EQNZ Remembrance
EQNZ Services 22 Feb 2012 Gudrun Gisela has kindly sent us a series of photos from her travels around Christchurch today. ¶ Thank you for sharing this with us Gudrun, and Arohanui to everyone in Christchurch. ¶
Recent Posts
One, Redux
In polite conversation the other day, I discovered my counsellor was in the CTV building on the 22nd of February last year. Suddenly I felt like I shouldn't really be bothering her. She had, as it turns out, only just...
Village People
On Sunday we moved into the Linwood Park Temporary Earthquake Village (to give its full and rather magnificent name). This was the first stage in our return to normality and I suppose it should have been a joyous occasion --...
SECRET MILITARY LULZ
So, I'm not sure about this story. If this group was really on an "international hunt for military secrets", why on earth would they tell everyone about it? More to the point, why would they send out prank emails from...
CELEBRITY DRUG SHOCK NEWS! AGAIN.
Last week, Whitney Houston's funeral was broadcast live on eight American TV channels, including CNN, Fox News and MSNBC. She'd have wished for that kind of reach when she was alive, but it was the spectacle of her death that...
MySplore
Regular readers will know that, much as I like a night out, I like a good music festival. I've had a few: Sweetwaters (twice), Glastonbury (three times), Reading (once, it was awful), the Big Day Out (all of them), Laneway...
This weekend I went... 'sploring
In all the years I’ve been going to Splore I assumed it was a made-up word. Foolish me, of course it’s an obscure Scottish term from the 1700s, how could I not know that. Call myself a wordsmith. ¶ Point being,...
Deconstruction and Construction
The preparations for the relocation of our house from the Residential Red Zone to its new location in Dunsandel have been going unexpectedly well (hopefully this statement isn't tempting fate too much). The first items on my list have been...
A right old Barney
The first time I saw New Order was in 1985 at the Logan Campbell Centre. To be honest, my clearest memory of it is Paul McKessar's clever line about most of the instruments being played by "Mr C. Quencer" in...
The New Performance Festival
Many of you will know Jose Barbosa from such popular shows as Media7. But that's not all he does. Indeed, tomorrow night (or tonight, if you're reading this on Friday) he is presenting a two-hour live stream to mark the...
NZ On Screen: The Christchurch Collection
NZ On Screen today launched its Christchurch Collection, in time for the first anniversary of you-know-what. I was asked to write the introductory text because of my connections to the city, and because I'm on the trust board there. ¶ I've...
This Is Not A Complicated Issue
The row over Parliamentary Services support for deaf Green MP Mojo Mathers should have been over shortly after 3.30pm yesterday. Well, truth be known, it should have been over long before that. There should never have been a row. ¶ But...
A Real Character
You know how sometimes you read something really stupid on the internet*, it annoys you, and then every time you run across a discussion on the same issue you get reminded of it all over again? That happens to other...
Go Postal with Ian Dalziel
Card Sharp Public Address regular Ian Dalziel, apart from being a punster of the highest order, is a professional designer, and has a nice little side busines of making cards and postcards. ¶ We are keen to promote his wares, so...
It's (almost) never that simple
In my post on "The Prime Minister's Hour" yesterday, I raised the prospect that the time Radio Live had allowed Prime Minister John Key to fill might constitute a donation that might have to be declared under the Electoral Act...
Properly Public: It's our information
One of the joys of a new government, depending on your level of masochism, is the release of Briefings to the Incoming Minister (or BIMs). Even if the Government doesn't change, technically each Minister is “incoming” because they have a...
Rocking the poets
As is well known, I'm a sucker for derivative works. I like a remix, me, and so I was always going to be favourably disposed towards Lorenzo Buhne's Wild Iron, an album of musical interpretations of the works of New...
Media Mathematics
This week's Media7 was a discussion about public service broadcasting and its absence. But it was also a story about how a bogus statistic could be created and then used repeatedly by those whose arguments it suited, to the extent...
Cats and Coro II: [appropriate sequel subtitle]
The Electoral Commission has referred the Radio Live broadcast of "The Prime Minister's Hour" to the Police. The decision will be public from 5pm or so, but the fact it's been made is already out there, and I've already commented...
Ngāi Tahu
Guest Post We welcome back Adrienne Rewi to Capture, with a series of photos from Ngāi Tahu. ¶ Words and photography by Adrienne Rewi. ¶ In 2006, almost 50,000 people identified themselves as Ngāi Tahu, making it the fourth largest Māori tribe...
Television and the Public Good
We return to the topic of public service broadcasting -- and its steady fading from view -- on Media7 this week. ¶ Our guests are Rachel Cunliffe, co-founder of the TV community Throng (and also a statistician, which might be helpful),...
Crowds and Communities: an internet discussion
I've written before that since its very birth, the internet has advanced through "a pattern of motivated individuals and mobilised communities." The benevolent dictators who created the first technical protocols had their work underwritten by the crowds who organised themselves...
Staying Alive
I ride a bike in Auckland. I have an obvious interest in the drivers with whom I share the roads taking care and being aware of my presence. My life depends on it. But I cannot find it in me...
Review: Lana Del Rey, 'Born To Die'
When the clip for Lana Del Rey's 'Video Games' arrived quietly on the internet, it seemed too good to be true. Its gorgeous, pouting composer seemed to have come from nowhere; her grainy montage of filmic images seemed to summon...
Laneway 2012
Too soon? Having just recovered from the Big Day Out, a group of us ventured to Laneway on Monday, in the third venue in as many years, Wynyard Quarter. Much has been said about the queues, the heat, and there...