Posts by webweaver
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I remember discussing the Cuba Street Carnival with Chris Morley-Hall when it was but a twinkle in his eye.
Having been involved with The Gathering for a few years by that point I knew how much effort, blood, sweat and tears it took to create a "happening" out of nothing - how much it took out of you and how long it could take to turn that twinkle of an idea into something real and tangible and successful.
I just want to say how much I admire Chris for having taken up the challenge and making the Cuba Street Carnival into the 150,000-people success it had become by 2009.
I'm not going to speculate on exactly why the Carnival has hit this bump in the road - the stories and reports don't make sense at the moment - there are obviously some big pieces of info missing, and I hope we get the opportunity to find out more soon.
Wellington Batucada, for example, probably wouldn't exist if it weren't for Chris and the Cuba Street Carnival. We originally formed in November 2001 to perform in the Carnival, and we've been a part of it ever since - and in the process have become a part of Wellington's culture in the same way as the Carnival has.
Events like the Rugby Sevens, the Cuba Street Carnival, the Wellington Festival of the Arts and the Fringe Festival are some of what makes Wellington such a special place to live. All those wonderful events bring colour and a little bit of magic to our city, and make it a place to be proud of.
Each of these events also creates its own little set of ripples in the Wellington pond which further enrich our city. Just as The Gathering inspired a whole generation of DJs and makers of electronica to come out of their bedrooms and into the light of live performance, so events like the Cuba Street Carnival provide a huge number of creative people with a wonderful, joyous, fantabulous excuse to push their creativity and their showmanship to new levels every two years.
The Batucada crew, for example, worked every day for two months on our float and our costumes for the 2009 event, and we start rehearsing our performance pieces months before the big day. It's always been a huge part of who we are and what we do.
Being a part of the Carnival (and winning the Supreme Award) has positive spin-offs for us too - our beginners' course that followed soon after the Carnival last year had more than three times as many participants as normal, and we've continued to get big numbers to our courses since then as well. We continue to grow and improve, and love what we do - and a lot of that is due to our ongoing participation in the Cuba Street Carnival.
Chris can be proud that he has made such a huge contribution to our performing arts culture over the past 10 years, just as we can be proud that our membership of Batucada brings colour to many events in and around the city throughout the year.
I'm completely gutted that there won't be another Carnival next year. I'm crossing my fingers and praying that this will be a temporary hiatus and that we'll all be back again with bells on in 2013 (if not sooner!)
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2010 NetGuide People's Choice Web Awards
Good grief. What a COMPLETELY uninspiring, totally boring and bizarre combination of way-too-obvious and WTF-did-they-choose-that-for??? selections that we-the-people have been given to choose from.
I know we are free to add our own choice and vote for it, but realistically the winners are most likely to come from the pre-listed selections, aren't they? And what crappy pre-selections they are.
Looks like the organisers of the People's Choice Awards gave themselves a full 5 minutes of uninterrupted deep thought and concentrated research to come up with that list. Pah!
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Look out for collection bins in community centres and the such. Full list of locations here.
cool, thanks Gio.
(and oh noes! I spelt your name wrong earlier! sorry!)
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In wellington please donate books to the DCM bookfair
Do you have any more details Sue? Like where to take the books to and when and stuff?
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Webweaver, your skills are valuable too - can I interest you in some pro-bono work for a good cause?
Let's talk! Email me!
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Walk to your nearest soup kitchen. They seriously need your cash.
Yeah I was thinking about that. City Mission or something, you reckon?
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I'm putting my hand up to join a bunch of others here, to say that I didn't mind paying the top rate of tax, and that I'm feeling more than a little uncomfortable now it's come down (and by so much! 5%! crikey!).
I completely believe in paying taxes - I know my taxes pay for all the great things that we share as a society, and I would FAR rather "my" taxes went on paying for vital services for people like Geo's daughter, rather than being given back to me and burning a hole in my pocket. I don't need it!
When they were talking about the budget on telly last night and they were saying how they were closing trust loopholes and stuff, I was thinking to myself "there are clever ways to not pay as much tax via setting up trusts??" who knew?
It's not something I would ever consider doing - to me it's wrong - it's immoral to rort the system so you pay less tax than you should - and shame on those who do it.
I guess I'm "part of the stupid half of the top tax bracket who didn't illegally hide their income in trusts." heh.
And Steve Barnes - you are wrong when you say that people on higher incomes rarely charge by the hour - well, you're wrong in my case because I do - and I work hard (I don't do long boozy lunches!) - because I love what I do - it just so happens that I work in an industry that pays reasonably well, but I certainly didn't plan it that way.
I feel guilty about that when I compare the good that I do in society with the good that, say, a teacher or a nurse or a carer of the old and infirm does - and then I look at what we each get paid for doing what we do. It's fucked up, for sure.
I/S - thanks for your spreadsheet. I feel a little sad that I got lumped together with the "tiny percentage of parasites at the top" - we're not all greedy selfish bastards, and actually some of us didn't ask for this - I vote Green - I'm no friend of National - so I find it ironic that I'm benefiting from their damned tax cuts.
Now I just need to figure out what charity or charities I would do the most good giving my tax cut money to. Seriously.
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quick, get Clegg over to the man-slut threads
Question is though, Sacha, which one is he?
Too young to be the Silver Fox, doesn't have the Hero Coat so he can't be Dark and Brooding, definitely not The Rocker, The Preppie or The Uniform, can't be The Slightly-Disreputable Working Class Boy (which is a shame cos I think that might work), he isn't The Dandy - which leaves us with no choice other than...
The Stripy Shirt
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Collage of topical newspaper front pages via @SiobhanBulfin
Good grief - talk about hyperbole...
Look at them all metaphorically running around waving their hands in the air yelling "The sky is falling! The sky is falling!"
I think the Daily Mail is the worst:
A squalid day for democracy
Brown quits but cynically bids to keep Labour in power by guaranteeing two-faced Clegg voting reformNo, c'mon Daily Mail - tell us how you really feel!
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Oh deary me...
From the Grauniad's live election blog:
Quote of the day so far has come from former home secretary David Blunkett, who was on BBC Radio 4's Today programme. He warned that a "coalition of the defeated" between Labour and the Lib Dems would "lose very badly" at the next general election. He added:
"Can you trust the Liberal Democrats? They are behaving like every harlot in history."
...perhaps Mr Blunkett needs a nice cup of tea and a lie down.