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Essays
| Thinking outside the square red box • I'd like to think there are some visionaries in New Zealand Post who are thinking outside the square red mailbox. | ||
| Designed to death • The design train gets bogged axle-deep in the mud of additional requirements. | ||
| Two wrongs don't make a copyright • Even George Orwell couldn't have thought of a better threat to keep the populace in line. | ||
| Discovering Golden Bay • Without resorting to hyperbole it's difficult to describe how lovely I found Golden Bay, the people, the lifestyle. | ||
| The dumbing down of language • Thinking and language are tightly coupled: without the language of algebra, would e = mc˛? | ||
| National character: liability? • After a century and a half of optimistic ingenuity it's about time for a review. | ||
| Postal audacity • Is New Zealand Post's survey an attempted end-run around existing consumer privacy protections? | ||
| Spicy tuna bake • One warning: don't make it unless you have guests, it's very more-ish. | ||
| An opportunity passes • It's not often a nation has the opportunity to forge a link in the chain of national identity with such a simple decision. | ||
| Wairarapa weekend • I'm finding the attraction of the Wairarapa stronger with each visit. To me it seems to offer an enviable lifestyle, and the relative ease of travelling to Wellington increases the appeal. | ||
| Why you should ignore the gloom and live your dream • The doomsayers may have the marketplace all to themselves and most of us may have reluctantly accepted the thin economic gruel they're peddling, but the human spirit always hungers for hope. | ||
| The miracle of persistence • If character can be said to have molecules, persistence changes our character at a molecular level. It always does this ... but never instantly. | ||
| Singing for Rory • Later, when I paid him, we talked about it. And I didn't feel shamed or exposed. I suspect because continuing to sing had been a conscious choice. | ||
| Bitter chocolate • I never open a Cadbury chocolate bar without thinking about that connection, remembering the Cumberland Street factory which I first visited when they were still making biscuits there. | ||
| The pleasure of walking • You do arrive at your destination with a clear mind, a relaxed body and a sense of your place in the world that driving a car never gives you. | ||
| The lunchbox of dogma • And do they go back to the lunch counter and say "hey, this isn't what's on the menu. We were promised peace, love and understanding"? I've not seen it happen yet. | ||
| Wrappiness • It's something Bill Shakespeare was particularly good at - he enriched the language with well over one hundred neologisms. |
Stories
| The Garden • All very neat and tidy, but not - simply not - Normal. Mrs Cumming was a strong advocate for Normal, especially since Mr Cumming had left. | ||
| The Lottery • But that was not the end of it. A quiet week went by. Two, three weeks. And then Rajid again heard God speak, telling him to buy a ticket in the lottery. | ||
| Compassion • We fool ourselves when we consider fairness and justice our right. Like compassion, they are responsibilities only. | ||
| The feeling of now • Warm self-knowing flow of happy: People open Heart smile | ||
| Introduction • I know audiences. They just want to toy with my affectations. | ||
| Love and the princess • People don't start out with the capacity for a great love. It is love itself which shapes and expands the human heart. | ||
| Forgotten • I shall live in an endless beauty of art and music with such Ecstasies of eternal enjoyment that I resent sleep. |
Photographs
| March 2010 • A fountain without water, a shine with a view. | ||
| February 2010 • Water at Waitonga, sunshine in New Plymouth | ||
| January 2010 • Towers, walls, doors and beaches. | ||
| December 2009 • The bay. Golden. | ||
| November 2009 • Taupo Public Gardens and Whanganui River | ||
| September 2009 • Art deco in Hawkes Bay, glass in Wanganui | ||
| August 2009 • Reptile environments in central and southern New Zealand | ||
| July 2009 • Water and light, Wellington and Wanganui. | ||
| June 2009 • Getting churched in the Wairarapa. | ||
| May 2009 • Canterbury, the West Coast and Auckland | ||
| April 2009 • South Canterbury and Turakina, with just a touch of Wanganui and Christchurch. | ||
| March 2009 • Wellington and Wanganui. | ||
| February 2009 • Wellington and Wanganui. | ||
| January 2009 • Wanganui, Picton and Wellington. | ||
| December 2008 • Leigh, Wanganui and Picton. | ||
| November 2008 • Wanganui, National Park and Lake Taupo. | ||
| October 2008 • Wanganui, Wellington, Featherston and Greytown. | ||
| August 2008 • Wellington and Wanganui. | ||
| July 2008 • Wellington. | ||
| May 2008 • Wanganui and Wellington. | ||
| April 2008 • Wellington, Mt Hiwi and Waverley. | ||
| March 2008 • Wellington, LowerHutt, Wanganui and Waverley. | ||
| February 2008 • Wellington, Makara, Karangahake Gorge, Waihi, Opoutere and Onemana. | ||
| January 2008 • Wellington and Wanganui. | ||
| December 2007 • Wanganui and Wellington. | ||
| November 2007 • Wanganui and Wellington. | ||
| April 2010 • Up north for awhile, down south for a bit. |
Music
| Offshore Weather • I wrote this song in the winter of 2007, based on some interesting guitar chords; E-shapes with fingering variations. | ||
| Start Out Tall • The hookline in Start Out Tall was written in 1976. It's been hanging around awhile but I've never done anything with it until now. I like the way it lopes along without effort. | ||
| Win • Win grew from what are now the first lines of the first and second verses; the inherent contradictions appealed to me. | ||
| Call It Love • I wrote this after reading about an American fundamentalist organisation which claims to change the orientation of gays and lesbians. | ||
| Turn Around I Fall • An immediate hit live at the Adelaide the night I wrote it in 2007, this song is a series of apparent contradictions which make perfect sense once you have the context | ||
| The Pardon • This song arrived fully-formed while I was taking a shower at my friend Helen's home in Auckland. |
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Leigh Harrison is currently repaying karma from a past life by working as an IT Generalist in this one.