Simon Wilson is the editor of The Spinoff Auckland and a former editor of Metro and Cuisine.
With season three of Better Call Saul just finished, Jimmy and Kim have their own terrible futures to confront. Simon Wilson revisits his favourite programme (well, one of them). Contains some very cryptic spoilers.
Remember that proposed new highway from Penrose to Onehunga, the East-West Link, set to cost close to $2 billion? Turns out no one has worked out, using current figures, if it's worth the money – and it's most likely no one ever will. And it's not clear if the responsible ministers even know this.
Opera – especially an opera like Carmen – is the world turned upside down: being good makes you miserable and being in love is a sure portent of doom. And it’s fabulous, says Simon Wilson.
Better than algebra! The Greens’ Chlöe Swarbrick and Labour’s Jacinda Ardern talk personal aspirations and politics with students at an Auckland inner-city school.
Todd Barclay is going, but how much damage has he caused - to his party and especially to the leader who tried to cover for him? Or has Bill English brought this on himself?
Last September a meditation centre in the Kaipara discovered the council had allowed a shooting club to move in almost next door. Simon Wilson went to a public meeting to find out how the battles lines are drawn.
The Green Party is doing a lot of things right, and you couldn’t say that about most of the others. So why aren’t they polling better?
Simon Wilson is fresh back from France and filled with enthusiasm for ways to make Auckland better. Here’s the first one: a great big beautiful bike share scheme.
To fix the housing crisis in Auckland, mayor Phil Goff put most of the key players in a room and locked the door. Good plan. And guess what? They’ve produced a really good report, full of good ideas and provocative proposals, says Simon Wilson. Now we’ll see who really wants to fix Auckland’s housing problems.
The government and Auckland Council have announced a two-year study of congestion charging. OK, but why aren’t they trying to fix the city’s transport crisis right now? It's not that hard, you know, writes Simon Wilson.
