From my office above Wellington's main street I can see ... buildings. Immediately across the road and nine stories down, a new building is beginning to take shape. When completed it will be 23 stories tall and will incorporate the facade of the building it replaces. The facade, nine stories tall itself, is supported by a large network of girders and reinforcing. It's also only about 20 metres from the western Pacific fault line - the building I'm in actually straddles it! If I look over my left shoulder I can see down a street to the harbour, which is currently cerulean blue under summer sunshine.

At home, from my office desk I can see a stark country scene but it's a picture, not the real thing. My office window looks out at the cabbage trees and punga trees growing on the bank which slopes up to the street. But from our lounge windows we can see from the Pacific Ocean and Wellington Harbour across the airport, Wellington's Oriental Bay and the CBD in the distance to the bush-clad slopes of Horokiwi and the Belmont Regional Park below and across the Korokoro Valley from us - we're 500 feet above sea-level.


The idiot also known as Capfka ...