Random Play by Graham Reid

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Random Play: The Seduction of the Strange

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  • dc_red,

    Or, as they say in Ohakune, "three thumbs up!"

    I think it's about time we had a similar check box labeled "Rugby" - that way we can create a Ministry of Rugby, fund them with a yearly budget from the check box and hold them to it, no cost overruns. If they want to do really big things they can save up for them like the rest of us.

    Take whatever figure Sneddon is currently quoting and triple it as representing the best estimate of the loss on this event. The taxpayer will be footing the bill for 2/3rds of that loss.

    Setting up a Ministry of Rugby would be more honest than the current situation (in both the intellectual and accounting senses), but the more appealing option surely would be to tell the rugby union to fuck off.

    Oil Patch, Alberta • Since Nov 2006 • 706 posts Report Reply

  • Paul Campbell,

    Oh yeah - like the Nats are going to do that (nor is Labour in their quest for the swing vote)

    Dunedin • Since Nov 2006 • 2623 posts Report Reply

  • bronwyn,

    Steven, I think there's still a tremendous amount of victim blaiming that happens in these cases, and that's one of the reasons people don't talk about it.

    One excercise we do with students in class is looking at a scenario where a young woman victim wears what could be called provocative clothing. About half of the students tell us that what she wears is instrumental in her becoming a victim of sexual violence - she's "asking for it".

    It seems old attitudes die hard - yet I'm reminded of how far we have come in some ways when I think of the case of my aunt, who, about 25 years ago, was subject to a gang rape out the back of a rural pub, then had to drive herself back to her farm 30mins away. When she called another relative for help, she was told to go have a bath in bleach, and then go out and get the cows in. I think/hope that she wouldn't be given the same answer today.

    tamaki makaurau • Since Nov 2006 • 86 posts Report Reply

  • Ian Dalziel,

    Taj Mahal !

    did someone die?

    Taste is the enemy of art!

    and art is the enemy of the state

    Christchurch • Since Dec 2006 • 7953 posts Report Reply

  • andrew llewellyn,

    I was told that Sydney was all right, but Melbourne would have been "better". I don't know how people determine such things,

    Neither do I, but Perth would have been better still. :)

    Seriously though, I like both Sydney AND Melbourne.

    Since Nov 2006 • 2075 posts Report Reply

  • Mrs Skin,

    Stephen - I think it's perfectly appropriate. It follows naturally from the question Graham asked.

    I personally don't have the energy to get into a discussion about it today, so I haven't. But I don't think you should be concerned.

    the warmest room in the h… • Since Feb 2009 • 168 posts Report Reply

  • Jolisa,

    And fairy lights...

    Definitely fairy lights!

    Auckland, NZ • Since Nov 2006 • 1472 posts Report Reply

  • Tom Beard,

    Um, not as much as is implied here; see the Calcutta High Court and various other Gothic Revival structures. Likewise replication of Classical originals. I mean, yeah, not exactly the same thing, but I can't see how it is any worse than a Triumphal Arch after the Roman or whatever.

    (And the Taj isn't exactly ancient, it's about as old as the new St. Paul's.)

    I used the term "ancient" not in any strict historical or archaeological sense, but just in the vernacular sense of "rilly rilly old". And 1653 is a hell of a lot older then anything still standing in NZ.

    As I said, I'm not a fan of historical styles in contemporary building, but while the sort of thing that Mountfort et al did in Christchurch may have been Gothic Revival, it wasn't the same as copying an entire building, which is what I believe is proposed for the Taj.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 1040 posts Report Reply

  • Keir Leslie,

    Come on, I don't see how the interminable ranks of fake-gothic and fake-greco-roman architecture can be more offensive than fake-mughal. Maybe on some metaphysical distinction between copying and imitating, but I don't think there's much to choose between a fake-gothic structure designed to be like generic olde, and a fake-mughal structure designed to look like specific old.

    (Seriously, the High Court at Calcutta is apparently just a straight replication of somewhere else, and that seems reasonably anointed Gothic Revival; I dare say that there are a great many other examples but sadly the Library's too far away today.)

    Since Jul 2008 • 1452 posts Report Reply

  • Craig Ranapia,

    Meanwhile -- had to have a little giggle at Rudman of The Raj's pitch to be the Trinny and Suzannah of Kiwi architecture.

    Living in the world capital of architectural facadism, it's hard to blame Auckland's Indian community for thinking the rest of us would welcome with open arms their plan to build a miniature version of the Taj Mahal on New North Rd. But could I plead with them, if they must replicate something, please leave the exquisite Taj Mahal alone. India has tens of thousands of other ancient monuments - if our Indian brothers have to build a facsimile to remind them of home, surely one of those would suffice.

    "Our Indian brothers"? Then it starts getting really purple and condescending... The best thing I've read in The Herald for months, for all the wrong reasons.

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

  • tussock,

    Re: "This is worrying"

    No it isn't, you're just getting old.

    Really, kids spend a long time on the net because the net kicks ass. It's like newspapers, radio, TV, music, magazines, books, hanging out doing nothing, that time behind the bike sheds, board games, all the latest cool toys, and a friggen computer all rolled into one.

    All of which, of course, previous generations where terribly worried about their kids spending too much time on. There's an urban legend says such concerns with the misspent time of youth are amongst the oldest recorded words of mankind.

    Since Nov 2006 • 611 posts Report Reply

  • Lucy Telfar Barnard,

    Why don't the abused disclose it? Well, having otherwise apparently intelligent people say they are "genuinely sceptical" about the stats they hear doesn't help. Put it this way. Think of your skepticism, put a look on your face that illustrates it, and imagine that face as the reaction you're going to get when you tell someone about what that man did to you (who everyone thinks is such a lovely, caring old chap, great with children!).

    Also. When I feel the need for a good story in a conversation I'm quite happy to talk about the time I surprised a burglar in my home. I can describe how I saw the burglar, and screamed, and he ran away, and I called the police, and so on. I didn't particularly enjoy it at the time, but it makes a good story in retrospect, perhaps because it is a story in which I win, and also, on a mundane level, because burglaries are about stuff (whereas sexual abuse is about power).

    I'd also probably tell you quite comfortably about the time some guy in the park popped his junk out and wanked at me, because I was old enough and feminist enough by then not to internalise it, so I didn't feel disempowered, just sort of annoyed.

    I'd probably also feel comfortable talking about the time in my late teens when some boy plied me with alcohol till I put out.

    But (deep breath) I don't tend to talk about what the paedophile did when I was a child, even though I did "disclose" at the time (though it took the "adults" at least six months to do anything about him, and even then they adopted a hippie version of the Catholic church's "Pacific solution") and again some 12 years later, which resulted in him going to prison (though that took another two years, and he only got four). And although I can talk almost with glee about seeing the burglar, in his jeans and leather jacket and panicked expression, standing behind my bedroom door where I was about to hang my coat, I certainly don't volunteer the details of exactly when the paedophile put what where, or what he said when he did,

    Nor do I talk about the time a a previous partner held me down and forced himself on me (such a lovely old expression that one).

    Why not? In the first case, because it makes me feel exposed, even 30 years after it happened, even though he went to prison for it, and even with the good things that came from disclosure (like another childhood friend discovering that the flashbacks and nightmares she'd been having about him were real and she wasn't going crazy).

    In the second case, perhaps I don't like remembering that I couldn't fight him off so I just lay there and took it, and then carried on living with him for some months afterwards. It doesn't gel very well with my self-image of someone old enough and feminist enough not to internalise it.

    Also, it doesn't tend to come up much. You know, you might say "so, have you ever been burgled", or even "did anyone ever flash at you" and it would just be taken as slightly morbid curiousity. But asking "so, have you ever been raped" in the same tone of voice will tend to make people wonder why you want to know, and whether the answer will give you jollies.

    However, on the rare occasions it does it come up, it is similarly rare to find a woman who cannot recount her own story of assault, or near assault, or threat narrowly averted. So excuse me if I find your "genuine scepticism", however honestly meant, slightly insulting to my sex. To me it reads like just another example of "oh it wasn't really that bad was it? Surely you're exaggerating?"

    Maybe I'll be kind, and assume you meant to say "genuinely ignorant" instead.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 585 posts Report Reply

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