Posts by Peter Ashby
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@MrsSkin
The difference of course between Mrs Christie and Ms Rowling are the former's books are self contained while the latter's need to be read in order to be made sense of. That makes Hercule et al more durable. -
@MrsSkin
Being a good read is no guarantee, LotR is turgid stuff in the extreme in places, especially the second tome, but 'tis a classic nevertheless. There is much in the Potter books that will date and seem quaint and naive in the future. The series is also too long (and the later books far too thick) to survive well. 30+ years from now few will have complete series, 100 years hence will anyone? for a children's book? -
Paul I suspect that today's Babylon 5 may be tomorrow's TS Eliot, no, no, deep breaths, sit down here, it'll be all right, I only meant it ironically. But remember Shakespeare was not especially fêted in his lifetime and it was only the efforts of his friends in producing the folios that mean he has come down to us. Many at the time disdained Eliot too. Picking eternal winners from within a cultural moment is fraught with existential peril.
The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep. -
We still have all the Duplo and Lego (including Technic) out in the shed. It's all there for visitors, we had a young one not too long ago, and the grandkids that we hope will be along sometime. The ones our daughters insist are never coming . . .
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Here in Scotland the Executive oversaw a broadband rollout over the whole country using a mix of the installed cable, ADSL and wireless for remote communities. We have professionals who can work from home relocating to the Highlands and Islands for the lifestyle and reinvigorating local schools with their kids. The population of the Highlands is increasing again after years of depopulation and its incomers doing it rather than locals doing bunny impressions and chaining up the kids (might lead to dancing anyway).
Think of it this way. the govt is for eg offering immigration and other inducements to people like doctors providing they go rural/small town. After enjoying European levels of access many are going to be put off by dialup, but not the Scottish type model.
Here in the outer suburbs of Dundee we have cable past the house and to the house. Cost iirc £50 for a connection across the front garden, into the house (including two points, one upstairs, one down). We did it partly so we can never, ever have to deal with British Telescum again and partly so we can complain that there is nothing to watch over a gadzillion tv channels at 8pm every night. Our internet is rock solid, can't remember the last time it failed. Telewest/Virgin have doubled our speed several times for no increase in cost. We are currently on 10Mbs (theoretical) unlimited but subject to traffic shaping if we misbehave (or when we get the wife's X-Box connected to the net).
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Le Louvre and the Hermitage in St. Petersburg are different because they are part art gallery, part sculpture garden, part Athropology museum*, part royal palace in aspic and part work of art in the buildings themselves. One of my abiding memories of the Hermitage was the building itself, the contents were almost secondary.
Oh and if you are in Paris, by all means do the Louvre but don't forget the Musee D'Orsay over the river. More sculpture than paintings but wonderful in every sense of the word.
*in the form of a Scythian log burial chamber from the southern steppes.
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Oh and wrt Dunedin, we were living in St. Kilda Borough when the amalgamation went through and bodies like that had become a nonsense. But going all the way to Middlemarch? I questioned swallowing Mosgiel. Port Chalmers and the Peninsula, yes that's a geographical entity, but Mosgiel gets cut off from Dunedin in a big snow and Middlemarch is the other side of the Rock and Pillars.
I expect the stadium stushie is the result of it. A council well aware that too many outside of the city proper would be implaccably against even before you factored in metropolitan antis so decided to railroad it from the start. I don't know the history of how Moana pool got funded way back, but it has certainly been a valued asset.
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I had to think hard, but remembered going to a Monet exhibition there in the early '80s when we lived in Waitakere city. I am not a fan of the idea of a proper super city. Many of the problems cited in Auckland seem to me solvable without going that far. I think how London works is a good example to follow. Having lived in a London Borough (Barnet) for five years prior to the reintroduction of the London Authority it was certainly needed. Individual Boroughs in London still do their own refuse collection but the LA is there to suggest synergies to them. The Boroughs in London give different parts of the city different characters that go beyond different coats of arms on the rubbish bins. I think that risking the loss of the sense of place in North Shore, West or Manukau is something that should be thought hard about. Besides when the sea level rises and the isthmus becomes an island it will look rather silly.
As for elections, they should be PR. Here in the UK we have recently moved to PR for local elections and what it means for our little area in Dundee is we have more than just Tories representing us on the council now (yes, reports of the death of the Tory party in Scotland were premature). I can see Manukau and Waitakere pushing hard for PR for eg.
And finally OT, I was a bit shocked by the story of the hang glider pilot who refused for an ambulance to be called because he feared being charged $50 for it. When did this come in? i seem to have missed that one. It highlights a hypocrisy where if I injure myself due to my own carelessness ACC picks up the tab but if I need hospitalisation because I catch a communicable disease through no fault of my own I pay through the nose. I am a fan of ACC and the lack of everyone suing everyone else, but this does seem to create tensions. By all means charge those who call ambulances unnecessarily, but $50 for everyone except accident victims?
So remember people, when the heart attack or meningitis hits, contrive to fall down the stairs and break something.
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When you drink your Port Ellen be aware that every sip depletes our stock of it since it is closed and has been redeveloped so will not be doing a Bladnoch.
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@Islander
Yep, I noticed the water jug: sometimes it was outadetap/chlorinated
Nothing wrong with that. I remember when the Scotch Malt Whisky Society opened its member's rooms in London they said a dram would cost more than in Edinburgh because the London tap water was not suitable and they had to use Highland Spring bottled. In the Edinburgh rooms the jugs are filled with Auld Reekie tap water and I water my cask strengths with Dundee tap water. There is a lot of pretentious twaddle talked about the water you water your whisky with, the rule is: if it works, use it.