Posts by Simon Grigg
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Hard News: Winning the RWC: it's complicated, in reply to webweaver,
I was hoping somebody would post something like this. Thank you.
A few beers doesn't turn me or most people I know into a thug.
I don't hit people when drunk (which is such an irregular event that I can count the times in recent decades on my fingers) and have never felt the urge to do so. Neither do I rape, abuse or need to be subdued.
Others do, but they do it when sober too, or at least have the latent ability to do so. I've had to deal with violent drunks quite a few times over the years and mostly they're the sort of people who are likely to be somewhat aggressive, or dysfunctional in other ways, when sober.
We are an incredibly violent society for whatever reason - scarily so. Alcohol may aggravate this but it's hardy the root cause.
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Hard News: Winning the RWC: it's complicated, in reply to Emma Hart,
Now, I've talked a lot about sex, about kink, and gay rights, and feminism, and I have NEVER had anything close to the torrent of abuse I took for saying that. I'd get up in the morning, peek at my @replies, see it was still going, and close them up again.
It goes both ways. I don't like or enjoy rugby. Mostly the dislike comes from the fact I was forced to play it at school, was tall for my age and good at it I was told. I ended up in the 2nd 15 of a school with a rugby reputation but opted out by simply not turning up to practises because I was sick of being brutalised and being instructed to brutalise other people. And then told it was a skill.
I blocked #rwc and #rwc2011 from my twitter stream and it cut down the tweets I had no interest in.
That said, I have no problem with others enjoying or watching it (and I even watched a game in Auckland with friends although found little to change my earlier opinion).
Arriving back in Auckland week one of the tournament was quite surreal. Coming from a region (Asia) where you could be forgiven for not knowing the event was on - the nearby official RWC bar in BKK was showing soccer on opening night - it was overwhelming and in a way quite wonderful. The flags and the joy on the street was quite something. Everywhere you encountered kids buzzing out on it all.
I spent a few days looking at the facilities and work done and was hugely impressed by some (Wynyard 1/4 and the general viaduct area) and not so by others (the awfulness of The Cloud). I did the same in Wellington - the Wharf area was well cool - and in both places I thought things like the NZ on Screen displays were fantastic.
However - and it's a big however - despite making a point of not advancing my lack of passion for the game unless asked I repeatedly found myself in various less than comfortable situations.
Twice I was told I wasn't a real New Zealander. Once, very aggressively, in a bar in Wellington waiting for a friend, I was called a 'fag' when I innocently responded to a question.
A cab driver in Wellington refused to communicate with me after I told him I had no idea who was playing that weekend.
Talking to others, I know this sort if thing is not uncommon.
Given that I really only expressed my disinterest to about a dozen or so people I didn't know well, and only did so after being asked a question I wasn't willing to lie in response to, that's pretty disheartening and perhaps indicates a side of the national character that has also been accentuated by these games.
That feeling in the first week back had evaporated by week three and I was glad to be on a plane again.
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80s British soul funk by the likes of Maze
From San Francisco if we are talking the Frankie Beverley led band.
So, assuming an average gate of 30,000 and 20 opportunities for music in a match, then every time NZ score a try and they play "why does love do this to me", Jordan Luck makes $15.
He'd make more as he gets a fee for the recording as well (or at least a cut of that). Given that the song is being used everywhere (including on the current Air NZ international safety video) I suspect the IRB have played a fairly hefty blanket figure beyond standard performance royalties.
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Hard News: Where are the foreigners?!, in reply to Danielle,
Mexican Specialities in Ellerslie or bust!
hell yes.....
Sitting in the awfulness of Macau airport craving it now.
Ta Danielle.
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Hard News: About Occupy Wall Street, in reply to DexterX,
The isolation I was referring to was the possible breakdown of extended family relationships in favour fo the pursuit of material gain.
Ok, gotcha and I'm with you on that. I have wondered how the dispersal of the rural family unit will change China in the decades to come. I guess Chris is a better voice on that than we are.
Although I'd think that 150 years of countless wars, civil wars, famines, cultural revolution, communisation etc would perhaps have disrupted the family and village unit as much if not more than the ascent of western styled materialism. Maybe, though, it did exactly the opposite.
I've often looked at very old people in China and pondered just what they might have seen across their long years. Much of it is likely beyond my comprehension.
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Hard News: Where are the foreigners?!, in reply to Martin Lindberg,
I've been looking for a decent szechuan place in AKL. Anyone have any recommendations?
+1
And a Hunannese place. Anyone?
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Hard News: Where are the foreigners?!, in reply to Martin Lindberg,
I saw that photo-food-blog you linked to a while ago about South Thai/Indian crossover food
That was my wife Brigid's blog. She doesn't post as often as she wants to but the reaction is always the same: It makes people very hungry.
I get to fly back to that food tonight (and to her). It's a wonderful thing.
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Hard News: About Occupy Wall Street, in reply to Russell Brown,
Haiti certainly hasn't been a barrel of laughs.
Nor much of Central America.
But let's not let the Castros off the hook that easily
Yep. I'm uncomfortable as hell with the notion that Fidel gets some sort of a pass just because he's done certain things well. The Cuban exiles in Florida though seem to be - and this is a broad generalisation - an odious bunch that the nation is well rid of.
Che, too, was less of a hero than a million wall posters from the 1960s would have you believe.
Vietnam is another - their rights history is appalling even when balanced against the huge advances they've made in other ways.
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Hard News: Where are the foreigners?!, in reply to JacksonP,
When we lived nearby we used to frequent Sages in Pt Chev shops
Just changed owners I'm told - heard very good things which has caused me to look hungrily that way as I've driven past more than one - but it may well have to wait until I'm back in town.
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Hard News: About Occupy Wall Street, in reply to Rich Lock,
(see also: Africa)
And Malaysia/Singapore and Indonesia - divided in 1820 by a ruler in Whitehall so that the Dutch and the Brits could stop fighting and exploit the spoils.
Ironic when one considers that hating Malaysia is a national obsession these days in Indonesia - they are essentially the same place racially, linguistically and culturally.