Posts by Geoff Lealand
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In Nelson, seemingly with the other half of New Zealand. My wife accused me of acting a 'bit weird' this morning but I do tend to go in that direction, when trapped with her relatives.
If the day turns cloudy, I do recommend going to The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. It has been quite some time since I went to a film that was completely booked out for an early evening screening* but for a very long film (159 minutes), it is an absorbing experience, and my estimation of Brad Pitt has gone up a notch or two. The tug/submarine sequence is quite cinematically tremendous.
* for the sake of completion/symmetry, I also went to Waltz With Bashir on NYE in Wellington, so I could record I had been to 52 films at the cinema in 2008!
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My gods, that's dedication. I'd either find that touching or slightly creepy
Well, it proved worthwhile but, on reflection, I think I should have courted the mother with the same vigour. As I recall, she was rather tasty.
Growing up in South Taranaki (Hawera), the options for a long road trip in our Big D Citreon were south to Wanganui or north to New Plymouth--trips of equal distance. The New Plymouth trip offered more diversions but the Wanganui trip was longer,emptier of habitation, and a little scarier.
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A lovely. evocative piece, Emma. That stretch of road has different meaning for me as I would sometimes bike from Chch to Ashburton whilst I was at UoC--largely to ingratiate myself with the mother of a girl I lusted after, in my golden years when first at university. I used to sometimes bike to Geraldine too, battling headwinds on an old clunker before the days of mountain bikes (and possibly even gears).
Indeed it is a dull road to travel but there are duller (the Foxton Straight?). I guess it is more about the destination.
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...and mildly excited at being second.
Welcome back Keith. You have been missed 'round these parts.
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It is difficult to reconcile the dominant rhetoric of economic doom and gloom, with observations of everyday life. We are in Wellington, heading south, and I visited the California Garden Centre in Miramar for the first time for over 20 years. I remember it as a slightly tatty but interesting place to buy plants; now it is a giant emporium selling all kinds of gee-gaws for the wealthy middle classes. Yesterday, there were many of the well-healed class buying gee-gaws. The cafes are still full and supermarket carparks bursting, with no perceptible increase in beggars on the street.
On the other hand, sad little towns like Woodville show that wealth has eluded some parts of New Zealand.
I guess it all to do with the circles you move in, and the politics which reassure. And I guess that there is a degree of schadenfreude that difficult times have been landed in National's lap, with the expectation that they won't cope with it very well.
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This seems like a meandering kind of discussion so I will meander in another direction. We are heading south and giving the car CD player a rare work-out. My 15 year daughter has just discovered the songs of Tom Lehrer and I am re-discovering just how damn clever he was. Some 50 years on and he is still sharp as a tack, and The Flight of the Conchords don't seem that innovative anymore.
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Greetings to those few of us still close to our laptops. Yesterday's Waikato Times has an interesting feature on Stuff and celebrity searching
http://www.stuff.co.nz/waikatotimes/4803708a19807.html
I managed to get a plug in for PAS.
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For interesting diversions over the Christmas period (to get away from the chit-chat and endless recitation of family anecdotes), you could try stumbleupon.org. Add your areas of interest and it will produce all sorts of surprises, reminding you of how much like a mixed bag of sweets the web is.
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For interesting diversions over the Christmas period (to get away from the chit-chat and endless recitation of family anecdotes), you could try stumbleupon.org. Add your areas of interest and it will produce all sorts of surprises, reminding you of how much like a mixed bag of sweets the web is.
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..to join the chorus of appreciation for Russell and PA. Incidentally, if you are passing through Piopio, they have some of the best strawberries in the world (from a market garden just out of town, heading north) They actually grow them on a straw mulch. (This may bring them back!).