Posts by st ephen
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At our school everyone agreed that disco was dead; the debate/shitfest was over whether it had been killed by punk or reggae. But this was 1979, by which time Dylan Taite was interviewing Bob Marley in NZ and the punk/reggae split had started to align along ethnic lines. The 6th and 7th form were still heavily into Led Zep though.
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The thing I remember is that there was no way of telling which of our fellow first-time parents were going to strike problems with breast feeding. But it was much easier to predict who was going to persevere and who wasn't. Some of them certainly appeared to place a premium on "mother's well-being" in every other aspect of their lives, and some had partners who put an even greater premium on "father's well-being". (If you think I'm having a go at you unfairly, I'm not. I was thinking of someone you don't know...).
My partner initially found it difficult, tiring and often excruciating, but she'd made her mind up that breast is best (and she can be a little... bloody-minded). My role as a supportive partner was to somehow get across the message that everyone including the baby would be completely OK with formula as an alternative without ever actually suggesting it, and while simultaneously doing everything possible to make breast feeding work without doing so much that it took on way too much significance. Just the usual relationship high-wire act then. I know other guys whose version of being supportive was to apply their rational male problem-solving skills: "this hurts and causes stress, we'll switch to plan B. Fixed".
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Hard News: 2011: The Year Of What?, in reply to Bart Janssen,
One man should not have that much influence but the experiment showed he did.
You call that an experiment? No replication, no control? I'm having second thoughts about your GE work...
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Field Theory: What to watch, in reply to Tom Semmens,
That is going to make explaining why we are talking in fake Irish accents and wearing silly bright green top hats with shamocks on them quite difficult.
Sounds like the Cookathon. Now history of course, but you'll still pass.
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Field Theory: How's that working out for…, in reply to Simon Grigg,
there's always the "...including injury time" defence.
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Don’t be silly. What it takes seriously is the proposition that the sporting victory of our rugby players is predicated on the sacrifice of the whole country, like in a war.
I’ll have to take your word for it, since I tend to filter adverts from my life, including these ones. Presumably then abstaining from sex was a metaphor for some other sacrifice they wanted us to make? Like putting up with school terms being dicked around, or having trouble finding a carpark, or paying way too much for a match ticket to cheer the team on? Or are we just talking things that will benefit the advertiser, like accepting that paying over the odds for Telecom’s services is for the greater good? I can see from a Marxist perspective that having a big Corporation explicitly telling the proles to “suck it up” is even more offensive than their usual consumerist propaganda.
So Fitzy in a pink fist-car is really all about Sky and Telecom telling us on behalf of McCully that we must cheerfully accept cuts to benefits and services so that the All Blacks can win. Bastards.
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Caddying. Skill, endurance, sheer madness - has it all. Amateur caddying if you're a purist like Paul.
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It’s actually NZers poking fun at themselves about taking the RWC seriously.
God, thank you Ben! I thought everyone had gone mad. The Telecom campaign struck me as designed to take the piss out of crap like that Sky military ad. OK it was lame, but surely well intentioned - the evidence that we need something to make people stop getting so worked up about this Cup thing is all around us. But it's obviously too late...
It is screaming that it’s what it’s doing, but it doesn’t achieve it because under the thin veneer of the joke it actually takes the proposition seriously.
Um, Telecom really thinks we should all stop having sex to help the All Blacks win? No Gio. Just No.
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Had enough of that provincial attitude elsewhere, thanks.
Just quietly, when big fat snowflakes were drifting down yesterday in Dunedin? We were out in it with big fat dopey grins too. (Just not so much today in the horizontal sleet).
we didn’t go for the HRV because the salesman was a complete arsehole...
Snap. Plus in Dunedin conditions it was basically a scam - I believe they were forced to change the claims in their local advertising.
how much ti-tree ... I could get going in the Jetmaster...
Burning natives - sustainable? Necessary? A non-issue up north? Google turns up plenty of firewood ads but only this appeal for a higher use for manuka/kanuka.
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Hard News: Fixing Auckland, in reply to Mark,
A nice thought AND quite easily achieved too. A huge proportion of the post-match analyses I've sat through in pubs and smoko rooms are just a rehash of whatever the commentators and pundits said on the telly. So if those guys could talk up the skills and positive cultural attributes of the other 19 countries involved, it would go a long way towards creating a less negative atmosphere. But conflict is entertainment is money in the TV business, so I expect they'll be setting up the the opposition as pantomime villains for us to be hating on.