Some wonderful late summer weather. So much New Zealand, so little time to explore.

And the first five episodes of the revised Gödel Without (Too Many) Tears are now online here.

So it isn’t all sun, scenery, and Pinot Noir for me in NZ!

So, for anyone interested, here’s my revised comments on the first chapter.

The building is terrific: it sits handsomely into the surroundings, without shouting its modernity too loudly. And inside it is just wonderfully light and airy.

The contrast with the modern buildings of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art couldn’t be greater. Those are just depressingly blocky, and thoroughly unwelcoming: inside the galleries are bleak and barnlike. Here, the curves of the building draw you in and the foyer is a delightful space: and galleries are divided into rooms on a human scale where you want to linger.

There couldn’t be much more contrast between the curating, either. LACMA has some wonderful pictures. But they are, so to speak, just plonked on the walls, in a take-it-leave it spirit, without description or scene-setting or comment. Christchurch of course has to try a whole lot harder, as the collection lacks the Rembrandts and the Picassos. But the result is that it thoughtfully displays what it does have with intelligent and illuminating commentaries. Or it puts together little groupings of old and new, of New Zealanders visiting Europe and Europeans visiting New Zealand, of western-influenced and Maori-influenced in ways that make you look. (Though some of the really contemporary stuff was the usual pseud-ery, worth about twelve seconds contemplation.)

So we’ll certainly be back to do more of the galleries the next wet day: and the restaurant wasn’t bad either!

It’s the beginning of the academic year here, and the campus is overflowing with lost-looking freshers. Somehow they look younger (and seem to be trying less hard to be cool) than their Cambridge equivalents. Almost deserted when we arrived last week,  there’s now a nice buzz about the place.

NZ coffee culture note. More or less every place we’ve drunk coffee so far has had what looks like a proper espresso machine. And suitable tamping and steaming and frothing all seems to be going on. So you take ceremonious delivery of what is supposed to be an espresso macchiato. But not once — yet — have I had anything that would pass muster as even an approximation to what you get in the humblest corner cafe bar in Italy. Very odd. But I’m reliably told that the bar opposite the art gallery does the real thing: so here’s hoping …

We’ve been consoling ourselves for the lack of summer weather by sampling bottles of Otago Pinot Noir. The local and rather impressive supermarket has some pretty upscale bottles if we can trust these ratings: so far, though, the bottles we’ve tried have been quaffable rather than outstanding — and seemingly all put on the market too young. When I’m feeling zippier, I’ll have to find a wine shop with earlier vintages on sale: but at the moment, we’re still just a touch jet-lagged and slightly weary.

Hence concentration hasn’t been terrific for work. But the last day or so, to get into the swing again, I’ve been re-reading Smullyan’s First-Order Logic. I’ve been struck once more what a fantastic book that is (and three cheers to Dover for republishing it too): if you don’t know it, and are logically inclined, put it on your “must read” list.

Though there are more than enough small differences to savour. For example, the early settlers obviously didn’t mess about when clearing the native bush. So the great park near the centre of Christchurch could have been transported from an English city, with avenues of planes, and great oaks and limes (and there are mallard ducks on the ponds, and house sparrows hopping around as you sit outside a cafe). But, for all that, as you walk through the shade on a sunny summer’s day, the racket of the cicadas sounds entirely unEnglish.

It is nice, too, to be understood first time in shops and cafes (LA was occasionally  hard work — The Daughter reports the same from Miami, where she has to get her Italian partner to arrange complicated things as the locals find his English a lot easier to understand). And what they say about Kiwi friendliness is all true.

I think I’m really going to enjoy it here.