Yellow Peril: My black heart bleeds
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I always felt that strictly from an anthem perspective, "Deutschland uber alles" was right up there. I mean, the tune is Haydn, and the words are aggressively nationalistic.
A nondescript, boring anthem is a mark of a country that has the right attitude in life. Don't let's change it.
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merc,
You deserve the inbound links, very interesting stuff. As for Christchurch, when will we acknowledge that it is our own Alabama?
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merc,
California Uber Alles (Dead Kennedies) is the best anthem ever.
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Metro
20 Questions, #11: Russell Brown campaigns against family violence....earbashing doesn't count then?
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Even in the PA rugby-fan threads there seems to be a sneaking suspicion that, y'know, the French team was smarter.
That's certainly the way it played out. But if the late French try had been correctly disallowed (or, if, as we now discover, the very experienced international referee running the touchline had been allowed to call it forward) and the All Blacks had played out the final minutes five points ahead, the narrative would have been entirely different: something along the lines of "All Blacks too strong in the end for brave French side".
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But Stephen, and Anjum, you'll just have to accept that many people sincerely feel differently: love the game, get excited about it, and feel a sense of cultural attachment.
I accept it, but I'm still puzzled by it.
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I feel about the ABs as though I were in an Onion article. Area man indifferent to fate of area sports team. They are Area sports team.
The Onion will sell you a T-shirt with "The sports team from my area is superior to the sports team from your area" printed on it.
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Oh, I accept it - I just don't like it :)
I've avoided expressing that opinion in all the other rugby threads because it would be churlish. It just gets a little overpowering sometimes. It freaks me out when I hear things like "national disaster" and I can't tell whether the speaker (or audience) know they're exaggerating or not.
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The Onion will sell you a T-shirt with "The sports team from my area is superior to the sports team from your area" printed on it.
Do want.
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i accept nothing!!! i'm an agent of cultural change... well i try to be in some areas, though i'm not sure i'm particularly successful.
but i don't think i'll take on the rugby culture. i was just expressing my feelings about it all - or my lack of feelings...
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It freaks me out when I hear things like "national disaster" and I can't tell whether the speaker (or audience) know they're exaggerating or not.
Only fuck-knuckles like Murray Deaker say things like that. And on that score, I'm with you, rather than him.
[Thinks ... surely I could have said more about Myanmar?]
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Stephen, take 30 seconds in the "Cop" when Liverpool go down a goal and you will observe true "national disaster" in sports.
PA superiority aside, we really don't do sports mourning all that well in NZ.
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I should probably have added a smiley to my last post.
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I normally get Metro every month -- but last month, it appeared to have had its balls removed by ACP, along with the position of editor. It was just wall-to-wall lifestyle, and I put it back on the shelf.
Sounds like the Listener for the last couple of years...
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As for Christchurch, when will we acknowledge that it is our own Alabama?
Lately. what with massed bubbas assembled on the riverbanks with their whitebait gear and the occasional pitbull, you wouldn't be far wrong.
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We are trying to learn to do it right down here in 'Alabama'.
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Oh, and I haven't written about the response that has angered me most (well, alongside Deaker) this week -- the disgraceful and persistent vandalism on Wikipedia -- because I've covered it in my Listener column, which is in the next issue.
I was on the verge of outing one or two of the perpetrators --- including a 22 year-old Commerce student whose private-school education doesn't seem to have taught him any manners -- but i thought that might be going a bit far.
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As for Christchurch, when will we acknowledge that it is our own Alabama?
According to Sports Radio, there are a couple of hundred people out at Chch airport right now, to welcome the All Blacks back and reassure them that they're not going to get lynched.
And I still have a few days where I can say, you can call us Alabama when we actually ELECT a nasty little man like that Mayor.
But Stephen, and Anjum, you'll just have to accept that many people sincerely feel differently: love the game, get excited about it, and feel a sense of cultural attachment.
I love cricket. I love it to the point where my partner has told me not to describe to people how I feel about it. I own the clothes, we go to the games. But when we lose, when we cop a bad umpiring decision, when line calls don't go our way... there's none of this group hysteria. And while PA has once again been an island of reasonableness, it ain't like that everywhere.
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The Swiss, eh? Just quote the "Third Man" line from Orson Wells at them:
"What have they invented..."the cuckoo clock".
I have it on got authority that they didn't even invent that.
They didn't invent republicanism either, but OTOH they made a pretty good show of kicking out their monarchy way back in the C13th and making sure it never came back to bother them.
And I'll second "California, uber alles".
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From Inky's piece linked to in RB's post today:
"Our reliance on them for a vicarious sense of worth is too big a burden."
Reliance on another for a vicarious sense of worth is bad news for both ends of the relationship.
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The French may have a shot at the World Cup, but they also have Sarkozy. They needed a break to feel better about themselves.
We may have lost the cup but we have Helen Clark & Winston Peters? You - not helping.
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It's can't just be me and Idiot/Savant - there must be other people who really don't care that much.
No, it's not just you. I'm much more invested in Lloyd Jones winning the Man Booker Prize - which is still, arguably, the highest profile literary prize in the English speaking world. (I'm also sure Lloyd could think of a few things to do with the £50,000 cheque as well.)
If he doesn't, I'll be disappointed (not 'gutted') but will somehow resist the urge to smack the shit out of my partner, then join the rest of the nation in throwing myself off the nearest bridge.
Sort of on-topic, check out this post on the blog of the Mild Greens' Christchurch mayoral candidate accusing me of selling out for appearing in the family violence ads. Apparently it hasn't done my "credibility" any good.
The post is by one of his mates, but the candidate himself, Blair Anderson, has added a note declaring that reporting family violence is -- wait for it -- "narcing up".
What. The. Fuck. Indeed.
I've got to admit I'm a wee bit sceptical about how effective campaigns like that really are, and there's a rational and sensble debate to be had, but this Kevin O'Connell chap is adding precisely nothing to it.
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merc,
I say Alabama (bit clunky but hey I'm still reeling from another thread) because I know there is a staunch fundy element in Christchurch who tithe and hold dear old testament values like, wife as property so the odd clip round the ear is a husbands right. If you read the old book (and I have for the most part, sigh) and you can get past the female bashing, then talk with some of Christchurch's stalwarts who worship said book (and I have) and you know, thank goodness for our democracy because these people would undermine it in a Nobel prize winning nano second.
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I'm much more invested in Lloyd Jones winning the Man Booker Prize - which is still, arguably, the highest profile literary prize in the English speaking world.
Now if only we'd heard of it. The Booker Prize I've heard of, but who or what is "the Man..."?
I'd have still gone with the Nobel Prize in literature.
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Something's hapenning here, catch up guys.
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