Hard News: Can somebody hook a brother up with some Twiglets?
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I'm unconvinced that any canned and packaged items from the UK are better than standard NZ product.
Thing's I do miss:
- Pret a Manger sandwiches - especially the crayfish flavour
- Marks and Spencer ready meals
- English Chinese food. Yes, I know that ours is closer to the authentic food you'd get at a greasy spoon in Beijing, but I miss the Szechuan-style king prawns and the roast duck with blackbean sauce.
- warm, flat beer! -
I remember seeing an episode of ER years ago, in which one of the physicians was in deep trouble and was considering relocating to New Zealand; she summarised this country as being a great place to bring up your kids but cursed by socialised medicine.
You hear that sort of refrain all the time from Americans, and not just those in the medical profession who have a stake in the matter. Canada is depicted in popular mythology as some kind of North Korea, where free healthcare has been bought at the price of Freedom. And people believe it, just as they believe that the rich must pay low taxes and that owning guns makes society safer.
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Oh, and trout. Commercial sale of which is illegal here, for some reason. You can get fresh trout everywhere in the UK - our local pub even had a pondfull so you could pick the one you wanted, lobster style.
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That's an indictment on the state of US political documentaries.
Amen to that.
Hard to see Moore's films as something you can rate according to their artistic merit - the early stuff, like Canadian Bacon and Roger & Me were built of great moments, but since then these have become subordinated to the message.
Which is no bad thing. Moore's later movies - and his occasional TV outings - go stale very quickly. They're all about hitting the message hard in the moment. The Marilyn Manson piece in Bowling for Columbine was fine in 2003. Now it's pretty cringe-inducing.Moore's smart enough to realise that, in an era where it's seen as some kind of positive that the President can barely string a sentence together, pitching to teenage is an effective way to convey his message.
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Re Twiglets. The last time I checked, Smith and Caughey had them, along with a selection of British snack food.
Alternantively, you could just pretend that you are a middle-class Londoner and dismiss them as crappy junk food, and instead extoll the virtues of organic vege boxes.
It's funny how being away from home brings out rabid cravings for junk food from home. I saw a news item where a New Zealander in Sydney was stuffing her face with imported Rashuns and Moro bars. I bet she'd never done that back in Aotearoa.
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And people believe it, just as they believe that the rich must pay low taxes and that owning guns makes society safer
All part of a failure to engage with and learn from the rest of the world. Like mobile phones - everyone else in the world got the idea of cellphones straight away. The US persisted with incompatible technology and obsolete pricing models - resulting in mobile telecoms being the first new technology since WW2 to be dominated by non-US companies.
The British Empire had, I think, the same problem (although they did pick a few things up from others). The technology that marked the Brits losing the plot was industrial chemistry. Maybe mobile phones are the aniline of the 21st century.
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"I find myself generally aligned with Moore's views and horribly unimpressed by his presentation of them"
I am in the same boat, and then my friends who do not give a rats arse about politics, the enivironment, the war on terror all of a sudden start talking about climate change and Gore, guns and Michael Moore.
And I then feel the need to rethink my arrogant criticisms.
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Thing's I do miss:
- Pret a Manger sandwiches - especially the crayfish flavour
- Marks and Spencer ready meals
- English Chinese food. Yes, I know that ours is closer to the authentic food you'd get at a greasy spoon in Beijing, but I miss the Szechuan-style king prawns and the roast duck with blackbean sauce.
- warm, flat beer!I'm surprised more brewers haven’t caught on to the fact that there could be a strong market for hand-pumped live ale in NZ. The Twisted Hop in Christchurch brew a pretty good real ale (though it's a "butt chully"), but the hand-pumped Tuatara served here in Wellington at Bar-Bodega is a poor substitute (not helped by the poorly maintained beer engines and a few bar staff who don’t know what they are doing). Does anyone know of other places to get real ale in NZ?
IIRC, "Houses of Parliament" (HP) sauce used to be far more popular in NZ than it is now. My memory is that many households had it the cupboard in the early-mid 1970's - occasionally along with its lesser known cousin, OK Sauce. They filled a niche before the food technicians invented "BBQ flavour" in the 1980s.
Baxter's "Luxury" canned soup range was my UK weakness. The "Royal Game" and "Lobster Bisque" were to die for. I once found a huge selection for sale for $1 per can back in the early 1990s at a Lower Hutt market. This was after the B.S.E thing had hit the UK and the importer decided to dump their stock. I was a poor post-grad student at the time and dined-out on the stuff for weeks. My brain has yet to go spongy.
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<quote> Who but American teenagers isn't already well aware of how crap the US health system is?
American adults, probably.
</quote>
Healthy ones, anyway. Then again, maybe even the sick and shat on still think it would have been worse elsewhere.
Moore's smart enough to realise that, in an era where it's seen as some kind of positive that the President can barely string a sentence together, pitching to teenage is an effective way to convey his message.
Or maybe they're the only ones listening.
I am in the same boat, and then my friends who do not give a rats arse about politics, the enivironment, the war on terror all of a sudden start talking about climate change and Gore, guns and Michael Moore.
And I then feel the need to rethink my arrogant criticisms.
Or your friends :-). But yes, it does seem that either the world has dumbed down incredibly during my life, or I've wised up. I find the latter hard to believe.
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"Houses of Parliament" (HP) sauce
Despite smearing all manor of food with the stuff since I was a kid and the bottle having the initials and a silhouette picture of the palace of westminster on the label and being a private eye subscriber, it was only a couple of months back that it was pointed out to me the HP stood for Houses of Parliment. How thick is that! I pray that i'm not the only baffoon not to have spent the last 40 years missing the bleeding obvious.
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All part of a failure to engage with and learn from the rest of the world. Like mobile phones - everyone else in the world got the idea of cellphones straight away.
They don't text either - those American teenagers seem too busy thinking about the health system to learn how to send messages.
As for the banking system...
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3410,
I agree that SiCKO is pitched at the right level. You're talking about a country where, for example, adult "Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?" contestants are unable to correctly answer such questions as:
"What country shares the longest border with the US?"
"What is the name of the closest star to Earth?"
"How many decades are there in two millennia?"
Not to mention that most of them still believe that Sadam Hussein perpetrated 9/11, and all that stuff about Jesus.
In the end, SiCKO doesn't really rate for me (except for the Cuban hospital and fire station sequences), but it has to be considered in the light of the effect it will have on American viewers/consumers.
International Observer is right. For documantaries for grown-ups, Adam Curtis is where it's at. Check out:
"The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear" (3 hours, Islamic fundamentalism; American Neoconservatism; political manipulation of the fear of terrorism, 1940's - present) and
"The Century of the Self (4 hours, Freud; Psychoanalysis; "Public Relations"; corporate phychological manipulation; repression of- vs. actualisation of the unconscious self, 1920s - present).
Both, and probably others, are available, free and apparently legal, here, and well worth your time.
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Then again, maybe even the sick and shat on still think it would have been worse elsewhere.
I have a friend in Vegas who was forced to file for bankruptcy because of the bills from two caesarians. Not too posh to push caesarians, but life-saving 'my husband is sixteen inches taller than me' ones. She wouldn't change a thing.
They can't really get their heads around the concept of socialised health care to start with, at all. And then, well, there's got to be some catch. I'm constantly astounded by the way the Greatest Nation on Earth can stick some pretty basic stuff in the too-hard basket.
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The British Empire had, I think, the same problem (although they did pick a few things up from others). The technology that marked the Brits losing the plot was industrial chemistry. Maybe mobile phones are the aniline of the 21st century
It’s still happening …
In May 2006, Heinz announced plans to switch production of HP Sauce from Aston to its European sauces facility in Elst, the Netherlands, ironically only weeks after HP launched a campaign to "Save the Proper British Cafe".Demolition Commences on Historic Birmingham HP Sauce Factory - http://www.brownsauce.org/
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And then, well, there's got to be some catch. I'm constantly astounded by the way the Greatest Nation on Earth can stick some pretty basic stuff in the too-hard basket.
There's some very good backgound to this in Malcolm Gladwell's piece -
America’s health-care mess is, in part, simply an accident of history. The fact that there have been six attempts at universal health coverage in the last century suggests that there has long been support for the idea. But politics has always got in the way. In both Europe and the United States, for example, the push for health insurance was led, in large part, by organized labor. But in Europe the unions worked through the political system, fighting for coverage for all citizens. From the start, health insurance in Europe was public and universal, and that created powerful political support for any attempt to expand benefits. In the United States, by contrast, the unions worked through the collective-bargaining system and, as a result, could win health benefits only for their own members. Health insurance here has always been private and selective, and every attempt to expand benefits has resulted in a paralyzing political battle over who would be added to insurance rolls and who ought to pay for those additions.
We were lucky to have gone down a different path but look at how difficult reforms have been here and in Britain.
There's some hope things might change. Hilary Clinton is now working with some of the fiercest opponents to her 90s health reforms on new proposals.
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ooooheerrr! Double Entenres anyone
I suppose we can talk about food if you want...
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In the end, SiCKO doesn't really rate for me (except for the Cuban hospital and fire station sequences), but it has to be considered in the light of the effect it will have on American viewers/consumers.
Or you could ignore American viewers/consumers as the modern enigma they have become. Guessing how something stupid will affect someone foolish is not as easy to guess as you might think. eg Iraq. I'm not about to dumb myself down just so I can hope to speak to them at their level. There's been more than enough of that recently. eg Tony Blair. Look where it got him and Britain.
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Does anyone know of other places to get real ale in NZ?
There's a bar in Newtown with Emerson's on tap, and Galbraith's in Auckland do a highly authentic best bitter.
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I have a friend in Vegas who was forced to file for bankruptcy because of the bills from two caesarians. Not too posh to push caesarians, but life-saving 'my husband is sixteen inches taller than me' ones. She wouldn't change a thing.
They can't really get their heads around the concept of socialised health care to start with, at all. And then, well, there's got to be some catch.
Which is where the parts of Sicko that we might find banal -- happy NHS customers, doctors who (wow!) can still own practices and get rich -- are aimed. Some of the bleeding obvious will still be news to folks like your friend.
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The rot of warm, flat beer must be stopped.
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...and Galbraith's in Auckland do a highly authentic best bitter.
Heh, I sure felt authentically bitter after tasting it, remembering exactly why I don't like beer! Must try it warm and flat, just to see if can get any more disgusting.
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3410,
Can somebody hook a brother up with habanero peppers in Auckland?
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Kaitaita Fire is made with Hanabero peppers
try this search habanero peppers+Auckland you may even find the chocolate dipped ones
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Can somebody hook a brother up with habanero peppers in Auckland?
I am married to someone from Texas, who requires unholy amounts of chiles in everything. I buy hot stuff by mail-order from Mexifoods in Christchurch. You can get habanero peppers in a jar from their horribly unintuitive shopping site.
I'm not about to dumb myself down just so I can hope to speak to them at their level.
Sigh. Which is why the left will keep on losing in the US - they keep trying to patronise people into submission. 'You should listen to me, dumbass!' doesn't really work that well, oddly enough.
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habanero peppers in Auckland
The guy at the desk next to me grows 'em. I had a couple dozen in my fridge a few weeks ago til I slowly cooked my way through them. He grows Habaneros, Jalapenos, Scotch Bonnets, Gringo Killers and some other ones whose names I forget (but whose sting lingers on). Some of them will really curl your nose hairs. I can't use as many in a curry as I used to now that I'm a parent, but I'm slowly training the kids' tastebuds. They happily eat a "medium" curry now with a minimum of moaning, as long as there's lots of rice.
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