Posts by Joe Wylie
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Hard News: Housing, hope and ideology, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
I got the impression they were heading WINZ towards
an ‘indentured worker’ model…
;- ELast I checked, which was back in the St Helen era, WINZ might help with a no-interest loan for repairs, but you buy your own.
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Hard News: Housing, hope and ideology, in reply to ,
It would be easy to make assumptions about people’s economic well being by simply looking at there feet.
Missing or discoloured adult teeth seem to be a reliable indicator of social caste. NZ dentistry is pricey, and WINZ doesn't offer much by way of assistance.
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Hard News: The uncooling of the inner West, in reply to bob daktari,
Diverse neighbourhoods are what made these inner suburbs so fun and “cool” – added bonus those whom have done well retain some connection with the lot of the masses, possibly engendering some empathy for those our economy doesn’t favour
While I probably shouldn't, I'm reminded of the bit in The Great Gatsby about the Long Island beer baron who, in order to enhance his prize view, offers to pay his neighbours' rates if they'll thatch their roofs.
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Hard News: The uncooling of the inner West, in reply to Shulgin,
yeah not sure about “fatbastard” comment in relation to action bronson…
Flaming bagpipes would have been an improvement on all that holy guitar faffing about.
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Hard News: The uncooling of the inner West, in reply to Shulgin,
that action bronson video
Fatbastard seemed awfully impressed with his ripply-distorto 'hallucinations'. He's yet to learn that unless you see stuff that isn't even actually there you're entitled to demand your money back with menaces.
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Hard News: The uncooling of the inner West, in reply to Tinakori,
Hard to believe but once upon a time in the olden days – 50s/60s/70s/early 80s – mortgage lending was tilted towards new housing mostly because of settings determined by the state.
Hard to believe only because, to the conservative mindset, the status quo is assumed to be divinely ordained. Banks simply didn’t lend for anything but new housing until the early 70s. That was the decade when gentrification slowly ramped up. Even before the Douglas reforms the do-up industry in Auckland’s inner west was well under way.
Fisherton Street in Grey Lynn, for example, has half a dozen ‘period villas’ which are basically shotgun shack railway houses bought cheap and trucked in from the central North Island. A lot of vacant sections around the old Salvation Army Shoprite in those days. Back in 1981 someone presumably did very nicely flogging them for around $40,000 each.
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Hard News: The Hager saga continues, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
Denis Norden
Still on deck, though largely retired. There are a bunch of It'll Be Alright On The Night segments on YouTube which showcase his (for me) excellent 80s TV incarnation. Favourite quote: Modern life is full of surprises, not all of which respond to antibiotics.
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Hard News: Friday Music: An accompanied korero, in reply to Steve Barnes,
Randy California: is that a person or a place?
Yes :-)
It’s a name that’s never worked too well in non-US English, i.e:
“Hi. I’m Randy.”
“Oh good for you.”That said, Mr California, who pretty much was Spirit for the last 20+ years of his life, died a bona fide hero back in 1997 saving his young son from drowning. His estate might yet make his heirs very wealthy indeed.
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Hard News: The uncooling of the inner West, in reply to Sofie Bribiesca,
yeah La Z says it all. That’s actually just bad taste :) Didn’t their parents teach them anything? That chair has got to be up there as the ugliest of ugliest for all time.
For me La-Z-Boy is inextricably tied to the terminal uncoolness of Rob's mob and NZ the way they wanted it. Turn on the TV back in 1978 and it was wall to wall ads for Fiji cruises and those goddam things.
While awaiting a minor procedure on my vertebrae a while back my doc asked if I owned a La-Z-Boy, as it would help with sleeping upright. To my shame I realised that I was probably too cool for my own good. So when someone younger than I, whose coolness is writ large via their contribution to the life-enhancing arts, scored one of those horrors off TradeMe for similarly therapeutic reasons, prompting a bunch of social media posts from a hitherto unknown underground of aficionados, even I have to admit that the Cascade rocker version isn't too aesthetically on the nose.
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Hard News: The uncooling of the inner West, in reply to Sofie Bribiesca,
Prosperity, maybe but part of the establishment, be dammed.
I was recently mildly shocked to discover that La-Z-Boys are something of a cult item with people around a decade younger than me.