Times-Age building all aglow over news of prince's birth

Builder Dave Borman has made good on his promise to illuminate the Wairarapa Times-Age building in pink or blue for the birth of the baby of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.

Mr Borman had been alerted on Monday evening when the Duchess went into labour, but with the baby arriving at about 3am, Mr Borman wanted to give the public the benefit of a full night of blue light.

Earlier this month Mr Borman installed two lights on street lamps at the corner of the building, one with a blue filter, and one with pink. It meant an extendable crane only had to change over the pink filter.

The Times-Age building is one of 37 illuminated around the country.

New Zealand's illumination move was noted by the Guardian newspaper in the UK, who were running a live blog feed from outside the hospital. Not to be outdone by their "Commonwealth cousins", they began a mini-campaign to shame the owners of the Shard building to do something to mark the birth.

"Rebekah Jenner writes from New Zealand to say that Auckland's Sky Tower and over a dozen other buildings will also be lit up when the baby is born," wrote one journalist on the blog.

"If the Shard is reading ... they're making you look bad here."

Initially it came to nought: "Bad news. The Shard will not be celebrating the royal birth ... Fine. Be like that."

Eventually the Shard offered free admission to the building to celebrate.

Monarchy New Zealand, who organised the illumination, agreed it got New Zealand a lot of attention in the world media.

"Free media coverage displaying some of our national landmarks is bound to be good for our image abroad and our tourism industry at home," said chairman Dr Sean Palmer.

Dr Palmer is encouraging people to donate to the Royal New Zealand Plunket Society.

"In 2011, prior to the wedding of Prince William and Catherine, the couple asked New Zealand well-wishers who wanted to give them a wedding present, to instead donate money to the Christchurch Earthquake Appeal," said Dr Palmer.

"We thought it would be appropriate to offer a similar gift to the new family and encourage others who were thinking of sending a gift to do the same."