I've had the weekend off - not thinking about work since I finally made it back to the house after a four and a half hour trip back from Wellington. The travel, and the various incidents that included (the taxi being hit by another car on the way to Wellington airport, and a two hour traffic jam in Auckland) were the signal for a complete break from work thought.
Now, of course, I am back.
Although I can't quite leave behind the issue of Auckland's traffic problems. Fixing our roads may be costly, but sitting in a trafic jam for two hours is very costly as well. So I was intrigued to hear about how the US reckkoned that during the 60's the construction of the Interstate network contributed 33% of all productivity growth, and during the 70's the figure was a still substantial 25% - and the 60's were a high growth period. We could get some growth out of new roads.
So now we move on to Sharia Law, of course. I opened up a conversation with my knowledgeable and religiously literate mother-in-law by asking her what she thought of Rowan William's recent comments about the applicability of Sharia Law in the cause of social cohesion in the UK. Before we could get the debate underway my father-in-law (who is a little deaf and wasn't paying much attention said "why, what's she done?". He thought Sharia Law was a person. This was such a delicious misunderstanding that of course it went right around the table. In short order we'd decided that Sharya Lore was a tarty East-ender elevated to breakfast TV for being famous, caught outside the wrong sort of nightclub, in the company of Rowan Williams. What we thought she could do for social cohesion...
For the record I reckon the UK could do with less involvement of religion in government, not more. So I am not a fan of any recognised role for the other kind of Sharia Law.