Town versus country

It could be the headline of the year: “Hot price for parking,” trumpeted the front page lead of our local paper, the Wairarapa Times-Age. “As if people needed another reason to live in Wairarapa,” the story below it began, “we have some of the most reasonable parking rates in New Zealand.”

- Greg Dixon

It went on to say that leaving your car in downtown Masterton is as “cheap as chips with metered parking costing $1 an hour”, though the story points out that if one is spritely enough to walk, one could find free parking as well, providing, of course, someone hasn't beaten one to it.

“Hot price for parking” joins the pantheon of classic headlines from the Times-Age and its sister publication Wairarapa Midweek such as “Big stink explained”, “Try this corned beef and sauerkraut pizza”, and my personal favourite, “Singing vicar in Carterton”.

However, first prize in the mad headline competition must always go to a newspaper stand poster - the advertising sheets outside newsagents and dairies - that the US-born travel writer Bill Bryson once spotted in a small English town. It read something like “Women, 83, dies”.

I cast no aspersions on the Times-Age. It is doing an excellent job for its readers, particularly under its current editor, which is why it was a finalist for regional newspaper of the year at the annual Voyager Media Awards in May, a category the paper won as recently as 2022.