Posts by Russell Brown
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I've updated the original post with the lineup for Christoph's performance. And that really is some lineup ...
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Busytown: Sons for the Return Home, in reply to BenWilson,
Other advice. Don’t bother to bring a vehicle back, or you will sorely regret the trouble, and how much money you wasted.
Ben, no one brings a vehicle back. Except, I'm assuming, you ... ;-)
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But alas, we must leave it here, in the hands of its next owner – who will, as is proper and right, paint over our grubby fingerprints, the boys’ height markings on the bathroom doorframe, and the paint job my dad did on his last visit here.
That is beauty and truth in an image, Jolisa.
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Hard News: Chill out: it's a party, in reply to bronwyn,
Not to be a downer, but there was one near-miss on the opening night in Auckland – a security guard was set upon by a group (ostensibly in the city for the celebrations) in Albert Park and quite seriously injured.
Nasty, but its really hard to see how something that happens in Albert Park is the fault of the council -- which presumably actually posted the security guard there -- rather than the people who committed the assault.
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Here's the One News report on the crowding in Kingsland, which is really quite misinformed.
Despite Auckland Transport making the numbers available very promptly, Donna-Marie Lever says that "fans shunned the failed transport network" -- which simply doesn't tally with the numbers recorded, which were almost the same as the previous Friday.
The match organisers told everyone to arrive early -- then didn't open the gates. Not exactly the council's fault.
According to Doug McKay, the council wanted to close the strip, but the police declined.
And really, was it that bad? The police seemed to have handled things sensibly enough and then everyone went to the match.
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Hard News: Chill out: it's a party, in reply to Richard Llewellyn,
I couldn’t imagine Phoenix fans in Wellington taking kindly to being prevented from taking their shirts off :)
In which sense it's a bit like the security guards I described in the post -- over-eager security sometimes has a counterproductive effect.
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Hard News: Chill out: it's a party, in reply to Paul Campbell,
um – but hasn’t this whole Auckland party central storm-in-a-teacup thing been driven by electioneering on National’s part, trying to make McCully and the Nats look positive and jumping in to do the right thing, and that evil lefty proxy-Labour council bad in comparison
Yes, but I remain of the view that McCully's actions were much more about the minister's butt-covering panic attack than a planned strategy to deal to the mayor and his council.
The "Labour are being negative ninnies" thing was just a spin line to avoid talking about McCully in Parliament. Ironically, the international media stories about the opening night problems only came after the "take control" press conference.
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Hard News: Chill out: it's a party, in reply to Richard Llewellyn,
How utterly, utterly absurd.
I suppose it was a "miracle" no one caught a fucking cold or something.
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Hard News: Chill out: it's a party, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
ETA: BTW, my David worked on Saturday night and when he rolled in at 2.30am he said the most eventful thing that happened was helping to steer a couple of benignly drunk Irishmen towards a taxi rack.
Glad to hear it. And they shipped a lot of people.
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Hard News: Chill out: it's a party, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
It’s interesting that the liquor laws (as interpreted) require rigid segregation of 18+ drinkers from under 18’s at Big Day Out, but not at a sporting event.
Or at Queen's Wharf. I saw one child at The Cloud -- dancing happily -- but that seemed to be excuse enough to police the whole thing as if it were a school disco.