Depends on where the boundary is drawn. There's peace & quiet, and then there's sleepy & boring.

Hehe, Marvellous Ian. I had a chuckle.

for tax purposes, yes

rich, white and fey…?
I especially like Key’s reinterpretation of Savage’s:
I do not think it is any use talking about national wealth unless we can use it for national purposes
…applying his trader nous, and with…

I believe the term we use here is "applied Christianity"

Makes ya wonder what we've been telling people up till now...

As I said, please feel free to disagree with Hamish. He's not always right (who is?), and when he gets it wrong he doesn't fart about, but it was not only unbecoming, but downright foolhardy, for Claire Curran to be quite that patronizing. And the guy's been pretty consistent…

Also, as far as Labour’s arts policy goes, here’s the draft Platform, which has a chapter on NZ Identity etc. If you want to go…

I've been thinking for a while of auditioning for Voices New Zealand, the national chamber choir, and have been keeping an eye out for when the next round of auditions would be – they're usually every three years or thereabouts. What did I discover this weekend?…

Not at all. Then again, I could really have done without Claire Curran wagging her finger at Hamish Keith – who, agree with him or not, does actually know…

Just because I saw the headline and thought, 'Oh, it might be an arts press release.'

It isn't.

Nah I'm pretty sure he packed off to Oz around '77

Are we in a golden age of Arts, rugby, politics or anything else? How the Frick could we possibly conclude that, until we've seen where it sinks to (or improves, disproving the golden age theorem) at some other time after…

Most practising artists have little in common with gold.

I may be. Anyway, I was talking gobshite. I don't really pretend to know the zeitgeist on music, because I don't listen to much that's new. That, in itself, is a purely visceral reaction to how unoriginal it sounds to me. Which is…

I had never thought about that, but you're totally right. Thank you!

For every Chatterton, you have a John…

From what I can tell, the groundswell of our time is live TV karaoke banging out stuff that was mostly made last century. People who themselves were once famous musicians play third rate…

But not if you believe culture is stuff composed several centuries ago somewhere else.

This is an important point. What the Clark boost did…

Chris Finlayson ‏@chrisfinlayson 2m
Govt kept the Hobbit in NZ, saving hundreds of creative jobs – and the future of the industry here – from union wreckers #goldenage

But a politician? And one who doesn't care for some of our most revered painters?

Finlayson follows in the fine NZ tradition of treating art as a marginal and unimportant activity, pursued by those…

Anyway, Finlayson's announcement of this was immediately recast by Dave Armstrong:Shortly I’ll be tweeting reasons why I think we’re at the beginning of a #goldenage in the political satire sector in NZ

Dude has a point.

Very keen to get feedback from the creative community about what is needed and wanted from government. A few examples of what I have been hearing in my relatively short period as Spokesperson are in the blog, but there is…

There is next to no consistent career path for actors, directors and playwrights. Outstanding people are often lucky to get one short gig a year. This means that professional standards become eroded and the vibrant imaginations eventually move away from the arts into…

Is this the third term arrogance blooming early ?

They were so disciplined for the first term and a half, but now they're starting to look like a third term Government...

Fascinating watching…