Hard News by Russell Brown

In light of Dobyns disclosure about the Queen aproving of the music, Mr McCully must have egg somewhere on that face of his? Any comments from the man yet?

But further to that, what a twat having a go at the musician and not the dotty old royals who fell asleep on our service. That just wouldn't be good form now would it.

Slightly off task here (and putting my designers hat on here), in setting off to the national party web site to get one Mr McCully's email address, I was instantly taken back by how much space on that page is dedicated to Labour and the use of red. The top third of the site has two very promonent red banners. Of course they are the classic attack adds, but as a branding exercise it can't be good form to draw so much attention to the oposition – can it? And most literature about web branding talks about the use of colour and the way we read a web page. Rather than diving right into the text we skim the page for relevant images and headlines or links, then we get down to the nitty gritty.

I'm a designer and I had to do a very quick double take to make sure I was at the right web site.

Back to the music, boy is someone going to have a field day on my laptop. It has most of the albums I own ripped on it, not to mention albums I used to own and have either lost or given away or sold again (what pocessed me to buy Eurogliders), or just singles from these albums I no longer pocess. 28Gb is a lot to have to troll through and justify if some suit from the ministry comes knocking (an no I never really got on the Napster bandwagon - dial up was just way too slow to bother).

What is Australia thinking?

I went to University with Murray some years back and he was out of step and a bit of a foot in the mouth wally even back then. But to imply that Dobbyn, who to most NZers is a bit of a national icon, is a died in the wool agenda bearing lefty is just bizarre. Quite odd behavior that would win him little sympathy. I'm a long way away right now so a little out of touch with te public response but Dobbyn is more akin to our Ayers Rock / Uluru than anything else. He simply"is"in NZ now. And if he's shown any great bias towards the current government then it may be because of the support that Helen has shown to those in his profession.

And I'll wager he'll be long remembered after silly old Murray is long forgotten.

In light of Dobyns disclosure about the Queen aproving of the music, Mr McCully must have egg somewhere on that face of his? ?

What's more, who says Republicanism (if indeed that's his preference) is the preserve of the Left?

When I think about it, though, Dobbyn is clearly trouble.

Anti Police (Queen St)
Anti Met-Office ("Outlook for Thursday, your guess is good as mine")
Anti-Green ( "but i'm whaling - manning my harpoon")
Anti-NZ business ("i carry my cynicism like a tourist with a camera")
And secretly wants to be a terrorist ("i can't change my name")

Send him back!

Send him back!

To the North Shore!

Oh, hang on. He seems to have political asylum in the Republic of Grey Lynn ...

To the North Shore!

To Juha's place. He needs cheering up.

I'm a long way away right now so a little out of touch with te public response but Dobbyn is more akin to our Ayers Rock / Uluru than anything else

Not to be too pedantic or anything, but isn't Ayers Rock/Uluru pretty bloody controversial in itself? I mean, many Australians aren't particularly famous for their open-minded attitudes towards Aboriginal culture.

I wonder how things would have gone down if the tables had turned and the Australian government had said no to Dobbo playing at the Anzac ceremony instead of us nixing Farnsie.

Please don't send him back to the Shore Russell - the only thing that makes it tolerable having him as an MP is that he spends so little time here (as far as I, a humble voter, can tell).

Ok - I tell a lie - not even that makes it tolerable!

One of the great things about July 27, 2002 was that the Hon Mr McCully came within 1534 votes of losing the National stronghold of Easy Coast Bays.

Still, shouldn't be too cocky, Helen Clark almost lost Mt Albert in 1990.

The Australian approach to copyright is astoundingly stupid. All it will do is criminalise the vast majority of the population - which seems one of the more pointless exercises politicians can indulge in.

Do they seriously think they will start locking up voters for the "crime" of ripping their CDs onto their iPods? And if the answer is "of course not!", then why are they even considering the legislation? Are they really that stupid?

Now that's a good idea. Get DD to run against McCully in East Coast Bays - he'd be a shoo-in ...

waaaaaay back in the 80's when walkmans and double tape decks came out, did the recording industry get all up in arms about taping records and dubbing mix tapes for your mates?

not quite the same of course, though you could get quite good quality on those chrome and metal blank tapes eh

did the recording industry get all up in arms about taping records and dubbing mix tapes for your mates?

Actually yeah, they did "Home taping is killing music"

However... it took 90 (plus) minutes to make a mix-tape, and a further 90 (or maybe 45 on hi-speed dubbing) to make single copy for that girl you were trying to impress. And of course a couple of generations away from the source, and a tape starts to sound shit.

Now you can make a playlist in 5 minutes and burn how many (lossless) CDs in the same amount of time?

Yeah but be fair JP I sat through countless bloody RIANZ and the like meetings where home taping was portrayed as the death knell of music as we know it. Before that of course there was, before our time the LP, which was hailed the same way. Then there was the rise of radio, which was predicted to kill off live music, and before that the 78 which the music publishers went out of their way to destroy as the satanic medium which would put them all out of business. All these things did was change the way business was done, the music survived and the delivery mechanism changed. I absolutely believe that Peter Jenner was right a couple of weeks back..the world as the record industry knows it is over, but by their very nature that was inevitable at some stage.

As you know I'm a copyright owner but I'm welcoming the current changes with open arms. It has to take us somewhere exciting eventually, its just that no-one knows exactly where yet, and we're all floundering around trying to work it out. Very exciting and positive times I think.

I went to University with Murray some years back and he was out of step and a bit of a foot in the mouth wally even back then.

What scares me (all right, only marginally) is that the Nats regard him as a primary strategist. WTF? And they wonder why they can't get elected?

I mean, many Australians aren't particularly famous for their open-minded attitudes towards Aboriginal culture.

That being said, they still had Yothu Yindi singing Treaty and Midnight Oil performing in tracksuits with "Sorry" printed on them at the closing ceremony of the 2000 Olympics. And Savage Garden singing Affirmation, which includes the lyric "I believe you can't control or choose your sexuality", for that matter. Almost makes up for them featuring Olivia Newton-John and John Farnham in the opening ceremony.

Are they really that stupid?

Australian maxim: If it's brown, drink it. If it moves, regulate it.

If it doesn't move, regulate until it does.

No no no, not that kind of cheering.