I’ve never understood why people have a problem with a little controversy on Waitangi Day.

To me, the defining characteristic of New Zealand culture is its refreshing lack of jingoism. I’m glad that we stopped building our parliament building halfway through because we had better things to do with the money. I like that we refer to ourselves as “Godzone” ironically, instead of literally declaring ourselves the best nation in the world. And I’m proud that we have a national day that prompts some reflection on the state of our country instead of odious flag-worshipping and fireworks.

So I’m very pleased to see that we’re sticking with it. In addition to preferring a day that acknowledges what the original deal was supposed to be, I feel we’re already stuck with some spectacularly dull names for things in this country (”North Island”, “South Island”). Would we really want our national holiday to be called something as mind-numbing as “New Zealand Day”? Would we call Anzac Day to “War Is Sad Day”?

Inasmuch as any renovation project is ever finished, my floor is finished. Mostly. The steps into the garage remain to be completed, but the rest is done and I am well pleased with the results.

As a result of the nigh-completion of this project, and the subsequent re-shuffling of household members, I once again have an office. I am well pleased with this also.

New York magazine has an interesting article about changing attitudes to privacy, describing it as the greatest generation gap since Rock and Roll.

As someone straddling this new gap, almost too young for Generation X but too old for the kids these days and whatever they call their crazy newfangled advertising demographic, this rings true. There’s no such thing as privacy in any absolute sense, and it’s just as reasonable to live in a culture that embraces this idea as one that fights it. And there does seem to be a generational change from the latter to the former.

I wonder how radical a change it is, though. People living in private dwellings in large cities have a lot of control over what others know about them. But this way of life has only become common in the last few generations. The normal human social arrangement been small bands of hunter-gatherers, in which there was virtually no privacy for anybody. Other experiences, such as living in villages and small towns, have been somewhere in-between.

So perhaps the deliberate removal of privacy is really a conservative re-assertion of a traditional way of life. At the moment, we have privacy because people can’t easily know who we are just by seeing us going about our daily business. If you value being understood more than you value privacy, you have to make an effort to let people know who you are.

Discontented with the boringly traditional separation of kitchen, office and laundry, I have arranged a new kind of room with a desk, drawing board, filing cabinet, fridge, oven, dishwasher and clothes dryer. Already this experimental new Scriptolavicomestitorium has drastically changed my lifestyle, albeit mostly by making me go out for dinner because I can’t be bothered carrying food items back and forth between the fridge and the kitchen bench at the other end of the house.

I have also placed the washing machine where the barbecue used to be, in hopes of an interesting new approach to parties, and have been spent more than the usual amount of time today standing barefoot on the roof.

The laundry basket has a cat in it, but this is not of my doing, and hardly a new state of affairs. Apart from this odd predilection they are conservative beasts, and have been meowing plaintively at me all day in hope of convincing me to put everything back the way it was. I have assured them I will do so just as soon as the flooring people have finished installing the new tiles.