Posts by AndrewD
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It's late for me and I don't know why I'm posting as I'm on a losing ticket but I have to defend radio. As a broadcaster I'm always amused by the dissing radio gets for being part of the popularity index which is the charts and the perception that radio only plays shit.
Radio has consistently been the most comprehensively researched music monitor in this country. You have to be or you're dead in the water as a business. No-one goes out there to provide stuff people don't want.
The fact has always been that the active purchasing music public is a minority. For one, it's always been expensive to buy music. Come on...LPs for 12.99 20 years ago. Put that in todays money.
So the people buying have always been the exception. That has impacted on our perception of what popular is.
For example. The Violent Femmes, Blister in the Sun, you'd think, should be Classic Hit. But decades of testing have never seen the song register. Massive Attack have had massive sales but ask 10 people in the street to name a song. I'm loving Bloc Party right now but when I mention it I mostly get a blank and ,by the way, what radio is playing it.
This is the thing. All the interested groups have an issue with radio. Country and Western fans hate radio. Sorry most people have no truck with it. Old punks wonder why Classic Hits doesn't play the Sex Pistols. etc. It's not that we don't want to play the "good stuff" it's just in asking hundreds and thousands of people most just aren't into it. They're into what you hear on the radio. Get over it.
An earlier post questions whether Jim Mora should have had Barbra Streisand's Guilty album as a classic album. That person is under a rock. Guilty and Woman in Love are some of the most popular songs in New Zealand. They are genius. I hate them but I acknowledge thier appeal. Don't throw things at the monitor. It's true. Radio has asked NZ. Again and again and again.
The point is the difference between the active music lover and the rest. There are an awful lot of people in this country who have less than 50 records in their collection. It may not appeal to your taste but radio is an accurate arbiter of the taste of New Zealanders.
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To add to your list: News Ltd's threats to sue the NZRU for making decisions about rugby in NZ
Will News Ltd be suing the Aussies for their shit teams this year (with all the Wallabies!) and will they ask for a 10 year refund from SA and OZ for all their half arsed rugby (with the exception of the Brumbies and the Sharks on a good year)
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The problem is the world authorities that like to muscle in on the events. When a country wins the bid to stage a comp they should be given the right to run the thing. But no...whether it's the IRB or the ICC they storm in and make rules that benefit only them, supposedly for the "good of the game". They want clean stadia so they can make the money. They hijack the corporate seats and often fail to sell them as their greed exceeds market calue. And they set the prices, ignoring the state of the local economy. Syd Millar has more power over RWC 2011 than the poor sods who have to make it work. A West Indian would know the thing ain't going to fly.
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The current bill allows any adult in charge of anyone under 16 to use "reasonable force" to correct their behaviour. So the dude who employs your kid at the takeaway can have a swing anytime he likes. Maybe that's why Kip McGrath opposes.
Imagine this. A dork from marketing school takes your company down the wrong path, costing millions, bankrupting you and disemploying 15 people. The law means you can't clip the 25 year old dickhead round the earhole. So why can we do it if a child bumps over some cans from the supermarket.
All the repeal of s59 does is give kids the same courtesy under law as adults. It does not ban smacking but it does give a defence against thrashings and beatings.
Adults currently seem able to swing at each other at rugby matches without the weight of the law coming down on them, so why should a smack, that does not cause physical damage but stings emotionally, be suddenly a prosecutable offence.
If the right to smack is so important to you then ritualise it. Just as society does. Try the kid. Hand down the sentence. Ttake them down and then administer the justice at a later date. It's how countries execute. It's how we obtain justice in a civil case. I tell you. Delay for 5 minutes and you will never brakk the law.