Posts by Bob Williams
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Opps sorry my double negatives got the best of me. History has a no-stopping rule.
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These histories are important to remind ourselves that ideas are always a product of their time. And history does not have a no-stopping rule.
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I'm with Andre on this. (Extinction) Rebellion. I put it in brackets however because 'Rebellion' on its own has been a recurrent word - from Hong Kong, Lebanon, Iraq, France, Chile, Bolivia, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Colombia (sorry I know South and Central America best).
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I've been very frustrated by the poor coverage of the flu epidemic of 1918. It was such a seminal event in many ways that it deserves much better coverage - as well as a timely reminder of what overuse of antibiotics could result in. There has been one play put on by the students at Vic but that's all I've seen. Hopefully someone will correct me since I've also been out of the country.
Incidentally I don't buy the 'miasma' argument. The germ theory of epidemics replaced the miasma theory in the 1880's - getting on for half a century or so before the 1918 epidemic. I doubt by then it was even part of the popular imagination, but it would need a good delving into Papers Past to confirm that.
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Hard News: Fear of Cycling, in reply to MikeStead,
And parking. Sometimes - often - there isn't anything convenient to attach your bike without creating an obstruction. I recently popped into the French Bakery in Petone (bread imported frozen from Paris). No space on the pavement so just parked my bike on the curb in the traditional manner. A minute later, emerging with my freshly baked baguette, I was yelled at by a women saying 'you are parking in my car park'. I had inadvertently taken up one of the rare vacant spaces on Jackson Street. The ensuing conversation is irrelevant - suffice to say it was unconstructive - but it got me thinking about notions of 'car parks' and bikes. So I checked the Transport Act. True enough, bikes are classified as vehicles (as anyone who's been pulled over for a DIC of a bike knows). I then emailed Lower Hutt Parking folks who confirmed that indeed they are 'vehicle parks' not 'car parks'. But added the following telling comment :
"My only caution is that if you use a car park, you may infuriate a motorist who could take out his/her frustrations on your cycle, pushing it out of the way to make way for their vehicle. (That sort of thing can happen when there are no parks vacant). "
As a car driver (as most adult cyclists probably are), his point rings true, but why can't I be infuriated also that a car has taken up my space. Time to bang on a few roofs (a highly effective way of expressing your displeasure at car drivers I learned in London years ago - it scares the bejesus out of them).
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And don't forget the two seminal works by Susan Sontag - "Illness as Metaphor" and "AIDS and its metaphors". Both are brilliant essays into the huge influence using 'war' metaphors when speaking of illness has had on how we address disease (eg fighting disease, suffering AIDS, battle cancer), in particular the notion of winning and losing; success and defeat. These are powerful metaphors. Many years ago when working for the NZ AIDS Foundation, my colleagues and i tried to stop using military metaphors for a day..... we lasted twenty minutes.
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Oh and um, if rental properties become more financially attractive, then that could encourage more second and third home buyers into the market, which could further increase housing prices, increase our debt levels and reduce investment in the productive sector. Oh the delights of unintended consequences. Assuming of course, the conspiracy theorist in me coming to the fore, that they are unintended.
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Some years ago a colleague and I were contracted by a government agency to do some work for them. After listening to the brief, my colleague and I discussed the job over coffee (well it was Wellington). "But this was done fifteen years ago, the two of us were involved. It didn't work then and it won't work now" I said. "Yes" replied my colleague, "but this bunch were still at high school and everyone else was made redundant and are now living on the Kapiti Coast ... we are the organisational memory."
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Back in the late 70s my then partner was on the same drama school course as Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders. It was my pleasant duty to attend every performance of their (then) only routine, the infamous Two Americans sketch. Time passed, the audiences got into double figures and one day we wound up in this dingy, strip club in Soho, part of the Paul Redmond empire, called the Comic Strip. Prior to Dawn and Jenny being added, the line up was dominated by Alexi Sayle and two comedy duos, The Outer Limits (Nigel Planer and the much underrated Pete Richardson) and 20th Century Coyote (Ade Edmondson and Rik). Brought up during the anarchic British TV comedy period of Spike Milligan, Marty Feldman and the Monty Python bunch I thought I’d seen everything. But for the sheer terrifyingly uncertain nerve wracking performance that was Rik Mayall I’d never imagined the like. If it had come down to a choice between the survival of Rik, the audience or the building I’m not sure I’d have trusted Rik’s judgment. I disliked The Young Ones intensely, because I felt that genius had been sacrificed on the alter of shock. But I’m genuinely pleased that my opinion was in the minority.
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I first came to New Zealand in 1987 on holiday (I moved here the following year). In a dingy pub somewhere off Lambton Quay I got talking to a, then, fairly well known academic. I was given their business card. It said “Senior Lecturer in social stratification”. “What in God’s name is social stratification” I asked. “Class” they responded “but we’re not allowed to talk about class in New Zealand.” And so, in my twenty five years here, it has so proven.