Posts by Robyn Gallagher
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Giovanni - I have spare copy of the Shadbolt/Shell Guide
Brilliant! I won't reveal the artist who did the cover painting - that can be a surprise for you.
I found a 1976 edition in a Christchurch bookshop, but by then the paintings of each region had been replaced with scenic photographs.
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On the subject of Christchurch being "English", I've just been reading The Shell Guide to New Zealand, a 1969 travel guide edited by Maurice Shadbolt. ('Tis my new favourite book).
In his essay on Christchuch he writes, "But typically English? Travel beyond the central city area and such an affectation becomes quaint and then comic. Leave behind the cathedral, the university, the law courts and the willows along the Avon, and you are in suburbs indistinguishable from those of any other New Zealand city."
And it's true. It's only the (very un-English) flatness of the landscape that marks Christchurch's suburbs out as different from the rest of NZ.
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I visited New Brighton last week, having previously been there in 1993. The main street does have a weird ghost town feel to it. Surely it can't just have been the end of its uniqueness of having Saturday trading that killed the shops?
But what really got me about New Brighton was the pier. It's a massive concrete structure, and all you can do it walk down it and fish off it.
There's also a sort of concrete ramp that leads up to it, which, even though it's new, strangely has the feeling of a decaying monument from a failed dictatorship. Like there was a time in the recent past where New Brighton was the centre of the universe, and now, suddenly, it's not.
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What I don't get about the Twitrip is that, well, you don't use Twitter. You grandly and deliberately stopped using it back in April and deleted all your old posts. Then you suddenly show up with frequent demands for things to do in Melbourne.
It's feels like an old pal suddenly showing up after years absent and them asking for money.
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And if you change it to 'men and women', it sounds... philosophical.
What about "ladies and fellows" or some other less scientific and more human sounding terms for adult males and females?
Or throw in an adjective or two to soften the noun.
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That was a blinding version of She's a Mod
Has anyone ever listened to the lyrics of "She's a Mod"?
It's about a guy whose girlfriend keeps changing her look, which is costing him a fortune because, you know, women can't earn any money of their own and/or if he buys her stuff she'll put out.
But finally she settles on the mod look, and he's so happy that "she won't change any more" as he won't have to shell out for a new look.
(But I bet after a few years she was all, "Baby, I need some flared trousers and platform shoes and other accoutrements of the disco era, etc.")
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The 1978 Shatner 'Rocket Man' is possibly the peak of western civilisation.
It is a masterclass in the arts of actorising and singerisation.
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I'm a non-Outrageous watcher, but I knew something major had gone down when I was checking Twitter this morning and found a succession of "Fuuuuuuuuuuuck!" comments from late last night.
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This is like being asked to join Grampy outside on the front porch with a jug and washboard.
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Steve Mills is still alive (um, spoiler alert...)
Wait, WTF, Steve died? Why did I not know this already? Ok, I'm going to have to take a moment here.
RIP Nurse Steve Mills - 196? - 199?
You will never be forgotten.