Posts by Rob Stowell
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
@Jolissa- gosh that could be the same graveyard.
But only if the trees have advanced considerably; the grasses been cleared or shaded out; there's pirate gold under the third headstone on the left; there are two stone lions prowling in the trees- and dreams are to be believed.
Because the graveyard become part of a recurrent dream, the dream of a twelve-year-old I hardly know any more, I can't vouch for any details. (And really- I've forgotten where I found that danged treasure. Somewhere in the woods, covered in poison ivy. Probably why Captain Kidd abandoned it: poison ivy has no respect for the living- even pirates:) -
Great story, David. Grim, but very well realised. And at 16!
There certainly does seem to be a lot of very unhappy academics at Canterbury these days -- at least in the School of Engineering.
Oh yes. Not just at Engineering- in fact I'd have hoped that was one of the happier spots.
TEU are holding a (paid) union meeting and rally outside the registry on June 9th. Worth passing that on to anyone and everyone who might feel inclined to support it. It'd be good to see a mass expression of this dissatisfaction. -
another Google Earth overlay
- Gogol Earth so we can perceive the
fantastical that coexists...Or we could call it Orbis Tertius :)
-
Yeah, wasn't Plunket unusual on Friday morning? You could feel his smile over the airwaves: he seemed to purr all morning. It was an unusually naked display.
-
Not too haunted... metro goes up a serious notch, IMHO. Congratulations!
Cemeteries: very life-affirming. The Akaroa cemetary is lovely on a summer's evening. Some of the other Peninsula cemeteries are lovely too: St Cuthbert's in Ohinetahi; the little cemetery by the wee stone church up Kaituna valley. None of these have the sheer vastness and delapidated grandeur of Linwood, though.
When I was about 11 we spent a year in Salem, Connecticut (about 42 degrees N to Christchurch's 42 S :). There was a walk we sometimes took: down a lane, alonside a stone wall; over a stile, and then down a path through a forest. Coming out of the trees, there was a huge field of tall, waving grass, burnt brown in the sun, and emerging from this, a pair of stone lions.
Beyond the lions was, I would swear, a mythical graveyard. It was very old, very big, quite abandoned. There were no houses or church nearby, just another crumbling stone wall, and more forest.
If you left from that direction, you emerged from the forest to find some cottages along a riverbank. The geography was impossible, somehow- the river twisted and turned; the paths through the woods entered my dreams, and became entangled in turn.
I looked for it just recently, on google earth. It's still there- a field laid out in the middle of woods, the geography laid out flat and bare. But the satellite was not able to make sense of my memories- how did we get there; where did we come out?
Life has too few of such mysteries, I now feel. -
Jonathan Crayford is a terrific pianist, and mighty good composer, too. Heard him play once, more than 20 years ago, and haven't forgotten it :)
And Gaylene seems one of those rare truly generous big-spirited people. And tough, too! -
Wasn't Joyce one of the key players in "The Hollow Men"?
-
In song
Tuhoe, History of Resistance (1 hour documentary, on google video) -
Polly Toynbee has an epic toy-throwing, dummy spitting meltdown.
Really? She simply opines the coalition will face too many hard choices they can't agree on. Not an unreasonable opinion, I'd have thought, even if it turns out to be wrong.
Then a good lashing of:Look hard at the agreement and the bitter truth Labour must swallow is that much here is more radical than their own manifesto.
Before they rush to pour scorn, a little sombre reflection would be in order. There are policies here that Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling adamantly, and wrongly, refused to contemplate so wedded were they to New Labour's rigid caution, triangulating themselves to death. What better example that the raising of capital gains tax back towards 40%, where it was until Brown disastrously cut it to 10%, unleashing the private equity explosion? The Lib Dems' raising of the tax threshold to £10,000, starting next April with £5bn worth, will redress the losses of average and low earners who have not done well; it won't help the very poorest but that doesn't make it wrong. A big tax avoidance push is long overdue, as is splitting the banks. So is a green tax on planes – and more.
When you factor in the one-time-pot-smoking Mr Cameron's genuine (I think) socially liberal instincts, it looks like Labour may have well and truely lost the covetted "centre".
-
Oh I think it'd be more than a vague promise, and it'd likely include both ministerial posts and other concessions. Plus the Lib-Dems could still have a firm hold on Brown's testicular future.
I'm not sure why Clegg has stepped away from this- but perhaps Cameron can offer something as well. Waiting for another election with a hobbled Conservative minority govt? A gamble, at best.
Look at it from another angle:if Clegg can't get some move towards PR now, he's clearly fumbled an opportunity they may never get again. Something like MMP could give them a fairly solid hold on the balance of power- playing their single best hand into long-term gain.