Posts by Rich Lock
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Hard News: Grokking things by being places, in reply to Matthew Poole,
Rather depressing that we allow people like that to vote
Yes. People who can't spell 'monkeys' correctly should be disenfranchised. It may sound harsh, but trust me, it's the only way to get through to these people and Stop Plurality Abuse.
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Hard News: Criminalising Journalism, in reply to Russell Brown,
Not there again today.Good.
As I was flicking through the dial
I heard a man who was truly vile
He wasn’t there again today
Oh, how I wish he’d go awayWhen I listened to my set at three
The man was waiting there for me
But when I flicked around the dial
I couldn’t hear him there at all!
Go away, go away, don’t you come back any more!
Go away, go away, and please don’t slam the doorLast night I heard upon the tube
A little man who was really rude
He wasn’t there again today
Oh, how I wish he’d go away -
8) Which party from literature would you most like to have attended?
Any one in any Iain Banks novel. Or any Iain M. Banks novel. Culture or otherwise.
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Muse: Friday Fluff: Shelf Life, in reply to Kyle Matthews,
Such a romantic click flick...
Napalm Pour L'Homme: because chicks love the smell of it in the morning.
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Hard News: A week being a long time in politics, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
what no Jabber waka
oar Kate er pillar
or Tweedle twins?
(Bennett n Tolley?)
Peter Dunne would
make a great White Rarebit...
...nonetheless, very nice work Mr Lock...Given that the original is supposed to be a surreal fantastical farce, the scary thing was how little the original text needed changing.
There were a whole bunch of other characters who could easily have made an appearance, as you suggest. But I thought I'd leave Goff conspicuous by his complete absence.
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Alice in Voterland: A farce in a seemly endless number of episodes.
Chapter VIIThere was a table set out under a tree in front of the house, and the March Currency Trader and the Bankster were having tea at it: a Donmouse was sitting between them, fast asleep, and the other two were using it as a cushion, resting their elbows on it, and talking over its head. `Very uncomfortable for the Donmouse,' thought Alice; `only, as it's asleep, I suppose it doesn't mind.'
The table was a large one, but the three were all crowded together at one corner of it: `No room! No room!' they cried out when they saw Alice and the reporters coming. `There's plenty of room!' said Alice indignantly, and she sat down in a large arm-chair at one end of the table. The reporters waited the other side of the looking-glass.
`Have some economic recovery,' the March Currency Trader said in an encouraging tone.
Alice looked all round the table, but there was nothing on it but tea. `I don't see any recovery,' she remarked.
`There isn't any,' said the March Currency Trader.
`Then it wasn't very civil of you to offer it,' said Alice angrily.
`It wasn't very civil of you to sit down without being invited,' said the March Currency Trader.
`I didn't know it was your table,' said Alice; `it's laid for a great many more than three.'
`The others are Maori beneficiaries and don’t deserve to sit at our table,' said the Bankster. He had been looking at Alice for some time with great curiosity, and this was his first speech.
`You should learn not to make personal remarks,' Alice said with some severity; `it's very rude.'
The Bankster opened his eyes very wide on hearing this; but all he said was, `How will cutting taxes for the rich and raising the minimum wage stifle economic recovery?'
`Come, we shall have some fun now!' thought Alice. `I'm glad they've begun asking riddles.--I believe I can guess that,' she added aloud.
`Do you mean that you think you can find out the answer to it?' said the March Currency Trader.
`Exactly so,' said Alice.
`Then you should tell us,' the March Currency Trader went on.
`I do,' Alice hastily replied; `at least--at least I mean what I say--that's the same thing, you know.'
`Not the same thing a bit!' said the Bankster, and here the conversation dropped, and the party sat silent for a minute, while Alice thought over all she could remember about tax cuts and other policies, which wasn't much.
The Bankster was the first to break the silence. `What day of the month is the election?' he said, turning to Alice: he had taken a digital recorder from the table, and was looking at it uneasily, shaking it every now and then, and holding it to his ear.
Alice considered a little, and then said `The 19th.'
`Two days wrong!' sighed the Bankster. `I told you butter wouldn't suit the works!' he added looking angrily at the March Currency Trader.
`It was the best butter,' the March Currency Trader replied, `One of our finest exports. No need to invest in science and technology when we can rely on our primary exports forever.'
`Have you guessed the riddle yet?' the Bankster said, turning to Alice again.
`No, I give it up,' Alice replied: `what's the answer?'
`I haven't the slightest idea,' said the Bankster.
`Nor I,' said the March Currency Trader.
`Suppose we change the subject,' the March Currency Trader interrupted, yawning. `I'm getting tired of this. I vote that after the election, the Bankster should lead the ACT Party, and I should have unbridled power.'
`I'm afraid I don't want to know that!' said Alice, rather alarmed at the proposal.
The Bankster and the March Currency Trader went `Sh! sh!'
The Donmouse slowly opened his eyes. `I wasn't asleep,' he said in a hoarse, feeble voice: `I heard every word you fellows were saying.'
`Take some more economic recovery,' the March Currency Trader said to Alice, very earnestly.
`I've had nothing yet,' Alice replied in an offended tone, `so I can't take more.'
`You mean you can't take less,' said the Bankster: `it's very easy to take more than nothing.'
`Nobody asked your opinion,' said Alice.
`Who's making personal remarks now?' the Bankster asked triumphantly.
Alice did not quite know what to say to this. `Really, now you ask me,' said Alice, very much confused, `I don't think--'
`Then you shouldn't talk,' said the Bankster.
This piece of rudeness was more than Alice could bear: she got up in great disgust, and walked off; the Donmouse fell asleep instantly, and neither of the others took the least notice of her going, though she looked back once or twice, half hoping that they would call after her: the last time she saw them, they were trying to put the Donmouse into the teapot.
`At any rate I'll never go there again!' said Alice `It's the stupidest tea-party I ever was at in all my life!'.
As she picked her way through the wood, she was a little startled by seeing a Cheshire Winston sitting on a bough of a tree a few yards off.
The Winston only grinned when it saw Alice. It looked good-natured, she thought: still it had very long claws, a great many teeth, and an extremely fine head of hair, so she felt that it ought to be treated with respect.
`Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to vote from here?'
`That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,' said the Winston.
`I don't much care where--' said Alice.
`Then it doesn't matter which way you go,' said the Winston.
`--so long as I get somewhere,' Alice added as an explanation.
`Oh, you're sure to do that,' said the Winston, `if you only walk long enough. Do you play croquet with Queen Brownlee to-day?'
`I should like it very much,' said Alice, `but I haven't been invited yet.'
`You'll see me there,' said the Winston, and vanished, beginning with the end of the tail, and ending with the bouffant hair, which remained some time after the rest of it had gone.
` I wish you wouldn't keep appearing and vanishing so suddenly: you make one quite giddy.' said Alice, and walked on through the woods.
Presently, she came to a garden. A large law-tree stood near the entrance of the garden: the tops growing on it were stationary, but there were three reporters at it, busily spinning them. Alice thought this a very curious thing, and she went nearer to watch them, and just as she came up to them she heard one of them say, `Look out now, ThreeNews!
`I couldn't help it,' said One, in a sulky tone; `Media Seven jogged my elbow.'
On which Seven looked up and said, `That's right, One! Always lay the blame on others!'
`You'd better not talk!' said One. `I heard Queen Brownlee say only yesterday you deserved to be beheaded!'
`What for?' said the one who had spoken first.
`That's none of your business, Three!' said Seven.
`Yes, it is his business!' said One, `and I'll tell him--it was for attempting to hold to government to account and to speak truth to power.
Seven flung down his brush, and had just begun `Well, of all the unjust things--' when his eye chanced to fall upon Alice, as she stood watching them, and he checked himself suddenly: the others looked round also, and all of them bowed low.
`Would you tell me,' said Alice, a little timidly, `why you are spinning?'
One and Three said nothing, but looked at Seven. Seven began in a low voice, `Why the fact is, you see, Miss, that ought to have been private conversation, and we put a recording device in by mistake; and if Queen Brownlee was to find it out, we should all have our heads cut off, you know. So you see, Miss, we're doing our best, afore she comes, to--' At this moment One, who had been anxiously looking across the garden, called out `The Queen! The Queen!' and the three reporters instantly threw themselves flat upon their faces. There was a sound of many footsteps, and Alice looked round, eager to see the Queen.
‘Who are these?' said the Queen, pointing to the three reporters who were lying on their faces. `Reporters' said Alice.'
The Queen turned crimson with fury, and, after glaring at her for a moment like a wild beast, screamed `Off with their heads! Off with their heads! Off with their heads! Off--'
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Hard News: Criminalising Journalism, in reply to 3410,
Tension over "Tea Gate" boiled over through Radio Live airwaves when shock jock Michael Laws told listeners to kill journalists.
Wonder what Mikey puts on his forms under occupation if it isn't 'Journalist'?
Talk about yer classic psychological self-hatred projection...
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11) What book would you give to a lover?
I once gave a lover a copy of Michael Herr's Dispatches.
This was shortly after our first date, which was a big-screen showing of 'Apocalypse Now'.
So how did that one work out for me? Reader, I married her.
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Hard News: A week being a long time in politics, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
If trademe forums had existed (did it?) a few weeks before the 2002 election, you'd probably have found a preponderance of rightwingers moaning on about helengrad and the like.
There was a popular NZ forum I used to hang around on for a period of a few years which happened to coincide with both the 2005 and 2008 elections. I used to play a variation on Godwin: how many posts would it take for an entirely unrelated subject to attact a post decrying PC gone mad and the KKKlarke government in Helengrad.
Someone would start a thread asking how to change their oil filter/worm the cat/tie a fishing lure/fix their flux capacitor/whatever, and it was more or less guaranteed that within half a dozen posts someone would post a rantette about how it was so much more difficult these days because you couldn't import the parts required, they were banned, just because all those children in Oaklahoma went blind, it was all the gubbermint's fault, a free man couldn't breath these days without some interfering lesbian peering over his shoulder, and so on. It got highly tedious very quickly, and I gave that particular forum up a couple of years ago.
But it was usually the same couple of dozen or so users every time (out of probably 500 active/semi-active participants). Filtering their opinion as outliers was relatively straightforward. And, possibly uniquely, I met a reasonable number of the other users in real life. Their opinions sync'd reasonably closely to what they were saying online, and were, I think, a reasonable way of gauging 'the public mood'. So, even allowing (and compensating for) the 'angry right winger' element, something like the TM forums, which are active across a broad scope of NZ society, could be a useful way of sniffing the air. Maybe. Interviewing a browser is perilous at the best of times.
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Hard News: A week being a long time in politics, in reply to Russell Brown,
My comment wasn't aimed at you in particular. One part of Joyce's strategy has been to cast this as a non-issue, with his 81% comments and so on (the other part being heavy-handed intimidation).
I've no real idea if the teapot tapes issue is touching a nerve with 'ordinary New Zealanders' (tm), but the trademe forums are possibly somewhere where I'd look for an answer, if I wanted one.
I already know my own mind on the issue, so I'm not inclined to go diving.