Posts by Rob Hosking
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Evan,
Love the story about the farmer.
Have passed it on to my brother-in-law who works at Gallaghers.
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Umm, it could be because people karking it on the couch at home are not doing it in public. Do it at the gym and a lot of people see it.
I suspect you don't hear of women collapsing at the gym so much because they're better at pacing themselves than us blokes.
Having had a wee ride in an ambulance myself recently (they didn't need to use the packer whacker, it wans't as bad as that, but it was still a bit of a jolt) I can vouch for David's comments about the whole business making you contemplate your mortality.
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Fantastic piece of writing.
A few thoughts: I too loved the John O'Farrell book (I reckoned the best way to read it was with Billy Bragg and the Smiths on the stereo) but to me his conclusion meant that what subsequently happened was not surprising.
He wrote as an old Labour supporter who was ecstatic when Blair got elected, despite Blair repudiating everything O'Donnell (and Blair, for that matter) had held dear in the 1980s.
The point was, for O'Farrell, and no doubt for many other Labour supporters in 1997, his team had finally won. Never mind the substance of the policies. What mattered was "they" were out and "we" were in.
The point aobut governments don't promulgate philosphies, they run governments is oen I'd agree with, but with a slight qualificaiton.
Government's often pretend to run philosphies but they're never as coherent as that. They can't be. The business of government is too messy for that. What they do is generate a mood around their policies. Thatcherism is probably the most relevant example. Nowhere near as consistent as she pretended to be.
The other comment I'd make is that I remember watching Blair perform over the Princess Di death and thinking 'This guy is a charlatan'. It was just too stagey and affected to be real.
One final comment - and I used this analogy a month ago in a column: Blair, not really of his party, but with the gift of engaging with the public: Brown, more of his party, running the finances, brooding, with a sense of entitlement for the top job....Key and English, of course. Key though doesn't have Blair's missionary aspect though, thank God. That should keep him more honest (the first people missionaries fool is themselves)
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Why did it have to be Moet? Couldn't Dean Barker and his crew have squirted each other with a good New Zealand bubbly?
Should have been Chardon. Good down-to-earth brew. get away from this elitist stuff.
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The trailer for the news featured a clip from the 'offending' show as well.
I have to admit though, I was sitting there thinking 'this is NOT news...but, my word, aren't they magnificent...'
Didn't make me watch the show concerned though. Hell, I'm not a total moron.
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And can I register my immense distaste at and irritation with the crying-little-kid-my-pet-is-dead-because-mummy-and-daddy-didn't-get-kitty-insurance ad at the top of the page?
Ahh, but its gone to a non-denominational open source kitty heaven...
A bit more seriously....I'd previously concluded the theological fudge of 'God Defend NZ' is one of the things in its favour. The only thing, really. There isn't even anything in the way of Christian imagery in the lyrics. And I like the 'men of every creed and race' bit.Musicially its a dirge, lyrically its pretty cringemaking, but it's a national anthem. They're all like that.
The Aussie one is a a bit more perky I suppose (read an alternative version once which went 'Australians we all say "choice!!" de dum de dum de dum'....)
I've argued elsewhere our National Anthem should be Fred Dagg's 'We Don't Know How Lucky We Are' because its a good jaunty number, and it slyly sends up our national smugness.
It's also true. You can't say that about most national anthems.
A national religion? I don't understand why anyone would want one, especially anyone who adheres strongly to a particular faith. State religions are there mostly to bolster the regime of the day, and really make no difference to individual faith.
England has a state religion only by accident: a mix of power grab and regal lust by Henry VIII.
Hitler tried to make the Lutheran Church Germany's state religion in the 1930s: it split the church and those who set up a free Lutheran Church wound up in concentration camps.
I don't share the visceral anti-Christian views of some who are posting here. I'm not a Christian, but I was brought up in a fairly decent version of the Christian tradition and I have seen its good side. And there is one, a pretty strong one.
I'm dubious of charismatics though, be they religious or political. They're always up to no good.
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O God I remember this.
Aged 17 and living out in Auckland's rural hinterland at the time, it really captured the mood of driving up the Southern motorway for what felt like a big night out. Young Farmers hit the Big Smoke....Ugly Ugly scenes. I assumed at the time it was done by a band in similar circuamstnaces and was a bit bemused to find, years later, they were form Christchurch....
Foudn the single itself a few year'sl ater whne i moved to the big smoke. There was a little second hand record shop at the bottom of Fort St and walked in one day and they had a whole pile of old Ripper Record singles - there was this one, with the picturre of a pile of spaghetti turning humanoid and lunging out of the picture.....(also the Newmatics double 45 'Broadcast' the Mee Mees' 'Sunday Boys'....probalby some others as welll)
Since then of course have bought it on CD on the 'Bigger than Both of us' compilation....in fact I was wondering on the w'end whether more Ripper stuff would find its way onto CD. I've got a lot of compilation vinyl albums from that era which are still non-digitised....
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Re: the ukelele - I hadn't heard Mike Chunn (or anyone else) was advocating it, but I've been told by a couple of people the ukelele is in schools today what the recorder was in our day.
I hated the recorder and refused to learn it. I was the only kid in my STd Four class who didn't learn it. I told the teacher I would write stories instead and he, amazingly, agreed.
The recorder is an awful noise. It has only one thing going for it. The kids can't sing at the same time, and in many cases, this is a blessing.
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Margaret Thatcher used to claim 'the facts of life are Tory'.
Both claims are just a bit of rhetoric, aimed at waverers who don't want to think the issues through. Both should be ignored.
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A few thougths:
My wife - who is Dutch - reckons the binge drinking thing is very much an Anglo-Saxon-Celtic thing. This doesn't mean other cultures don't binge drink, but that it is a lot rarer to see in Continental Europe, whereas in the UK and the old 'Dominions' - NZ, Aus, etc - it is the norm. Drinking to explicitly get obliterated appears much more common.
And yeah, been there, done that, got the vomit down the T-shirt.
As a farm boy moved to the city I don't think there's any more (or less) of a problem with this in rural areas than there is in the cities. (and I would not call Christchurch rural - the idea is bizarre).
Violence? I've had a bad 'vibe' from being out in Auckland and Christchurch, but only actually been roughed up in Wellington, funnily enough, in a totally random peice of alochol fuled aggro back in 1982.