MORE ABOUT ME

I was born in Auckland, at a very young age. Not quite young enough for my poor mother, who had to suffer forty hours of labour before they took pity and winkled me out with a Caesarian. At first I had a difficult time of it, so I was a Kiwi battler from the start.

I went through school in the top stream; my highest placing was fifth at high school. I gained 322 out of 400 in School Certificate (English, Mathematics, Biology and General Science), I was accredited in University Entrance in five subjects, gained a minor scholarship, and attended two universities.

I am inventive, I have wide-ranging design-skills, I am a problem-solver. I can make order out of chaos and efficiency out of inefficiency. I can design, engineer and build innovative equipment and highly productive organisational structures. I work fast. I have exceptional communication, computing and IT skills. I have extensive experience in freelance writing and desktop-publishing.

I don't like standing on ceremony. I just like to get the job done. I am a no-nonsense kind of person who always wants to cut through the garbage and get to the truth at speed. I am practical: I have a brain and two hands and know how to use them. I like working with wood, metal, stained-glass and other materials.

I am a cost-cutter and a cost-holder, not a cost-maker. I dislike waste, I hate profligate waste; I like seeing things done well, done efficiently, and with true sensitivity to the environment, both natural and human. It makes me fume to see the way public money is chucked away, carelessly wasted, because it is not just money. We spend our lives to make it; wasting it is a waste of life.

I like public servants, people dedicated to public service, good stewards and conscientious. I loathe bureaucracies because they destroy people. I don't like politicians, I don't like political parties. I refuse to be politically correct. Fashionable ideologies are a very stupid way of making decisions. I want to know the truth and put it into practice. I strive to get things right the first time.

My way of setting about a task is to do the research, do the analysis, do the planning, do the job. And do it right. If the research, analysis and planning are right it will be right. It is obviously better to do two things right than to have to repeat one that was done wrong (but if a mistake is made, the thing to do is acknowledge it and fix it ASAP).

I am an ideas man, I am constantly searching for a better way of doing things. I will always do things the best way I know until or unless I find a better way, then I will change to that ASAP. I don't care where the best way is found, if it is the best I shall champion it.

I am a designer, an inventor. I write and arrange symphonic music. I write all sorts of things, from technical articles to children's stories. I have national awards for technical stuff and people who have read my stories have liked them.

I am an incurable book-worm. My library of fiction and non-fiction ranges from Winnie-the-Pooh to The Neuropsychology of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder. The biggest section is poetry, with reference books of all kinds next. My books range across the millennia, from the Bible to the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences.

I have the weird idea that people's lives matter, and no one should get away with messing them up. I also have the weird idea that there is only one planet we can live on in the entire universe--the Earth--so it matters what we do with it. There are too many decisions being made nowadays, public and private, that have no regard to what we are standing on, what we are breathing and what we are eating and drinking.

Obviously, therefore, I am not a politician. Why, you then might ask, am I standing for the Community Board? That isn't politics, it's part of the great weird Waiheke Island family, defending the rest of the family from everyone who wants to trash the island. If it isn't it should be. Defending it against the Auckland City Council in particular--an outfit with an over-fed cost-plus mentality. It likes to spend till we drop.

We need a strong Board to stand up to all these people. One that will be vigilant and strong, one that will defend the island to the hilt. I am that kind of person. I would of course be only one voice on the Board. But I am not a shy and retiring voice. I'm very easy to find on the ballot-paper. Right at the top of the list.

There's an old saying, 'Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.' With my Christian name I can turn that round with a pun: 'Nobilangelo marches in and treads on fools.'

My original scientific research includes an exhaustive meta-study in the 1990s, covering psychology, neuroscience, psychiatry and demography, into the cause of particular aspects of criminal behaviour, specifically crimes against the person, i.e., assault, rape in particular. When I found myself dealing with Council bureaucrats not long after I realised that their psychological profile is on the same line. But they knock people about with bits of paper instead of fists and weapons.

In 2004 I built a comprehensive seminar on global overheating and its technical and economic solution. I presented it Cabinet ministers and others in the government, national and local, as well as businessmen and technical people right across the political spectrum. It was well-received, but the government then referred me to State Coal (aka Solid Energy)! As part of that enterprise I designed an innovative electric car, the EStarCar. Its manufacturing model means it can be built by small teams in small premises located close to the market instead of in huge factories at a vast distance.