Posts by Russell Brown
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
I quite liked Lammerlaw, in a Glen Grant sort of a way
It has actually got better with age. Still a lighter, Lowland style, but perfectly alright.
although my favourite single malts tend to be very peaty - such as a cask-strength Caol Ila or, failing that, a Lagavulin, Laphroaig or a Bowmore.
Both Nigel and I found that the peated whiskies started to all taste the same after a while. It gave me a renewed respect for Springbank, whose bottlles were rich and magnificent, and only lightly peated.
-
That would be, gout-fest.
Yeah, keeping an eye on that one. Might have to order some more cherry pills.
-
There's sound reasons for limiting the number of people entering into a country as most infrastructure, public and private, is developed based on demographic forecasts and having open boarders would play havoc with that - almost all migrants to Australia end up in Eastern capitals, most in Sydney - the Sydney infrastructure is struggling.
You'd also get people coming here so they could skip to Australia - I think the Aussies would get sour on that pretty quick.
In terms of infrastructure pressure, I think we're already taking a favourable view of immigrants prepared to live somewhere other than Auckland, aren't we? But I can see why new immigrants don't necessarily want to.
My research (consisting of an enjoyable conversation with an Indian woman who drove a taxi) suggests that new New Zealanders see Auckland as the place where they can improve their station - while going to Christchurch is seen as opting for the quiet life. Tze Ming? Is that a widely held view?
I also talked to an African who had been rather boldly prepared to live in Timaru, where there was a skilled job for him. He seemed to have found it tolerable, but nonetheless had wound up driving a taxi in Wellington ...
So yeah, most of the immigrants I meet are driving me to the airport ... I liked it when my friend had a contract cleaning business. He employed people other employers wouldn't take - which often meant immigrants. I'd occasionally join him for a drink and a smoke with a couple of them (there are ways of transcending language barriers).
His observation, as a working-class guy himself, was that (unlike taxi drivers) they usually seemed really isolated from public life and didn't have much idea of what was going on. That's where home-language media can be so useful. And I'd far rather listen to indipop in a taxi than ZM ...
-
Good thing I'm leaving the country... bad puns to follow, possibly.
If you leave a fake forwarding address when you depart, the bad puns won't know where to find you.
-
And hang on, isn't Craig the only Maori on the thread so far?
Sadly, the Nielsen NetRatings demographics show Public Address readers to be less likely to be Maori than the average NZ internet user.
28% of y'all are in executive or senior government jobs though. And most of you made more money than me last year. Bah.
-
I hope that our societal debate on this will eventually come to focus on ways of providing parents the personal and parental skills they need to raise their kids properly. Peace out.
Yep. We've just passed 5000 views and 160 posts in this thread. I think it's been useful.
-
Is there any whisky distilled (commercially) in NZ?
<puts on whisky expert hat>
There's about to be some, although in the way of these things, it'll be a while.
When Seagrams exited its NZ liquor business and sold it to Fosters, Fosters decided it had little use for the Willowbank distillery in Dunedin, and closed it.
Given that the distillery was the source of the dread Wilson's whisky, you might not be inclined to lament its passing. But from 1987, they started putting down a proper single malt.
Until the sale, that malt was marketed as Lammerlaw. But the remaining casks were bought from Fosters as a job lot by an Aucklander called Warren Preston, who relaunched it as the Milford single malt. He now has an ageing facility at a stone building in Oamaru, and has just gained resource consent for a new distillery near Queenstown.
I tried the 15 year-old - it's pretty good. He has a 20 year-old due for bottling this year ...
-
But sure, I'm losing my patience - this is yet another blurt that makes almost zero sense. Yet again, it's a total shame that the actual policy call has come off sounding completely ignorant of how the relevant policy (immigration and *settlement* in this case) is a) made, b) applied, and c) could actually be improved. However, is still important for 'my' camp to read between the lines and see she is attempting to 'clarify' her last comment about immigration, and making a specifically inclusive comment embracing all people of colour as potential allies (actually a good thing). I don't understand why this had to be said while at the same time nonsensically cutting out all people from other 'Western' countries (not all white, and even if they are...) as potential enemies.
I met Tariana Turia years ago, and was impressed by her - she has charisma in person. I thought it was a really good thing when she entered Parliament.
But I've gradually had to come to terms with the fact that a good deal of what she says - on teenage pregnancy, children's rights, civil unions, psychology and immigration, among other things - borders on the offensive to me. I also find her perpetually conspiratorial air irritating.
I think you're cutting her a lot of slack by "reading between the lines", given the logical balderdash you've identified in what she (and her party) said, but I understand that you'd want to give her the benefit of the doubt. I'm over that, I'm afraid.
But I'm not sure why you're so annoyed at the facetious response. I recall you having your fun with Peters ...
-
And to test my reply to Craig, we'll see how many comments follow that are just jokes about 'brown' substances, compared with "serious political and public policy debate"...
To be honest, it's hard to take this sort of thing seriously enough to debate it as public policy. We managed umpteen heartfelt and serious posts about Sue Bradford's bill, but for this ... satire seems a quite reasonable response.
I did link to NRT and Blogging It Real being seriously indignant in my post this morning.
-
Of course, we're used to Winston, and Tariana's seems to somehow not match the facts even worse than his.
I think that at some point Winston fatigue set in for most people. And Turia's stuff is kinda worse, because she actually implies skin colour as a criterion for entry. Brrrr ...
Last ←Newer Page 1 … 2210 2211 2212 2213 2214 … 2279 Older→ First