Posts by Richard Llewellyn
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"Hitchhiking across the King Hussein Bridge from Jordan to Israel is not a good idea. And definitely don't be wearing a Palestinian kheffiyah when you do it."
Heh - similarly, when going the other way, make sure you tell the Jordanian officials that you have just been in the 'Occupied Territories', unless you like sitting in a small hot room for 8 hours.
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Gosh, a good subject Mr Brown. Like most kiwis, there are a lot of different OE stories to tell ...
Going to work in Leicester Square one morning to find all the windows in the building blown in from an IRA bomb. Off to a Covent Garden pub for the day.
The 64 hour bus ride to Lake Toba .... and the faint wafts of church singing on Good Friday from one of the few christian enclaves in Indonesia, reaching us heathen and addled souls hanging on the island.
The fist-fight with the Israeli on the Thai jungle trek who thought that France was well in its right to sink the Rainbow Warrior.
Dahab
Zipolete
Chichicastenango
Edinburgh
Calcutta
Shanghei
Yada yada etcTo paraphrase the guy from Kea I heard speak the other day, the great OE isn't a 'brain drain', its an essential, empowering, positive experience for kiwis, and no politicking should be allowed to claim otherwise.
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Congrats David,
FWIW, If I can pass on anything of my own experience, it would be to keep your back in nice flexible healthy condition, because you will soon have to get used to carrying a lot of stuff - add 'porter' to your list of job titles :)
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"I get a little annoyed when someone feels the need to patronise folks at 'multicultral' gatherings by hideously mispronouncing a simple greeting in a dozen different languages without pausing for breath"
Heh - for some reason this reminds me of a Jeremy Wells sketch from Eating Media Lunch
I always enjoy hearing the stirring bi-lingual rendition of the national anthem at my kids school assembly - brings a lump to the throat. Its a good thing - earnest patriotism is one of the things kiwis don't do as well as our trans-tasman siblings.
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"Australias drive for nuclear energy is the smoke screen by which they seek to hide their ambition to become a regional nuclear power."
Michael, you may or may not be right on that one, I dunno if I want to get into the 'Deputy Sheriff wants real weapons' argument, but there is a much more prosaic reason why nuclear energy is inching its way back onto the public agenda in Australia.
Like most countries, they have rising energy demand, rising energy costs, and dwindling supplies of traditional and 'safe' energy sources. Unlike most countries, they've got a shit-load of the key ingredient for nuclear power, uranium. Its only natural that more decision-makers will start looking longingly at that uranium on cold winter nights ...........
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"panning something can make for awfully entertaining reading."
Too true, the Mr Cranky dissection of 'I Am Sam" made me snort, chortle and guffaw.
For quality film criticism, I can't go past James Berardinelli of Reelviews. Best film critic I've read bar none.
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Haydn - "Go quite nicely with this story about dumb journo questions (present company excluded DC and Alan)."
Heh - that reminds me of the methods Gordon Strachan uses to deal with stupid questions (you've probably seen them before)
Reporter: There goes your unbeaten run. Can you take it?
Strachan: No, I'm just going to crumble like a wreck. I'll go home, become an alcoholic and maybe jump off a bridge. -
"even when Neil Kinnock's successor, John Smith, died suddenly, it was far from evident that Blair would come through and take the leadership contest from Brown."
A minor correction RB, but Gordon Brown didn't actually contest the leadership election after the sudden death of John Smith, it was a three horse race between Blair, Prescott and Margaret Beckett.
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Don - I watched John Smith in action a few times as well, and I was always impressed with him.
I was really looking forward to having Scotsman in charge, as well as a world-leader called 'John Smith'. It would have been a sub-editors dream.
If it wasn't for his dodgy ticker, the Blair era may never have happened.
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"perhaps Helen needs to stand-down so Labour can have a fresher less cranky look"
While I wouldn't be writing any obits for Helen just yet, the biggest problem Labour faces is the genuine lack of an alternative leader - maybe I'm missing someone obvious, but is anyone standing out as a leader-in-waiting?
Slight change of topic, I loved the recent venomous put-down of perennial bridesmaid Peter Costello by ex-PM Paul Keating, 'he's all tip and no ice-berg'. Nice.