Random Play by Graham Reid

Enjoy Seoul.

I'll be interested to know which musicians you will be talking to. Are they traditional Korean musicians or contemporary stuff?

I have been compiling a cd of Korean Hip Hop for my mate featuring all my favs such as Drunken Tiger, Defconn, Leessang, CB Mass, Masta Wu, Joosuc, and MC Sniper.

I've also been listening to a rock group named PIA in my car for bloody months.

And I have to ask. Have you heard of Seotaiji. My wife has been in love with him and his music for about 15 years. I've seen quite a few of the above live in concert a few times. Good times.

Oh, and I'd like to know what you think of Korean architecture. Looking at a lot of the buildings there I'm not convinced they even have architects! A lot of concrete trucks though.

On the Auckland Museum, they could ease up on the 'donation' thing as well. They actually have a proper ticket counter and in my experience will go out of their way to ask you to pay. Maybe the policy has changed and you MUST pay now but that's news to me. A woman I work with used to work there for years and she says stuff them, she'll never pay. Recently I went with my wife and her friend and they walked through while I was buying tickets for them at the desk and a museum worker sternly asked them if they had their tickets. I'd like to think that it had nothing to do with them being Korean but I'm not so sure.

So they could work on that sort of uneasyness at the point of entry.

Maybe it could be free for NZ residents and tourists pay a small charge like happens overseas damn near everywhere I've been.

After all, I just got my rates bill yesterday and it says "The Auckland War Memorial Museum Levy $21.21".

That should get me 4 free entries per year, or at least I could take a small item of my choice each time I go ;)

(I hope those much promised electricity blackouts haven't started by the time I get back. But if we don't have them -- won't you be just a teensy bit disappointed after all the advance publicity?)

Here’s the New Zealand daily hydro lake storage graph so we can decide ourselves how many candles we might need.

* One of the best arguments I've heard for keeping GST on food is that really wealthy people usually find ways of worming out of paying most other kinds of tax, and wealthy people tend to spend a lot of money on food, so the GST they pay on it is one way of getting them to pay tax.

* I'd like the museum to be free for Aucklanders (or perhaps all New Zealanders). Make the tourists pay!

* There used to be a permanent exhibition at the museum about Auckland as a city. It was removed during the extension work and hasn't been replaced. There needs to be something about the human geography of Auckland.

* Also, did you just compare Ashlee Simpson to Tiger Woods?

and a nice time of the year to go to Seoul it is too.

i've been there four times, including five weeks in 1994 doing a summer language course at Yonsei University.

the last time i went was 2001, so i imagine it has changed a lot since.

unsurprisingly, the vibrant culture scene tends to be led by the students, so the areas near the universities are quite interesting for the shops, clubs, bars and theatres.

Ihwa Women's University, Shincheong (Yonsei) and the next station on that line are all worth a wander.

but Tehanro (the area of the old Seoul National University campus is the best. packed with interesting nooks and crannies.

and the guy Seotaiji that Yamis mentioned, i think i know who he means. he was so cool i souvenired a tour poster and brought it home, even though i only vaguely knew his music.

have a good one, and please pop over to Japan too sometime soon!
(summer is best because of all the outdoor music festivals in the mountains. unfortunately Tokyo is hell on earth in July-August)

I'll second Yamis, all those gates and bad attitude from the staff, when I know I'm paying their wages with my rate levy, drives me crazy.

They sure do seem to insist on 'Donations' don't they.

http://www.aucklandmuseum.com/?t=26

Here in Christchurch it's definately a donation or koha on entry. At the museum you can't miss the box but at the art gallery the space is so vast you could be forgiven for missing it.

Worst museum architechture though has to be Invercargill - someone flick them a few million. It's a plywood prymid painted white.

http://www.invercargill.org.nz/Attractions/Art-and-History/Southland-Museum-and-Art-Gallery.asp

I can't say I ever paid a donation to a gallery or museum in Dunedin or Wellington, although I do remember that the DPAG used to have a policy of interrogating people as to whether or not they were Dunedin (or was it Otago?) residents. That was a decade or so ago though.

This is one thing I like about London - there are a huge number of free to all museums and galleries, with charges only for the special traveling exhibitions. Although that may not last - I am not sure if Boris is pro/anti that aspect of Ken's London tenure

Many thanks for the Seoul tips, you can stop now as I am literally typing these last words before we go to the airport.
FYI, I am interviewing the great gayageum master Byunki Hwang (see/hear him at www.elsewhere.co.nz and also some people in the new fusion gugak movement. And trawling record shops etc etc.

RE the museum, thanks for comments so far: the i$$ue i$ becoming more clear, ye$?
But they are also keen to reach out to the city (i guess bridging the old town/gown divide that the Uni still faithfully observes). Any suggestions on how they could reach out by way of exhibitions, programmes, marketing, profile etc
(Eg: does every exhibition have to be in the Museum for example, why not some part of it in the centre of the town or even St Lukes???)
Righto
band names and hip-hoppers noted.
Gone ........................

(Yep, Ashlee and Tiger, seems top be what I did! You gotta problem with that pal?)

Something the museum could look at is the same thing as places like the Powerhouse in Sydney - if you go, pay entry/donation/whatever then you can take that off the cost of a subscription if you sign up on the day.

I was there yesterday and did exactly that (along with the folks behind me in the queue) and it took a bit of working out, should just be a box on the form.

Loved the living room in the volcano exhibit. There was a family group sitting on the couch in front of us and when the first shake came and the lights went out, grandma instantly said "Fuck!"... "ooh sorry everybody", while Dad started texting somebody "<embarrassed smiley> Nana dropped the F bomb..."

I'd go the other way and pay for an enhanced annual membership fee that increases the interaction with the museum.

This should include free entry to all exhibitions (not merely a discount like at present) .

The Tate and the Imperial War Museum do this in the UK, for a charge of 60 and 30 pounds respectively.

Discounted entry to exhibitions if you become a friend of <Auckland Art Gallery, Te Papa> , is the norm here (although the Auckland Zoo offers unlimited entry with its Friends of the Zoo).

Would the higher price be worth it? Well since we have been getting the Auckland Zoo Card, we would easily go there 12-15 times a year, and have bought cards as presents besides.

How's about the entry 'donation' also getting you into the exhibitions as well while those who choose not to give the 5 dollars can only go through the main part of the museum.

It seems crazy to charge people to see 'their own' damn stuff and then charge them more to see the exhibition of the day.

I just feel like I'm being milked for cash everywhere I go these days and it would be such an amazing and novel idea for SOMETHING, ANYTHING to be 'free' (aside from the $21 I already have taken off me each year).

Whether you agree or not with the removal of GST from certain basic food items isn’t it just a little depressing to hear the same reasons trotted out by those against that: that it would be too difficult? You mean the finest minds of the economics graduates in Treasury and elsewhere couldn’t think laterally and find a workable way?

ok, think of it like this. you have a corner dairy. every week (or usually twice a week) you go to gilmore's. on each invoice, there will be at least 50 items purchased.

you would also go to pak'n'save, on average about 4 times a week. each docket would have on average 25 entries.

the way an accounting system works, a cheque from gilmores is fully assessable. one calculation, total amount divided by 9. takes a second. what you're asking is that the dairy owner sit there with the gilmore's bill and goes through each item to check off whether or not it has gst. 50 calculations for the gilmores bill; 25 for the pak'n'save. that's 200 calculations in a week on those two companies' bills alone, as opposed to 6. and there will be plenty of other bills like that.

and that's just the purchasing side. then there's the sale side. no dairy has a scanning system like the supermarkets do. most of them don't even run till tapes. so how exactly are they going to keep track of each item sold, as to whether it's shampoo (gst), bread (no gst), toilet rolls (gst), milk (no gst)... again, you're asking them to make hundreds of calculations, as opposed to a few.

it is an administrative nightmare; australians hate it and are having real difficulties. i'm not sure how other countries manage, but i guess there's a reason why nz is always rated highly on ease of doing business. this is not a problem that treasury can solve; maybe the accounting software companies could have a go.

but until all invoices are provided in an electronic format similar to banklink, there is no way around having to sit there and analyse each item on each bill. that might not be too far away (say 5-10 years). but getting electronic capture of each item sold is many years way from being affordable or practical for small businesses. having to do it manually is too difficult and it's not how our businesspeople want to spend their time, nor shoud they. it's an inefficient use of human capital. if they have to pay accountants to do it, it'll cost heaps and that cost will be passed straight on to the consumer.

and the administrative issue is only one of the reasons why this is a bad idea.

and that's just the purchasing side. then there's the sale side. no dairy has a scanning system like the supermarkets do. most of them don't even run till tapes. so how exactly are they going to keep track of each item sold, as to whether it's shampoo (gst), bread (no gst), toilet rolls (gst), milk (no gst)... again, you're asking them to make hundreds of calculations, as opposed to a few.

I've never run a dairy, but I would have thought the only time you'd have to calculate (or not) GST is when setting your price for the item. You pay GST when you bring the items in, but that's your supplier's problem, not yours.

I could imagine if you were giving out receipts you'd have to indicate which had GST and which didn't, but who asks for a receipt in a dairy very often?

ok, kyle, you'll need to do accounting 101, cos it's going to take too long for me to explain. your comment shows you've never had to fill out a two monthly gst return, accounting for every item you've purchased and every item you've sold in the last two months. most commonly done using a bank statement and analysing every item on that bank statement ie every cheque, eftpos transaction, cash deposit etc etc. best if you sit down with your local dairy owner and watch them calculate one.

Heh, OK, I'll take your word for it.

I did accounting 101. Maybe they didn't get onto GST at the 300-level because it would scare off too many students.

oops, maybe i should have said taxation 101, cos that's where the gst usually goes. actually, come to think of it, i don't think they do teach you how to fill out IRD forms at uni. i had to learn on the job and i still struggle! just for some light entertainment, you can look through some of the hundreds of forms at the IRD here: http://www.ird.govt.nz/forms-guides/number/.

who says accountants don't work hard for their money!