Posts by Rob Hosking

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  • Southerly: A World First of the Second Kind,

    The other bit I was slightly worried about was, y'know, page 37.

    Oh, that particular page gave me a tea-down-the-nostrils moment.

    South Roseneath • Since Nov 2006 • 830 posts Report

  • Hard News: Deprived of speech, he sang…,

    I remember seeing Knox open for John Cale (I think) at the Gluepot, 1986.

    He did a weird cover version of the Beatles 'She Said She Said', and did a rave in the middle about how it was about Lennon's first acid trip: then delivered his own impression of what it must have been like. It was magnificently, memorably, strange. I remember it more clearly than anything Cale did.

    South Roseneath • Since Nov 2006 • 830 posts Report

  • Busytown: Less is more,

    The bard plundered like a pirate, delivering to deadline without anything in the way of acknowledgements or footnotes.

    Excellent! Bill S was a journo at heart.

    South Roseneath • Since Nov 2006 • 830 posts Report

  • Southerly: Still a Scientist at Heart,

    Could the Wiggles have had anything to do with it?

    Wouldn't put it past the bastards at all.

    Wiggles = Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

    Barney the Purple Dinosaur = the Anti-Christ.

    South Roseneath • Since Nov 2006 • 830 posts Report

  • Hard News: It was 20 years ago tomorrow ...,

    1990, it took eight weeks for student allowances to be processed, during which period one was apparently living on lovely chewy oxygen.

    Looxury....


    When I was at Wellington Polytech in 1982 they didn't come through till around the last week of the first term.

    And they were real terms in those days, none of your modern short terms.

    Student loans came in in 1992. (I didn't go to Uni until my mid-20s, remember it well).

    Labour tried a student loans scheme in about 1988, from memory (Phil Goff was minister). It involved loans direct from the banks and the banks wanted more guarantees than the govt was prepared to give so the scheme got dropped. The fees were upped instead. They went from something like $500 to something around $1250, from memory.

    1989? Yep, I remember the Front Lawn. Saw their show at the Maidment twice, they were great.

    Fair enough, but to plug her album Urlich was interviewed on TV3 by a rooster puppet.

    I think we should have more of this sort of thing. Much much more.

    I mean, why pretend?

    South Roseneath • Since Nov 2006 • 830 posts Report

  • Southerly: Still a Scientist at Heart,

    @Ben: we have a couple of shrubs which draw swarms of bees. I don't know what they're called - I've named them the Eddie Izzards - but they've got thin green leaves and purple/blue flowers.

    Bees do seem to like blue. I've noticed this, while tramping in bee-ridden areas near Nelson. If you've got blue gear on, you're more likely to be swatting the buggers away.

    Mind you, maybe people with blue just smell more.

    South Roseneath • Since Nov 2006 • 830 posts Report

  • Southerly: Still a Scientist at Heart,

    a few year's later

    DAMN.

    a few years' later.

    South Roseneath • Since Nov 2006 • 830 posts Report

  • Southerly: Still a Scientist at Heart,

    You could take that as a compliment. It's said that bees have a sense of smell, and once they're on the warpath they'll go for the smelliest item

    They do.

    Saw them go after a farm dog, once. We'd drenched the bulls - a key component of Nilverm is also a key ingredient in one of the recently-banned party drugs - and the bulls, when let out of the yard, were leaping around and busted through the fence in the race and went down the side of the hill, which happened to be covered in gorse.

    Dad sent the dog in among the gorse to round them up: there was barking which turned to yelping, the bulls come running out of the gorse at the bottom of the hill and then the dog comes out and streaks past them, yowling like mad.


    Heading straight for the water trough. Which was the right thing to do. He'd run through a bee's nest and they were all over him.

    He got over it, mostly. But he'd never go down that hillside again, at least, not until we 245-T'd the gorse a few year's later.

    South Roseneath • Since Nov 2006 • 830 posts Report

  • Up Front: Go For Launch,

    beer: Heineken and one other I can never remember.

    Remembered it now: Amstel. Name sounds like a 1980s computer. Tastes like nothing at all.

    Its the boutique beer you have when you're not having a boutique beer.

    South Roseneath • Since Nov 2006 • 830 posts Report

  • Up Front: Go For Launch,

    8pm? What is it with journalists these days?

    Heh. Well, in my defence, always been more of a morning person.

    And, specifically, the next day I am driving nine hours with an autistic six year old in the back seat. So I shall need a full night's restful shut-eye.

    South Roseneath • Since Nov 2006 • 830 posts Report

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