Posts by daleaway
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In 1973 I joined London Village. The first and last social club I ever joined.
London was a big, anonymous place, and I was living there alone and in need of an extended social life. Leaving it to chance, or picking people up in pubs, held no appeal.
London Village was a search engine for people, founded by a sociologist. A social club with entry by interview, it required that you fill in an interests card which was held in a central file. All card files in those days - computers would have been a godsend. Your phone number had to be accessible to other members on request (more innocent times).
LV held monthly get togethers of various types all over London, organised by members in each region. These were advertised in the monthly social event calendar posted out to members.
The second way of finding events was by ringing LV's telephone tape that changed daily and featured events organised since the calendar came out.
The third way of finding a social gathering was to organise your own - by ringing the LV office and asking for the phone numbers of, say, "three Italian speaking Bridge players in Highgate", for example, or "six people in Ealing who might feel like going out to dinner tonight".
LV had about 7000 members at the time, I believe, and I enjoyed all sorts of excursions, dinners, car rallies, parties, visits to stately homes or exhibitions, poetry readings - you name it. I met all sorts, mostly really interesting people - from a West Indian architect trying to discover her African roots, to a Hong Kong billionaire's son and old Harrovian wanting to come out to New Zealand and work for the Values party.
Each area had anchor people who held a pub night once a month to catch up with locals and plan an activity or two. For a laugh, I went to a pubnight outside my region. Never been to that district before or since. A nice young Londoner, a museum administrator, had also gone out of his region that night for a bit of a change. We got talking, and he arranged to come and visit me at a later date, to borrow a book I had on a topic he was interested in. (I was fresh out of etchings.)
And that is how the present Mr Daleaway and I met.
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Prithee RU nuts Debz of Adelaide, Ophelia shd float off dwnstrm. OMG Hamlet is HOT!!!! He is so the PILF!!!
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Aren't you discussing Auckland issues as though they applied to the whole country?
Most non-Auckland media has not had blanket coverage of Trinny and Susannah. Scarcely rated a mention.
Most non-Auckland newspapers still run obituaries, if they ever did.
The Kiri vs Hayley nonsense was a beat up by the Herald, extracting her response to a reporter's pointed question for a magazine feature and turning it instead into a front page news "attack" in a sneaky and deliberately twisted manner.
(If Dame K is asked for her opinion on a topic she is more qualified than most to express an opinion on, she should be able to express it just as you or I are allowed to, without talkbackland having a fit of the vapours. )
You don't have a Kiri problem, you have a problem with your local paper going feral. Get out the choke chain.
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"I've met hundreds of people who think there's large groups of people out there who believe in grand conspiracy theories, and none who actually do."
And most of them are on Trade Me Message boards, it seems. Trade Me opened an Environment board recently, which was immediately invaded by impressive numbers of our compatriates wanting to let us all know that they were far too savvy to be taken in by this ropy climate change hoax. Ho ho, nudge wink.
If you spend much time online, it's salutory to remind yourself of the motto: "Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig."
Which is probably why more women do not contribute as much to the discussions on PA as you would like, Russell, despite them telling you that's it ostensibly because all you blokes are just way too brainy and articulate. Trained from birth in the art of flattery, us....
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You and Peter Watts seem to have grasped the modus vivendi, Kracklite.
As did Anna Nicole and the grubby old billionaire when they found each other - willing buyer, willing seller, what's the problem?
Now don't go dragging morality into it.
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I threw away my tinfoil hat in the 1980s when working close enough to the belly of the governing beast to stop believing in Conspiracy theories. Any of them.
On the evidence of my own eyes, Cockup theory and practice rules, all the way. ( Cindy B was even closer to the action, and may well have formed the same conclusion (Hi Cindy - LTNS!).)
Strange how the CC denialisers often cite access to funding as the motivation for so many scientists finding consensus on AGW. Seems to me it is a damned sight easier to find instant funding if you are willing to come down on the side of the extraction industries and their ilk. Their "think tanks" and "education foundations" seem awash with money. For a clue as to how far down the disinformation chain their influence spreads, try reading the acknowledgements of PJ O'Rourke's more recent books. Not a conspiracy of course, just a straightforward commercial arrangement.
But I would like to know who the Alan Cheetham is who puts together those anti-climate change web pages that Steve cites. He seems to have gone to quite some lengths to disguise his credentials, though the company he keeps online is decidedly sus. Alan B Cheetham is all I can find (not Alan H Cheetham the distinguished palaeontologist). Anyone know?
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"conflict presented in a state of permanent amnesia, designed primarily to deliver consumers to advertisers."
Beautifully put.
It's the amnesia I find so perturbing. No wonder folk think my scenario above was apocalyptic. But they are nearly all policies that have been tried before or signalled (allowing for some humour). If you lived through them once, you're not looking forward to a rerun.
And I don't agree that MMP leads us not into temptation nor delivers us from evil. That's a statement of faith too far.
When either party announces tax cuts, why does no journalist ever ask them what service cuts they plan to introduce as a result?
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Dear hearts, that's not the policy they campaign on. That's the policy they deliver.
We watched it all happen last time, and the time before.I thought you would pick up the jocular distinction. Next time I'll have a man walk ahead with a flag.
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I think we have a fairly clear idea of what to expect should John Key be leading the next government. As he hasn't issued a manifesto, I'll sketch some salient points for him (happy to help).
Tax cuts delivered by way of massive social services cuts. Beneficiary bashing. Sale of state houses. Hospital closures. Sponsorship in schools encouraged, replacing some government funding.
Rejigging the RMA to permit more and faster greenfield development and make easier and more profitable the lives of property developers, mining industries, and polluting industries such as dairy farming. Cl;imate change deniers will get discreet government backing.
I wouldn't rule out a National Government bringing in one currency with Australia (with much rhetoric about New Zealand taking its place in the wider world). However, I don't think the Air Force would get its planes back.
The Employment Contracts Act would be back, though, double strength. They've been longing for this one.
There will be a token woman in cabinet. With luck, they may yet find that disabled Maori woman from Dunedin to tick all the minority boxes on one salary.
Meanwhile we will all be happily distracted by talk of a new flag.
It's always worked before, so why not use the tried and true? Back to 1990 we head. I think I'll stay home and plant spuds.
Anyone else like to venture some of his probable policies? Craig?
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[incredulous and choking up}
Did you really mean that about unicorns and pixies?