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 The Dunedin Railway Station was built when Dunedin was the largest and wealthiest city in the country. The gold in them thar hills didn't stay in the pockets of the miners for very long, but found its way instead into the bank accounts of the clothiers, iron mongers and grocers of Dunedin, who all paid their taxes and demanded that their council make a city fit for them to live in. So, to celebrate the cutting edge technology of the day, the burghers built a massive, Gothic revival station with mosaic floors and stained glass and towers. It was a cathedral to the god Technology, and the envy of the nation. Unfortunately the steam trains stopped running decades ago, not all that long, actually, after the cash supply from the goldfields dwindled. Nowadays there is no real rail service from Dunedin to anywhere, excepting a tourist train taking people inland on a day trip to ooh and aah at the Taieri Gorge. The place is still well peopled though. Today they don't arrive at...

I was in my office a week ago when the venetian blinds began to sway and the desk I was leaning on began to move in time with my heartbeat. By the time I walked through the door to say to Debbie, my PA, "Hey, we've just had an earthquake", David the accountant was fielding a phone call from his relatives in Christchurch, 350 km away and telling us that it was bigger than September and that the Cathedral had fallen over. So for the last week, news has been constant. An app on my iPhone tells me whenever there is an aftershock greater than 4 on the Richter scale and another one delivers the news from Stuff.co.nz. Against the habits of a lifetime, our TV is now turned on when we get up and stays on during dinner. I see the images of the city where I went to school and university. I look at the grey stone buildings where I first met Clemency and took her out for coffee a lifetime - well, three lifetimes, actually - ago. I see the familiar streets and the cathedral tower b...