Deborah Coddington: Glass-walled mansions rule in Remuera

Ten random, haphazard and perplexing questions for the times.

1 Why do architects wear black shirts with black ties and black jackets? Then again, why do we assume architects have good taste?

2 Why do women shriek? This is not an age-specific problem, because I have observed this bizarre phenomenon in teenagers when they greet each other in the street and in middle-aged women, particularly when they are in groups in restaurants or on trains.

On the latter, they shriek at each other on cellphones, in which case they are completely wasting their money and would be better to take advice from Sir Winston Churchill and do away with their telephones altogether. In this country much hand-wringing is carried out over the fact that males do not share their feelings with each other, that they "bottle it up", and need to talk about their problems.

I'm not so sure, if the alternative is shrieking to a crowded dining room, or train carriage, about the latest emotionally unavailable bastard. Not all the world wants to hear updates from the aggrieved wives' and girlfriends' collectives.

3 Why, when driving somewhere for the first time, does it take longer to get there than it does to come back?

4 If the jury in the David Bain trial had found him guilty, and as he was driven away to prison, two jurors had beaten against the side of the security van and shouted "mass murderer", would Joe Karam have calmly said, "Well, this was an emotional time and people do emotional things at such moments"?

5 Is Phil Goff being frightfully clever in his use of double entendre when he keeps telling the media that Richard Worth allegedly offered a "strikingly beautiful" Indian woman "several positions" in lewd and vulgar text messages? Does John Key just wish Worth would retire to the library with a gun?

6 Now that more philanderers are being caught out by text messages than by private detectives, will Julia Hartley Moore change her occupation?

7 Why are TVNZ reporters suddenly using props in their pieces to camera, such as photos of Nia Glassie to help us emote to yet another child abuse story in Rotorua? Does the state-owned broadcaster think we've become desensitised, or has it commissioned yet another bunch of American gurus to go through the building and coach the staff on "News for Dummies 101"?

8 And while I'm on the subject of television reporting, does the New Zealand way of death matter more than the New Zealand way of life? If you're mauled to death by a tiger, news crews report live from the scene for 24 hours even though nobody's ever heard of the unfortunate victim. Two weeks later, however, New Zealand's most-accomplished outdoor and travel journalist, the Herald's Colin Moore, is tragically killed in a boating accident but his passing doesn't even rate a mention on television. The only consolation, ironically, is the irascible old bugger wouldn't want it any differently.

9 Will our great grandchildren, as adults, wonder why we were so blase about preserving the abodes of our noted contemporaries, even if only for purely mercenary reasons? I'm thinking of Sir Edmund Hillary's house in Remuera, a humble house built by Ed for his family. A good state-owned business could be made by charging visitors to view. But I hear some rich neighbours don't want the house bought by the Government because tourists might gape at their own glass-walled mansions and let envy overtake their purloining desires.

Funnily enough, that problem doesn't seem to occur in Thorndon at the birthplace of Katherine Mansfield, where they also are kept busy selling books and other merchandise. But Remuera is another country now, very different from the place where Ed and Louise raised their children, as anyone can see if they pick up the latest copy of Simply You Living and see the opulence of "Diane Foreman's Sanctuary".

10 Which returns me to question one, but with a difference: why do we assume icecream makers have good taste?