Posts by Rob Hosking
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No, I'm going to vote for the first party that comes up with an entirely fanciful solution to The Schleswig-Holstein Question.
Well, you're pretty stuffed then, because the three people who reputedly understood the question have long since shuffled off this mortal coil
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Jb:
Reputedly (well, its in his biography) the originator of that line was the late great Peter Cook. He was supposedly in a line when some self-important type threw a tantie and he intervened.
Its a true test of character, I think, how people treat those in positions of comparative powerlessness.
Went seriously off a certain Highly Respected Broadcaster and Writer (now of fairly advanced years) some years back when I saw him needlessly reduce a receptionist at a TVNZ function to a nervous wreck because of some trivial oversight which wasn't even her fault.
I also saw a very prominent MP and supposed Champion of the Working Classes behave in similar fashion to a Auckland University low-level staffer who was unable to tell him where a meeting was.
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Sacha wrote:
I had no idea just how laden with innuendo kids books were until that momentous eve
Been meaning to say this...gidday Sacha, Ireland St flat, right? Hope things are well, and I still use your recipe for welsh rarebit.
Innuendo and kids stuff...well the drug references in Puf n Stuff and Scooby Doo went right over my head as a kid.
Got the biblical stuff in 'Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe' when it was read to me at the tender age of seven though.
But if you want real innuendo in kids stuff though, a certain notoriety has attached itself to this programme...
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I think too many conclusions have been hurdled at breakneck speed.
I felt the same way over the Sarah Palin thing.
A whole heap of people who'd never heard of her only days before formed extraordinarily vehement views about her very very quickly.
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I bags Minister for Single Malts.
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From memory we didn't ahve a Minsiter for Racing before 1996 - when they have Tau Henare the job.
There may have been a minister of racing in the 50s; not sure.
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Ahh, a thread about Aussie politicos and malignant growths. How could I resist?
One thing though - the 'stirring up apathy' is an old old parliamentary line. Back to at least the 60s.
When Hawke became PM they had to remotely switch off the microphone in front of him in Parliament. He'd mutter under his breath about whatever opposition MP was talking and the system would pick up a steady stream of profanity.
For sheer inventiveness though, Keating has to take the cake, or the bottle of vitriol. His description of Malcolm Fraser - “like an Easter Island statue with an arse full of razor blades” is sheer malevolent genius.
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A few thoughts...
Palin couldn't lose. The build up of negative coverage was such she would have met expectations if she'd come out to the podium, got McCain's name wrong, dismembered a blow-up Hilary Clinton doll with her teeth, urged the bombing of Afsponistan and then announced the Day of Rapture is at hand.
She managed to sound sane and not dumb.
Dan Quayle never managed that and the ticket still got elected.
On Obama...its been bugging me all week...he reminds me of someone, but who?
Got it, today.
Tony Blair, circa 1995. Same air of slightly bogus sanctity.
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I was going to pick: 'It must be Thursday. I never could get the hang of Thursdays.'
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because...