Posts by Joe Wylie
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Hard News: Presentation and Reality, in reply to Tom Semmens,
But Hawke had been in politics - or at least the trade union movement - for years, and was immensely popular before he entered parliament. In other words, he had a track record and a history.
Hardly a history that justified the fawning collusion with the media that inflated Hawke's bubble to bursting point. You may recall that his safe Melbourne Labor seat was taken handily by a left-wing independent in the by-election after he left politics, and that his wooden ineptitude as a wannabe media commentator ensured that the cosy deal he'd struck with his big-end-of-town cronies died in a ditch.
Without something like Key's Hawaiian bolthole the former champion of the workers was reduced to whoring himself as a meeter-and-greeter at the Double Bay Ritz-Carlton, and dishing the dirt on his former 'mates' with the help of his live-in 'biographer'. And Hazel succumbed to Alzheimers.
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Hard News: Presentation and Reality, in reply to Tom Semmens,
I have never seen anything like the current cult of Key in any modern democracy anywhere.
Then you’ve mercifully missed Bob Hawke’s 80s “love affair with the Australian people”. While Key’s independent means might not spare him from the inevitable ‘put some clothes on, you’re disgusting’ phase that follows all such infatuations, he’s unlikely to have to cut the kind of humiliating deals that ‘Hawkie’ was reduced to in post-political life.
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Up Front: Absence in the Arcades, in reply to Lilith __,
“The hell with earthquakes, we need our customers’ loyalty cards!!”
Yeah. No idea whether she has a loyalty card, but here's a Ballantynes client getting the treatment on the big opening day.
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Up Front: Absence in the Arcades, in reply to JacksonP,
That’s… heartbreaking?
Dunno about heartbreaking, but short of up-against-the-wall Ballantynes, send-‘em-out-to-build-tractors, the apparently frivolous normalities do count for something in terms of people’s emotional needs.
I remember a story from Jakarta in the wake of the 1998 anti-Suharto riots, where a group of immaculately uniformed and made up young women waited in vain to clock in, in front of the melted plastic sign of the trashed mall where they’d worked.
While I realise that it’s out there in the realms of hyperbole in terms of Christchurch’s situation, I’m reminded of an incident from an account of the liberation of the Nazi death camps, where instead of relief food parcels a huge consignment of lipstick was delivered to the emaciated survivors. Instead of rejecting it women eagerly seized upon it, and could be seen studying their transformed reflections in water troughs and puddles. That for me gives some clue to our need for the almost spiritual nourishment provided by ’normal’.
In the meantime, it’d be great to have the local library back.
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Muse: The Very Odd Future According to…, in reply to DCBCauchi,
But they are different songs. The Terminals' is much better.
It has venom.
I'm sure it does. According to your quote, it also shares some of the same lyrics.
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Muse: The Very Odd Future According to…, in reply to DCBCauchi,
. . . The Terminals have a song about a voodoo doll of an ex-girlfriend. ‘If I want to make you cry … I put a little drop of water in a little doll’s eye’ or something like that. Great song.
Wiser heads than mine will know the true origin of Love, Hate, Revenge, but I believe it was first released by Episode Six in 1967. A big hit locally for The Avengers the following year;
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Sydney built the bulk of its underground in The Depression . . .
Sydney’s first two underground stations predate the depression, and the bulk of its tunnels – Eastern Suburbs, Airport Line, Epping to Chatswood – are much more recent. It’s the commuter rail associated with the Harbour Bridge, not all of which is underground, that was built during the depression.
Get off at Britomart
Something that relates to Auckland’s current situation – from Urban Dictionary:Get off at Redfern:
The origin of this saying is easy to trace. On the train line to the city in Sydney, one of the last stops before the city is at a suburb called Redfern. Thus, when you get off at Redfern, you’re exiting the train before getting to the main part of the city.Has the same meaning as
“Did you wear a rubber?”“Nah mate, just got off at Redfern"
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OnPoint: 3 News Exclusive Investigation…, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
I suspect something horrible and unspeakable happened to ACT members at university . . .
Somehow I'd assumed the opposite, that their resentment stems from not very much happening. I'd like to think that they started out nice to a fault, much too nice to refuse the cosy hand knits foisted on them by colour-blind and dyslexic relatives.
That kind of thing can really cruel your social life in your crucial years, plus you're unlikely to be offered interesting drugs.
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OnPoint: Fiscal Responsibility is the…, in reply to Sacha,
Gardening tools and supplies like compost or fertilisers are not cheap in more than trifling quantities.
'Half a tonne of ammonium nitrate. Would that be for agricultural purposes, or for an improvised explosive device, in which case GST would apply'.
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Hard News: Walking upright again, in reply to Just thinking,
Apologies, the rumour I shared about Roger giving in his resignation was wrong.
People want to believe in Roger Sutton as someone who's somehow above politics. After the February 22 quake he created enormous goodwill when he oversaw the restoration of power as head of Orion. When he turned up to public meetings on his bike with his rolled-up chart he impressed as speaking from the heart on matters of vital importance that he thoroughly understood.
So it doesn't ring right when Sutton's reduced to demeaning nonsense such as describing the container mall as 'funky' in his recent awkward media briefing. Along with that beady-eyed old rooster Grizz Wyllie (no relation) his picture appears in CERA's patronising 'Talk It Over' ad campaign, which is a huge sick joke to those who've attempted to get answers from the overhyped helpline in recent weeks. Does someone's market research tell them that Sutton and Wyllie are 'trusted'? Would Grizz get the call if Roger really did resign?
Someone once described conspiracy theories as attempts to explain why bad things happen to good people. There's an element of that behind the Sutton resignation rumours. People desperately need to believe. It's Labour's stated policy that Sutton keeps his job and is given the freedom to do it, rather than have his reputation gradually squandered as a shill for an otherwise faceless bureaucracy.