East Tay Street is dying slowly.  It’s a badly kept secret that Outdoor World is about to be subsumed into H&J Smith’s mothership in Kelvin St, leaving a rather large hole in that side of the street.

An extremely large hole that could be a decent two-storey art gallery (been to the City Gallery in Wellington? – its floor space wouldn’t be much bigger on a floor by floor basis). Now Bob Each Way Boniface and One Trick Pony Ludlow will be dead against this.  They will say staffing costs will be enormous. (Fit out costs could be met by the gracious donation from the Smith coffers).

But here’s an idea.

Move the City Gallery there too.  Using their staff with a SMAG oversight role.

Now before Mrs Ferns of the Southland Art Society Council discovers the internet and gums me to death, this makes sense.

City Gallery gets a spot.  SMAG gets to do fixed and rotating displays of their collections.  H&J Smiths gets the naming rights to the Southland art gallery.  And Tay Street gets an attraction other than 17 year old beneficiaries rooting or fighting outside Living Space.

Tell me it’s a bad idea.

New element Governmentium: heaviest known and paradoxically increasing

New Element Discovered

The CSIRO announced the discovery of a perverse, perplexing atom

The new element is Governmentium (Gv). It has one neutron, 25 assistant neutrons, 88 deputy neutrons and 198 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312.

These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lefton-like particles called peons.

Since Governmentium has no electrons or protons, it is inert. However, it can be detected, because it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact. A tiny amount of Governmentium can cause a reaction normally taking less than a second to take from four days to four years to complete.

Governmentium has a normal half-life of 3-6 years. It does not decay but instead undergoes a reorganization in which a portion of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange places.

In fact, Governmentium’s mass will actually increase over time, since each reorganization will cause more morons to become neutrons, forming isodopes.

This characteristic of moron promotion leads some scientists to believe that Governmentium is formed whenever morons reach a critical concentration. This hypothetical quantity is referred to as critical morass.

When catalysed with money, Governmentium becomes Administratium, an element that radiates just as much energy as Governmentium since it has half as many peons but twice as many morons. All of the money is consumed in the exchange, and no other byproducts are produced.

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(This bit of humor was written in April 1988 has been adapted from the January 1989 issue of The Physics Teacher, “New chemical Element Discovered by William DeBuvitz ” William DeBuvitz is a physics professor at Middlesex County College in Edison, New Jersey (USA). He retired in June of 2000.)

…470km cycle journey around six of Southland and Otago’s great lakes in February 2012 to raise funds for Southland’s Foundation for Youth Development (FYD).   No stranger to endurance cycling, Michael said that the latest event follows on from their 1,100km cycle journey from Nelson to Bluff in January 2011 where they raised $12,000.

Michael and I are both involved with the Southland Sharks NBL franchise, and because he’s a good bugger, I suggest that if you can, you go here and support the cause.  The Foundation for Youth Development runs two programmes, Kiwi Can and Project K, in Southland schools.

It was established in 2003 as Kiwi Can, but merged in 2009 with Project K to become FYD Southland. Kiwi Can is the primary school branch and operates in seven Southland schools, from Bluff to Mataura, and includes Invercargill and Stewart Island.  It reaches 1400 young people, aged from 5 to 15-years-old, each year.

Project K is the high school programme for Year 10 students which operates at Gore High School.

If you can’t afford to donate, the alternative is to ride part of the course with him.  I would have, but cycling and I don’t agree with each other.  The only way I can get through 45 minutes on a bike at the gym is to have a magazine to read.  Biking 470km would put me in Ward 12.

Some people, on the other hand, enjoy cycling.  So knock yourself out.

The draft budgets show a budgeted increase of 7.19%

Just having a quick look, I’ve found about $1.2 million that can be trimmed, so just another $2 million to go.

1. We’re buying the Southland Times building because they’re shifting up the road.  We’re going to bowl it and make it into a windswept open park.  William Watt has suggested we call it William Watt Park.
2. The five buildings we bought in Lower Esk St are all earthquake risks and so we’re about to red sticker ourselves.  And the Southland District Council now doesn’t want to move.
3. We’ve bought a small hotel next to the airport in Nadi.  At least it was there until Tuesday.
4. We made a bit of a cock-up with endowment funds….
5. We’ve bought all the pubs in Bluff…
6. Um, anyone got any ideas on what we should buy next?  Those 200 apparently earthquake prone buildings?  Genius.  Done.

Now normally you wouldn’t expect elected members to be dealing with this kind of minutiae at all.  They would get an invite to a farewell morning tea, watch said director get presented with some sentimental tat, and that would be that.  Given this is very top secret, we’ll just have to speculate on the reason why this has to be such a high priority for the governance of Invercargill.

1. Said director doesn’t play golf or lawn bowls and wants a part-time cushy Council consultancy number?
2. The farewell has already taken place and things got out of hand with the Council credit card?
3. Director doesn’t want to retire and has taken legal action?
4. Retirement function is taking place in Bora Bora and executive authority is required to OK airfares and accommodation for all staff and elected members?

Hang on, it can’t be 4.  They don’t normally worry about getting Council’s OK for discretionary spending….

Two buildings in Winton have been issued with dangerous building notices by the Southland District Council.

Council building control manager Kevin O’Connor said concerns had been raised with Council about the condition of an overhanging balcony and veranda at street frontages of 206, 208 and 212 Great North Road, Winton along with concerns about the stability of brick and a chimney at the rear of the properties.

So much for the media beat up.