Posts by Russell Brown
-
Notes & Queries: Little CD in a Prospect…, in reply to Bart Janssen,
The day after the news about Charlotte, I got a call to say that another acquaintance, about the same age, had died. I hadn't seen him in years, but I didn't have to hear the cause of death to guess it was suicide. Hanging, in fact.
I wondered if there was something about reaching a certain age and just no longer having the strength to continue. Very sad.
-
I never knew Charlotte well, but we ran with the same crowd in the early 1980s and I can confirm that she was not (she must have been 16 at the time) an ugly adolescent. I recall her looking quite different to the Charlotte we all knew later — elfin, with short blonde hair. She was quiet too, and always seemed to be on the fringe of the group, as if she hadn’t invented herself yet.
I really only had much of a conversation with the later Charlotte once, when we both washed up that preposterous celebrity trap the Queenstown Winter Festival. She was great company and quite sanguine about her job as "whatever it is I do."
Later in the evening, she flashed her boobs at me. She was very proud of them.
-
Hard News: The Mayor's marginal enemies, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
As far as I can tell, the correction was so half-arsed and passive-aggressive voiced it was almost meaningless.
It was written so as to obscure the fact that the prospective protests were not about Brown at all, but about whaling. And then buried on page five.
-
Matthew Dentith's account of Saturday's Stand Down Len Brown march.
-
Hard News: The Mayor's marginal enemies, in reply to Sacha,
Orsman finally acknowledges who Sharon Stewart is.
More to the point, that's a story about absolutely nothing. It's just embarrassing.
-
Hard News: Friday Music: Cinema 'Tron, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
…I do wish Steve and Chris would rerelease
or upload some more of the Stridulators music,
the world is ready now…Very much +1.
Those guys were doing complex bedroom productions before the equipment really even existed. They were layering cassette recordings!
Steve was always quite stern about how everyone should look after their cassette tapes properly.
-
Hard News: The Mayor's marginal enemies, in reply to Jim Cathcart,
So, yes, among the PA readership, I may be on the outer in how I think of Len Brown. Nevertheless, even though my views are more Glenfield than Ponsonby, I am still rather surprised that anyone is surprised that LB is disliked.
It would be closer to say he's viciously disliked by a small group of people. Most Aucklanders aren't that exercised. By way of comparison, a march against the mayoralty of John Banks in 2002 drew five or six times as many people.
It seems more a case that if you assign to either a red or blue tribe, you have a natural support base, regardless of your efficacy or substance.
I would point out that I've been very forthright about the conduct of Penny Bright and her friends in the past. Especially on the matter of their despicable harassment of a dying Cr Phil Raffills, a man I had nothing in common with politically.
-
Radio NZ's Kim Baker Wilson has obtained (presumably via an OIA request) email exchange showing that two security guards were added at the last moment because Auckland Transport staff were concerned about his security at the Panmure station opening.
Cameron Brewer is claiming vindication, but this doesn't back up his claim that the whole "bevy of heavies" was for the mayor. It's two of seven security guards added without reference to the mayor's office, at a total cost of about $200.
It's also worth bearing in mind that at least two of the protest leaders have a history of harassing councillors and Russell Malcolm is the subject of an order forbidding him to make contact with city councillors.
-
Okay, I'll get on with my day after this ...
I'm 100% sure the Japanese consulate not only never received any threats related to a possible appearance by Len Brown at Japan Day, but that the consulate's contact with police did not relate in any way to prospective anti-Brown protests.
The prospective protests which worried the consulate had to do with whaling. Not the mayor. At all.
It appears the Herald has skipped around this in its correction by referring only to "a warning a protest could take place," without actually making clear the prospective protest had nothing at all to do with Brown.
For all the flaws of the blogosphere, I don't think any blog would get away with dodging acknowledgement of a major mistake like this.
-
The Japanese consulate story has been removed from the Herald website and at the bottom of the briefs on on page 5 of the Weekend Herald, there's a correction.
In's interesting that they're still insisting the consulate contacted the police on being advised of a likely protest, because the mayor's office is saying that didn't happen either.
It's also been suggested to me (by another journalist) that any warning might actually have been related to anti-whaling protests, and not Len Brown. Which would actually make more sense to anyone non-obsessed with the mayor.
