Posts by st ephen
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Very timely, all this. We're still side-stepping the wedding thing after 15 years and two kids. Everyone says "just have a party!" - but I hate parties. "Too many people and dancing" is pretty much the definition of a party, no? Take out stupid speeches, religion, ceremonial rituals and celebrants and it doesn't leave much. Just the suit - playing dress-ups once in a while is fine by me. But I'd feel bad about inviting people just to come and see me in a suit, rare event though it may be.
I think the appeal of being married without getting married may be similar to the appeal of having a third child without actually, you know, having it. So maybe we'll just adopt someone else's wedding...
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hmmph. If that's what counts as a primary source these days, students should be instructed to use Wikipedia and nothing but.
(and to be fair, 'Look and Learn' also informed me that Maori had cannibalistic tendencies, which was clearly preposterous because my teachers and Weetbix cards had never mentioned such a juicy fact. Gotta love those PC-gone-mad '70s).
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I've heard of lecturers setting assignments of either writing a Wikipedia page, or correcting an error.
I would make this compulsory at primary school level - writing something completely bogus but getting it formatted to look plausible. I still remember at that age reading in the British "Look and Learn" magazine that Maori had used kiwi skins for shields. That was news to me, since I'd never seen these shields in the museum or even in pictures. More surprising was the next bit, which said that nowdays (1970's) kiwi skins were used to make shoes and bags...
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... no discussion about coffee would be complete without mentioning the Neapolitan tradition of the "caffè pagato", the paid-for coffee...
Sounds very civilised and civilising. But Foreign-Word-Association-Futbol reminded me of the Chilean "cafe con piernas" - national coffee shop chains where the customers' drooling is not in anticipation of a fine brew, and even a homesick Kiwi would hesitate before asking for a 'flat white'...
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I'm beginning to think that this coffee snob debate is reprised here every couple of months just to keep the sponsors happy...
But while I'm here - while in NZ it makes sense to drink good coffee, and therefore avoid Starbucks. But before travelling you should just ween yourselves off the stuff entirely. Otherwise you'll end up EXACTLY like those blinkered mid-western American tourists desperately seeking McDs and doughnuts from Tashkent to Ouagadougou.
Besides, there are some truly fantastic awful coffee experiences to be had out there, like the way South Indian waiters do the whole Tom Cruise-in-Cocktail number while they pour sweetened condensed milk, warm water and coffee syrup from one stainless steel tumbler to another. Who cares what it tastes like? -
I'm beginning to think that this coffee snob debate is reprised here every couple of months just to keep the sponsors happy...
But while I'm here - while in NZ it makes sense to drink good coffee, and therefore avoid Starbucks. But before travelling you should just ween yourselves off the stuff entirely. Otherwise you'll end up EXACTLY like those blinkered mid-western American tourists desperately seeking McDs and doughnuts from Tashkent to Ouagadougou.
Besides, there are some truly fantastic awful coffee experiences to be had out there, like the way South Indian waiters do the whole Tom Cruise-in-Cocktail number while they pour sweetened condensed milk, warm water and coffee syrup from one stainless steel tumbler to another. Who cares what it tastes like? -
You can just imagine his inner dialog seconds after he said "a personal jet'...
I always found Don Brash's inner monologue quite endearing every time he was asked a leading question by some devious journo:
"Wait on, I'm smart! I 'm sure I know this one! And when I get it right, everyone will see how smart I am!" .
"Lousy politician" isn't such a bad insult...On the other hand, he was rightly castigated for wanting to be PM of our nation but not being interested enough to read Michael King's History. Judging by Key's recent response regarding his own reading matter, I wouldn't be at all surprised if it turns out that there is a piss-taking PAS reader on his staff...
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There's some rich guy in Monaco who likes to dish out money in the name of preserving democracy and free speech in New Zealand. Seems to me that funding what YOU were doing would be far more effective than funding someone who's entire career is built on vanity and self-interest.
Seriously. There's a Thinktank waiting with your name on it. Surely amongst all these over-educated PAS readers there must be one who's, like, mega-loaded? -
I realise that some see all this as 44 pages of pointless ranting, but there are practical insights to be had from this sort of discussion. One day you may find yourself a defendant or complainant in a trial.
The legal teams will do their best to keep PAS-types off the jury, but eventually they may run out of challenges. So your credibility will be judged by your peers; you know, talkback nutjobs, 'Your View' correspondents, Womens Weekly readers, and someone picked at random from these pages.Who would you want it to be? Robbery? Deborah? Craig?
For one rape trial it was me. And although the instructions were to avoid speculation and stick to the evidence presented (a la Robbery), in assessing "reasonable doubt' we were supposed to bring into play our 'life experience'. Which turned out to come in pretty terrifying forms. It was a harrowing experience, and obviously much more so for the complainant (if she was telling the truth) and the defendant (if she wasn't).
But presumably the point of a jury system is that each case can't simply be represented by an algorithm and solved, and the views and thought processes expressed in these (and other) pages are somehow all equally valid. And that still scares me. -
Agreed. Being a pussy isn't as bad as being a cunt, either.
Emma - just in case you find yourself picking a fight with some Mongrel Mob-type one day... Pussy is worse than cunt.
The latter works as a term of endearment, eg. someone has drunk all your beer and borrowed your car but you can't help admiring their audacity. The former can only be interpreted as a direct challenge to one's masculinity.
Please be careful out there... :-)