From the Mayor

Autumn has arrived with a vengeance, though I still hope we will see some fine weather before we get into winter.

With grape picking, olive harvesting and the lifting of many mandates regarding Covid, I feel Martinborough will continue to be busy, especially on weekends. The planned return of the Martinborough Fair is something to look forward to, tentatively set for 1 May.

I recently met with the Minister of Transport, Hon Michael Wood, to discuss the Waihenga Bridge. Whilst it is an NZTA decision, I feel with knowledge of the safety issues by Minister Wood, along with lobbying within the Regional Land Transport Plan, I should have this back on the forward works plan within the next year. … Continue Reading

Is blockchain secure?

‘ Blockchain is secret and secure? I don’t think so. There is the crypto currency blooper eel to be considered. 

In 2013 the Chinese Bitcoin trading platform GBL suddenly shut down – a $5 million bitcon  

1n 2014 the Mt Gox bitcoin exchange declared bankruptcy  after ‘losing’ $473 million worth of customers’ bitcoins  (did Gox look under the couch cushions?) 

In 2015 the crypto currency called Paycoin was offered through something called ‘Customer Portal’ . In a Zen like experience ten thousand customers were left to meditate on being freed from the worldly burden of having $19 million.

In 2016 the founder of the Florida crypto currency market Cryptsy was accused of misappropriating millions of dollars then fleeing to China , perhaps to work form GBL 

In 2017 $53 million in Ethereum crypto currency disappeared from Ethereum’s ‘Decentralised Autonomous  Organization’ which proved to be a little too autonomous to qualified as being organised 

J.P.O’Rourke

Hospice High Tea…the perfect Mother’s Day gift!

What could be a better way to say ‘thank you’ for Mother’s Day than treating her to a High Tea? Hospice Wairarapa and the Holdsworth Lions Club are holding their third annual High Tea fundraiser on Sunday May 22^nd to raise much needed funds to support the 21+ free services Hospice offers. … Continue Reading

Gobblygook Champion

WHEN LABOUR and NZ First signed their agreement in 2017 there were only 1,600 words written on seven sparsely covered pages

BY CONTRAST, the current German coalition document runs over 177 pages with 52,000 words – and mind you, German words are much longer on average. If you are not a native German speaker, good luck making sense of terms like ‘Rohstoffsicherungsstrategie’ (Commodity Security Strategy)  ‘Wohnungseigentumsgemeinschaften’ (Condominium Associations) and ‘Gesamtlärmbetrachtung’ (Overall Noise Assessment), since you asked).

THE 2022 Australian parliamentary calendar shows that there are only ten sitting days set down for the next six months.