Posts by Tom Semmens
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
I challenge you to disprove that the times are increasingly feminised. Now for instance she's nearly quarter to seven.
Ever wonder why everyone thinks "Italian man" is an oxymoron?
-
I have a lot of trouble taking most "violence" on the sports field seriously. The people that do have usually either forgotten or have never experienced what it is like to be a twenty four year old male in a fiercely competitive environment which is the last bastion of the male world where aggression isn't just not frowned upon, it is encouraged. I know in these feminised times we live in we are supposed to tut tut at it all and piously intone male violence is never OK, but I've never thought an on field blue did anything that a bit of savlon and a band aid couldn't repair. I don't think fighting teaches you anything either, but men do it anyway, so there you have it. Maleness in all its glorious pointlessness.
To me the remarkable thing isn't that it happens, it is that it happens so little these days. I take my hat off to the young men of today's white hot professional goldfish bowls for how little fighting does go on. Lordy, I am as big a marshmellow as they come but my occasionally hot temper means I've been in a few on-field bust ups in my time, and I've been more the sinner than sinned against. I'd hate to think what TV camera would have made of some of my dust ups.
-
Personally I would like to see Howick subsumed into a "Greater Otara," just for the Schadenfreuder.
-
NEWSFLASH: Tory lawyer misses the point.
-
I discovered most people I know who have been excited about the world cup are not planning to actually watch any games, due to the times they are played.
New Zealand interest in soccer - novelty value or enduring love affair? -
If he can't look after himself, how can he fulfil his much talked about potential
Do you have any evidence at all his personal lifestyle impacted on his performance as a minister?
For example, genius (however you define that) often comes at cost somewhere else. Look at Tiger Woods. The guy had a mask of supernatural control that led to his being the most brilliant golfer ever, or so they say. But that genius came at a price, there was a deviance from the norm elsewhere that paid the bills for his success. Winston Churchill is oft-quoted as an exempler of a decadent living, someone who could live the louche lifestyle and still perform (Winston Peters is an exempler of someone who could not) but I've always been more fascinated by his clear eccentricities - like his habit of sleeping in and then working in bed in his pajamas. What would our new puritans of the media make of a minister who stayed in bed until lunchtime and drank buckets of champers?
I am not saying Shane Jones is a Woods or Churchillian-like towering genius. But he is a high performer well above the average. Who is to say that porn and fast food are not vital components that keep him going? Are we saying everyone must conform to a puritanical stereotype of behaviour just because that works for the vast majority of the mediocre??
-
How smart are his lifestyle choices?
Here we go, the prissy middle class is coming out to play.
-
Tha's right Craig, inappropriate use of the credit card after a staff xmas party is EXACTLY like looting a business of 600 million dollars.
Lord, spare me from fools with rule books.
-
Large numbers of us have had, used and abused company credit cards. Lots of us have been out on the town after the company Xmas bash and had our boss put a round of shots on the company card and then slide it past accounts next month. Lots of us have used the company credit card, only for the manager to say that using it for that purchase is really pushing the rules and you should pay for that one yourself. It is normal behaviour, even if it isn't within the rules.
That is why as far as I can tell this is regarded as a titillating story, a bit of a window into the gilded cage of government, but not the huge story the media is making it out to be. Most people I talk to are just not that very worried about it, especially when they realise Shane Jones and like didn't actually rip the tax-payer off, they just used the wrong credit card and paid it back later. We've all been there, done that.
In fact, the lunatic overkill of the media circus is in danger of creating a significant backlash in public opinion.
-
Not so much censoring but definitely manipulating...
BP buys up oil spill search terms to skirt bad publicityThis happens all the time. For some reason I tend to get invited to lots of fancy dress parties, and i like to buy decent costumes from the United States, rather than the rather lame and expensive hire ones available in this country. I have a regular place I buy from (in Idaho of all places), but I was trying to find it from a friend's PC. According to Googles first several pages there are no fancy dress hire places that do mail order in the United States, every link sent me to the United Kingdom. This is total crap, because compared to the sort of stuff you can get from America British mail order costumes are way over priced and they are glacially slow to process your order.