Posts by Joe Wylie
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'bloody ungrateful little sods, we fought and died for this so you bloody well better keep on with it'.
Man on train: Don't take that tone with me, young man. I fought the war for your sort.
Ringo: I bet you're sorry you won.A Hard Day's Night (1964)
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He and his writing team sentimentalised the wonderful ending to Tolkien’s trilogy, they made an overblown King Kong and God knows what they’ll do to the Hobbit.
No argument there, but they did mercifully spare their audiences from that utter titan of twee, Tom Bombadil.
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His blatant foaminess made people accusing our conversations of bias even more ludicrous.
So it's a form of address now, as in Your Esteemed Excellency. Nice.
Ladies and gentlemen, please be upstanding for . . . His Blatant Foaminess. -
They're all dead now...
I spent 3 months in Nepal in 1975, arriving in early May, less than five weeks after Louise and Belinda Hillary's deaths in the plane crash of 31/3/1975. I recall a number of stories, from those locals who claimed to know, of how emotionally devastated Edmund Hillary had been when he arrived at the crash site. There was a real sense of shared grief and sympathy for someone who'd been seen locally as somehow a bit larger than life.
Just more details that go towards making up the total picture.
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I always make a special point of lingering by the otters at the Wellington Zoo. They project cheerful, eager energy and good nature, even if they are vicious little buggers with teeth like razors and rancid fish-stink
I believe those particular "vicious little buggers" are asian claweds. Many years ago when I visited the marvellous Koo Kongsi in Penang I noticed a young Chinese girl playing with a sleek grey cat in the courtyard. I didn't pay much attention until it struck me that "puss" had an unusually thick tail. Sure enough it was an otter. She - for such I was assured she was - was friendly enough, though she clamped my fingers in her mouth in playful fashion, and could probably have chomped clear through them if she'd chosen. As it was she didn't even break the skin. Always a privilege to meet an otter.
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. . . there was certainly no draft in Canada, nor any generation gap to speak of, as the generation that fought in the WW2 - or Korea - in Canada tended to be as anti war as their boomer offspring.
The mood in post-WW2 NZ was very pro-military. The 1949 Labour Government's referendum on conscription resulted in 77.9% in favour. Compulsory military training was abolished by Labour in 1958, and reinstated by National in 1960.
. I was not aware so many NZers were drafted into the war in Vietnam (I had thought the soldiers from here were either career soldiers or volunteers)
All NZ forces in Vietnam were volunteers. While conscription existed it was only for an initial three months of training, followed by three weeks part-time training for another three years. The only way a New Zealand citizen could be sent to Vietnam as a conscript was to be resident in Australia at the time of their 20th birthday. Once you turned 21 it was safe to visit the fatal shore.
In NZ you could register as a conscientious objector, and if your birthday came up in the lottery you got to argue your case before a tribunal. A pacifist one-legged WW1 veteran from Wellington kindly made himself available to provide support for those who wished it on these occasions.
Information about who registered as a conscientious objector back then is a matter of public record in NZ. All you have to do is enter a name into the search facility at Archives NZ's Archway site, and the link to their record will be displayed.
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beer and crisps for breakfast
Once a roadie, always a roadie. :- )
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Russell, I'd like to know what it is that you think we might have lost.
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. . . far fewer Boomers than Gen-Xers got to go to university at all.
It was a time, though, when you could pretty much embark on a career simply by demonstrating a willingness to learn on the job. By the early 90s you needed a qualification to work in a day care centre, which of course wasn't necessarily a bad thing, except where it discriminated against some excellent carers who'd never achieve academically.
Could Phillip Adams, who never attended university, distinguish himself today without a degree in mass communications or media studies? How about Denis Welch or Russell Brown?
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Thanks Sofie. About those sorts of war stories - they're never told by the people themselves, about themselves, it's always something you'll hear from one or more of their comrades, as if they have to tell while they're still able. And it's never a boast, more a kind of confession. People who've seen more than they can bear don't seem to have any appetite left for bravado.