Every year Auckland Council sends the rates bill, and every year I post about it — first to Twitter, back when it was good, and now to Mastodon. It started as a grumble and became a habit, and the habit quietly built a 15-year record of exactly how much more they want each year. This year's bill was $3,639, up $364 (11.1%) on the year before.

The first bill I posted, back in 2010, was a few hundred dollars. The most recent is $3,639. The bars below show every bill I've got a record of — a handful of years are still missing and I'll fill those in by hand as I dig them out, so the gaps you see are years I haven't found a post for yet, not years the council let us off.

There is no better potato. Every spring I wait, not always patiently, for the first Jersey Bennes to turn up in the shops — and I post about it the moment they do. The chart below plots the day the first benne landed each year against an axis that runs from October, so you can see how much the wait moves around. The earliest on record is 24 October 2025; the longest wait was 3 December 2020. The typical first benne shows up around 10 Nov.