Posts by Tom Beard
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My 10-year-old daughter was wandering around the house last night signing, "I kissed a girl and I liked it . . ." A little disconcerting.
More or less disconcerting than if she's been singing "I kissed a boy and I liked it . . ."?
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Bolt = Ali. Discuss.
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Slant and other critics suggest that Perry may be homophobic...
Perhaps not so much homophobic as "exploiting the stereotypical image of pretty bi-curious girlies making out for the titillation of heterosexual men".
Does it for me, though.</bloke>
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he hadn't worked out why people start spewing comparisons when they hear his band.
Isn't that what every armchair critic does with every band? In any case, maybe it's just that they remind us of so many things we like.
the weirdest comparison they got was the Pet Shop Boys
Um, I think that may have been me: I think I wrote on the Wellingtonista or Texture once that they reminded me of what the PSB would sound like if they were signed to Flying Nun. The PSB reference was more to the knowing, deadpan, not-afraid-to-sound-brainy vocals ... oh, and they haz synth, of course, but that's about it.
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I think it's because whereas sport was once treated as News and reported as such, now it's treated as part of the Entertainment industry.
And isn't that exactly what it is?
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__that the late lamented Keith Ng__
I can confirm that he's not dead.
Nevertheless, I am in mourning.
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Is there a formal, legal definition of "journalist" in NZ? One cannot call oneself an "architect" or "surgeon" without the relevant qualifications and membership of a professional organisation, but that doesn't apply to other professions such as "graphic designer" or "project manager".
If the term "journalist" is protected in the former way, then the discussion of "real" journalists vs bloggers makes some sort of sense. Otherwise, what we're really talking about is paid journalists vs unpaid ones, or formally-trained journalists versus self-trained ones. Or is the definition of "real" journalism a shortcut for "paid for by Fairfax etc"?
The distinction between reportage & commentary makes a lot of sense, and in this case it's true that most bloggers (at least political ones) are closer to commentators than reporters. Commentators in the MSM don't need any sort of qualifications either, though empirical evidence would suggest that being an insufferable tosser seems to help. There are, however, plenty of bloggers who do their own research, if not in a primary sense then certainly as secondary interpreters of others' research. As you say, with the surge in raw information and data being made available online (census data, consent applications, economic trends, public submissions), there is more and more call for the sort of in-depth analysis that the late lamented Keith Ng used to provide, rather than relying on regurgitated press releases and reporting that assumes that readers are illiterate and innumerate.
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Compared to the other phrases that might be used in such (perhaps rather too rare) circumstances, I consider it the most mellifluous, erudite and flattering alternative. Or perhaps one could try Duchamp's "L.H.O.O.Q.", although the occasions when such intellectual wankery would be both understood and appreciated are vanishingly rare.
The other part of my brain to be squeezed out must have been the part that remembered the preferred spelling of "callipygian".
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Where does that leave someone like me, who's been both a mathematician and a literary critic, and who thinks that callipygean is one of the most beautiful and underused words in the English language? What part of my brain had to get emptied out to make way for both?
Oh, that's right. Morals.
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I'm mildly terrified at the prospect of the men's sprinting in the same sort of loving detail.
Does anyone remember a viral video of men's sprinting, in slow motion, frontal view in tight lycra, with added sound effects? There was a bunch of white guys, and the effects were a fast, high-pitched "dingdingdingdingding". Then there was Lindford Christie, and the sound was a slow, deep, resonant "Doooooong, doooooooong, doooooooong...."