Posts by Christopher Dempsey
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Wearing my personal private citizen hat, I see the swimming pool entry fee subsidy in terms of the following; if it's ok for for Key and Binglish to hike GST, meaning that them poor brown folk pay just that little bit more proportionately, and bring the tax rate down for the rich white folk, meaning that they pay less in tax, then I think it ok to whack a few extra dollars on the rates bill for the Eastern Suburbs to pay for the entry fee for poor brown folk who will in all likelihood be using the pools. Bonus - them poor brown folk learn to swim, saving health expenditure dollars.
For those challenged, please note the slight sarcasm. Doffing said hat.
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I've taken to taking jeans/pants, shoes/socks, and a long sleeved shirt or jacket when going out to friends places in the evening and if I know there'll be some outside activity. Come dusk, I excuse myself and change, and avoid the midges... makes for a miles better event for me. :)
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I loved Oamaru when I was there a few years ago travelling around with my partner... I really liked the old part. The best was discovering the gentleman who still makes marbled paper covered dairies by hand, and an interesting whiskey shop in another building, selling remnants of NZ made whiskey that was distilled in Dunedin.
The gentleman in the paper shop dressed entirely in Victorian clothes - not a modern thing on him, and we joined him and his wife for elevenses - she equally in Victorian clothes, and operating a fabric shop. They were, no surprise, refugees from Auckland.
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Labour, Green or deeply pink it would be politic of a smart party to invite the Mayor of 1/3rd of the country to their opening simply because as National is finding out, having one mayor speak for 1.3m is a good thing for us all, and deeply discomforting for who-ever is warming the benches in Wellington.
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And may I offer my experience of deleting music?
The first year architecture students where I work (School Architecture and Planning - I lecture p/t in planning) had an assignment to build a structure 8m high on a 4m square footprint (or something like that).
One group of young women hit upon the idea of re-purposing the tape inside tapes. You know, the old fashioned things that we played in tape recorders. Before CD's came along.
The got busy and managed to accumulate quite alot of tapes, and one day preceded to well, un-spool the tape. Walking past as they were doing it I had a heart leap as I thought (forgetting momentarily about their assignment) about how long it would take to 'wind' tapes back onto their spools using pencils. I had to laugh, and I told them about my visceral reaction to their 'abuse' of the tapes. I told them that in my day tapes were the thing, and one didn't, you know, treat them that way - they held repositories of memories to a whole generation - that tapes, you know, were precious small things of music and good times for lots of people.
The young these days are very polite.
And their use of the tape material? Quite sublime. An 8m high column of individual tape strands - hundreds of them. At the SKYRISE event on Saturday night I walked through this column. Very sensual. Who knew? The tactile nature was astonishing. But very poignant as well as I thought of all that music.
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The top post on Andrew's site has me all giddy: although many original masters have been lost or erased, a compilation of reworked classic 80s Chicago house tunes is being prepared for release in January by DJ History. I'll buy that for whatever music costs these days.
I'll buy it as well! Where will it be available?
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And for the record, I reckon Clark would have a) declined to be interviewed by that particular twat and b), if forced for some reason, would have reacted with instant and sharp condemnation of his blatantly racist, stupid and obnoxious comment.
I suspect that Helen would 'own' the interview to a degree that Henry would never make that kind of comment.
Henry is really a professional fourth former who thinks that any other male just like him in appearance is also a PFF, for example, John Key, which is why he was able to ask the question of Key. Band of brothers etc.
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I heard this morning on Morning Report that there is a private company running the Auckland election.
True. Independent Election Services. A private company owned / operated by Dale Ofsoske, who, if he did say
"unfortunately' voting from the North Shore was low while it was high from South Auckland."
has slipped up in his stellar handling of elections, which his company has done for the last few Auckland City Council elections.
There are a number of companies around that provide these services, but I don't know when/how this situation occurred. I'm just grateful that Ofsoke's company is very competent and clean (corruption free) in my experience as candidate.
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I'm pretty sure no-one who frequents PAS needs such reminding, but you need to get your ballot back in the mail this coming Wednesday (6th October) if you want your vote to count.
If for some reason you miss the mail - please hunt down your friendly local librarian, who will receive your ballot with a smile, but this option is only valid til mid-day on voting day, Saturday 9th October.
And a reminder to candidates - all signs, hoardings, posters, billboards etc need to be removed from public view by midnight Friday.
End of public service announcement. Regular programming will commence shortly with TVNZ's new telly game: "Is he or isn't he a New Zealander!"
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I'm glad you find those qualities in Cathy Casey, because I struggle to find them myself, having been in a 'working' relationship with her.