Much as I feel I should comment meaningfully on the grim news abroad, this week has been enough of a struggle as it is. The seriousness is not within me. So, if I promise to resist the temptation to make non-medical use of my cough syrup, will you bear with me?
And anyway, there's the 2008 Public Address Word of the Year to keep you busy.
Mr Litterick celebrates the second anniversary of The Fundy Post as a blog by finding a little slice of my own publishing history. It appears I was banging on about teh internets way back in 1994.
Further abroad amongst the readership, Giovanni hid a $5 note in a blog post and you have to find it and claim it.
One of the nice things about the build-up to the Headless Chickens' return show at the Powerstation tonight has been a series of good interviews. Chris Matthews really is very droll. He and Fiona Macdonald were good value on Radio New Zealand recently, and the interview with Chris and Michael Lawry in the Herald this week is also a lot of fun.
Speaking of Radio NZ, if you missed Sam Coley's Music 101 documentary Bowie's Waiata -- which, exactly 25 years on, tells the story of David Bowie's visit to Takapuwahia Marae in Porirua -- you can hear it here. It's a wonderful, heartwarming piece of work that happens to contain a previously unheard Bowie composition -- the song he wrote to respond to his welcome on the marae.
NB: I've struck an odd problem with the music on-demand content on Radio NZ that doesn't seem to affect the other on-demand content -- something to do with source-filtering at the ISP level. Nothing will play the streams except for VLC Player, which ignores the error message and soldiers on. So if you want to hear Bowie's Waiata but it won't play, right-click here to copy the .asx URL, choose "open network" from the file menu in VLC, and paste it in there.
Insofar as a recession can generate good news stories, I think this is one. Little Brother is closing is own retail outlets in a difficult trading environment -- but will have a branded presence in every Barkers store in the country.
And, finally, see what you think of this ... I could have had some freebie product to link to it, but I'll pass on that and just link to it anyway. I'm told the person who gave permission for the use of the words is more than happy with the result. Personally, I think the first part of the promotion is a really lovely idea, and the second is, well, an advertisement.