Posts by Joe Wylie
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Capture: Two Tales of a City, in reply to Hebe,
Islander mentioned a while ago how the sound of birds was deafening in the area before Pakeha settled. I hope to see some return of that connection to the natural world.
Can't remember where I saw them, but I recall a display somewhere of badly stuffed & mounted birds, including a tui and bellbird. Some early Victorian's trophies, mostly recorded as being shot in Barbadoes Street cemetery.
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Hard News: Crossing the line into idle bigotry, in reply to Angus Robertson,
I think they are being fucked with by a bunch of greedy, power mad, self absorbed a-hole, mega-rich princes
With the dehumanising implication that they're allowing themselves to be fucked over. As it happens the Arab, let alone the Islamic world, is far from monolithic. And you don't even have to get off your arse to confirm that or make a difference.
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Capture: Two Tales of a City, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
...and wasn't it a bank, or a building society or somesuch, before it became a hotel...
Don't know about that, but I've read that the Grand Chancellor was converted from an office building, so it sounds probable. I can understand why it and the Holiday Inn are easily confused with one another, as they both sported those oversized mansion from Psycho roof structures. Kind of an attempt at a Chchch vernacular style, while referencing Mountfort's penchant for French chalet flavoured gothic.
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Capture: Two Tales of a City, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
aah, but is it The Grand Chancellor?
I think that's gone now...
Isn't that the hotel opposite The GC
(and opposite Echo Records/WINZ)
that I'm damned if I can remember
the name of... -
Hard News: Why did Stephen die?, in reply to greenlove33,
I never thought at 40 years old I would still be looking over my shoulder for police while enjoying my mellow rec drug of choice.
In 1972 the Christchurch drug squad, as part of a sweep through the West Coast checking on likely characters, paid a visit to a flamboyant hippie who'd aroused the suspicions of some locals in the small town he'd moved to. As recreational drug use didn't accord with whatever mystical bent he happened to be following at the time it was a fruitless mission. Nevertheless they stayed for tea and departed on the best of terms. The head honcho's parting words were "Five years from now you'll be able to shove marijuana up your arse for all society cares, but right now we've got a job to do."
So if that was the attitude of provincial narcs way back then, it seems fair to wonder after all these years, where does all this horrible ongoing internal momentum come from?
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Hard News: Crossing the line into idle bigotry, in reply to Chris Waugh,
I'd recommend leaving an old brick next to your laptop for head banging purposes.
Should anyone have the misfortune to lose an eye as a result of head banging, and wind up sporting a glass one, there's always the compensation of presenting said eye for an iridology consultation. I know of a one-eyed sceptic who couldn't resist a free session on offer at a new age fair in NSW a few years ago, and was told fascinating stuff about his constitution, all deduced from his artificial eye.
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Hard News: Crossing the line into idle bigotry, in reply to Will de Cleene,
He's a bit a WMFOCA, or White Male Feminist Of a Certain Age.
Golly, it must be all of thirty years ago that I was discussing male feminists with a gay acquaintance. Like, whether it was possible to be one, followed by how does one spot one? Very easily, I was told, with all the assurance of one who had intimate knowledge of such things: they braid their unshaven underarm hair in the manner of Boy George's then-current hairstyle.
While I've retained that bit of potentially useful info, I've never had occasion to put it to practical use.
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Hard News: Why did Stephen die?, in reply to Ross Bell,
Thanks Russell.
+1
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Capture: Two Tales of a City, in reply to Kumara Republic,
Baron Brownlee
Eat your hearts out you tai chi swordsters.
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Hard News: The Big 2012 US Election PAS Thread, in reply to Hebe,
This isn't just being a sore loser, it's a new kind of nasty and malevolent. I fear for us all.
It seems to have begun in the Clinton era, around 1993, when Texas Senator Phil Gramm said “People will be hunting Democrats with dogs." Prior to that even hardcore Reagan supporters would declare that while they disagreed with goshdarned liberals dissing the Gipper, they'd defend to the death their right to do so.