Posts by Craig Ranapia

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  • Radiation: RIP Aurora,

    Wouldn't people have had pretty low expectations of Billie Piper when she was first cast? Imho she turned out to be one of the most kick arse wonderful of companions, ever.

    Considerable understatement, Span. Took me a while to shake off the image of the stale pop tart who'd become something of a tabloid fixture. Piper also seem to be bucking the trend, and carving out a fairly respectable post-Who career to boot. I don't think I was the only person who had a multiple geek-gasm during School Reunion. Giles! K-9! Elizabeth Sladen returning as Sarah Jane Smith, who will always the standard every companion will never quite meet!

    "oh well, nice walk 'n talk"

    Yay! I wasn't the only one who got the snark-bomb lobbed in Sorkin's direction. I always suspected part of the casting process for The West Wing was a lung capacity test immediately after a 10 mile power walk. :)

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report

  • Hard News: Feckless Solutions,

    But how do you "sell" it in a country devoted to rugby?

    Um, drawing a meaningful distinction between being on a rugby field with 29 other adults and a referee and treating your children like a football? Sorry if that comes across as snarky, but it's not meant to be.

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report

  • Hard News: Feckless Solutions,

    Oh, wait, there's "no such thing as society", is there?

    Well, Don, abstract collective nouns don't rape, abuse and murder children and to be quite blunt I don't blaring headlines like "Society's Shame' are much of a contribution to meaningful change either.

    A friend who works who works with offenders says you wouldn't believe how badly many were mistreated as children.

    Oh yes I could, Weston. I've seen in my own whanau people who've had childhoods that, to put it politely, you wouldn't wish on your worse enemy in the world. And I revere these people for their rather scary determination not to do it all over again. At the risk of Godwin-ing this thread early, it's the same question that ran through my mind (and I couldn't answer) after seeing a documentary about Simon Weisenthal at the film festival - how could the architects of genocide and someone like Sophie Scholl co-exist?

    Explain that to me, and I think we're a lot further along than any number of facile columns and editorials.

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report

  • Radiation: RIP Aurora,

    This has caused murmurings of displeasure amongst Doctor Who nerds on the intertubes, who find Ms Tate a little caustic and not quite the same calibre of hottie as Billie Piper and Freema Agyeman.

    I thought the 'Starbuck's a man, MooreRont" crowd were scary, but every time there's a casting announcement on Doctor Who the craziest fandom in SF come out to frolic in their own waste products. Personally, I found the episode of the Catherine Tate Show I managed to wince through about as funny as a caustic soda enema, but really... Some folks on teh internets really live down to the stereotype that SF fans are socially retarded, misogynistic 40 year-old virgins who need to turn off the computer, move out of their parents' house, expose themselves to natural light and try interacting with real live women.

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report

  • Speaker: Seven Good Reasons,

    Sorry I can't make it, but I have a quite atypical confidence that it will be a rip-roaring success and look forward to reading the book.

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report

  • Hard News: Some things you may not know,

    And thaks for the link, Deborah - there's been more than the usual amount of tasty brain food on A&L Daily lately, so I missed it.

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report

  • Hard News: Some things you may not know,

    oh yes! me too, Robyn. And yet my brother, who is in the artistic vein musically etc, is a clean freak. Who would credit it?

    Hum... I take the Quentin Crisp approach to dust - once its two inches thick, it's all much of a muchness and, anyway, what did it ever do to deserve being disturbed with such brutality? :)

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report

  • Island Life: The Evasive Mr Key Has 2…,

    They've said quite clearly they're not going to announce policy until the election build up, so why keep going on about it?

    Well, to be fair, if I had some alone time with Michael Cullen I'd be doing my level best to badger some election year Budget scoop out of the man. And if I could get Clark, Pete Hodgson and Steve Maharey to lose their minds and reveal their whole campaign strategy/policy work... I could die a very, very happy man.

    But that's about as likely as Ian McKellen ringing me up for a bit of pre-show nookie while he's in town. :)

    And, simon, I think someone is really over-thinking things here. I very much doubt anyone expended much thought on the global sociopolitical implications of a snatch of incidental music.

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report

  • Hard News: Some things you may not know,

    Whoever said artists had to be nice people?

    Not a claim I'm prone to making - but I guess it's much easier to romanticise the starving artist when you've never had to do any such thing. And Virginia Stephens - later Mrs Leonard Woolf - most certainly didn't; folks tend to forget her Room of One's Own, came with enough money to hire an ill-paid servant to clean it.

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report

  • Hard News: Some things you may not know,

    Wasn't Virginia Wolf's Schtick that you needed to have an independant financial existence to write and create - hence "A Room of One's Own"

    Yes, Andrew, and Fabian Socialism (well, at least the variety practiced by the Bloomsbury Group) never meant remembering the servants' names, paying them particularly well and not writing articulately bitchy letters to you pals about what vulgar oinks they were. I've always found it a rather interesting case study in cultural mythmaking just how evasive folks get about the copious evidence in Woolf's diaries and letters of casual snobbery, racism, anti-Semitism and viciously competitive streak, especially where women such as Katherine Mansfield were concerned.

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report

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