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Each summer Clevedon’s population grows with the influx of international professional polo players and their grooms who call the village home for the polo season. Clevedon is renowned as the capital of New Zealand polo with numerous polo fields in the vicinity and home to some of the world’s best polo ponies. February for Clevedon is the busiest month as the Auckland Polo Club hosts the prestigious NZ Polo Open, the sporting and social event of…

A few years ago, when I wrote my autobiography, I included a chapter called “The challenge of making economic policy in a democracy”. In that chapter, I tried to debunk a lot of commonly held myths about economic policy. There are lots of them: · “Government should control what private landlords charge for rental accommodation to protect low income people”. “Import controls and tariffs protect jobs and create employment”. “The government has…

The Classic Motorcycle Festival is set to be bigger than ever this February. · Last year, 3,500 racers and spectators descended on the famous racetrack in Pukekohe in the first week of February. Over 300 racing machines from the 1940’s through to the 1990’s came to compete from all over New Zealand and the world. · The Festival, which is in its 42nd year, is famed as being the largest Classic Racing Festival in the Southern Hemisphere.…

Considered to be another important modern and feminist writer of the twentieth century who often wrote in the style known as ‘stream of consciousness’ as a narrative device, was the distinguished British writer and novelist, Virginia Woolf. Born Adeline Virginia Stephen in London, 1882 into an upper class family, the seventh child in a blended family of eight. The family resided within the two parallel streets of number 22, Hyde Park Gate, one…

To those who know her, being recognised at this year’s 2019 Counties Manukau Sporting Excellence Awards as the volunteer of the year will come as no surprise, but for Suzanne Ihaia it represents the culmination of an entire team of people who work tirelessly behind the scenes at Pukekohe Affiliated Football Club. “Receiving the award was a really nice recognition for the work I’ve put in, however, I do not do it alone. It is a team effort and…

Speaking from the hot rodding background I know and love so well, I enjoy the history and the collectibles associated with it all. On that note and added to the fact I have written for various national and international publications – I really enjoy reading and collecting hot rod magazines. My collection is not museum excessive in size or age but I simply collect what I like. Over the years these magazines have served many purposes from…

It would seem that ‘progress’, as defined by Auckland Transport (AT), is actually ‘regression’. I always considered progress as advancement by moving forward. According to Auckland Transport, moving backwards into the past is really the way forward. A return to pre 1985 speed limits is how the ‘visionaries’ of our local regional transport network view our driving future. Never mind that roads have improved in the past 30 years. Never mind that…

Our township was carved out of dense bush in the 1860’s when immigrants moved onto the land and created a community from scratch with just hand tools, their own labour and a desire to make a better life for themselves and their families. At first there were scattered houses - not tidy weatherboard cottages, but slab huts and ponga whares – it took a while before proper wooden houses with floors and windows became the norm. The settlement was…

Four books from the same publisher which are briefly outlined in the fore pages appear to take approaches commensurate with those found in Free Speech Under Attack though there is little overlap in authorship. · In chapter one Jeremy Fisher describes the appalling punishments inflicted on people for speech that offended the authorities in Britain and New Zealand up to 1840, in the latter case before British justice intervened. In chapter two he…

Whatever reservations one might have regarding the wisdom of holding an election on the day of a full moon, Britain has just done just that, and the result has been a stunning but completely predictable victory for Boris Johnson and the Conservatives. I say completely predictable because many mainstream media polls failed to predict it; and much accompanying commentary in the Press was equally vague, evasive, and downright contrary, where…