Posts by Tim Darlington

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  • Hard News: Friday Visions,

    What is depressing is that most of his friends seem to like '80s power ballads (Bon Jovi, Poison etc...) and ACDC. WTF is up with that?

    Your niece and nephew used to love It's a Long Way to the Shop and Highway to Hell when we were in Kuwait, I never had a problem with it (er, seeing as it was me playing it ahem). Am now facing having to get the oldest to Wellington because Trivium is playing ahead of Disturbed - this is a heavy blow I'm doing my best to take as something other than a personal insult and declaration of bad parenting. I blame inappropriate peer influences...

    Motorhead doing 'God Save the Queen'. Because why wouldn't you?

    I hadn't seen this and probably wouldn't have if it wasn't posted here, so ta very much. One thought occurred - Jones and Lydon are way better at this song than Motorhead, which says a shitload about why they are awesome deities of music, really.

    The Saints’ ‘Know Your Product’. Hear the horns and rejoice, people:

    I did! Ta very much twicely.

    Since Nov 2006 • 56 posts Report Reply

  • Hard News: Local Heroes?,

    Labour and their supporters can either go on relitigating these debates, almost certainly lose them all again, and definitely get a lot of potential voters pissed off at them again - or they can draw a line under them and say 'we're just not going to go there anymore. People didn't like it. We listened. So our focus will be on the economy'.

    Well, we've yet to hear from Labour, but you've certainly got your answer re which one their supporters will pick...

    Since Nov 2006 • 56 posts Report Reply

  • Up Front: A Word in Your Ear,

    What being born articulate allows me to do, however, is to win arguments even if I'm wrong. Just ask my ex-husband

    No. I'm sorry, but that has far less to do with being born articulate than with having the correct gonads. No level of skill at argument avails a husband against his wife.

    Since Nov 2006 • 56 posts Report Reply

  • Speaker: How to Look Good as a Nazi,

    ...that's why the idea of national feeling is daft.

    Well, maybe one day the rest of us will reach modern German society's level of enlightenment re national pride. But I think it more likely that the reverse will happen - eventually, Germans will be as big on national pride wank as the rest of us.

    How so? Well, I worked with a bunch of Indian guys a few years back. My level of guilt that one of my ancestors may have strapped one of their ancestors to the muzzle of a cannon and fired it? Zero. Their level of annoyance about it? Zero. Time wounds all heels.

    Since Nov 2006 • 56 posts Report Reply

  • Speaker: How to Look Good as a Nazi,

    There's nothing like having a good "they," is there?

    Since Nov 2006 • 56 posts Report Reply

  • Speaker: How to Look Good as a Nazi,

    Germans on the other hand, the more we mock their so called Nazi superman culture the better

    It is worth noting that the Germans still have not apologised for what they did...

    Personally, I find that way more offensive than anything the drunken dumbasses at that party came up with. And yet, somehow I can restrain myself from running to the media demanding the perpetrator be punished in some way - clearly I'm out of tune with the zeitgeist.

    Since Nov 2006 • 56 posts Report Reply

  • Speaker: How to Look Good as a Nazi,

    actors in Hogan's Heroes who played Nazis were Jewish

    Good point. If Werner Klemperer didn't mind making fun of it, I've got no standing to tell him he was wrong.

    Since Nov 2006 • 56 posts Report Reply

  • Speaker: How to Look Good as a Nazi,

    I think there are two factors behind it:

    1. In the English-speaking world, WW2 is a nostalgic event. Only a tiny minority of the population suffered to any extent, there were lots of stirring speeches, things looked pretty bleak for a while but the good guys (ie, us) won in the end. Just like the movies, not to be taken particularly seriously and best summed up in the British chant "Two world wars and one world cup!" when they play Germany.

    2. New Zealanders generally have little contact with foreigners and know nothing about them. Their "knowledge" of Germany comes from war movies and Oktoberfest. Many of us are very well-travelled, but the "OE" as it's misleadingly described largely consisted of getting pissed in exotic locations with other NZers. In these circumstances, NZers having a German-themed party is a bizarre concept guaranteed to produce either Nazis or Oktoberfest staff as costumes.

    Since Nov 2006 • 56 posts Report Reply

  • Hard News: Bill's Troubles,

    But that doesn't mean I feel sorry for him.

    Good. English isn't the only MP fleecing the taxpayer (it looks like Anderton does an even better job of it for instance), but he's the only one who's Minister of Finance.

    The Nats must be holding their heads in their hands - all that tough-love blather about how we must reduce the burden on the taxpayer in this time of recession, and it turns out their Finance Minister has carefully arranged his affairs to be able to milk the taxpayer for the maximum amount possible. Loss of credibility? D'ya think?

    Since Nov 2006 • 56 posts Report Reply

  • Up Front: Smut-Clog Part 2: This Time…,

    I hope they fix your brain.

    This informed consent stuff goes way too far, I reckon. They should just tell you what their intention is, give you the relative risks and consequences, and then if you'd really love to hear all about the butchery that's involved you could, you know, ask them to tell you. I recall that having a surgeon tell me in lurid detail just exactly how he was going to remove one of my testicles and have someone slice it into little pieces wasn't so much "informing my consent" as "psychological torture."

    Since Nov 2006 • 56 posts Report Reply

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