Posts by Craig Ranapia

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  • Radiation: Back to the 80s,

    Really liking 30 Rock

    Oh boy, yes - and unlike Aaron Sorkin's painfully disappointing Studio 60 it's intentionally funny. Alec Baldwin seems to be having an indecent amount of fun playing a hyper-evolved reptile.

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

  • Island Life: Just Say No,

    And with that, he was gone ...

    Just in time for the lunchtime news bulletins too. Wonder How Hugh Logan and Ian Rennie's presser is going down with the PSA? Got to admit that in Setchell's position, it would go down like the proberbial stein of cold sick listening to Logan saying that he's really sorry about any distress I'm feeling, but I really did deserve to be (effectively) sacked, he'd do it again, and it was really for my own good anyway. Do these people ever listen to themselves?

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

  • Southerly: You Hated it Here First,

    *pout* You're a scholar and a gentleman, Mr Haywood. But I still have an ego - and there's got to be someone out there who finds grey hair and a permanent scowl a mad turn-on. :) Whatever happened to the fine art of sweet-natured flirting?

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

  • Island Life: Just Say No,

    Ironically it looks like losing him his job

    I'd respectfully suggest Benson-Pope (and the Prime Minister) might find losing his ministerial warrant a damn sight more agreeable than a lengthy complaint being laid with the Privileges Committee that he stood up at Question Time and lied his arse off. I'd also suggest, quite cynically, that the one mortal political sin is making the PM look like (at best) a dupe, or (at worse) complicit in some rather shabby.

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

  • Island Life: Just Say No,

    David, while we're busy quoting Cromwell, perhaps the Government would care to consider this (from a letter to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, 1650):

    I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken.

    And try to do it without sulking, snarling or getting all pissy.

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

  • Southerly: You Hated it Here First,

    What? And nobody's ever said to you, "I'd really like to explore my sexuality with that velvet-throated Craig Ranapia"? Bugger.

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

  • Island Life: Just Say No,

    Presumably he knows there's more to come from other sources and he'd rather drip-feed it himself. A few days late to switch tactics though.

    Oh, it's a dumb tactic period:Brian Edwards (a professional 'media trainer') explains why here (around 15.20 in).

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

  • 180 Seconds with Craig Ranapia: A curse…,

    We read them to our kids and they are appalling to try to read aloud.

    They are - so I've got to be fair and admit Jim Dale made a pretty good fist of the quarter hour of The Chamber of Secrets 'audiobook' (ugh!) I heard before reitiring to my happy place. Hey, I was babysitting. Anything this side of alcohol poisioning that keeps the hellspawn quiet is fair game.

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

  • 180 Seconds with Craig Ranapia: A curse…,

    And one fair question is this: If the Harry Potter series is such a pile of crap, what you recommend? Well, I'm pulling together a little list - and some linky love to the fine bookstores that specialise in kid-lit, and are full of lovely people who've forgotten more about the field that I've ever known.

    Fair exchange?

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

  • 180 Seconds with Craig Ranapia: A curse…,

    I'll take that as a compliment, but at least I've got a nose . All snark aside, I'd don't envy Rowling being richer than God (leaves some hope for the rest of us pixelated, ink-stained wretches), and there's some chance her publishers are going to invest some of that Potter loot in the next Philip Pullman -- someone who took a long time (and wrote a lot of well-received, modestly successful books) to become an overnight success with the His Dark Materials trilogy. (And yes, I do find his evangelical atheism tiresome and shrill, but The Golden Compass and The Subtle Knife in particular are damn fine books. You're not going to have much of a reading life if your literary judgements are based on an ideological/political sniff test.)

    And, Peter, I have the highest opinion of "all that magical nonsense". AFAIC, Gene Wolfe is America's finest living writer, full stop. The three Kiwi writers I cited in my piece - Maurice Gee (or God, as he's known in my house), Margaret Mahy and Elizabeth Knox - are fine writers I'm happy to puff any chance I get.

    I just don't have much time for shitty writing, which is the real issue I have with Harry Potter; or marketing hype being confused with literary or critical values.

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

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