Posts by Geoff Lealand
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Nice one! Some budding author, in search of a fortune, needs now to write an account of the dark side of Mr R. Hide (or is he too transparent)?
Just back from the Pirongia races (in their 137th year). Scorching heat and the cream of NZ youth in massed array but I like how the betting goes--you buy $1 tickets randomly, then they assign a horse to your number. Spent $6; came away with $18.
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It was indeed a most lovely version of ApplePieBed and a privilege to see performed at that range.
Good to see you in the audience, too. Off to bed, I think, as I have to make a very large fruit salad before 10am.
Hope you all have an excellent day.
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Give me the ineffably strange, philosophical, bracingly unsentimental Moomins any day.
Gordon Campbell has a very good piece on the Moomins, in his latest Werewolf http://werewolf.co.nz/2009/12/classics-tales-from-moominvalley-1962-by-tove-jansson/
Joe Wylie has already discovered it and posted comments. I also noted that the Moomins have never travelled widely, except for the Japanese, who focus on the 'cute' factor.
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An interesting chart but the figures seem at odds with the figures I have from Euromonitor International (European Audiovisual Observatory/national statistics), which claim:
2003=6.4; 2004=6.8; 2005=7.4; 2006=8; 2007=8.6; 2008=9.4. An upward trend!I like the comment re Iceland, suggesting there is nothing else to do. Until two years ago, Iceland had a thriving film industry. I wonder if it is still so.
These figures were sent to me by our helpful research librarian, so I don't have a handy link.
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I do delight in the stone piles/sculptures along the Omarama straight
There are also the rock arrangements exposed at low tide alongside the motorway that crosses the Motueka estuary. There may be wit and wisdom there but you pass by too quickly to see it.
(yawn) up at 4.30am to send my family off to Japan for two weeks.
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At this point I get to announce that my son has just finished high school and my daughter got her drivers license this week - we're no longer needed at all ....
I guess I just had one of those moments. Dragged out the large trampoline from under the magnolia, scrubbed it down, and a new owner dismantled it and took if off to a new home. I remember how my son and his friends used to jump off the garage roof on to the mat. So, I look upon the new style of trampolines (with safety nets) with some wonder.
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Yes, but there is a bleeding statue dedicated to them (in a general sense) parked outside the Dunedin airport.
What of the Waikato stereotype: a bunch of cow-cockies, dedicated to using up our dwindling oil stocks as quickly as possible?
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Fuck - aren't we over the "all Aucklanders are wankers" and all Southerners are "True and Honest Kiwis" shtick? Please?
We bloody ought to be because it is so infantile. As for that Speights 'Southern Man' caricature--my daughter thinks he is a closet gay. New Zealand is too small , and the popul.ation too dispersed for such regionalisms to have any weight. I say this as someone who grew up in Taranaki
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A good year, except for the terrible middle bit, when a close friend died in a snow storm in the Tararuas.
Thank you, Graham, for all your insights into good music this year. I have purchased at least 6 CDs based on your recommendations.
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I once read that the average New Zealander sees, on average, seven films a year. [Citation required]
The latest NZ figures I have are: Annual cinema trips per capita are 2007: 8.6 (calculated from 36.5m total visits) and 2008: 9.4 (39.9m).
Like all averages, such figures don't account for significant deviations (eg Craig's 48 or Robyn's 100) but, on the whole, they are pretty healthy averages.