Posts by Russell Brown
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Polity: Protesting too much: responses…, in reply to Sacha,
Because Russell has long supported that party.
It's not even that, really. It's interesting having access to an insider view. And, whether people agree with Rob or not, he generally provides plenty for people to chew over, as is evidenced by the rest of the discussion here.
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Polity: Protesting too much: responses…, in reply to Richard Wain,
Regardless of the merits of whatever Rob says here, he works for Labour. Not exactly non-partisan analysis, is it? If this is a Labour blog, it should be branded as such, or he should blog elsewhere.
Rob does data and strategic work. His main client is the Labour Party. He has blogged for a while on his own site, but I asked him to write some posts here because I was interested in what he had to say.
I’m aware we all know who he is and what he does… doesn’t make giving the guy this space any more right.
Huh? How does it make it "wrong"? I'm not sure you're getting the part about this being, y'know, my website.
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Polity: Protesting too much: responses…, in reply to Rob Salmond,
@Russell: People qualify so long as they’ve had *no* previous post-school education.
Oh. So my three months of part-time study more than 30 years ago would count me out? Hmmm.
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I expect you’ll see real boldness from Labour in those areas. In other areas, I expect you’ll see a bit more caution, though. Labour’s ability to deliver a bold social programme relies on broad public acceptance of Labour’s credibility on the economy, on personal security, and so on.
I think this policy, for all the wild talk about it being a “bribe”, is a cautious one. It’s aligned with Labour’s Future of Work Project and its lifelong-learning principle, but isn’t available to anyone who’d had their three years already. (Is is that? Or is any past tertiary education a disqualifier?)
I gather Labour looked at making it available for people who need to re-learn, but couldn’t credibly cost that, so didn’t go there.
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Just a word from the publisher: I know I said Rob's next post would be on his own blog, but I was away for a few days and kinda dropped the ball on getting his masthead made up. Coming real soon now, promise.
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Hard News: Friday Music: Jean's Laneway, in reply to Jean Hughes,
See the possible Amy Winehouse influence at about 7:09. (not sure how to embed)
Just paste in the URL and nothing else!
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This evening's Checkpoint With John Campbell interview with Helen Kelly. She is amazing.
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Hard News: Friday Music: Jean's Laneway, in reply to Tony P,
Steve Kilbey’s response to criticism of his column.
Really? I thought it was thoughtful and well-written. Is he supposed to pretend to get something he doesn't?
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And just like that, Steve Kilby of The Church listens to Triple J's Top 10.
It's a good read. He likes some of the tunes, but passes thunderous judgement on that bloody Major Lazer tune:
Meaningless machine-age pop that could have been and probably was written by someone’s laptop while they were getting a tattoo of a skull on their calf. “Blow a kiss, fire a gun, we all need someone to lean on!” the song exhorts, reaching new depths of shallowness. Yes folks, that’s a paradox right there, and it’s a lot more interesting than anything you will find in this synthetic turkey.
This song – why bother? You’ve heard it a million times before already.
And like me, he confesses to not really understanding contemporary hip hop.
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Hard News: Friday Music: Jean's Laneway, in reply to Grant McDougall,
Going to gigs when you’re over 40 really is a sobering experience. My mates and I are pretty happy just to stand at the back watching.
Heh. I went down into the orchestra pit for the end of Jamie X's St James show and briefly wondered "Do I look silly doing this? Who cares?"
It is fun discovering / watching new bands / music, but also – and this is something I’m convinced of – music is demographic (for want of a better word).
By that I mean that you end up, rightly or wrongly, judging and comparing new bands to those you were fond of in your youth.I do this with dance music quite a lot ...
You also end up widening your tastes, too. If you’d told me 20 years ago I’d end up dearly loving dub, soul, jazz, country, etc, and struggling with a lot of contemporary pop / rock, I’d have laughed you out the door. (Still can’t abide metal, though…).
I spent some time last week with my Australian nieces, who'd discovered The Edge on the rental car radio and had it on all the time. Being exposed to commercial radio pop wasn't terrible, but it did start to sound very formulaic, even in the context of pop music.
What was interesting was that they seemed to know every song to sing along to – including Broods, who they had no idea were from Auckland ...
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