Posts by Richard Grevers
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Hard News: Friday Music: Little, but…, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
That’s not right, it’s not Knott, but Nott!
Really - I'm a Nott on my birth mother's side (from Australia though).
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There's also Mihirangi, who's been a favourite of mine long before the rest of the country discovered her via TV.
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The males in our household are earlybirds, the females night-owls. Parenthood put an end to my solid sleep-through times, now I awaken quickly at any sound that might be a child. Consequently I seem to have lost my very strong body-clock which used to jolt me awake at the same time (to the minute) for months at a time. I don't mind this, as anything which required an earlier-than-body-clock start (particularly travel) weighed on my mind so much that I had a sleepless night.
In winter, I usually just beat the alarm (6.15) up, but now I find I'm waking with the light (or with the roosters, who often beat dawn by an hour) - thank gawd for daylight time!For some time now I've found it impossible to work in the evening - I just nod off repeatedly. I think it's something to do with sitting down, because if I'm standing/moving about I'm fine. We've christened the sofas "the somnulent sofas of doom", because sitting on them seems to put paid to any planned achievements for the evening - and since the kids' bedtimes are inching later we're resenting the loss of "alone together" time in the evening. In theory I'm getting insufficient sleep (~5.5-6.5 hours), but maybe the solution is a siesta rather than an earlier bedtime. Historically I've never been good at sleeping during the day, however. While I used to read myself to sleep, the eyesight is at the point where reading needs very bright light, and our bedroom is not set up for that.
I'm definitely not a good sleeper away from my own bed (and I used to do tours for a month at a time!)
Our 11 year old daughter has suffered from insomnia for a couple of years. We've developed bedtime routines (meditation etc) and she uses a little pillow containing lavender and hop flowers - the trick is to get it out from under her pillow before you want her to wake up!
With regards to caffeine, I've heard say that an evening coffee isn't a problem, but an afternoon one is.
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Randall Munroe's take on it...
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Hard News: On Telly, Telly Off, in reply to anth,
Ok, I won't mention that we haven't watched broadcast TV for 4 years then.
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Hard News: In the red zone, in reply to Just thinking,
I see Red Zoning as a positive response in broad terms to the Earth Quakes and wonder if Sea Level rise should not be factored into the rebuild? It has been mentioned before and if we’re going to address it, now is the time to do so.
Back in the 1980s I saw (while working for the then Riccarton Borough) the "Classified Info" map of 1m sea level rise inundation of Chch. With the exception of the Ferrymead area, it seems to match the main Red Zone pretty closely.
The end of the Brighton Spit has moved hundreds of metres over the 150 years humans have been photographing it. There are houses built on "land" which was sea-bed as recently as 1970. Basically, development should never have been allowed on the last km or two. I think the Council had an out by a special clause that regarded all buildings there as "relocatable".
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Hard News: In the red zone, in reply to Hebe,
making massive decisions like whether to repair the Town Hall
And most of the people who used to use the James Hay Theatre (as technicians and performers) say that it shouldn't be repaired as it was a pig of a place to work. It was the one Chch theatre I never really worked in, but I heard gripes all the time.
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Hard News: U: It's about the combos, in reply to bob daktari,
The Civilian: Stuff.co.nz to Introduce stuff1 with hour delay - kinda says it all.
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We got married after several years, but my wife didn't want to change her name yet again (second marriage) so uses her maiden name. Even though I signed school enrolment forms with my own name I started getting mail addressed to Richard White.
We have friends who decided to use the father's surname for child one, mother's for child 2 etc. (they stopped at two sons).
I think the most sensible solution for double-barrelled breeding with double-barrelled is to combine half of each parent's name in the most aesthetically pleasing combination.
Not everyone thinks about it deeply enough, though: I have heard of Plummer + Butt -> Plummer-Butt (!) -
Stages look to have similar relationships and spread as the 6 WOMAD ones (3 used at a time), although the two smaller ones are a little more pointed-at-each-other than any of the brooklands ones. At WOMAD the only real interference I've noticed was once, with wind carry of sound from a particularly loud band on the Brooklands stage to a quiet act on the Gables stage.
If you go to the lake stage at BDO, get near the front!
