Posts by Tom Semmens
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Haden's nonsense is one thing. But would you be painfully PC if you flinched at this material coming from a noted liberal who is incidentally a Pakeha former halfback? If I were brown, I sure think I would.
Chris Laidlaw is a noted academic, ex-high commissioner to Harare and an ex-race relations conciliator, discussing in undoubted good faith a perceived split in rugby along racial lines.
Andy Haden is an unreconstructed supporter of racist South Africa, an authoritarian redneck and the organiser of the disgraceful 1986 Cavaliers tour of South Africa.
Spot the difference Rosie?
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The thing about Haden - and all those pricks from his generation - is every time they open their boorish mouths they remind half the country of why they so hate the boff-head culture of his era.
Haden is divisive and a reminder of a time in our history New Zealand rugby would do well to try to NEVER remember.
Heaps of New Zealanders are sick and tired of the negativity guys like Haden bring to rugby, and that rubs off onto attitudes to the game in general.
When Willie Lose, Murray Deaker, and all the rest of Haden's mates went into bat for their guy they missed the bigger point. Rugby can no longer get away with expecting the public to just put up with divisive, negative and arrogant attitudes of some it's highest profile people. There are alternatives now. Look at the All Whites - what would you rather follow, the debate about Andy Haden or the fairy tale of our World Cup team? That is something for the NZRFU, RWC, and Mordor McCully to ponder.
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Apparently these programmes are also partly responsible for the property bubble and subsequent demise. The power of television aye?
Wasn't there a similar brouhaha over dear aunty Antiques Roadshow spiking antiques prices?
I bet dear old Henry Sandon MBE never went broke though.
Just by the way, I intensely envy Henry Sandon. He doesn't do what he does for wealth (although I would guess he is well off enough nowadays), he does it because he loves it. He is possibly the happiest man I've ever seen on telly.
Lessons for our Phil and Kirsty there methinks.
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Location Location Location
Phil Spencer went broke don't you know.
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The future of TV? IP is king and we will continue to converge in order to atomise. The major social issue will be how to get important information through the compartmentalised echo chambers most people will seal themselves off into.
Clemenceau famously remarked that war was to important to be left to the generals, and like yet another bungled trench raid "Cheers for fifty years" is ongoing evidence that public lions are being led by broadcasting donkeys. TV (or at least it's fourth estate component) is clearly to important to be left to the executives. Once we finally shed ourselves of our "market knows best" fetish the only known antidote to a dumbed down atomised audience where everything is either 15 second bites or lost in the noise is a strong, well funded public broadcaster in all mediums and effective and strong government regulation of the domestic media market.
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Well, so far the first ten minutes if "Cheers for fifty years" is complete rubbish. Thanks TVNZ for making a show that is the equivalent of offering some chips and a litre of orange juice at someones fiftieth anniversary on the job.
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DeepRed - I agree you can't be blanket about it; But voting behaviour would indicate voting is irrationally tribal to a much greater degree than perhaps we would care to admit.
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Hmmmm. Election results would indicate New Zealand voters are cleaved along fairly pre-determined, tribal lines and only a few - if that many - hundred thousand voters are truly "floating".
Most people end up voting the same way as their parents, in my experience. This can range from the mild - "Well, my parents always voted National and I quite like John Key so I support them, but I voted Labour once in 1999." To the strongly tribal "My family has been members of the Labour party since 1916, and we hate the Tories no matter what".
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Manukau
You all look the same from tastfully renovated inner city Edwardian villas.
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Bank's absurbly hyerbolic rhetoric is just plain annoying.
I mean, he uses the same boilerplate speech for everything - here is talking about a discarded Trumpet wrapper left on the motorway verge:
“an literring monstrosity”.
“For people coming into the city, it says: ‘Welcome to the aspirational capital of New Zealand, where you dump litter … and it’s great’,”
“It just should not have happened and I railed against it before it was thown onto the ground.” “What that wrapper rising from the grass does is clearly remind people travelling through Spaghetti Junction in particular that there are litterers in the neighbourhood.”
I heard on the news that Manakau city council had voted to accept the government's leaky home package. Len Brown was then quoted saying he wanted to make sure no builder responsible for the mess profited from the repair work. To my mind, this much more accurately captures the anger and sense of frustrated resentment and resigned acceptance of leaky homers than the soap box blow-hards of the Remuera chocolate soldier.