Posts by Eric Olthwaite
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His opinions aside, I just find Bill Ralston unlistenable, he has a dose of the Bolgers. When he's raving away or doing a chummy interview his accent is a broad nasal kiwi, but when he's being serious it changes to well rounded vowels.
Bloody infuriating.
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But still people are persuaded that opera is somehow "better" than popera. I don't know how people make a qualitative assessment of this: it is more complex, more demanding to perform and listen to, requires more attention and so on. But "better"?
Yes, I'd say better. I could knock up a turd sandwich in about five minutes or spend all afternoon preparing a complex, demanding attention-sapping three course meal. Of course the meal is better.
It's the same with Dame Kiri and Hayley. Kiri can sing fluently in German, Italian, French, Spanish, with power across her entire vocal range. Hayley is a nice girl with a "nice" voice, that's about it.
Excusing her lack of quality and talent (and this bit is important) when compared with Dame Kiri by inventing another genre doesn't wash with me either. That's like saying "Oh, it's O.K. to call your girlfriend a bitch because it is Hip-Hop."
Don't call your girlfriend a bitch.
Don't eat turd sandwiches.
Don't listen to Hayley :-) -
Oh No! Poor Mary-Margaret. I had a dose of the Gastro last year and my sister has it at present courtesy of Burger King and it is not of The Fun. Hope she gets better soon. Lots of Electrolytes and rest, the worst is over in four days and you're tender for about a week after that.
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“Which kids were those?” I asked, turning to him mid-stride? He blushed and went quiet.
Softly Softly Catchee Monkey Christie...
Just hang behind them and listen in.
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So was the scene at St Lukes mall a couple of hours later, when I dropped to kids off at the movies. People -- men especially -- were wandering about distractedly, hoping that a little commerce night change the subject.
Men at shopping malls, the whole world's gone topsy-turvy. In all seriousness, about ten minutes after the final whistle I heard a lawnmower start up, a lady a few houses along was mowing the lawns, her husband probably still on the couch weeping through shock inside, her intuition telling her Him Indoors needs to be alone for quite some time.
I had breakfast a bit later own at a local cafe and there were a lot of people out who never go for walks or Sunday breakfasts, you could just sort of tell.
And since I've already heard the first talk of "mongrel" on the radio everything should be getting back to normal pretty soon.
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English had reason for discomfort: privatisations don't have a good rep in our recent history. Telecom. New Zealand Rail. Fay, Richwhite.
Whoa, hang on a minute there.
Telecom? Where you would phone up, like my parents did, and say "Can I have a phone put in our new house please, my wife is pregnant with twins and we might need to phone the hospital when she goes into labour.", and they reply, sure you'll get a phone in....
EIGHTEEN MONTHS!!!
Or New Zealand Rail. Which was a bloated useless dinosour simlpy unfit for a long, thin sparsely country like New Zealand. Another story. My Dad used to manage a company. One of their plants was in Rotorua, and to get anything anywhere they could not just put it on a lorry, they had to use the rail by law. He would have to spend a third of his day, hours and hours, every day on the phone to Rail trying to find out where things were, why the job meant to come to Auckland was in Whanganui and so forth.
Or Air New Zealand? Where the Taxpayer had to unnecessarily front up with $800 million dollars because of the government's silly nationalism where we have to have a "national carrier" as opposed to letting a big professional like Singapore Airlines sort Air new Zealand's problem's out at no cost.
And of course, as Craig points out, they get into trouble because they don't tell the government that they are sending troops to a war zone that we have sent our own troops to before, and without any directive from the government that they should be told.
Other than that, you're right. National should just front up with what it will do and why.
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From "Capital Punishment"
In Wellington there is at least...one reporter that I would never touch because I would feel as though I’d slept with all my best friends as a result, and that’s just too weird."
My commiserations Mr Christie.
:-)
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it's a matter of taking on a military charter flight in the prosecution of a war from which our government wants to keep a clear distance.
In the words of David Brent "obviously not". The NZDF has been deployed to Iraq, and as Craig says Australia and Iraq are both friends of ours.
But the real issue is ministers being blindsided, and all the ire last week was directed at the officials who didn't think to mention it,
Why should the officials mention it? Iraq and Australia are both our friends. Military charters happen all the time. No-one tried to hide anything. There were no directives from the government that there were to be no charters to Iraq or anything really. Air NZ is not an SOE and so forth.
Like Craig I struggle to see what the issue is here or where anyone other than Helen has done anything wrong. If I were a bureaucrat in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs I can't see anything in this situation that would give it a red flag as something I should inform the minister about - maybe that's why I'm not a bureaucrat :-).
Bill Hicks said of the first Gulf War that it was very entertaining and kept our gaze off domestic issues, I think that is what is happening here as well. Those editorials about the Democracy Rationing legislation were starting to bite.
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But I presume I wasn't the only one who looked at the leaflet, with Labour's branding all over it -- and a small House of Representatives crest to make it clear that we're paying for it -- and wondered, um, is this legal these days?
No, I wondered as well.
I also wonder, surely a sensible way around this is to ban any party identifiers on anything with the H.O.R. crest. If "The Government" wants to advertise a new thing that it is doing then it has to do so as "The Government", not "Labour" or "National" if we move into hypotheticals.
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Damien touched on how people have no idea how to act around dogs. He is right. There are some rules that if followed would make some people's lives a bit easier.
1) Do not pat a dog that is not your own if the owner is not present.
2) If the owner is there, make sure you spend some time being friendly to him or her so the dog can realise you are not a threat.
If you then get permission to pat the dog then remember this - The owner has given permission for you to pat the dog, the dog HAS NOT.
If you want to lessen the chance of your getting bitten then do this.
Kneel down to the dog's level - do not stand over it, or stand at all - this is aggressive to a dog.
Do not look the dog in the eyes - this is aggressive to a dog.
Do not give it a big toothy smile - this is aggressive to a dog.
Do not pat the dog on the top of the head - this is aggressive to a dog.
Whilst kneeling, slowly put a hand out so the dog can sniff it. Let the dog be in control of the situation, it touches and sniffs you first. Then, if you must, slowly pat or stroke the dog on it's side or back - a few soft "good dog's" won't go amis but watch those teeth.
3) Do not go near a dog with food (in both meanings - as the woman attacked by a Doberman found out.) Even my spineless Golden Retriever growled at me once.now I have a Ragdoll cat.