Posts by Richard Llewellyn
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Che/Tom
Well, just a little crazy....
But what I was trying to say is, yep I think I have a bit of an idea what urban sprawl is, but surely it cannot (and will not) continue indefinately, for a whole bunch of good economic and environmental reasons, and that smart developers will (and some already do) recognise this.
If that (admittedly long bow) is right, then surely the longterm future of unrestricted urban development is the opposite of sprawl/uniformity. Ergo, diversity and intensity.
Ergo, a bunch of different views in the future on what constitutes the 'Kiwi Way'.
Or is this just wishful thinking?
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Tom,
If the 'Kiwi Way' of the future features unrestricted urban development, won't that mean more diversity rather than less?
Assuming that urban sprawl is unsustainable economically and environmentally, and that forecasted population growth in NZ does in fact happen, won't urban development change to reflect the needs of a changing community, rather than a political will to return to the 1950's?
I guess my question is, who decides what the Kiwi Way is?
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I didn't have much of a problem with the content of the JK speech (John Howard lite), but jeez, can't the best speech-writers that the Nats have to offer come up with something a little catchier than 'The Kiwi Way'?
(Shrug) 'Its just the Kiwi Way, innit'.
Sounds less like a description of national identity/aspiration and more of an excuse.
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Che
I've also had the (mis)fortune of attending a Millwall footy game when the other team (Crystal Palace) had the likes of Ian Wright, Paul Parker, and Mark Bright in their ranks, and gazing in fear and wonder at more veins standing out on more shiny foreheads in the crowd than you could possibly believe.
I also remember hearing an Old Firm crowd singing 'could you go a chicken supper Bobby Sands, could you go a chicken supper, go a chicken supper ... anyway you get the drift
Alternatively, I've also seen little old ladies foaming at the mouth while screaming the most vile abuse at Tony Lockett when he was playing at St Kilda for man-handling their teams fullbacks.
I guess the point is, part of the attraction of sport the world over is the fury and the passion, the problem is, when that fury and passion crosses some reasonable line (for purposes of argument I'll argue that race, religion, nationality, and family should be the 'line')
Is NZ really that different? - dunno
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RB
The NSL 'de-ethnicising' was an interesting case study. David Hill was brought in as a top business-man in the 1990's to make Australian soccer the biggest sport in the country (he was a decade ahead of John O'Neill but was given a similar brief).
He concluded, quite reasonably, that one of the biggest obstacles to 'mainstream' spectator and media acceptance of Australian soccer, or 'wog-ball' as it was so delightfully known then, is that it was perceived as a thin excuse for minority ethnic warfare, entrenched in Australia over decades by the immigrants who built the football clubs up from scratch.
I can vouch first-hand for that, if you were not the 'right' ethnicity at a home game for one of the Sydney teams, then you were clearly made to feel less than welcome (jeering, swearing, throwing of bottles etc). Hills rationale was that it should be about the football and the club, not about the flag, but it was a pretty major cultural change that has taken a long time.
While it can now be seen as a pretty brave move and helped bring long-term results (as evidenced at last world cup), David Hill didn't survive for long, the 'old-school' ethnic rivalries banding together at the first available opportunity to force him out.
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I was in Sydney recently and saw ex Midnight Oils frontman and future Australian PM Peter Garrett speak, extremely eloquently, about the Howard government obsession with owning the debate on what is, and what isn't, 'Australian', to the detriment of anyone outside their narrow definition (I was thinking of 'mainstream NZ' but thats a different story).
Agree with RB that BDO promoters gave Howard a free kick which he gleefully took.
Loved the Beast '50 most loathsome people', almost spat my coffee on the Ann Coulter one.
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Did anyone else catch Comical Braces in his press conference last night?
Pure comedy gold. He is in complete denial.
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To bat for my life? - I'd pick Dan Vettori at the moment, but its a good question
I wish I could say Mike Hussey. I find it interesting that cricket, unlike most of the international football codes, does not have a tradition of nationality hopping (with the notable exception of South Africans moving to England).
If only the likes of Bevan, Hussey, Jacques, Hodges, Symonds etc could have been tempted to move to NZ and switch allegiance.
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And Big Mer, like his Australian counterpart Mr Bray, while not always actively cheerleading, too frequently falls into the mind-set of describing the game as a function of one team only.
So for Gordo a Bledisloe Cup game is all about Australia either defending well or attacking well. Likewise Muzza only ever seems to talk about the AB's during a game, except when he is patronising the opposition.
Maybe their employers direct them to speak to a domestic audience, but one would think a discerning listener wants to hear a genuine contest described as such.
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Saint Gilly, aka "The Man who Walks"
Interesting guy, by many inside accounts a very nice and level-headed bloke, and beloved by Aussie cricket media because he usually has an interesting opinion and he is willing to share it rather than trot out the usual cliches.
But there is a but, in the disconnect between his attitude to walking when batting, and his attitude to appealing when fielding, be it the ridiculous appeal, or the blithely taken non-catch. As we have seen.
Despite the obvious differences in national character, I think there are many parallels between Aussie cricket and NZ rugby, where the long term excellence and dominance of a single country has ingrained into their sports culture some of the less attractive aspects of sport, such as; being sore losers, having a thin-skin to criticism, unbearably patronising commentators and media, a myopic attitude to individual games or even the longer term interests of the global game, unnaturally high expectations of success from the public, a perception from other countries that the dominant country gets the rub of the green etc etc.