Posts by ChrisW
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(Acknowledge my early exit from conversation last night for reasons involving short but sound sleep in confident expectation of Germany reaching its full quota of goals)
I’m pleased to hear from several sources of Noel Hilliard’s writing being so highly regarded then and now – for some reason I retain a sense of pride in him as if I own a little of his reflected mana. Hmm, I think it’s more that they are nice affirmations of my sense of obligation to retain a loyalty to him in appreciation of his teaching and influence on me.
I haven’t read any since “Night at Green River” was newly published (1969), a good one, but especially enjoyed the short stories of “A Piece of Land” (good for the youthful attention span). And within that collection, I remember specifically the thrill of recognising in “Erua” the places and people where we lived, how accurately they were evoked in few words, like the boy taking refuge sitting in the rather rugged toilet block I knew well out the back of the long line of pre-fab classrooms.
On the Christchurch-Auckland culture shock, one of the many notable lines I noticed in “Fretful Sleepers” is –
It is possible for a South Islander in Auckland to feel uprooted in the indifference and hostility of the people.
And I wonder whether this was Bill Pearson expressing a totally genuine view relative to (?his) societal expectations of 1952, or perhaps a disingenuous one intentionally ironic.
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That was an auspicious birth sign too then Islander!
Noel Hilliard was my best and most memorable teacher at primary school, 2/3rds of my Std 1 year as well. In Std 3 he covered a huge range of curriculum material well but still had time to read to us, about half an hour a day, an exciting fantasy adventure called "Lord of the Rings" by an obscure Oxford don. On the last day of the school year he still had about 200 pages to go, so we did the big clean-up and ritual stacking of the desks and chairs as fast as we could, then sat spellbound on those hard floormats as he gave us an extended precis of the rest seemingly off the cuff, reading a few highlight passages, till hometime about 2 hours later.
He encouraged Hone Tuwhare (a construction worker there at the time) in his writing, brought him along to talk to our class and read some poems - pretty good too. And Pine Taiapa - greatest carver of his generation - gave us a demo, much timber was chiselled for awhile thereafter.
All in all an inspiring teacher - but he left teaching not too long thereafter for a living as Listener sub-editor with his own writing on the side.
Sorry to divert from Bill Pearson so soon in the thread - great to see on 3News tonight some coal shovelling in honour of the centennial of the Formerly Hilton Hotel at Blackball aka "Coal Flat".
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Well, I for two am interested ...
I was pleased to find Bill Pearson's essay "Fretful Sleepers" on PA last year - one of those many things heard of and recommended but unread until then. Now it's good to find out more detailed context of its writing and publication, and to re-read it.
I'm especially interested in how things were in NZ and the world at the time of my birth, so it seems significant to me how much I overlap with "Fretful Sleepers" - I was conceived midway between its first drafting and the revised final manuscript, and born two months before its September 1952 publication in Landfall. Indeed from the detail here I can imagine that if it weren't for Frank Sargeson's novella "I for one" pre-empting the June issue of Landfall, then my father might have bought a fresh copy from one of the news-stands of Kaitaia for my mother to read “Fretful Sleepers” aloud to me as she waited out the compulsory bed-rest in the maternity hospital.
Perhaps not, but 11 years later Mum was pleased when dropping in to see her friend (and my Standard 3 teacher) Noel Hilliard to meet Bill Pearson who by chance was visiting his literary friend in the wilds of hydro construction town Mangakino, around the time "Coal Flat" was finally published. And her copy of said Coal Flat remains appreciated on her bookshelves today. Must read it myself ...
But really, the insightful description of the New Zealand society I was born into is fascinating and revealing. I may be biased but it seems to capture a moment in time just before so much rapid change kicked in. His then-present is strongly linked in with the recent and further past, to a lesser extent he sees the trends and pressures foreshadowing a future. And that future was my childhood, adolescence, early and later adulthood - things changed, but still I can follow his themes and observations through that later history to now, with varying persistence and degrees of relevance remaining.
The closet gay is not me, but for him - that amplification of his isolation as an intellectual misfit in NZ while needing to be here close to his roots - that resonates. But not so resoundingly I imagine for the youth of today in the NZ of today after the more recent decades of change.
So thanks Paul Millar for bringing Bill Pearson's "Fretful Sleepers" to attention and for the additional insight into its parentage, gestation and birth.
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OK enough lead-swinging on my part, time to acknowledge that while casting aspersions elsewhere I plumbed the depths into personal attack with dip stick, sorry Steve.
I succumbed to the never-to-be-repeated opportunity for an in-context triple sort-of pun, not intended as a cheap shot, but as a comment on the depth of analysis of BP's motivations.
You're right, I did not see any sign of a point in the earlier posts of yours, quoted directly and indirectly, of BP allowing the well to remain uncapped in order to retain that point of access to the oil reservoir. All things considered now, I disagree with you on that as well.
Yes I understand what a relief well is, conventionally and as stated in this case its objective is to plug the original hole from below, and conventionally and as stated in this case the relief well(s) would also then be plugged.
I infer that whether or not BP maintains access (or really, how long till it subsequently regains controlled access) to this oil reservoir, one of its many, weighs little in its thinking relative to the ongoing damage to its image, its direct costs, and the $US20 billion in liability it has lost control of, all these to continue increasing with the continuing volume and duration of escaping oil, and which in combination have so far knocked 50% off its shareholder value, this proportion also continuing to increase.
Lovely morning on the estuary here, much better than on the Gulf coast I’m sure.
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So those relief wells they've been drilling for another $100 million or more - no intention of using them?
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Steve - Did I have to spell it out? - the tens of billions of dollars in subsequent costs to BP. Any and all socialised costs additional.
You want it both ways, that BP are concerned about the lost revenue from the escaping oil but not the damage it does to others' property, livelihoods and the environment (because BP thinks it's not their problem), so you would have them think, instinctively or consciously, in the first week and still - 'Let us only do the minimum we can get away with in pretending to plug the well while allowing it to keep gushing forth, for that's the way to maximise our profit and shareholder value in our proud multi-national brand'?
I see plenty cock-up prior to the explosion, no doubt including an under-estimation of the consequences to BP of a catastrophic failure of the blow-out preventer (partly on the basis that some of the costs would be socialised), so they had insufficient systems to prevent that failure and under-preparedness to deal with the contingency that it might anyway. No doubt a few cock-ups since. But a conspiracy to allow it to continue uncapped?
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See, when these fuckers look at all that oil in the water, they don't think "Look at all the damage we're doing" they think "Look at all that oil were losing".
Earthy, colloquial and dazzlingly accurate. I nominate Steve PAS's local Mark Twain.
Wow, not just accurate, but dazzlingly so.
Thine eyes have been dazzled by crap. It doesn't take a rocket technologist to work out that the lost oil revenue of a million or few dollars a day is small change to BP in comparison to the tens of billions of dollars in subsequent costs, and the risk to the company as a whole - any ignoramus oil company executive could work that one out. So that conspiracy to allow the well to remain uncapped, what might its cunningly obscure objective be?
Not ‘Mark Twain’, more like ‘Dip Stick’.
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And I feel pleased for Italy and the Italians that they did so much better than France ...
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If we attack, we're in with a shout. It's as simple as that.
Agreed. And also on Chris W as the likely lad to do the business.
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To us, by diving they debase their manliness and cast themselves out from the ranks of men; For them, it is just a way to win a game.
Yeah - take Andy Haden - he dived and cast himself out of a rank of men - or was it a column? Row? I always get them confused, anyway a line of them. Won the game, sure, but ever since he's been scorned as unmanly.
(Too easy, unsporting even)