[Vision2020] Palmy Centre of Attention in Dreariest City Debate

[Tom Hansen]

>From Thursday's Manawatu (New Zealand) Standard -

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Palmy centre of attention in dreariest city debate 

THURSDAY , 09 MARCH 2006 
By LEE MATTHEWS

Palmerston North is proud to be boring and will take on all comers -
national and international - to prove it has the best laid-back and relaxed
(yawn) lifestyle of any city, anywhere. 

And that includes Hamilton and Adelaide - cities that really understand
boredom, right down in the grey dregs of their muddy rivers. 

City Chamber of Commerce chairman Paul O'Brien, who proudly pushed
Palmerston North's pedestrian profile in the Manawatu Standard on Tuesday
after the city was bagged for being suicidally boring by comedian John
Cleese, has been swamped with national and international responses to his
declaration. 

Television news stations had interviewed him, radio stations and print media
from all over the country wanted more details and overseas interest from
Australia, Singapore and Hong Kong had kept his email and phone message
service busy. 

"Many of the emails, especially from Australia and Asia, were congratulating
the chamber for taking Mr Cleese's comments in such a positive, amusing
way," Mr O'Brien said. "I'm hoping he's prepared to keep spouting that round
the world." 

The next step would be to set up a boring website for the city, packed with
every positive the city could muster, he said. Adelaide media told him that
their city, which also enjoys Palmerston North's quiet, relaxing lifestyle,
successfully increased visitor numbers doing this. It tickled people's sense
of humour. 

Palmerston North might have a fight on its hands to preserve its claim of
being the most boring, however. 

Hamilton is jostling for position . . . fighting back with offers of free
pamphlets listing 154 things to do in and around Hamilton, after the
Queensland-based Reds Super 14 rugby team blamed pre-match boredom for its
35-17 thumping at the boots of the Chiefs last weekend. 

And Gore could be a worry as well. In 2004, more than half the respondents
of a survey of 500 university students voted it the most boring town in New
Zealand. Palmerston North came a stolid second with 15.7 percent, but
Hamilton was right up there, waving its 13.7 percent share of the vote. 

The Standard has to admit that a Google search of the words "Adelaide
boring" makes New Zealand look like amateurs in the dullsville diaries.
Pages of visitor blogs pop up, sneering at Adelaide for being a city in a
coma - well, it does have vineyards, lots and lots of vineyards - and for
having nightlife that makes tiny English villages look like New York city.
There's even a survey that asks which Australian city is the most boring,
and does the respondent think this survey has been designed especially to
make Adelaide (and Perth, poor old Perth) look bad. 

Do that for Palmerston North and what pops up are advertisements for
drilling companies. 

Now, that's boring on an entirely different scale.

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Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

"Some mornings, it's just not worth chewing through the leather straps." 

-Emo Philips