Eden Park’s future Primetime TV
No wonder mainstream television is losing viewers to other media when Friday’s primetime viewing has four channels showing movies dating from 1984 onward, the latest from 1999. One Harrison Ford film is so old he actually looks handsome!
Allan Weeks, Orewa The calls to close Eden Park only ever come from two corners. Either councillors who want to get their greedy little hands on the prime real estate, or neighbours who moved in well after the stadium was built and who have petitioned ever since to remove it. Surely not as an artificial means of increasing their property value? Your correspondent Tony Waring from Grey Lynn claims the stadium is too small for cricket and too big for rugby. Has he been to cricket or rugby there? The close proximity to the players during a game of cricket adds atmosphere.
Eden Park also holds 20,000 more people than any other stadium in New Zealand and is sold out for every All Blacks test. With a crowd of 50,000, no other stadium has the same atmosphere and intensity.
With over 100 years of history, our home of rugby, Eden Park, should be listed as a historical site.
Kent Millar, Blockhouse Bay
Avondale answer
How shortsighted is Auckland Council with its lack of vision for an alternative to Eden Park? Western Springs will never work for cricket as it isn’t a proper oval shape and the seating now is limited to the eastern banks. We have a real alternative at Avondale with room for a 40,000 seated arena for rugby, football and league. Selling Eden Park would more than pay for the cost of the racecourse and for some of the developments.
Existing public transport options include Avondale Rail Station or New Lynn. Buses go through Avondale and for cars there is the Northwestern Motorway. As fabulous as a downtown stadium would be, can we afford it and where is the cricket oval? Robert Wark, Herne Bay
Busy harbours
The picture of the Celebrity Solstice in the Herald should cause many to avoid the next tragedy. The key points to take on board are always wear a life jacket, make sure you have fuel, have a phone in a waterproof bag, cruise ships should be escorted into harbour at all times, check on the waterways being clear before proceeding. There’s a need for common sense but think before proceeding in a busy harbour.
Ken Shelvey, Pauanui
Police response
I read 50 police attended last week’s incident of a person pointing a gun at an aircraft. Surely 20 could have attended other incidents? I was assaulted at my property at Christmas and robbed at gunpoint in August. Both times the response from police was good but there was no communication afterwards. Perhaps police are immune to it but to most people such an experience is traumatic. In the assault case no information of rights was given and the procedure was foreign to us. I had to call to inquire what was happening . . . which was nothing.
Hamish Walsh, Devonport
Monarch butterflies
I agree with Geoff Levick that wasps are killing the monarch caterpillars. These wasps with long, dangling red legs actively seek them out. I once saw a preying mantis drink a big caterpillar like it was a smoothie, and just recently a small round spider made off with a tiny caterpillar, so monarch caterpillars are apparently not toxic enough for these creatures. My swan plants were growing in buckets, outside. I saw three butterflies, now none. There are just not any now.
Janina Hopkins, Glenfield
Assisted dying
Like David Seymour, I am tired of the deliberate misinformation about the End of Life Choice bill. But every place an assisted-dying bill has been introduced, a vocal minority has scaremongered.
Parliamentarians in the countries and states that now have assisteddying laws recognised these people as a minority of undeclared religious conservatives inventing “concerns” to frighten the uninformed.
The citizens of those liberal jurisdictions do not want their laws repealed. The prophesised dangers have not eventuated elsewhere. Nor will they here.
Ann David, Waikanae