Posts by Craig Ranapia
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Hard News: Any excuse for a party, in reply to Graeme Edgeler,
John Key let us down too. You don’t get many occasions to dress up really fancy, and he declined to take it up.
To be fair, the invitation was (by royal wedding standards) downright informal: "Uniform, Morning Coat or Lounge Suit.” While it would have been nice to see him in full morning dress, I actually think he got it about right. My personal bug bear is men wearing black to weddings -- it's not a funeral. And unless the invitation specifies black-tie, you really should try not to have people asking you to fetch drinks at the reception.
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Sadly, Bronagh Key has let New Zealand down -- Julia Gillard was wearing a much sillier hat. The ABs will have to win the RWC to erase the shame. :)
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TV Three had Hilary Barry on the spot being all cheery and John Campbell heading what seemed to be a rather smart and effervescent panel including Jeremy Wells.
Yes, having a good old giggle at Ffion Hague’s broken leg was “smart and effervescent"… if that’s an euphemism for “crass and twatcocky.” Though, to be fair, the only unforgivable sin at events like this is dead air.
Oh, and I loved this big of insightful analysis: “Kate is very different from Diana.” Yeah, the pulse rather gave it away.
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Cracker: RIght On., in reply to Sacha,
Back to that cake stall to raise funds for the party, eh
Oddly enough, Sacha, there are still one or two people who get off their arses and participate instead of bitching on the sidelines. And, yes, people still fundraise for political parties old school. You might also want to de-bitch for a moment and give a little respect to the people of all political stripes and party affiliations who are going to be out on the streets campaigning. Yes, the days when National and Labour were credibly claiming to have hundreds of thousands of members are gone. There's plenty of reasons to cynical about politics and the political process, but I'm just a little tired of being patronising and treated like an idiot because you don't like the party I support and belong to.
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Hard News: Any excuse for a party, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
Also, that Civil List number is a bit bogus. It excludes the income from various lands, including the Duchy of Cornwall, that the royals insist are personally held, but which were acquired through their positions as monarch and could reasonably be held to be state property.
Hum... I see a rather interesting argument that the British Government and the Windsors owes the Catholic Church compensation (and 465 years of interest) for goods and property alienated (or destroyed) during the Dissolution of the Monasteries.
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I won’t be watching tonight as my lukewarm republicanism overrides my desire to consume royal kitsch or watch British eccentricity mediated by the terrible presenters on TV1 and 3.
More practical reason for giving it a miss – birthday brunch, which will be so much more enjoyable if I'm awake and in a good mood. :) Probably will hang in long enough to bitch the couture – and I’m most disappointed Bronagh won’t be pulling a Cheryl West instead going for super-safe and mega-boring Trelise Cooper. FFS, Camilla got a wee bit edgy and fashion-forward on her big day in Philip Treacy
Please please please Sarah Burton is doing the wedding dress, and in the true Alexander McQueen spirit has cooked up something so OTT even Lady Gaga would stop and stare.
Well, a fashion queen can dream…
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Legal Beagle: Adventures in the OIA or:…, in reply to izogi,
In Australia, the precedents seem to have been for government officials to go to whatever lengths they could find to avoid releasing things. Not sure if that’s just a biased journalists’ view.
@IZOGI: The Official Information and Local Government Official Information and Meetings Acts are pretty good (though a good number of the exemptions reek to high heaven, IMO and YMMV of course). But compliance? That’s more of a curate’s egg. Idiot/Savant’s done some excellent analysis, and I think a fair summary is that compliance continues to be, at best, patchy and too often downright Kalfka-esque.
On Media7 last night, Jon Stephenson said it took Jerry Mateparae six months to deign to even respond to his last OIA request, and it was basically (I'm paraphrasing) a long "fuck off, I'm not telling you shit." That's blatantly flouting the law, but unless the Ombudmen get real enforcement powers what's the downside? Stephenson didn't have the time or resources to be constantly taking the NZDF to task and research a complex story like that.
And this is nothing new. Back in the 90’s, I worked at a very small provincial paper. Even the most innocuous requests for information from the local council and hospital boards were painful. I think the assumption was that if they dragged their feet long enough (and well past the legal deadline), you’d either give up or drop dead. And you know what, they were right most of the time.
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Hard News: Any excuse for a party, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
The Herald seems (unusually) to have uncovered a few slight overestimates around the Rugby World Cup (TM) for instance.
As Hamish Keith has rather acidly noted elsewhere, what a delightful change from the time when the mildest question about the assumption these kinds of figures are always riddled with was tantamount to treason. Too little, far too late.
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It's been particularly amusing watching the American media lose their collective tiny minds over the Middleton/Mountbatten-Windsor nuptials. It's like that Revolution thingy never happened...
the last-minute restraint of The Chaser’s planned alternative commentary on the wedding
Would have been nice, though, if they'd actually stuck to the issue (the BBC acted remarkably stupidly) rather than going off into some rather bizarre "stop being a haterz, Clarence House" territory. Really, not much evidence that anyone in the Royal Family knows, let alone cares, about a pack of Aussie shock jocks.
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Cracker: RIght On., in reply to Sacha,
Same people deep behind both is what I've been saying and you have been resisting hearing it seems.
I've heard it, Sacha. I'm just not buying what you're selling, and you're not making much of a case to change my mind.
(Sanctuary, this is where you swoop in -- just cut and paste the script I prepared earler.)
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