Posts by Gabor Toth
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http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0710/S00272.htm
Police raid organic vegetable growers.
I liked this bit....
Ms Pearfell conversed with Scoop on a mobile phone that had only this morning escaped from police custody.
Can we expect to hear questions in the house about mobile phones escaping from police custody?
I wish Scoop would desist from using this sort of language. This is a serious issue yet it reads like text from a school magazine produced by year-13 students. It makes it difficult to work out whether they are taking the piss or not.
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Bart wrote...
IF someone has been playing with napalm, they should go to jail....IF such people are playing around in the bush then I want our police to intervene with as heavy a hand as they feel appropriate
I had a science teacher who taught us how to make napalm during a chemistry lesson back in the early 80s. I also had a social studies teacher (a WWII veteran IIRC) who took us into the Town Belt and taught us how to throw hand-grenades properly using pine cones (it was a thoroughly entertaining afternoon...).
I think they both might have passed away since, so sorry Bart, I don't think you can dob them in... -
I spoke to TV3's news chief Mark Jennings yesterday afternoon, who said that a cameraman working on Sunrise, saw the police on their way to exercise their warrant nearby, grabbed his camera and followed them, and got a couple of minutes of very useful footage, which TV3 posted as soon as it could, without even adding a commentary. If the dark forces of state control had really been looking to stage a media event, do you really think they'd pick the guy from Sunrise? And wouldn't they have invited along a reporter too?
I found the TV3 video clip of the raid in Wellington strangely compelling precisely because no reporter was present. Admittedly helping in that regard is that I used to know someone who flatted there about ten years ago (in fact I'm sure there are thousands of current and former Wellingtonians who either know of someone who flatted there or have attended a party there over the decades).
Anyway - to the footage… dim early-morning light, dawn chorus chirping in the background, dull noise of distant traffic, the sound of smashing glass, the shouts of "Police!".... all very atmospheric and about a million times better without some hack explaining the bleeding obvious in an annoying voice-over. Perhaps TV3 could post more raw footage in future? Just a simple caption explaining the situation is all that's required - the viewing public are not completely thick - we can actually work it out for ourselves.
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...while I listened to Finlay Macdonald and Bill Ralston (who make a great team, by the way) insist they wouldn't mention the rugby on Radio Live, then raise it with every guest
One of the most amusing things I heard yesterday was Radio Live's regular sting proudly stating how they were the "official radio broadcaster of the Rugby World Cup" and how (presumptuously), we could "tune in next weekend to hear the All Blacks take on Australia in the semi-final". It appears none of the weekend staff knew how to re-program the computer playing the advertisements as the sting was still playing at 10pm on Sunday night.
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I’m (as are many others I know) holding off for UHF Digital Freeview to start broadcasting next year before investing in a set-top box. Unless you already have a satellite dish on your roof, installation can be pricey where as (as long as reception is ok) almost anyone who can climb onto their roof can install and align a UHF aerial at nominal cost.
It was disappointing to see that a feature by Greer McDonald in Saturday's Dom Post made no mention of UHF Freeview as I think it will be the carrot that will attract the non-Sky-subscribing viewer (with the added attraction of HDTV broadcasts as well)
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6pm is a terrible time to watch the news - but it's quite a good time to listen to it having recently discovered that Kiwi FM plays an audio simulcast of the 6pm TV3 news during the week. Even better is that they fill the ad-breaks with choice tracks of NZ Music (unlike Radio Live who also do the simulcast but cram their own irritating ads into the breaks). It is quite a different experience from listening to Nat Rad's news and if you use your imagination, the pictures are surprisingly good (and they don't get in the way of cooking dinner).
I am eternally frustrated that TVNZ and TV3 continue to go head-to-head with both their 6pm and their late (10.30) news broadcasts. The UK have the BBC "Nine O’clock News" as a national institution and it's the perfect time - dinner is cooked and eaten, kids are in bed, but it's not too late either. However neither network is willing to take the gamble of doing something innovative with their screening times in case of losing their precious "market share". Whenever I'm visiting family in Melbourne, by doing a bit of channel / network hopping, I can watch the news every hour / on the hour between 5pm and 10pm. And for the most part - this is real news with reports going on for up to 5 minutes with proper depth and analysis. They also have some excellent newsreaders in Australia (who also do live interviews) in their mid-late 50s with terrific depth of experience, who have been on-air for 20 years+ and are revered as paragons on intelligent news broadcasting.
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...and Coates was looking for ways to weather the storm. As the first New Zealand prime minister actually born in this country
Bzzz!
The intellectually brilliant Francis Henry Dillon Bell beats Coates as the first NZ born PM (though admittedly it was only for a short time). Still - it was a damn good read and I'll probably have to find some room on my bookshelves for it... -
Thing's I do miss:
- Pret a Manger sandwiches - especially the crayfish flavour
- Marks and Spencer ready meals
- English Chinese food. Yes, I know that ours is closer to the authentic food you'd get at a greasy spoon in Beijing, but I miss the Szechuan-style king prawns and the roast duck with blackbean sauce.
- warm, flat beer!I'm surprised more brewers haven’t caught on to the fact that there could be a strong market for hand-pumped live ale in NZ. The Twisted Hop in Christchurch brew a pretty good real ale (though it's a "butt chully"), but the hand-pumped Tuatara served here in Wellington at Bar-Bodega is a poor substitute (not helped by the poorly maintained beer engines and a few bar staff who don’t know what they are doing). Does anyone know of other places to get real ale in NZ?
IIRC, "Houses of Parliament" (HP) sauce used to be far more popular in NZ than it is now. My memory is that many households had it the cupboard in the early-mid 1970's - occasionally along with its lesser known cousin, OK Sauce. They filled a niche before the food technicians invented "BBQ flavour" in the 1980s.
Baxter's "Luxury" canned soup range was my UK weakness. The "Royal Game" and "Lobster Bisque" were to die for. I once found a huge selection for sale for $1 per can back in the early 1990s at a Lower Hutt market. This was after the B.S.E thing had hit the UK and the importer decided to dump their stock. I was a poor post-grad student at the time and dined-out on the stuff for weeks. My brain has yet to go spongy.
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why wait? see it here:
Michael Moore's SickoBecause that is one of many illegal copies flooding the internet after a video file was stolen by someone working in the post-production studio (several weeks before the film received its cinematic release). Call me old-fashioned but I feel we should respect Michael Moore's efforts by at least paying for a ticket to see the film in a cinema.
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Hmmm- yes if I had the opportunity, I'd be off to Glastonbury again. The finest festival I've ever attended - and the most eye opening (though with a bit of a dark-side – visiting the "travellers" camp was like a scene from Mad Max and the drugs market on the back-roads behind the afore mentioned camp was like an… err.... market - except the numerous sellers weren’t crying out "nice fresh haddock!").
Kinda wish we had a proper festival here - we sure have got the land and the summer weather (generally) for it
Having done quite a few festivals over the years, IMHO Womad in Taranaki comes the closest we have in NZ to Glastonbury. Obviously it's smaller and there aren't the big-name acts, but in terms of atmosphere, sublime music, good vibes and cheesy grins, it's actually pretty close.