Should we extol our virtues?

With domestic travel restarting at level 2, should Whanganui start extolling its own virtues to the rest of the country? Admit it, we’re a good place to visit and an even better place to live, but we need to let everyone know our Unique Selling Points (USPs).

USP is an advertising strategy, highlighting those things that make a product, a service, a place different or better than others of its kind. Whanganui is well placed, having a number of such points, some, if not unique to this town, at least unique to the regions.

Since it is the metro areas with easiest access to air travel, our advertising should be aimed at them, showing them what life is like away from all those big city nasties. Most of New Zealand knows about our house prices (cheap in comparison with Auckland, Queenstown or Oriental Bay) but what about the Whanganui’s other advantages?

1] We seldom have a problem with air pollution. Our small CBD and sprawling suburbs mean the minuscule amount of toxic air we generate is spread over a wide area and swiftly dispersed by our salty sea breezes. Come to Whanganui: breathe easy.

2] We don’t have clamping. Honestly. Park in the wrong place and you might get fined, but you won’t get back to your hire car to find it immobilised by bright yellow metal and a menacing note threatening the death of your first-born if you don’t pay the thug who applied the clamp. We have neither clamps nor active clampers. Not a lot of places can make that claim.

3] We don’t have acres of parking buildings. In Whanganui we park in the street, usually within walking distance of our destination. Sometimes we get to park right outside the shop/ business we’re going to. Sure, there are parking meters but our parking officers are kindly folk who chat about the weather while they write the citation. Bring change. Our conversion to electronic meters is happening but not quickly.

4] Coffee. We have a fine array of coffee shops selling superb java and scrumptious goodies. Don’t let our size fool you. We were quick to get rid of Formica-topped tables, lukewarm tea and curling white bread sandwiches. On the street, from a caravan or in the comfort of a cafe, Whanganui does it well.

5] Riverboats. Everyone knows we have a river but they still think it’s laden with raw sewage. It’s time to let the country know that we have a state-of-the-art sewage treatment plant and a clean river. On that river are at least two genuine riverboats — MV

Wairua and PS Waimarie. There is also the tunnel-hulled boat christened Adventurer II, but as it’s not currently plying the lower reaches we perhaps shouldn’t add it to the list. No other town has two riverboats servicing its tourists and population.

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We have dragged an old verb out of the cupboard and given it new life: distance, or, as we use it in its present continuous conjugation — “distancing”, with the prefix “social”. It joins “transition”, which somehow became a verb and rapidly became cliche´ , along with “going (or moving) forward”, “at the end of the day”, “sort of” and other ubiquitous linguistic disasters.

Now “social distancing” has bulldozed its way into the English lexicon for what one hopes will be a brief time. Once Covid-19 drops off the global radar we can assume such language blips will also fade away, unless they become the Oxford Dictionary “word of the year”.

We also see new socially determined definitions for

“bubble”, “self-isolation” and “cluster”. I suppose its easier than using our Graeco-Roman or Germanic roots to create new words, but it irks the pedants terribly. There are voices keening and teeth gnashing as logophiles mourn the demise of correct speech, watching the language change through ignorance rather than evolution by improved usage or innovation.

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With the economy taking a hit, many companies are asking staff to take wage cuts. Salaries large and small have dropped by percentages and even chief executives have reduced their astronomical pay packets with some having to exist on just a few hundred thousand. Tough times.

But the banks are still chanting their mantra of profit at any cost.

They advertise that they offer “mortgage holidays”, “interest-only payments” and other such ways to reduce the economic impact of Covid-19 on debtors. In doing so they look like benevolent banks, only there to help. But they’re not.

Those so-called “mortgage holidays” cost them nothing. While the debtor has a break from payments, the interest accumulates and the poor sods find their mortgage extended by a whole lot more than the period of the “holiday”. The banks are there to make money, and behind their promises is a lupine grin. They will recoup every cent and more besides.

‘ Whanganui is well placed, having a number of such points, some, if not unique to this town, at least unique to the regions.’