Totally Awful Videos from the 80s. Totally.

As musical accompaniment while working at home we played a DVD of 80s videos. Now we both have musical iron stomachs and can put up with some awful music, like Starship's 'Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now' and Culture Club's 'Karma Chameleon'. However three videos were simply too much to take and got skipped within the first minute. This terrible trio are worthy of mention:

• Mel and Kim - Showing Out (Get Fresh at the Weekend)
• T'Pau - China in your Hand
• Cutting Crew - (I just) Died in Your Arms Tonight

We're not at the end of the DVD yet. I think I can stand Katrina and the Waves singing 'Walking on Sunshine' since the song is so upbeat but it is going to take an effort greater than saving the Seattle Monorail to watch UB40 and Chrissie Hynde singing "I Got You Babe'.

Postscript: Jean is having big trouble watching Cliff Richard's 'Wired for Sound'. I, on the other hand, think it would make a great cover for Sturgeon General, played instrumental with a dub beat.

Suburban control in Sydney

A lot of people want to live in green neighourhood on a lot with a single house and a garden of some sort. I like that idea too.

However the new state government in New South Wales wants to stop housing growth in these areas to maintain their village life. This is a great piece of spin since there's little comparison between the village of popular notion - think thatched roof cottages in an 800 year old village in country England - and the 70s-80s housing development that spawned a lot of Sydney suburbs.

This isn't maintaining village life, this is stopping more people enjoying the lovely suburns of Sydney. 'Conserve' the state of the suburb for the current homeowners and thereby also raise their house prices.

Here in Seattle I see the same behaviour. I live in Queen Anne, a nice city neighbourhood full of houses from the early part of the 20th century. Some areas are zoned for multiple houses (apartments, condos) and I hear many Queen Anners complaining that we should let these sorts of developments happen in our neighbourhood.

The essence of the argument is 'now that I own my house here we should stop new people coming in'.

So what does the NSW government offer to compensate for stopping growth in 80% of suburbs? A plan to put 1.1 million more people into the railway suburbs in apartments and high-rise towers.

The mistake that this government seems to be making is thinking that 1.1 million more people actually want to live in an apartment block rather than a house in a suburb on a block of land. By limiting suburb growth they force suburban house prices up which prices out the bottom end of the market. By having Australian tax laws favour investment property they fund the apartment development.

So you get a big underclass that can't afford to live in the suburbs because limited supply has pushed prices up, forcing them into the rental market. This investment property just happens to be the high-rise apartments in the railway suburbs. So the strategy is to force less wealthy Sydneysiders to give up their housing dream and rent by the railway line. Great move, Labor governement.