Because of the floods in Queenstown, builders and carpenters are urgently needed for repair work. However so many of them are already contracted to work for the LOTR film company that there is a real problem finding workers to reconstruct damaged buildings, according to the news on National Radio. Another film being made there (Vertical Limit?) has also booked out the available workers. (They’ve been there for months before LOTR got there.)

Thanks to Tiggy for that tidbit.

Tehanu had heard a few months ago that ‘you couldn’t find a carpenter for love or money’ in Wellington as the set-building got underway in the studios there.