Posts by Kyle Matthews

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  • Hard News: Where nature may win,

    One News took the live cross to new heights of pointlessness

    On the first night one of the channels crossed live to Christchurch, umpteen hundred kilometres away. I'm not sure how the reporter in Chch standing in front of something completely irrelevant knew more than the newsreader in Auckland, but there you have it.

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report

  • Hard News: I'm not a "f***ing cyclist".…,

    Plus the impracticality of licensing children.

    General cyclist education would be a good thing, but it should take place in schools rather than testing stations.

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report

  • Hard News: I'm not a "f***ing cyclist".…,

    A motorist opening a door into the path of another vehicle without looking is the same as a motorist pulling out into the path of another vehicle without looking – it’s quite clear who is responsible in that situation, and it ain’t the cyclist.

    Particularly as many cycle lanes (the one ways here in Dunedin are an example) are made by just painting lines between a line of parked cars and a car lane. If you got a metre away from the parked cars on these roads you'd be sitting in the passenger seat of a car doing 55 ks.

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report

  • Cracker: Dig This!,

    I've not been that keen with my garden, though I have done one through that feeling of necessity.

    Wot? I hauled all that dirt out of your feeling of necessity?

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report

  • Cracker: Dig This!,

    Wow, that's most interesting - my previous dalliance with strawberries I think netted about 5 berries, once the birds had dealt to the other 5. I'd put them into the "small yield" basket, but I may well try again. Too late for this year?

    My first attempt was with woodland berries which never produced large fruit, and which didn't spread at all. I then put in four garden strawberries and my partner has called me the best strawberry grower in the world ever since. It's like weeds that produce really massive fruit.

    I use horse compost/straw in my garden quite a lot, and yes, a netting frame of some sort is pretty essential, and lots of sun.

    I'd say definitely do it this year. If you put them in now you'll have berries by late January or early February, but even if you don't get many fruit this season they'll spread and you'll have twice as many plants next season and you'll be very popular.

    I had very good luck with peas (from seed) last season. My daughter is a fresh pea nut (won't eat them cooked), and we would bring in about 40 pods a week - so a couple of hundred peas - which she would eat in a weekend. If you like fresh peas, there's nothing like eating them 10 seconds after they've been ripped from the plant.

    No luck at all with corn (a few very small rather sad cobs), but not surprising in Dunedin. Potatoes grow wild in my garden (as a result of previous plantings where I missed pulling some out), and mushrooms grew like crazy in a shady spot, though I wasn't brave enough to eat them.

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report

  • Hard News: Moving targets,

    and how they never seem to think the same should apply to the Lumpen Proletariat

    I can't imagine anyone would be happy if an employer, post you leaving your work, went in and reduced what is effectively a private superannuation that was part of the employment agreement.

    Seems to me that any argument that we can affect pre-1999 MPs is going to fail some fairly basic principle tests on fairness, which we don't get to fail just because we don't particularly like MPs. It should be changed from now on forward just like every other reasonable thing that can be done without looking vindictive.

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report

  • Cracker: Dig This!,

    I want to heartily recommend strawberries. I planted four plants which by next season had grown to be about 15 plants. On that basis I got about two punnets of strawberries a week for three months. Not a lot of things that you grow in your garden are actually a money saver, but this absolutely was.

    Also, I might have got more luck than talent, but humungous strawberries. Yum.

    Also celery is one of those useful things to grow and chop off individual stalks rather than have the rest go off in your fridge.

    [edited to actually make sense]

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report

  • Hard News: The Engagement,

    At least if William and Kate's first child is a girl that might spur the establishment to sort out the anachronistic rules of male primogeniture.

    Actually I think those rules are rather well established. It's getting rid of them so that a female can be the big cheese that you probably want.

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report

  • Hard News: The Engagement,

    You know what? I'd really like a Wills 'n' Kate engagement coffee mug.

    Coffee? How colonial. Tea sets perchance?

    And biscuit tin lids!

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report

  • Hard News: Moving targets,

    He is a very, very well-respected and effective MP for Dunedin North. He has done a lot of very honourable work for the electorate, as it happens.

    He was also Helen Clark's attack dog for several years, which might be Craig's reason for not being quite so much in favour.

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report

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