Posts by Chris Waugh
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Capture: Better Food Photography, in reply to Hebe,
I'm sure I'll cope.... Like by buying a bigger spoon when I go shopping soon.
But speaking of equipment, I just had cause to remember (i.e. pull tab on a can breaking) that it took me quite literally several years of searching before I found a can opener. I have never managed to find out why can openers are so rare in China. And before I came here I never would've imagined being so overjoyed at finding one or treasuring such a thing.
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Legal Beagle: MMP Review #1: The Party…, in reply to Richard Aston,
I was thinking more historical precedent re the Chathams, but you do raise an interesting point there.
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Legal Beagle: MMP Review #1: The Party…, in reply to Richard Aston,
In times of peace and prosperity I suggest the larger group is more willing to tolerate a broader spread of ideas and views. But in hard times that tolerance shrinks – think of the conscientious objectors of WWII.
I would argue that NZ has always been a strongly conformist society that has never had much tolerance for minority views at all, the difference between peacetime and wartime being that in wartime people get locked up.
Remember the original MMP debate and how people explained the threshold was necessary to keep extremists out, that's why Germany has it's threshold, having learned from its '33 - '45 experience?
The trouble here, of course, is that we need to decide where to set the limits of acceptable political ideas and discourse. Some would like those limits set very narrow. Others might prefer to allow more room at their end of the political spectrum than at the opposite. The trouble for those who would like the threshold lower is that those who want fewer minor parties go straight back to the Nazi argument. You can then argue that the major parties would refuse to work with such extreme right minor parties, but unfortunately Austria has in recent years gone and blown that theory out of the water.
It seems to me a threshold needs to be set somewhere, otherwise how do we deal with a party that gets only the votes of its 500 registered members? I'm inclined to think 5% is too high and find Graeme's arguments persuasive.
I don't think it'd be terribly much work tracking down a fairly large number of people who would rather Hone Harawira, the Greens, and others like them were exiled to the Chathams and forever forbidden from speaking ever again. Trouble is persuading them that the good old days when it was either National or Labour weren't actually all that good, and that they really don't have anything to fear from requiring parties to cooperate, and that forcing them to compromise might actually be a Good Thing leading to more, rather than less, stable government.
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Capture: Better Food Photography, in reply to Gudrun Gisela,
I generally prefer to cook with gas. For one thing, you have much more instant control of the heat, there's no need to wait for the element to heat or cool. But yes, it clearly has its disadvantages and requires a bit of adaptation for some things.
And yes, I'm sure that once I get my cooking and baking skills back the wee one will realise that Daddy's good for more than just driving her places and reading her stories.
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Capture: Better Food Photography, in reply to Hebe,
Yep, my mix was definitely a bit thin, and a heavier, cast iron pan would've been nice, but I can only work with what I've can get here. Also, a proper tablespoon, rather than having to drop two dollops from a desertspoon would've helped. It is always possible that I could persuade my wife to buy an electric hotplate, which would help solve the 'heat concentrating in the centre of the pan' issue...
I have some leftover mix, the strawberries I got yesterday were rather disappointing (super expensive supermarket (aimed purely at Westerners, that's why) but half the strawberries were all squishy and all the rest were at least bruised) and it's finally been decided we're staying in Beijing for the holiday, so I'll give the apple fritters a go, see if I can thicken up my mix and control the heat better.
As for Edmonds, turns out I won't have to ask my mum to send me a copy.
Once again, thanks for the tips.
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Hard News: One man’s Meat Puppets is…, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
Xanadu is one of those "great soundtracks, shame about the movie" deals.
Huh? I thought Xanadu was all about a poet, opium, and dreams featuring Khubilai Khan?
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Capture: Better Food Photography, in reply to Hebe,
Finally managed to get some of the missing ingredients and tried that strawberry pikelet idea. My technique is woefully rusty, thanks to me having been so badly spoiled by my mother in law and the superlow cost of eating out at low-end restaurants. But I succeeded, although there's a few things I could improve next time. Like figuring out how to rotate them so they get heated evenly without breaking them. Trouble with gas stoves is that when you turn them down low the heat easily concentrates in the centre of the pan. Not a problem when you're using a wok, but can be an issue with a frying pan.
Then my daughter ate a little bit and spat the rest out. Sigh. There's no pleasing one year olds. My wife liked them, though.
And in the process I discovered the NZ Women's Weekly might actually be quite useful for recipes, and then realised all I need to do to make apple crumble is get some butter and coconut. Yum yum.
Thanks for the tip, I'll definitely be making more of these in the future.
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Hard News: The Huawei Question, in reply to George Darroch,
I rather like foreign policy position taken by others, and one NZ pretended to take for just a couple of years, of having “many friends and no enemies”, or at the very least minor-power neutrality.
Absolutely agreed.
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Hard News: One man’s Meat Puppets is…, in reply to Hebe,
And Tiki Taane is soo powerful here
Tiki Taane was a name I learned from a CD my parents gave me. I did a little looking around, and, well, I hope he's getting his share of the advertising revenue (vids may be geoblocked to those from IPR respecting IP addresses), but I did find Tangaroa to be very powerful, indeed. No idea if that's the song you're referring to, cos I just can't see anything Youtube.
I suspect I may have met the guy who uploaded 3 of those 4 Tiki Taane vids in a pub in Tianjin a few times... He's put a few other Aotearoan music vids on Youku, too.
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Hard News: One man’s Meat Puppets is…, in reply to Russell Brown,
Prefacing any genre with the world "Christian" just seems to not work out.
I seem to remember a Cliff Richard song (I was a fan at a certain stage of my life) entitled Why does the Devil have all the good music?. It's a good question.
But as plenty of others, including yourself, have pointed out, an awful lot of Church music actually is really good. It's just the modern pop, rock, etc forms that fall short.