Bah Humbug

Only three sleeps to Xmas!

I'm just so over the whole thing already. It's going to rain solidly until the 9th January, when it will become scorchio for the rest of the month.

In fact, I question whether we need public holidays at all. New Zealanders get 15 days mandatory holiday a year (rising to 20 at some vanishingly distant point in the future) and unlike other countries, that's all most people get. In addition, we get ten days of public holidays - so we get 15 days of our own choice and 10 at the same time as everyone else.

Also, most employers *make* their employees take 3-6 days over Christmas and New Years - reducing freely chosen holidays to 9 days - not long enough for a fortnight's break.

Why not just make it 25 (rising to 30) days of the employee's choice with compulsory leave banned? Then I could choose to work through till January, then take some holiday when it's all quietened down - or just take a 3 day weekend overy other week.

C.P.F.Z.

I've decided to declare this site a Canadian Politics Free Zone (CPFZ) for the duration of our great neighbour to the Northeast's election, maybe longer.

Canadians are cool people, but there's something about their politics that brings on the snore factor. If the Quebecois were to engage in violent succession and threaten the US with nuclear attack, then things might get more exciting - I find this unlikely though..

Would anyone like to join me in ths effort - I could design a logo.

For those who are interested, here is a link to an explanation of Canadian electoral law, translated into French by Google.

Up the

I drive past this apartment block in Auckland on my way to work.

It's called Cittá - this is the Italian word for city, only with the accent the wrong way round, it should be Città.

While they were changing the accents to help the graphic design, I wonder if they considered using a French-style cedilla accent, as in: Çitta. That would be pronounced - Shitter.