Nice piece Graham

On the subject more or less

Find myself reading the obits more and more these days

Over Christmas Hugh Massingberd, Obits editor of the Telegraph died. He is the chap credited with putting the laughter back in the obit.

His own obit in the telegraph is excellent

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/12/27/nmassing127.xml

I went to the same one as Grant, the Breeders were very good, Soundgarden much better the night before at the powerstation

BDO checklist.........

Oh no, Kiwis en-masse - check

Many white dudes with dreadlocks - check

Ugly pacific-celtic armband tattoos - check

Exposed overweight hairy buttcrack - check

Exposed hairy buttcrack with ugly arse antlers tattoo - check

Fools playing touch rugby - check

Unable to see over white doods with dreadlocks, head for grandstand, can't see or hear shit - check

Had too much weed and its only 11am - check

Dehydrated - check

Claustrophobia - check

Time clash between acts I want to see - check

End up in tent with unknown aussie indie band who are actually quite good- check

Bur seriously: as I said last week, if Moore's prose reads like that after editing, what was it like when he filed it?

Amen to that: Mike's always needed editing.

When I was working in the Radio NZ newsroom as a tape op back in '93 Mike Moore would regularly call up and offer to comment on the issues of the day - often in the very early morning. (my shift started at 0430)

'Hi it's Mike Moore here, do you have a tape rolling and I will give you some comment on <insert topic here>

At the time he was in opposition i think

There was a sign on the wall 'If Mike Moore calls please contact duty editor' - Subsequently his ramblings didn't get a lot of airtime on RNZ news. Didn't even get a lot of tape time...

Not sure if he had better luck over at IRN

1. To me, in our connected world it appears that the further one is distanced from a terrorist incident, the more the fear-inducing effect of the media works its magic and the more one appears frightened by it.

This effect has been observed with Australian relatives refusing to visit us in Koh Samui because there were a series of small bombs two weeks earlier in Bangkok. They were only planning to transit through Bangkok airport.

And of course by Kiwi family friends cancelling their holiday to Europe (UK for two weeks, mainland Europe 4 weeks) owing to the terrorist threat after the London bombings of 7/7

'Stoic Brits'. In the UK people just have to live with this: there is really no choice.

A number of commentators appear to be confusing Islam with Islamism

I don't think the public gives too much thought to public transport (I wish they did).

One thing Labour did do was get rid of failing operator Connex South Eastern, who were subsequently hired by.....NZ government to run Auckland Metropolitan rail services.

I wrote to the Herald 'can this be the same operator that recently had its franchise removed? .. Not published, no reply...

Nice post Rich ' + 10 on all of that'.

Hey NZdwellers....... on the subject of Yachting, er...please tell us whatever happened to Michael Fay & David Richwhite?

Thats a +1 here on the Pelorus. The Moet Imperial is fine, but the standard stuff is Marque Vue

So will Placebos need to be tested as well?

In his book “Time for a Change”, Richard Bandler describes how he and a graduate student had planned to market placebo pills to the general public. They made plans to publish a leaflet with an index. A person would look up “Headaches” for example and read,

“When tested against other drugs, placebos work five out of six times – and no side effects.”

Then it would say
”Take seven when you have a headache.”

Unfortunately, the FDA complained that the effects would wear off and that the placebo would lose its efficacy. Bandler says that he knew that this could happen because some people would not have strong enough beliefs first time around. So they revealed their back-up plan.

“New! Placebo Plus! Twice the inert ingredients! Twice as powerful as before.”

Nevertheless, the FDA wouldn’t let them offer their capsules and told them it would be illegal and couldn’t work. Bandler’s view was “We had proved it would work. After all, we had decades of FDA experimental results directly from them.”

You're right don, torygraph does have that retired tweed colonel flavour..along with pictures of posh tottie

But

1. At least its not the Daily Mail
2. If you only read the Guardian (for example), you only see the Guardian's view of the world..
3. Craig Brown is a comedy genius!

Gordy may be smart.......but .............

Craig Brown captures him perfectly

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2007/05/15/do1506.xml