Posts by Russell Brown
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Field Theory: Straight for the throat, in reply to BenWilson,
The outburst of cheering in The Cloud when the Irish seized the lead was tremendous. Post game, Quay St streamed exuberant Irish fans towards Danny Doolan’s. A richly deserved win, Oz had no answers…
My old mate who lives in Mangawhai was in town, so I cooked him dinner, we watched the match on TV and then we went in for a little dance to Nick D at The Cloud.
I was quite taken with how easy it all was, tbh. We rolled straight into the Downtown car park, spent an hour on the wharf and emerged as the Irish fans started arriving en masse from Eden Park. We watched them stream into the streets, smiled, and left them to their night.
But really, in rugby terms, best World Cup ever.
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Speaker: Party Central, structures and silos, in reply to Kumara Republic,
So that makes her the John Armstrong of Fairfax, right? In both cases, how many scotch fillets and bottles of cab-sav are involved, if any?
Nah. Even given John's recent love affair with the matchless political skills of the Prime Minister, he's hugely experienced and a much better writer and thinker than Watkins. She's sometimes just a bit embarrassing.
They may both be prone to the eternal peril of the press gallery -- to maintain access to power you have to be careful about when you piss power off and when you don't. The current crowd aren't shy about withdrawing their patronage from media organisations that they don't see as useful to them.
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You know, I try not in indulge in MSM-bashing, but in the case of Tracey Watkins' pathetic, spoon-fed regurgitation of ministerial spin in the Dom Post it's really hard to stay civil.
She's supposed to be a professional journalist -- a political journalist -- and she can't even get the name of the Auckland Council right. The contrast with Sacha's thoughtful, informed analysis could hardly be more pronounced.
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Ah. This Dom Post story on the decisions is quite useful.
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Hard News: LATE OCTOBER: Life in the…, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
I’m beginning to think we all both at a margin and a center – it all depends on where you’re standing, and how self-aware you are that “normal” is a minefield.
Ooh. I'm going to quote that. With due attribution, naturally.
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Hard News: Te Qaeda and the God Squad, in reply to Peter Graham,
“The search warrants police used to secretly film allegedly military-style training camps on private land in the Ureweras did not give them the necessary legal authority, it can now be revealed.”
I'm still not clear on whether that was because they got their warrants under the Terrorism Suppression Act -- and the evidence became inadmissible when they couldn't get approval for charges under the Act -- or whether the warrants they had never permitted filming on the land. Either way it's a screw-up.
I strongly suspect there were activities there that the public would take a dim view of, but it remains to be seen whether the police really got compelling pictures of anything. This has not been, from any point of view, policing's finest hour.
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Speaker: Party Central, structures and silos, in reply to Yule Guttenbeil,
I am in Melbourne at the moment and watched the Storm play the the Knights at the new AAMI Stadium last sunday. There are 5 stadiums all directly next to each other (MCG, Olympic Park, Rod Laver Arena, AAMI Stadium and the Hisense Arena), serviced by the same train and tram stations.
Melbourne is the textbook example of doing that right. It's not so much about systems on the day as there being infrastructure to serve big crowds.
I remember being there years ago when the road from Flinders Street station along the river towards the stadiums was being permanently closed and turned into a pedestrian concourse.
And I thought: like that will ever happen in Auckland.
The thing is, now it does have to happen. And soon.
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Hard News: LATE OCTOBER: Life in the…, in reply to Christopher Dempsey,
Great – got my tickets – looking forward to it!
Tell your friends! I really want to get ticket sales roaring for this. Not least because that'll mean I do more of them.
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Hard News: LATE OCTOBER: Life in the…, in reply to JamesPL,
That isn’t the most penetrating insight; if you consider yourself ‘different’ then, yeah, you won’t consider yourself a part of ‘normal’ society. Plenty of teenagers have had that feeling.
Being different and having a place are two different things, though.
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Hard News: The Minister's Brain Has Exploded, in reply to Kumara Republic,
One moment John Armstrong is cheerleading Key, the next moment he's cheerleading... Goff.
But, but ... I thought Mr Key and his government had delivered a "killer blow"? Did the Prime Minister misplace his "big stick" between Wednesday and Thursday?
Sigh ...