Shared streets

A post at the Auckland Transport blog on the shared streets and people-friendly spaces in urban planning got me inspired to look at how the streets rated the most expensive in various editions of the board game Monopoly look like in real life.

Here's the Nieuwstraat in Brussels:


And here is the Kalverstraat in Amsterdam:


Normalmstorg in Sweden:


And a stunning looking Paseo Del Prada in Madrid:


And here is Queen Street in Auckland (you have my permission to weep):


And just imagine what Queen Street could look like if it was redeveloped like the Meir in Antwerpen:

Relight my fire

Now those Swiss gnomes have re-started their doomsday machine, time for a re-post a year later:

We all like to enjoy a big bang from time to time and a tiny black hole on occasion, so I'm unconcerned by all that worry around the world about some particle collision machine. Doomsday it ain't.
I'd have fancied they called it the Voltaire machine, as that illustrious French philosopher lived in that very area. He flitted back and forth across the French-Swiss border to escape from the French authorities too keen to put a damper on his enlightning mind.

Belgium rules Europe

You could call it the revenge of Belgium. After being ruled for more than 2,000 years by various empires and foreign potentates, now haiku hewing Herman will take the reigns of Europe as the new EU president, coming out on top of Luxembourgeois and the Netherlands' Prime Ministers. Just think, wouldn't they have made a marvellous triumvirate, Roman Republic-style?
And the Foreign Affairs Representative is Baroness Catherine Ashton from the UK. There's nothing like a dame to send on foreign missions.
And there's nothing a combined effort between a Belgian and Brit cannot achieve (in me extensive experience) so that all bodes well for the EU.

Intrepid roving news reporter Hamish MacDonald from Aljazeera made a great impression as Tintin at the event.

Underground detail

Here's a game (via Diamond Geezer's annual Tube Blog Fest) that will have you hooked for hours if you are a London Underground map design fanatic, like most of us are who have ever lived in London. Now you can create your own mug/t shirt/mouse pad design with bits and pieces from the iconic map. And if you like it enough you can even order it at exorbitant, but in happily devalued pound, prices.

Here's my collection:


And I could make one for Auckland too:

Auckland governance ward system

I got a reply back from the Local Government Commission on my submission on the ward and electoral system for Auckland City:

Thank you for your submission. The Commission has completed an initial information gathering phase in its work to assist it prepare draft proposals for consultation. These proposals will be released on 20 November with submissions invited until 11 December. In relation to your email, I should point out that the Commission's tasks are prescribed by the Local Government (Auckland Council) Act 2009 this includes a requirement that there be a maximum of 20 councillors all elected by wards and that the electoral system will be first past the post.

So all we can make really a submission on is how the wards should be gerrymandered to suit the powers that be, and we are not allowed to speak truth to power.

Been visiting

Here is where I have been in the world and Europe. I didn't include stopovers involving waiting at airports only.
The world map is a bit small to see the small countries and territories I have been to, such as Hong Kong, Macau and the Cook Islands.


create your own visited country map
In Europe I still need to do a lot, including Andorra, Monaco, the Channel Islands and Iceland. But I've been to Liechtenstein, Luxembourg and Corsica. From Belfast to Leipzig and from Narvik to Gran Canaria.


create your personalized map of europe