Posts by Christopher Dempsey
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At $23million for 'upgrades' around Eden Park, plus a few million more in associated works, it bloody well is about the art versus sport.
Though, to be fair, $3m of that is for two Billy Apple in situ artworks.
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LATE was great (thanks Russell for the late tickets and thanks to whomever couldn't use them!).
Little known fact: the highest rating telly show in Sweden for the last few years or so is the Donald Duck Christmas Special Show. Who knew?
I enjoyed the discussion which boiled down to academic give the public something good versus private capitalist give the public what they want. Great lines and great discussion.
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There are very clear messages everywhere round Big O - dogs welcome but MUST be on a leash at all times...so, FJG DoC gets dozens of messages a week about free-roaming dogs?
People can be really really stupid - and selfish-
Like the time a woman in a boat decided her weasel and ferrets needed a run, on the beach, on Great Barrier Island. I try very hard not to generalise, but I suspect she was from Glenfield with a sense of entitlement larger than the hundreds of people and their hours of work over many years in securing both Little Barrier and Great Barrier against pests.
In lots of ways and in many parts of the country, the sense of protecting our bush, our birds, our native fauna is becoming larger than the right to have an animal, dog or cat.
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Was thinking of Grey Power.
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Fascinating discussion. I actually wrote a bit last night but deleted it all; I realise now that television is emotion, we get tied up in it to a degree that perhaps Martians from Mars would be mystified by. Television is emotional, and it is hard to write about emotions in this format (web notes appended to a blog post).
We all could reel off a list of programs that we liked at different times of our lives; the time when friends and I would gather (ironically) religiously, at someones place to watch Queer as Folk (There's now't so queer as folk). We gathered around to watch Princess Diana's funeral, and told each other about amazing programs, like Six Feet Under, Angels in America, or The Sopranos (all made by HBO, note). It's a cultural thing, a shared cultural thing. The best programs reflect culture back to us, so we watch, spellbound and fascinated, and the rest is annoying fluff and dross.
TV is one of a range of sources we go to for our emotional satisfaction. Some get it from art galleries, others find it in the pub listening to poetry or an Irish jig. Albeit, TV has been the dominant place and source, so easy! Just turn it on and watch. That dominance, as many note, is waning, and it's not hard to understand why.
When things decompose, they fracture into lots of smaller bits; targeted channels, Youtube, Freeview etc. The problem is the space into which they fracture remains the same - 24hours/7 days.
Which explains why, not having experienced Sky to any great degree, that when I was able to while babysitting over winter several years ago, disappointingly I found that the History and Documentary channels repeated their episodes and often. I felt somewhat cheated, a channel is supposed to offer up a never ending cornucopia of new stuff, new images, new storylines. These channels couldn't for whatever reason. They couldn't fill that space that was previously occupied by TV1, which aggregated and compiled lots of bits together to fill that space.
Anyway, there's heaps to say, and undoubtedly many here will contribute their bit, which I look forward to seeing.
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However it would be interesting to see a study... one of my relatives is in one of the very top bands, the one to the very right hand side. She reluctantly voted National in the last election more because Labour had done its dash, otherwise she was/is a happy Labour voter.
The study, if one were to establish it, could investigate the thesis that income and voting preferences are linked so as a persons income rises their voting preferences switch from generally a redistributive party to a non-redistributive party. For the thesis to hold, the converse would need to be true; as a persons income falls, their voting preferences switch.
I'm sure there is a study out there... I'll have a hunt later on today (as I study at uni and can access journal articles).
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Nothing changes an Alliance/Labour voter into a National/Act voter faster than a pay increase.
That transition has been seen to take as little as the time it takes to get a hair cut.
I'm sure this is a joke, with some inside meaning I'm not aware of.
However it would be interesting to see a study... one of my relatives is in one of the very top bands, the one to the very right hand side. She reluctantly voted National in the last election more because Labour had done its dash, otherwise she was/is a happy Labour voter.
It's more a mindset; taxes helps others less fortunate, and life is all the better for that.
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Thanks for sharing your story David, appreciated. I am sorry about your loss. It's lovely that you had one last memory of your gran to cherish.
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It's knowledge, bro.
Thanks for the tip regarding avoiding cats and averting my allergy. I shall try out your tip next time I'm faced with a cat; eyes wide and staring at the cat.
Fiercely independent it would sleep in one of two places; the laundry room cupboard or in my bed at night at my feet. It would jump up and half asleep I'd lift the covers so it could crawl down to my feet... weird.
I only realised I called the cat 'it' because we didn't know what sex it was.
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Will make a beeline for the lap of whoever in the house is most unlikely to want him
Isn't this a truism when it comes to cats? :)
I've never understood how they know in a group of people which one is the allergic one, and why they do it?