Posts by Rob Hosking
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This made me laugh, for its celebration of pointless woolly-arsed bad behaviour, this week.
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My own pick for my funeral song is John Hiatt's 'Listening To Old Voices' which s pretty obscure but if you know it is kind of apt...In my early 20s I remember telling some mates that if I bought it I wanted to go out to Hello Sailor's 'When Your Lights Are Out."
Worst funeral I went to was a friend of friends who had committed suicide. The whole ritual was kind of bizarre, with the family still in utter denial and the friends, all in early-mid 20s, still in shock.
The minister did one of those off-the-peg sermons, rather apologetically, with each reading starting off "W++++ wasn't all that Christian, but here's a bit from the Bible". Since the deceased wasn't all that Christian in the way vapour is not all that solid, it was kind of aggravating.
A wee while ago I read some story in a British paper about funeral music: the trend started when comedy actor Peter Sellers died and they played 'In the Mood' at the funeral. It was some reference to an early Goon Show joke - in fact he'd hated the tune. The story surveyed funeral directors. from memory, and it reported the most popular song was 'My Way' which is added to my personal 'Reasons You Know the World is F+++++" File.
On a happier not of music and rituals: a friend of mine went to a wedding where the bride came in to 'You Sexy Thing'. Which shows a certain chutzpah.
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(And need I add there's something seriously FUBAR when I feel any sympathy for Brian Connell.)
[polite cough]
You are not the only one who felt that way over that particular incident, believe me.
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I think 'Bill English possibly next leader if Key quits' is only news for the bleedingly obvious.
Which is pretty similar to what we have here... Goff possible next leader after Clark quits (because we all know Cullen is going to retire soon).
I mean really, if you're #3 in a queue at the supermarket, and #1 and #2 both pay for their food and leave, you're likely to find yourself at the front of the queue.Bogus analogy. You can't take it for granted someone is simply in a queue like that. They get older, other things happen in their lives. Russell Marshall stood against Lange in 1983: you could not take it for granted he was in the running in 1989.
And I think plenty of people commenting here would be scathing - rightly - about media taking something for granted without having it confirmed from the horses mouth.
So if they confirm it they're in the running if certain quite likely things happen, then its news.
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I think if John Key resigned at leader of the National Party, then the news that Bill English (deputy leader) would be in the running for leader should be non-news.
You don't think people should know that?
I guess we have a different idea about what should be reported.
I'm not going to argue some of the coverage yesterday was not overheated.
But that's nowhere near the same as saying Goff's comments should not have been reported, and reported prominently.
That's only partly because of their content. The significance was that someone with as many miles on the clock as Goff was saying them at all.
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If I can just run a counter-factual here: If Bill English had gone on Alt TV and said that if National loses, he would be in the running for leadership, do people here think the media should have ignored it?
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OK, I'll bite.
The thing which gets lost in all this is that National is basically a conservative party rather than being a particularly right wing one. And pre-Thatcher/Reagan/Richardson conservatives govts here and overseas tended to manage the status quo. They represent people who don't want more change than is absolutely necessary and tend, by instinct, to be mistrustful of ideology - any ideology. British Historian AJP Taylor, only slightly provocatively, wrote that conservative govts basically defend the radical achievements of the previous generation.
Which is also why some people say Labour in NZ at the moment has a lot of characteristics of a conservative govt. They have, pretty much, defended most of the radical achievements of the previous generation, only those radicals were on the right - Douglas and Richardson. Labour even, according to that study which came out a week ago, kept benefit levels at the same level, if not lower in real terms, as when Ruth Richardson slashed them.
That doesn't mean there aren't some pretty rigorous free marketeers in the National and Act parties. But they ain't running the show.
Most people now see the '84 Labour govt as being an aberration: what many still fail to realise is that so was the 1990 National govt.
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I haven't seen today's Herald yet, but to put this in a bit of context...
Clark at yesterday's press conference twice challenged the media to add up the cost of all National's promises.
It was a fair point. but if journos are going to do that, its only fair to add up the cost of Labour's as well.
And if Clark challenged the media to do that without first checking the cost of her own party's promises I would say she's screwed up.
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Here was a man whose talent is rare and quite ignored by current fashion.
The same, I suppose could be said for this, which was a huge hit when I was about four:
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When I was at school, a lot of the English kids (we had a lot of pommie immigrants working at the Steel Mill) used to wear what I suppose would be called hoodies now.
They were a bit like this.
I used to think they were quite cool.