Posts by Tom Semmens
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ANd I bet you could take a Vevuzala to Nixon Park...
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The amount of suits in Kingsland t'other night after an Eden Park ditty, said to me, that's where all the peoples will go for a drink after a game,Handy, walk to,easy going, sheltered.
I've maintained all along that a common sense appreciation of human behaviour should tell you Kingsland is where the crowds will surge after the game. It's right freakin next door to Eden Park for God's sake!
Now, we all know Kingsland could barely hold 4-5000 punters all over the road (have they thought about that?), but surely they still have enough time to work out a traffic plan to close New North road from Bond Street to Kingsland Ave and convert Nixon Park into a big over-flow area, with pedestrian access to the Bond Street overbridge, big screens and food and hospitality? For $20 million you could pave all of Nixon park for the duration and build some quite flash temporary stands. The beauty of it is, a crowd watching at Nixon Park/ Kingsland could probably hear, and be heard, by the people inside Eden Park, which would really add to the atmosphere.
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Mordor mcCully was ranting on RNZ this morning - again - and he offered an interesting glimpse of his vision of Auckland's future. he opined that the super city and the new waterfront authority cannot come quick enough for him, which it seems to me is translated as an assumption like minded people unaccountable to the ratepayers will do the minister bidding without a murmur, and if they don't one presumes McCully will simply sack them all ECAN stylez until he gets a board that does.
I noted on the BBC this morning that Spaniards hugged, wept and celebrated their semi final win in front of "large screens erected outside Real Madrid's stadium" - not a party central in site. More to the point, I was driving around at 7pm on Wednesday night and happened to hear Peter Montgomery on Radio Sport interview Steve Sumner (who appears to have some vague role with FIFA - he had just come back from a junket to South Africa). In between Montgomery’s excitable outbursts of angry middle aged man syndrome Sumner made some fascinating observations about the FIFA world cup. He said most of the "party centrals" are just large screens in fields or parks, and people make their own fun. More to the point, he said the people of South Africa have embraced the event. Unencumbered by a bitching boozy middle class with expectations of everything laid on for them or by being one of the favourites, Sumner said the people of South Africa are totally into the event regardless of who wins it, just because it showcases their country to foreigners.
There is an old cartoon from the early 1970's showing a New Zealander looking at a beautiful mountain landscape and exclaiming "Well! Don't just sit there! Inspire me!" I hope the 2011 RWC doesn't simply go to demonstrate that when it comes to our national character, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
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Murray McCully is, frankly, just an arsehole who can't seem to get on with anyone. Anything he touches apears to turn to shit. John Key is full of stupid ideas designed to Garner a cheap headline in a compliant press. DUDE WHERE IS MY CYCLEWAY?
Combine the incompetence of McCully, and the expediency of Key with Aucklands Byzantine local government politics and did anyone expect anything else?
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I, for one, welcome our new tentacled overlord.
This planet isn't big enough for more than one sentient species, which is why Matilda the particularly smart pig is in the freezer, flipper is in a can and there is a paella with Paul's name on it. Either that or his tank will be in pride of place on the team bus during the victory parade if he gets it right again - but that would be a mistake. A BIG mistake.
Looks like the German's have done an All Blacks - looked mighty impressive against those of a standard below them, but unable to unlock a determined defense at the business end of the tournament.
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The governments of Australia and New Zealand should suspend all flights to Fiji, and take away the landing rights of any airline that continues to fly there.
That would make this whole debate an academic exercise.
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That's how it works.
To which, it seems, our business leaders would snort "says who?"
What's mentioned in the article comes across as Pinochetism minus the guns and death squads.
I'd love to see a business journalist probe the links between right-wing South American ideas in places like Chile and New Zealand, and whether or not New Zealand business leaders have become contaminated by extremist Pinochetism.
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And how has Klose managed to play such a marginal role for Bayern this season but turn it on come world cup time?
Probably for exactly that reason. As a casual observer, it seems to me almost all the "stars" of world soccer are either injured, played out or disinterested. They play far to many club games and get paid far to much money by their clubs to be really keen on peaking for the world cup.
The best teams are the best TEAMS, and come with the freshest players with reputations to make.
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Wouldn't bother. It's the same crazed magical thinking that has pervaded official business dogma for the last few decades.
The quote for the win though has to be
"the democratic structure does not allow for selection on skill matched to job requirements"
teasingly reported as "Among comments were..." - i.e. the prick who said it didn't have the guts to be named on the record and Fran is to much of a sycophantic fellow traveller to call him (it'll be a him, I betcha) and shame him for it.
When a Maori sovereignty radical holds forth on the need to reduce democracy to honour the treaty they are rightly excoriated in the media. Imagine the hullabaloo if a trade union boss were to say that democracy did not allow for rule of the proletariat, so should be done away with in favour of a central committee run by him and his comrades. That is how extremist these sorts of comments are. Yet these men are at the very heart of our democracy in terms of their influence and power.
The ideological extremism of our business elites is the elephant in the room of public policy debate in this country. These sorts of anti-democratic and authoritarian views are only held by a vanishingly small fraction of our over all society, yet it would seem that in the rarified circles of the board room elites they are so commonly held that they can be safely published in the newspaper as representative of their thinking.
We need to find out why they think this way, how it came to pass they think this way, and then start working out what reforms are required to create a business class that is more in touch with their fellow conuntrymen and more committed to democracy.
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Just as I'm sure if The Herald polled Maori/PI or Asian voters
The Herald consistantly reports issues affecting these copmmunities as though they are located somewhere in sub-Saharan Africa,only reporting their very existence when crime/famine/pestilence emanates outwards to such an extent they are forced to. Further, I doubt they sell many copies of the Herald in the far-off places where the serving classes reside.
Ergo, why would you bother surveying their views when you can just get Fran to give a blowjob to "the Mood of Business," safe in the knowledge these mighty opinion setters will be seen by the aspirational perusing the pages of the Herald as they are aspirationally chaffeured in their limousines to their next lunch with Mr. Murphy?
You are probably on safer ground though complaining about the lack of knowledge of the Shore. The trouble is the hatchet men of the right wing smear machine (you know, Slater-Marshall-Farrar) have managed to stick enough mud to Andrew Williams that he probably won't make it back - so perhaps you ought to have a chat to your friends on the right about that particular own goal.