Dear Amanda Larsson, I see you are Greenpeace’s head of campaigns. I’ve just read a piece where you were having a good go at the dairy industry and saying that the Climate Change Commission’s report missed its mark by not getting stuck into methane emissions. But we will come back to that. Rather than what […]

From our vantage point here in 2025, the story behind New Zealand’s successful Covid-19 vaccination programme during 2021 completely changed how international pandemic vaccination programmes are now run. And yet this success happened by chance. As the country began to vaccinate its populace, nagging doubts remained as to whether the system run by the Ministry […]

August 2021 was a time when a form of mass hysteria swept through the halls of New Zealand’s parliament. The psychologists prefer to use the term ‘mass psychogenic illness’. This episode began with the Green Party. They had begun to resent a portrait of Sir Winston Churchill that hung outside the entrance to the corridor […]

From the Ridge (FTR): Minister James Shaw, thanks for agreeing to an interview. James Shaw (JS): My pleasure. I’ve heard about your interviews. This is not actually real though, is it? FTR: Ah. What is real? Great question. Einstein said, “Reality is just an illusion, albeit a very persistent one”. I like Pablo Picasso’s thought […]

Diary of a Survivalist. June 2020. Dear diary. How are you? That’s silly, you are an inanimate object. I’ve just got into the habit of asking everyone how they are before going anywhere near them. Not that I’ve seen anyone for weeks. But I have decided to jot down a few thoughts should anyone read […]

When Tom and Elizabeth took the farm The bracken made their bed and Quardle oodle ardle wardle doodle The magpies said. Denis Glover’s opening stanza of his famous and familiar poem, The Magpies. A favourite of mine and I’m sure of many of you. Just the six stanzas where Tom and Elizabeth start farming, flourish […]

I made an accidental discovery the other day. More on that later. Accidental discoveries have helped make major advancements in human development and science. The first that comes to mind is the discovery of penicillin. Sir Alexander Fleming a bacteriologist from London had been experimenting in 1928 with staphylococcus, a common type of bacteria that […]

Chloe Swarbrick (CS); Steve, I see you are due to be retrained. From The Ridge (FTR); I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch that, I thought you said I was to be retrained. CS; Yes, that’s what I said. You are next on the list. It’s your turn. FTR; I’m sorry, I think we are at […]

Hey! It’s me, Ditch. You remember me. I was the tiny pup the boss found a few years ago in the water table that some sod had dumped. He rescued me, called me Ditch because he thought Watertable was silly even by his standards. Thought he give me a chance of being a sheepdog but […]