I just found out that the The National Library of New Zealand has a Flickr photostream. One thing we don’t have in New Zealand is a lot of history, so it is great that this kind of material is being made available, the images are even available for reproduction on the web*.
Here is the Bank of New South Wales building in Oamaru, built during the heady days when Oamaru had a decent port and was flush with money (an era now known as a-very-long-time-ago.) The building is still a bank (or at least it was when I lived there, a decade ago), although it is now a National Bank branch.
Oamaru has a whole lot of this style of architecture, and it gives the town a certain permanence which sets it apart from the other towns that dot the South Island coast. The other thing we don’t have enough of in New Zealand is regional diversity, most of our small towns (and even cities) are pretty much interchangeable, so even the faded glory of Oamaru makes a nice change as you drive down SH1.
* so long as they are attributed properly with the original caption, like so:
Bank of New South Wales, Oamaru. Built 1884, photographed c.1885
Unidentified photographer
Reference number: 1/2-055305-F
Black and white original negative
Photographic Archive, Alexander Turnbull Library
The city of Los Angeles finds itself protected by an honest-to-god super hero with the unlikely name of John Hancock. Unfortunately, this hero causes more damage to the city than he prevents due to the extreme lack of due-diligence expressed during his slapdash crime fighting activities. One day Hancock saves a mild mannered PR consultant named Ray. In return Ray uses all the tricks of his trade to redeem Hancock’s image in the eyes of the public, over the objections of Hancock himself (who sees little reason to change) and Ray’s increasingly skeptical wife.