Posts by Rob Stowell
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Sunday mornings are ad-free.... except of course for the blatant and VERY extensive advertorial that's inserted in the NZ on Air funded What Now- 'cos our kids don't get enough exposure to ads at other times, see? </rant>
Nobody Important- I saw that item and was similarly dismayed- a bogus rape claim is just so obviously a much bigger story than a 12-year-old raped in school grounds?!?
But I've not looked to TV to get my news fix for over a decade- nope, not even TV3. Nor do I get much from the newspapers. National Radio is still a public broadcaster with some cred, and then there are magazines and the net. But even on the net, I don't tend to find the big papers- NYT, Washington Post, etc (I do like the Independent) very worthwhile- I prefer Scoop or the news/opinion mix of say, TalkingPointsMemo.
I'd be interested to see a poll of the (quite unrepresentative!) news habits of PA readers- perhaps accompanied by a 1-10 rating for the different services! ? -
To be fair on the journos, Bart, they have been required to "sign off" every story since, I think, the late eighties (eg, ending with: "...Bart Jonswattle, TV One news.") My ex-boss- a fine wordsmith- worked in TVNZ news for many years and almost quit when they said he had to start doing it.
On the other hand- you seem to find journos nowadaze without any curiousity about bleedin' anything. That's a killer. Not to mention you'd be very hard pressed to find a single TV journalist who understood the most basic principles of statistics.
</whining ranting and nitpicking> -
Amen to the mention of Peake. Maybe it _is_ best left lingering in the back of the head, but Gormengast is terrific. Dense and macabre- and the final book a bit of a let down in some ways- but dark and powerful. And Peake's other writing includes some very whimsical poetry and a quirky romantic comedy that failed at the box office, but is also worth reading, called "the wit to woo".
And ditto for the encyclopaedia: I spent a lot of time reading an dusty '49 Brittanica as a kid, and I've kept it, much to my kids amused disgust. It's actually very good for history and geography. -
Chris, I think in part Riddley Walker (the book!)'s initial opacity may have to do with the written word- your description of hearing a passage read makes me wonder if much of that initial alienation is just about spelling (never really liked clockwork orange, either- tho' I loved "How to be topp"!) I know I got into it later in the book... but I've never heard Riddley read aloud, and that's worth a try!
Broken English is- well, broken... but for a rollicking good read- however contrived- Vernon God Little also has a strong voice- with even a touch of Huck Finn- the first truely great young adult narrator.
(Huck Finn is well worth re-reading- a let-down ending, and hard to read aloud to the kids (just what emphasis do you put on the word "nig**r"? I found that curiously squeamish!) but the classic roadtrip-on-a-river full of ghosts and demons, charlatans and samaritans, twisted around the difficult friendship that develops between Huck and Jim. Very rich.) -
That was the intention of many of the protest organisers which didn't really have much to do with fighting apartheid I suppose. The thinking was - provoke a fight with the police and then ordinary NZers will rise up and overthrow the oppressors.
Actually, Neil (just as a matter of historical accuracy) wasn't it really down to Muldoon's statement that the only way the tour would be cancelled was if the Police said it was too dangerous? This led fairly directly to a/ the cops feeling challenged in their machismo and b/ the protest movement attempting to "fulfill the requirement" and make the tour dangerous to civil order- (whatever the phrasing was).
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I'd totally support a p2p levy, but a flat rate on the net ain't going to happen. I don't download music and micro or not, the idea that I'd have to pay for those who do is infuriating. Tethering the entire www to such a reginme is both impractical and unjust. But yeah, Simon- the April fools may turn out to the people who who aren't thinking this laterally. It looked more like a sound business structure than most anything I've seen.
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To put it another way, Ben- how many bands of the early/mid 80s didn't have members who at one stage or another- but often all together- were on the dole? Or the "bursary"? Not many, if any!
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Books on drugs: The Whole Earth Catalogue: an invaluable resource. There's lots more in it, but not as interesting to a late 70s adolescent.
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Chris- yeah, they are all good books Pilgermann, or Kleinzeit, or The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and Jachin-Boaz - and Riddley Walker is a classic... but not, for me, a loved one. (My wife and her mum would both disagree.)
It is a matter of taste of course :-)
I'd also throw in some Murakami- Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World is, in a twisted way, in same the Hoban vein, but somehow lighter.
I just love Hoban's children's books: I'd say they were the greatest ever if it weren't such a subjective thing and foolish-seeming statement. But even endless re- reading to kids, they make me smile and feel emotional and are gently ironic in a very complicated and satisfying way.
Re-reading Uncle has also been terrific, but I think you need to read it aloud to a family, a chapter or two at a time, preferably in front of the fire. And you have to read Uncle in an incredibly pompous voice. -
FWIW- there's a link from the Herald now- at the bottom of the page "Read Russell Brown's full critique at Public Address". Not that buying a drink or three isn't in order.