Good News Helps

I was really pleased with the news this evening. The target dates for establishing a temporary business and shopping area by the end October made me very happy. Our mayor seems to understand the people of this city love their CBD and by October 29, he hopes that we will be able to enjoy shopping and eating in the central city.

I'm so excited. This gives us something to look forward to as winter is setting in, and our sewage system remains of the brink of overload,our sink holes fill with rain and so many of our houses have cracks to let the cold in. We have spring to look forward to, the Cup Day and a chance to wander about our city again. Okay, so it will be in temporary buildings, and the ambiance of our heritage city will be changed. But I'm betting that we will replace all that with a new excitement of what the future will hold.

Most of our news has been rather dark of late. Worries about insurance companies not being able to meet their obligations, interviews with business people who are upset, closing down, or going elsewhere, have left me (and others I think) with a sense of despair. I know the news loves a good misery story, they sell more papers with them.

One of my favorite books, Angela's Ashes, starts out talking about Frank's miserable childhood. It had to be a miserable childhood, he writes, otherwise it wouldn't be worth writing about. I think that is true. I've lived such an interesting life and I thought I should be able to write a story about my childhood. I couldn't. It was just too happy. (I blame my parents for that!)

I guess that is the take the news reporters so often go with, unless it makes the reader miserable, its not worth the ink. But I want the news people to understand something, in Christchurch right now, we want good news. It sells.

And by the way, lift your glass of coke to the Coca Cola Bottling Company. They have just announced that they will be building a new bottling company here. Now there's some more good news. So I plan on having a coke or two in the city in October. Want to join me there?