provided by Go Wellington. The streets were relatively quiet at 7:20, when I caught my Eastbourne-bound bus to work. I was surprised that we didn’t have a huge number of extra passengers, but with the very nice weather hanging over the capital, some people may have walked the 20-minute journey instead of taking the 10-minute bus ride.

I’m cheering for the drivers on this one. They don’t get the pay or the respect that they deserve for the service they provide. Poneke talks about the money side in terms of dollars, rather than percentages, which paints a very bleak picture. Go Wellington Drivers!

I was taking a look at a medical receipt to make sure it didn’t have overly personal information on it before sending it to recycling. What caught my eye was a mistake in the name of my employer.

Our name is Industrial Research Ltd, not Industrial Recreation Centre, no matter how much I’d like it to be.

I mentioned a few days ago that I had contacted the city council about the photo exhibition on Courtenay Place. Enough information came back to justify an update.

First, Andy Palmer, the curator of the project, sent a letter to the editor to explain the light-boxes.

I admit there’s been little explanation about the work and why it’s there. I suggested that the “curator’s statement” be placed in the park somewhere, but it hasn’t happened. It is on Wellington City Council’s website, however.

With a name on hand, a quick search turned up a blog post that goes much further and gives a nice visual perspective of the new park.

Subsequently, my email prompted two replies from Wellington City Council. The first pointed me to a list of temporary art projects in the city, of which the Light Box Project is just one. The current display, “Flanerie and Figments” is set to finish in October. A second reply came from a city council manager, Martin Rodgers:

Responsibility for mounting future exhibitions has now transferred to the Council’s Public Art Panel which is a group of five external advisors plus Council officers. As Manager of the Council’s City Arts team, I am also Chair of this panel. We have issued invitations to galleries and curators inviting them to propose future curated exhibitions for the boxes. These may be photographic exhibitions or in other genres that fit the format of the boxes.

The Panel has set aside funding for future exhibitions. As you will appreciate, the costs of mounting an exhibition, including artists fees and the output of the works, can add up. At present the Panel has committed to funding two exhibitions a year. Your suggestion to source Creative New Zealand funding so that we can turn over the exhibitions more frequently is a good one which we will explore.

Personally, I can be satisfied with an interesting exhibition which lasts for 6 months. This may mean that more complaint letters are going hit the papers. That’s life. Not everyone will like any given piece. I’d rather have controversial images than boring images.

Aside from that, the other major complaint about Courtenay Place Park is the overwhelming rust-coloured theme that it presents. Yes, true, but the trees are starting to bud now – and the westernmost 6 are already very green. The park is going to look amazing once those trees splash a little life over the rust. It’ll soon be a photo opportunity for anyone willing to capture it.

When I picked up Kit Laughlin’s Stretching & Flexibility after work yesterday, I thought that I should look back at all the things on my wishlist and see how I’m doing. Here’s the summary:

• Subscription to Scientific American Mind. Still open. Shipping costs are increasing at the book shops, making the subscription make a bit more sense.
• Chef’s knife. Check.
• Stretching & Flexibility. Check.
• Book ends. Check.
• Le Petit Prince. In progress.
• Guitar tuner. Check.
• Decomposure – Vertical Lines A. Check.
• Malajube – Le Compte complet. Check.
• Grand Theft Bus – Birth of Confusion / Flies in the No Fly. Neither.
• T Leaf Tea. Lots.
• Sinfest books. Pretty please…

I think we can take an implication from this that I tend to get what I want. Some things have been pushed down the priority list and some things get caught in the spur of the moment and never actually get on the list. All told, I’m not doing too bad.

I wish I could say the same for my list of things to do.

It started with a brief discussion and quickly turned into action. Most things don’t happen that way, but it worked nicely today. My flatmate and I had brunch and went down to Palmers to get some things organised for a small herb garden on the balcony. It’s true that there isn’t a lot of space available in apartments, but we happen to be lucky enough to have a large balcony that catches sun from early morning through mid-afternoon. Conveniently, there’s also a shady side for the things that don’t like a lot of direct light.

We arrived back at the house with a nice array of small items, all edible. Thyme and coriander are in one planter, basil and parsley in another. Mint is in the shade, a cherry tomato plant is shaded from wind but not sun. A tabasco pepper lives alone and a lone strawberry plant should be a god-send in the heat of summer. If we had more space, it would be nice to have rosemary and fresh garlic tips and chives, but we need to keep some room for pulling out the beanbag and reading in the sun.

We’ve been building up a list of complaints, we being a group of people who often catch a bus together to go to work. The bus stop that we get off at is nothing more than a painted line on a road with a sign on a lamp post; we alight into a small park along Parkside Road. Under normal conditions, this isn’t too bad. Morning dew and the occasional bottle stands as the biggest of obstacles. However, with winter being wet, the ground has softened or become mud, and with occasional construction going on, it’s also quite rutted in spots. Now that the election has been called, our little bus stop has also become a poster board for local candidates, in the form of a large, wooden-frame billboard.

This has prompted two emails, one to the offending political party office and one to Hutt City Council. In the first, I’ve asked for the billboard to be shifted an extra meter away from the road to allow for direct pedestrian access to the footpath¹. I received an immediate response to indicate that the issue will be forewarded to the right person. Fingers are crossed. In the second message, I requested that a footpath be added along the edge of the park, at least to the bus stop. Given that no fewer than a dozen people use that stop every morning for work, we deserve some sort of stable footing. I was sent an automated response, but no word on when human eyes might see the message. Ideally, we’d see an actual bus shelter along the route, but construction and maintenance of shelters has been outsourced to an advertising company.

Normally, I’d call that a good day, but it doesn’t stop there. Following the re-construction of the park at Courtenay Place, I have seen a few letters of complaint about it’s bland character and the choice of photographs in the display boxes. After discussing this with a friend on the bus, we decided that the best course of action would be to write to Wellington City Council and ask that a rotation of images be used in place of the pictures that are currently in place. Wellington is very photogenic and there is no shortage of pictures taken locally or by local photographers. As a result, I sent off another government-bound message suggesting that CreativeNZ be used to promote local photography in the displays.

If only one of my messages causes appropriate action, I’ll be happy. For the good of all…

Edit 17/09/2008: The offending billboard has been moved. Such is the power of asking nicely.

¹ This shouldn’t be too much extra work, since someone had knocked over that billboard and two others along the same road last night.