- Field Theory: Analyse This
01 Dec 2008 at 8:43 pm
So we finished the "Grand Slam". We knocked off, in varying fashions, two poor teams, one mediocre team and one good team (I'll let you decide which was which). Where to from here?
First of all a two-finger salute and a raspberry to Chris Rattue and all of the other Robbie Deans fan club members...
- Hard News: They can see your house from here
01 Dec 2008 at 8:27 pm
It was a Tuesday Wednesday when Google came to our street, and we were not home. Yes, Google Street View has launched in New Zealand and they can see your house from here. And yes, it is a bit spooky. For addresses all over New Zealand (and not just the main centres) you can bring up Street View via Google Maps. Just now, I'm looking at the house we lived when I was six years old...
- Up Front: Hellfire's a Promise Away
01 Dec 2008 at 01:49 am
I don't remember ever asking how my parents met. Personal questions were always discreetly discouraged, particularly ones involving my father. Maybe that's why I hadn't thought about what to say before my own daughter asked me that particular question...
- Random Play: The Key?s under the Matt
30 Nov 2008 at 11:48 pm
Earlier this year when I was driving around somewhere in Australia I tuned in to talkback radio which, whether we bloggers like it or nor, is still a good way to get the pulse of what many people are saying and thinking...
- Speaker: Camp as a row of Spiegeltents
27 Nov 2008 at 03:23 am
Good god I'm drab. My clothes, carefully picked for the occasion, lack sequins and sparkle, my jeans are too loose and I've not got high-heels. My hair is not nearly sharp enough and my glasses - Gucci but brown - are seasons old. In short, I'm a middle-aged straight man. None of this would matter were it not for the fact that I'm surrounded by Drag Queens and Sydney's finest, most fabulous and famous. Even former Wallaby captain George Gregan's here - though clearly straight, his exotic appearance counts in his favour. I hide behind my wife. Not only is she beautiful, she knows lots of people...
- Speaker: Database Nation
23 Nov 2008 at 9:44 pm
As of Monday 24th November 2008 New Zealanders residing in the United Kingdom on student or marriage visas will be required to hold biometric ID cards, issued by the UK government, containing 49 pieces of their personal information. The following is a backgrounder on how the UK has become a surveillance state and the extreme measures already in place...
- OnPoint: There is no depression in New Zealand. Apparently.
19 Nov 2008 at 12:40 pm
The US presidential system is a beautiful thing ? when it?s all over, the losing candidates? first job is to remind their supporters that the campaign is over: Respect democracy, respect the nation, respect the new leadership...
- Island Life: And some with a fountain pen
17 Nov 2008 at 02:52 am
'Global economic crisis' is a mouthful. If one must use eight syllables every time one wishes to refer to the colossal mess we're in, one will grow weary.
None of the others are very much more concise. Current financial problems has seven. Worldwide credit crunch uses a snappy five, but it's a little tabloid...
- Southerly: Sir Roger Tipped As New Minister for Zoos
09 Nov 2008 at 12:22 am
NZPA-Reuters:
National-ACT coalition negotiations look set to return Sir Roger Douglas to government in a role outside cabinet as Minister for Zoos.
"I'm delighted to be considered for a leadership role in this position," says Sir Roger. "I believe that the ACT party is uniquely qualified to make a contribution to our nation's zoos."...
- Legal Beagle: Threshold
08 Nov 2008 at 1:29 pm
The New Zealand House of Representatives, if there was no threshold:
New Zealand National Party - 55 seats
New Zealand Labour Party - 41 seats
The Greens - 8 seats
New Zealand First Party - 5 seats...
- Busytown: I believe in miracles
06 Nov 2008 at 8:36 pm
Of all the sweet, sweet ironies of Barack Obama?s historic victory -- aside from the real President Sarkozy's speedy congratulations on his "brilliant win" -- consider the fact that he won Virginia, where people queued for up to seven hours to vote. It?s sweet not just because VA hasn?t voted Democrat since Obama was four years old. Nor because it?s the state that has produced the largest number of Presidents. What?s beautiful is that it is a state in which Obama?s very existence would have been illegal when he was born, and for another eight years thereafter. Until the Supreme Court ruled, in the excellently named Loving v. Virginia, that interracial marriage was not a crime, but a constitutional right. ...
- Cracker: A Halloween story too cute not to share
01 Nov 2008 at 11:58 pm
A friend turned up late to the Halloween Party we were all at on Friday night. Her and her partner have bought their first house in a pleasant, but largely state-house suburb on the fringes of Auckland City. As she took note of the party-goer's costumes (a stormtrooper, Sarah Palin post-assassination, an assortment of mummies) she told us of the trick or treaters that came to her door...
- Radiation: Some light on Friday
20 Sept 2008 at 02:59 am
How good is Friday Night Lights? Only one of the best things on US television, according to salon.com, which gave it a Buffy last year ? that?s their award for an underappreciated TV show. I love it too, and it?s fun to contrast and compare Lights with Gossip Girl, which was screening at the same time (TV2 is moving Gossip Girl and the odious Make Me a Supermodel to later timeslots as of this Friday). One is a frothy, expensive confection of nothingness, but is so pretty we cannot turn away; the other is a complex, tightly-plotted evocation of small-town America, featuring teens that mumble like the real thing and where you?re left in no doubt what winning the game means. Salon?s Heather Havrilesky reviews it here...
- Yellow Peril: Bai bai
05 Dec 2007 at 12:26 am
After nearly three years of being the exotic dancing girl of Public Address, it's time for me to retreat behind the curtains of the champagne room. These Canto-peasant feet weren't made for stilettos.
Here are the reasons for my early retirement. ...
- Club Politique: Jesus that cow can sing
28 Sept 2006 at 8:15 pm
Well, I guess this is goodbye. They say all good things must come to an end, and I guess they must be right. Except in Australia that is, where they say, "Go you good thing!". Which suggests they don't know when to give up. But that's another matter...
- Poll Dancer: Pocabprescon Debrief
03 Apr 2006 at 04:35 am
Helen went to some lengths to stonewall all the Cullen speculation at the Post-Cabinet Press Conference today, responding to every question with "ask him". She says that he's served her well and that she wants to keep him on for as long as possible - adding that she has every intention of fighting the next election - but Cullen stepping down would depend on Cullen, and she hasn't asked him about it...
- Great New Zealand Argument: My Imaginary Journey
02 Feb 2006 at 8:27 pm
If Rex Fairburn had been writing now he would surely have been a blogger. Not one whose work fell easily on the "left" or the "right", but assuredly one who would not shrink from a good argument...
- Heat: That's all folks
12 Sept 2004 at 11:50 am
In this life you get out what you put in, son.
That?s what I tell today?s insolent youth when I bail them up on the bus with their butt-crack showing above belt-less balloon pants.
Son, pull yourself together, I say. Straighten up and put something in. ...