Posts by Rob Hosking
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I think Solid Energy is already onto that one, Andrew.
Don't know if anyone noticed, in the rail announcement this week, that one of the upgrades being planned is the West Coast to Lyttleton link, so it can take heavier loads of coal.
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I found Karyn to be painful ...I don't know what she used to be like a presenter (a bit before my time), but I'd struggle to think of a more uncomfortable, un-energetic T.V host!
She was kind of...well, judge for yourself:
She'd had an evening programme on Radiio Hauraki the year before she took over RWP and used to play a fantastic mix of stuff: one song would be, say, something off AK 79; the next would be a sixties classic like the Kinks 'Waterloo Sunset' (it was the first time I heard that song).
She was a bit of a one off. In a good way.
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Now, if last night was Billy Joel, what's tonight going to be? (No-one mention Westlife, OK?)
It'll be The Who.
Stroppy, occasionally violent old buggers, and there's not many of them left.
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But what do you call people when you don't know their name?
Easy. "Mate."
Had a woodwork teacher who was slightly...well, warped, to be frank, but that's another story.... on the first day he came in, glowering (which was his normal attitude) glared at us and said, after a few introductory words, we could call him by his first name.
Long silence.
Someone then swallowed hard and said umm, what is your first name then?
'Sir' was the curt reply.
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Hitchens' screed is a spectacular example of sexist commentary directed at Michelle Obama. Gawd, he's a horrible man ...
In a partial defence of Hitchens, or maybe mitigation is a better word....Personally I enjoy his non-political writing, especially on literature. His collection 'Unacknowledged Legislators' is one of my favourite books. Thoughtful, insightful and at times quite funny.
I rarely read him on politics, because his style is a bit like being trapped in a phone booth with a hyper-active, hyper-articulate, hyper-obsessive drunk and you feel you have to go for a walk around the waterfront afterwards and contemplate the seagulls or whatever to sort of clear your head and calm down a bit.
I've thought a good response to his 'God is Not Great' book with its sub-title 'Religion Poisons Everything' would be something along the lines of 'Politics Poisons Everything' and taking a lot of Hitchens own writings as the main evidence.
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Funny how often the same theme pop up in our tertiary institutions.
Hearteningly, 18-year-olds can pee much, much higher.Pah.
Engineering Students...
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Yes, but the chances are fringe benefit tax will apply and that is higher than GST. No free liquid lunches here.
And, as an expense, you can only claim 50% of entertainment costs against tax.
Not only that, IRD is particularly beady about entertainment expenses. If you get audited, they'll really give these the once-over. So most self employed have learned not to push this one too far.
When GST was introduced the less-well off were supposed to have been compensated by a boost in family support. This was the internal political trade-off within the Labour caucus.
The boost was not small - an additional two-thirds increase on what they were already getting. (the average figure was $312 and it went to $520 - these are 1986 figures, remember).
How much of this is still embedded in WFF and other support packages I don't know. I don't think there was a further adjustment when Caygill took GST to 12.5% in 1989.
And as Craig has pointed out, the less well off without families have been continually told, in effect, to go and screw thems...ummm, someone.
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You know what kindergarten teachers are like, Julie - some of them can be, shall we say, a little po-faced at times.
Personally I've had little to do with kindie teachers since I was four, but I do remember them as having very little sense of humour.
Especially when it came to catching little boys seeing who could pee furtherest up the wall.....
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Stephen Judd wrote:
81st column, are you channelling Kingsley Amis? That could have come straight from one of his newspaper columns on drinking.
It may interest you to know Amis pere's writings on drinking have just been republished - was reading a review of them in a UK book magazine last week.
I discovered, a few years ago, the truth or Amis's adage about drinking at lunchtime and then in the evening.
If you do this, he reckoned, the effect was like doubling
every drink you took at lunchtime, and ingesting the lot in one go at 6pm.Grimly, horribly accurate.
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DC_Red wrote:
for the taste of beer from the tap, has anyone else found it packs a much harder punch (straight to the stomach, in my case) than the equivalent volume of beer in bottles?
I think its because its heavier.
Emma wrote:
.. 'going out with' is such a strong term...
Try 'involved with' accompanied by a suitably vague wave of the arms.
Covers a multitude of sins.
Must try this Emmersons stuff.
My own favourite beer is bottled only, so far as I know - Speights Distinction.
Tried bookbinder at Bar Ted, as I call it, a couple of months ago. Not quite my thing, although I do like the bar.
You forgot one important thing for pubs these days: good food. No, I don't mean chips, or
'fries' as people seem to call them these days.A pub should be able to whip you up a good steak.