Posts by Rob Hosking
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As Terry Pratchett notes in one of his novels, the sound of kids playing sounds magical when you're not close enough to hear what they're actually saying to each other.
Even quite small kids have a taste for the macabre. My best friend until I was about 7 (when his parents moved town) used to make up incredible stories. He'd do low-level bullshit: I can imagine him doing something like the young chap who told David he was going to report him to the Police for stealing a pie (sorry but I was in hysterics over that story). When we were at kindy he reckoned if you couldn't piss as high as a mark on the wall on the side of the building you'd turn into a girl.
Several of us then set out to make sure we could reach this mark, which we did, around the time the teacher walked around the corner.
Another time he reckoned an old building on a neighbour's farm, once a house and now a sort of overflow hayshed, was haunted. A farm worker had gone in there and never been seen again, he said.
All they'd found afterwards was his boots, which were filled with his blood.
This did not seem very likely to me, but the level of detail was disturbing, and I checked it out when I got home. My parents took some time to recover.
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Well, Craig beat me to linking the cello one (couldn't remember the song, but remembered the clip: made a big impression on a young lad)
...but here's the Not the Nine O'Clock Noise version:
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Surely it cannot be as bad as Shatner's spoken rendition of Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. Surely.
Well, Shatner acts, or rather over-acts, his way through Lucy..
" somebody calls you
You answer [puts on yawning voice] qui-i-ite slooowly...
[urgent]
"A Girl!!
With Kaliedescope Eyes!"Nimroy under-acts, he sounds like he's on mogoadon.
I have both on a home made compilation CD - a double CD, I might add - I've called 'The Good, the Bad, and the Downright Cheesy'.
And I really need to get out more.
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You say that now, but what did Nimoy follow up his I Am Not Spock book with?
From memory, he recorded an album.
His version of 'Proud Mary' has to be heard to be believed. Just don't listen to it stoned: you'll die laughing.
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Further to the US conservative movement discussion:
There's a very good piece in the Atlantic Monthly on McCain, and why he's more of a true conservative than those on the Levitican Wing of the Republican Party.
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Labour knew nothing about the s 59 repeal bill before the election.
Balderdash.
The Bill was a private members bill, introduced before the 2005 election. The crucial thing here is Labour had considered introducing its own anti-smacking legislation but got the jitters
At some point - we don't know when - Clark decided to make it a party vote issue for Labour.
Secret agenda??? Well, its a policy the party wanted to adopt, but wasn't prepared to say so up front.
There's better examples. The abolition of appeals to the Privy Council - a fairly significant consitutional change - wasn't signalled during the election campaign.
Nor was legalisation of prostitution, or the Civil Unions legislation.
Like the anti-smacking bill, those last two were private members bills which the Labour leadership decided to make a party issue.
In a slightly different category. paid parental leave wasn't Labour policy in 1999, either.
Neoconservative used to have another meaning, though: former liberal turned conservative;
I have problems with the whole term "neo-conservative". Conservatives shouldn't be 'neo' anything.
It's like a hip Young Nat. [and I say this as someone who is about as hip as the hokey cokey]
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Reminds me of when I was student flatting - I answered a phone call from a clairvoyant who was ringing to berate my flatmate for missing an appointment.
I had a flatmate into astrology. Told me I was a typical Cancer male: sensitive, moody, and doesn't forget a slight.
Bloody cow. Didn't speak to her for a week after that.
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Starbucks could serve the best coffee in the world, and I still wouldn't drink it: it feels like sitting in a PowerPoint presentation, not a cafe.
Tom: Perfect analogy.
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It seems to me people who are recruited into politics from autocratic or technocratic backgrounds underrate the skill set of the politician.They are not used to having their word or their agenda questioned, and beneath the smooth exterior seems to lurk a corporate authoritarian, who gets angry when impertinent peons go off the coporate message.
[derisive spluttering noise]
Bollocks.
I've seen Clark do that (most Monday press conferences, these days); certainly Cullen; we've all seen Winston doing it rather a lot of late.
Hide; Dunne; even Fitzsimons on a very bad day, although she goes more for the pained look that anyone would think differently...
In fact, Key generally hasn't got aggro, until quite recently. The lack of aggro-ness has been commented on (and seen as a potential weakness, btw)
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I did a wee chuckle at the Muldoonist tag.
H1 really needs to make up her mind whether Key is the second coming of Rob Muldoon or Ruth Richardson.