I would not erect a Wellywood sign if it were my property. But the airport land is not mine. It is mainly owned by the shareholders of Infratil. Their stewards (the directors) presumably consider that it is good for their business, and for Wellington, to install the sign.

That is just about  all that should matter.

I guess the directors have evidence, or have been persuaded, that the sign will be a cheap and concise way to remind people of the astonishing fact that our city is a major force in the world cinema industry,  But even if the directors are dead wrong they should go ahead, to assert both freedom and property rights.

Both are far more important than the embarassment of the precious Wellington set now baying for censorship of bad taste. I'm not sure David Farrar is doing more than showing pinkish tribal loyalties in his distaste for the sign, but many of those who've commented on his post could easily enjoy a book-burning.

How funny to see their steaming indignation. It is in the long tradition of effete class consciousness.  Proclaiming offense to aesthetic and cultural sensitivities is a handy way to fend off the ever-present fear of being thought "common". My friend Denis Dutton saw art appreciation as evolutionarily developed but he nevertheless scorned those who were drawn to use suppression powers in support of their anxious clinging to social status.  Many of Wellington's "intelligentsia" define themselves and their social boundaries by what they collectively decide to detest.

'Wellywood' pushes more than one of their class buttons – among them abhorence of being thought imitative (though they are desperate not to be thought unaware of any developing cultural badge). Hostility to the US is another. Plays on the term "Hollywood" are like plays on the word "Silicon". They admit the primacy of the original area of innovation.  "Silicon" of course relates to computing. Bollywood has long signified a concentration of film industry power. 

But for the Wellington intelligentsia there is a special problem. It is only recently that many of them have been able to concede that Hollywood had anything to admire. They've told each other for years that it makes only crassly commercial stuff, inferior to the gloomy output of the miserable French and other folk  who produce art movies.

Thanks to Sir Peter Jackson, the sign may not matter much. The genuine creatives in Miramar can go on producing the wealth that is miraculously floating the Wellington economy. I guess many of them will not be too impressed with the sign, but as they are creating world class work, rather than talking about it, they'll ignore the intolerance and meagre vision of those with more time and less creativity.