Posts by Rob Hosking
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VW:
I don't normally respond to people who make anonymous posts, but anyway - Two things:
(a) I don't consider myself a winner because National won the election. Philosophically I may be on the conservative side of the spectrum, but I don't back a particular political party. For me that would be in the same category as incest and folk-dancing. And for the record I've voted all over the place over the years. Five different parties over eight elections.
(b) What was bad winner about pointing out Clark had just lost? Don't forget it was in response to a comment that she was popular and other leaders weren't. Which sounded like a bad case of denial. -
The difference I'd like to point out is Helen was popular and Nat leaders weren't as you know, and consequently left without choice.
[splutter]
Newsflash: She Just Lost An Election.
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it is a rather undignified stunt while the new Cabinet is being sworn in.
Craig, it happened before the swearing in: the media call for that was from 10.30am. This was earlier, sometime between 9.30 and 10-ish.
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Holy shit, Munster 16, NZ 18. Last minute try to Rokocoko steals it.
I heard the last ten minutes of the game in a taxi en route to a Statistics NZ lock up on the producer prices index (they're up, in case you were wondering).
HUGE buzz. (the game, not the PPI)
The driver was incredibly excited, which, since he was Somalian, I thought was pretty neat. They're not big on rugby, as a rule. -
Would the release of money from the Super. scheme in 1975 have been the kick-start that drove the mid 1970s house-price boom and the rampant inflation that followed?
No. The inflation began before the housing boom - mid-1960s - and the housing boom really crested early seventies. Muldoon deep-sixed the fund in '76. And in any case the Fund had only been going about a year at that point - there wasn't a huge amount of money in it.
I first visited Waiheke early 1968, on the old wooden ferry. I was three. Got blisters on my hands, swinging round and round on the poles supporting the roof inside the cabin.
We stayed at a bach just up the hill from Little Oneroa. Outside dunny. Tin bath tub which had to be filled at the sink. All the roads were gravel.
The bach was at the top of a hill: I woke about 5am one morning, went outside and sat in my little brother's pushchair. Pretended it was a truck. Went brm! Brmm!
Would have been fine except I decided to pretend the brake was a gear-lever, and put it off. The pushchair rolled down the hill & catapaulted me into the blackberry bush at the bottom of the garden. Bit of a downer, especially as I didn't have a shirt on.
Much later, early 1990s, as a student, used to do cheap weekend chill outs to the backpackers at Little Oneroa.
One evening in particular sticks in mind: there was about half a dozen of us and a Brit, who was a chef by trade, said if everyone chipped in some food he'd put together a dinner. We all did: he came up with something like a beef stroganoff, only with kidney beans. Very nice. I chipped in with some dessert wine I'd been hoarding and we all sat around till about 1am Talking About Life.
Sigh.
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If John Key starts giving PowerPoint presentations we're in trouble.
Not so much that. Everyone does those nowadays. (and as someone once said, Powerpoint corrupts, but absolute Powerpoint corrupts absolutely...).
If he starts talking about paradigm shifts though, I'm going to deeply regret maybe voting for him (will decide tomorrow. Hell, I've got another 24 hours).
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what i like most about mark's posts is the way they kind of break into rap, or modern poetry
I was thinking it was more the way JP Donleavy used to finish chapters, especially if the characters were having sex.
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Loretta Swit played a formidable US female president on the film version of 'Whoops Apocalypse'.
None of it on Youtube, unfortunately. There is though a magnificent bit of Peter Cook as a British PM trying to stamp out the real causes of unemployment.
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I'm thinking an over sixty five 'boobs on bikes'.
OK.
Now I'm not thinking that.
Ever again.