Posts by Rob Hosking
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Caesar? I can't remember off the top of my head. Was anyone ever tried?
Not sure...but Mark Antony gave them an earful, I do remember that.
-
@Dan...checked it out on Itunes...particularly liked his version of 'Sweet Home Alabama'. And 'Whole Lotta Love'.
And 'Take Me Home Country Roads'...
-
For me the oddest experience was returning to Christchurch, location of my student days and, one would have thought, brimming with memories. It was oddly blank and impervious to my attempts to connect.
Similar thing with Auckland. Not where I was from, but I spent 10 years there, either as a student or bumming around trying not to be a student or anything else much. It should be plastered with fingerprints of memory, but in fact it seems full of gaps now.
-
Childhood is the real time for mondegreens to thrive, of course.
A couple of mine: the Monkees' 'Daydream Believer' - "You once thought of me as a white knight/Call me Steve" - which I still kind of like and I've taught my daughter that version - and the Supremes' 'Can't Hurry Love' which I heard around the time The House At Pooh Corner was my favourite book and I thought they were singing about Kanga In Love.
-
I wonder what they'd do if their God came down and said, "You're misrepresenting me..."
Probably the same thing they did last time that happened: nail him to a tree.
-
Managing to initially mishear the lyrics of Annie's Song as let me drown in your bathtub has gifted me with a lifelong resistance to John Denver.
Ever hear Monty Python's version? It began with Eric Idle warbling 'You came on my pillow....' before the sound of someone being strangled.
Apparently Denver's lawyers complained.
-
Now, I know you'll get this one..it's like The Attractions without EC.
Or the Jam without Weller. Which has happened - Foxton and Buckley have been touring with a Weller sound-alaike for a few years. You can see them on Youtube but I'm not going to link to them.
Good. The last thing you want when old farts have a reunion is New Material.
There was a very good series of Doonesbury about years ago when Duke found Elvis holed up on an ocean liner which just happened to be owned by Donald Trump.
They were all set to make huge bucks running Elvis Comeback concerts on the cruise ship when Elvis says 'Only one thang...I only do John Denver songs now.' So Elvis is rehearsing 'Rocky Mountain Hi-IGHHH!' in the background while Duke murmers to Trump 'We can drop him over the side. No one will know."
-
When someone on TV is seriously infuriating you, go get your checkbook straight away and make a donation to a counter-cause.
I knew, some years ago, the father of a staunch conservative Anglican family who used to do that. It was when Paul Reeves was head of the NZ Anglican church. Every time Reeves would pronounce his views publicly (this was late 70s-early 80s, the Tour, Waitangi protests, etc etc) this bloke would write off a cheque to the Salvation Army.
It got so bad his wife would hide bits of the newspaper or try to distract him if Reeves came on the TV news. It was costing them too much, she reckoned.
So if my straight relationship fails and I turn to a gay relationship and that too fails what do I do next?
Well, according to the news the past few weeks, there's a lot of pigs in need of a loving home.
What? Too soon??
-
I think this is at the heart of the complaints. The Auckland CBD just doesn't look like that. It's more scruffy, more lively and a hell of a lot more Chinese. It's hard not to see the ad as a little bit of a cringe.
Look or feel like that. Something about the atmosphere or tone of the ad is all wrong. I wonder if its because it could be pretty much anywhere - the first clue that its Auckland comes when you can see Rangitoto behind the boats. But even then its blurry and if you blink you miss it.
It also seems oddly passive at a time when Auckland is rousing itself.
What, again? It's been doing that since at least the early '80s...
I'm not sure who/what the old man is supposed to be. When I first saw the ad thoughts about Old Father Time, or the Ancient Mariner, ran through my head. Not sure this is quite the image they were trying for though.
-
In fact there was a time in my life when I was a great supporter of Catholicism in young women. The stricter the better.
SNAP.
I used to be able to pick the young Catholics women at Uni. Not sure how, I could just tell.
Got my come-uppance, one autumn day, meeting one such woman for about the third time for a coffee, I said something about 'I bet you're a Catholic' -and she was, ex-Baradine. Then she says 'I bet you're Presbyterian' - and said something like 'repressed, bit of a hang up about duty, workaholic...'
I can't recall my comeback: I don't think I had one, I suspect I sort of just toed the ground and said something disgrunted like 'I can be a bit unrepresed...'