Posts by Grant McDougall
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I went to Gov's for the icecream sundaes, anyway. And the hot chocolate.
Gov's sundaes were superb, as were their banana splits. A few months ago I had a truly outstanding piece of carrot cake there, so it's still pretty good.
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I like coffee, I like tea...
I like tea too and it is amazing how utterly incompetent most cafe staff are at making a pot of tea. If I order a pot of tea in a cafe, I always make sure to tell them to include two tea bags, three if it's a big pot. (Though it's better if they use tea leaves, of course).
This is because a lot of cafe staff are clueless at making a good pot of tea. They often chuck one tea bag in the pot, blindly unaware that one tea bag simply is not enough to produce a good, strong, tasteful brew.
With only one tea bag, the tea is weak and insipid and at at least $3 a pot, shouldn't be so. Coffee drinkers wouldn't accept an espresso with only half a shoot of coffee in it, so tea drinkers shouldn't accept weak tea.
Yes, I'm a tea nazi, sue me. ;) -
The Percolator was the first "proper" cafe in town, beforehand, it was only tea shops.
Not so! What about Governors.
Governors did coffee, but only those old-fashioned, heated, big glass pots of swill. It didn't have an espresso machine, The Perc was the first to have one.
Also, Gov's merely did cups of warmed-up brown liquid. The Perc did an extensive range of coffees. Don't get me wrong, I liked Gov's, but as I said The Perc was the first to have an espresso machine and all that that entails. -
But it is probably true to say that the cafe thing really took off from about 1991.
In early-mid '92, here in Dunedin, I scored a job at The Percolator, the first place in town with - gasp! - an espresso machine. The Percolator was the first "proper" cafe in town, beforehand, it was only tea shops.
It was a hell of a novelty, it must be said. Anyway, the Perc very quickly filled a big demand for good coffee and it flourished. These days, there must be about 40 cafes withen a 2km radius of the Octagon.
(Incidentally, The Perc was set up by one David Parker, his wife and sister-in-law).To suggest that Starbucks were pioneers in bringing coffee to NZ is just ludicrous. Chez Elco in Nelson was making espressos back in the '60s, for God's sake.
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But it wasn't until I told her that I couldn't read the school blackboard unless I was sitting right at the front that the penny dropped...We also learn from the report that being short-sighted tends to yield average or above average academic performance. That may well be so but I can testify that it does sweet bugger-all for your performance on a football field.
This was how it came to be recognised that I needed glasses, too. Way back in 1977, as a Standard 2 pupil at Managapapa School in Gisborne, the teacher, Ted Beets*, realised that I was having trouble reading the blackboard. He recommended to my parents that I get my eyes checked and, sure as eggs, it was discovered that I was short-sighted. I've been wearing glasses every since, apart from a disastrous go at contacts in the late '80s, which caused my eyes no end of irritation.
David's right about playing rugby with poor eye-sight. You had to really concentrate to see the ball, catch it, etc. When I did get glasses, I'd often accidentally break them. It was the bane of my parents' live, regularly paying-up for glasses repairs. I should've known better, but I was only at primary school.
*An amazing old bloke, a real, old-fashioned Kiwi bloke with red hair and bright yellow, tobacco-stained fingers. Each morning, just before morning break, he'd pick a pupil, give them a couple of dollars and instruct them to go to the dairy across the road "and get me The Dominion and a packet of Park Drive". A teacher getting a kid to buy tobacco for them!! Christ, you'd be suspended for doing that these days.
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Many happy returns, Russell. Feel free to celebrate with a truly splendid air-drum solo.
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Cameron 'Whaleoil' Slater, self-regarding attack dog of the wingnutosphere, has become the confidant of Sunday Star Tmes gossip columnist Bridget Saunders;
Aah, now that'll explain the somewhat baffling and inane comment about a cabinet minister in her column this morning. Slater really is deluded.
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As long as it is not about the Sensible Sentencing Trust. Who's for setting a Senseless Sentencing Trust?
Just recently an anti-SST group was actually set up, also based in Napier. It's called "True Sensible Sentencing Trust" or some such.
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Today's PA quiz (prize: a ride in David Slack's jet):
Which politician chose "I am a Rock" by Simon & Garfunkel?
My money's on Prebble. Palmer was more of a light-jazz man.
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Weird, I never took it to mean what you've all described it as. I always figured it meant "the all-players average" not their individual ones. By which I mean if Dan Cater only scores 3 points instead of his average of 20 (a figure I really must look up one day) then he's down to being an "average" player rather than the world's best first-five.
You're missing my point, Hayden. Maybe talking about numbers was a bad example. But I meant that sports commentators do mis-use the word "average" when they clearly mean poor, bad, mediocre, appalling, hopeless, dreadful, etc, etc.
To use two non-number-related examples: 1) if a halfback throws a hospital pass to a first-five, it gets described as "average", when, in fact, such passes are poor, bad, etc, etc. If it was an "average" pass, it would be a regulation, good, easy to catch pass.
2) if a fullback makes a clearing kick and the ball slices off the side of his boot and bearly makes any ground, it gets described as an "average" kick, when, again, it is poor, bad, dreadful, etc. If it was an "average" kick it would be kicked well and make a bit of ground.