NZ is light on corruption

NZ comes in equal second in a global survey of corruption perceptions. Iceland is the least corrupt. Australia is a little more corrupt than NZ (which doesn't surprise me).

Super-secret MI-6 now has a web site

http://www.mi6.gov.uk

Although they're really known as the 'SIS'. Their web site looks very bureaucratic - all about ministers and budgets and committees. I want to see the secret weapons and the hot foreign agents and the fancy rolex watches that can cut their way through steel doors.

Wage vs House in NZ

The NZ 'Centre for Housing Research' has published a report on home ownership in NZ. Included is this statistic:

On a 25-year mortgage at BNZ's two-year fixed rate of 7.75 per cent, that amounts to a whopping $2190.45 in monthly repayments. That is $547.61 per week - consuming nearly all of the average weekly wage of $586 before tax.

That's before tax. I remember the heuristic that the mortgage payment should be a third of your wage. But not 93%. Even at the cheap end of the housing market it is a huge chunk of your income.

Be smart and don't get sucked in to this quiz

270 pictures of bands. Name them.

I am not sure why the Observer Blog shut down

But close down it did.

As part of a wider redesign we are thinking about how best to develop and sustain the dialogue we started on this blog with our readers.

Uh, perhaps you should look at keeping the blog going? It is the main thing that brings me back to The Observer.

Tom Stoppard in the Land of the Last Dictator

Tom Stoppard, author of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead and the dude who figured out the Buttle/Tuttle gimmick in Brazil, visits Belarus and writes about theatre in the last totalitarian dictatorship in Europe. That's Belarus.

There is no litter. None. One morning, waiting to be collected, I stood outside my hotel smoking a cigarette and watching the street cleaners with the kind of fascination a tourist would normally bestow on the leaning tower of Pisa. There were four of them within a hundred yards. They wore bright orange overalls. Each had a Cinderella broom and a long-handled dustpan. They patrolled their patch, eagle-eyed for - what? There didn't seem to be a toffee-paper the length and breadth of Independence Prospect. To all intents, they were dusting.

Bloke Tunnel Fascination

Today's geek site is Metro Bits, covering some elements of metro stations around the world.

I respect Mike Rohde (the site's creator) for his choice of content, including a list of what the announcer says as you arrive/leave various metro stations and a list of Metro logos, mostly variations on the letter M (I like the Cairo logo).

Similarly, see the subway systems of the world presented at the same scale.

Berlin Beard Championships

Many Berliners are getting excited as they get ready for the World Championship of Beards and Moustaches. The Berlin Beard Club itself has a wonderful chance of producing the champion.