Posts by Russell Brown
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Hard News: Chill out: it's a party, in reply to Richard Grevers,
There is something about the Irish – reports from publicans after the Ireland/USA game in New Plymouth said that while they drink heavily, they do not get aggro or stupid when drunk*. Instead they get happier and mellow.
Oh, they're capable of getting very passionate. But yeah. Some of the Irishmen I saw in town seemed basically incredulous at what had happened, more than anything.
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Hard News: Chill out: it's a party, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
Yeah, Tapu, it's not as if The Herald had editors who could have decided the "Minister of Bad Manners" story had no news value. I really love the way media folks act as if they've no influence over their own editorial and news judgement. Do magic elves assemble newspapers, television news and radio bulletins?
The quantum of airtime and column inches devoted to that non-story is really quite remarkable. Still, Greg Growden of the SMH can be forgiven for finding the whole thing highly amusing.
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Tapu Misa quotes me in her column but sort of misses my point.
Happy as I am for anyone to bag the minister, I'm not really up for complaining about how no one's allowed to complain. Because it seems to me that everyone's complaining.
Even Misa admits to coming into town on opening day, staying 10 hours (I think i'd be "over it" by midnight too) and having her teenage son shush her when she complained about some public drunkenness because "He didn't want me to ruin his perfect memory of the night."
Any place you've voluntarily stayed at for 10 hours can't be that bad, surely.
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And hey, at least it's not like the 1960 Hastings Blossom Festival.
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Just found this excellent coverage of opening night frolics in Auckland, from some outfit called Zonic.tv:
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Hard News: Towards the Truth, in reply to Hilary Stace,
And the DomPost today (not on line) gives Nicky Hagar a single-spaced small-font little corner of the paper to reply to the paper’s previous three negative responses to his book.
The Dom Post's response to that book does the paper no credit at all.
I gather some enmity between Vernon Small and the author may have played a role there.
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Hard News: LATE OCTOBER: Life in the…, in reply to Rich Lock,
Also, that generally no-one deliberately chooses to be the outsider.
But people do sometimes choose to define themselves on the margin, or outside the mainstream, and that's fine.
In the past decade, I've often thought that I feel particularly comfortable in the company of mature gay men and women because I relate to their sense of otherness. And that even though I'm now certainly part of some establishment or other, I still value my own sense of otherness.
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Speaker: Party Central, structures and silos, in reply to Raymond A Francis,
Then I read Tracy Watkins into-days paper and she claims the Government was promised officals on every train carriage and plenty of buses and as we know these were not delivered
I wouldn't regard Watkins as a reliable source, at all. She's simply repeating what a ministerial spin doctor has told her. She has written two stories so far in which she hasn't even been able to get the name of the Auckland Council right.
I feel Auckland should have a long hard way things are run and maybe ensure paid officals do what they are paid to do
As Sacha has explained, Auckland local government is a new structure, just months old, designed by central government and deficient in some respects. It's perhaps not only Auckland that should take a long, hard look.
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Speaker: Party Central, structures and silos, in reply to Sofie Bribiesca,
Well, it's another party to get to. Party Central has been advertised. Plus, Ireland won man.
Indeed. And Irishmen who happily walked the fan trail to the park might be a little to thirsty to walk back.
It's fascinating that Veolia carried basically the same numbers this week as last week, with none of the same problems. Last Friday was ... special.
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Field Theory: Straight for the throat, in reply to BenWilson,
Yes, it’s been great to watch so far. I concur with the ease of access, too. I parked in Wynyard Quarter for free, no driving around required. It’s worth a look before paying for Downtown,
I was slightly stunned to pay a total $2.50 for our parking.