Posts by Jason Dykes
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>> I'll just say this is proof that there is a merciful and loving God (and one with a great sense of cosmic irony), who really wants to be left out of New Zealand's domestic politics.
>> Can I get an amen!
Which is the position no doubt held by honest, capable and thoughtful (some might say "real") Christians. On that basis I guess we must also assume Peter Dunne's "worm" incident in 2002 was not divine intervention.
To be more serious, I prefer Tamaki to be wasting time on politics rather than doing more harm elsewhere.
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I feel robbed of schadenfreude. I was expecting a lot more entertainment over the next few weeks, with the party ultimately playing a role similar to that of the Brethren last election. First off I was expecting a journalist to ask who would be number one on the party list ...
Now I suppose it's back to serious issues such as interest rates.
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Wellington whisky drinkers may be interested in a sampling of Whisky Galore imports at Regional Wines on 24 and 29 October. They include Edradour 1993 (59.8%), Port Ellen Provenance 23yr old, Benriach 16 yr old, Ben Nevis 10yr old, Laphroaig 17yr old rum finish, Duncan Taylor Highland Park 1984 (56.6%) and the Signatory Bunnahabhain Peated 1997.
Sorry if this sounds like an ad but I figured given the sponsorship of the rugby threads it would be acceptable. I have no commercial relationships with whisky merchants besides being a customer.
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I had a very detailed dream last night. In pool play the ABs are inspired by a Warriors win the night before and beat Italy 61-13, going on to score 283 points in their first four games. In the French/Arg game the first stoppage is a try by Rougerie. Argentina narrowly beats France but loses to Ireland. SA beats England by 28 points. Wales loses its game against Australia by only 2 points (an Aussie drop goal ends the game). George Gregan is struck by lightning but contests his death and gets off.
Eventually NZ faces SA (not France) in the final. Eleven players are injured. NZ wins 33-13.
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Leaving school
High school was mostly a war of attrition for me, but at least I made it to the end. On my last day I made a point of picking up a school leaving certificate. The office administrator was perplexed, wondering why (like most others in my class) I would want to go on the dole. It wasn't that. The leaving cert simply meant more to me than any of the qualifications I'd got along the way.
I had lost the company of several friends that year - due to a massive marijuana bust. In one hit, 25 students were suspended or expelled. The Deputy Principal had caught an initial two smokers in a barn on a farm adjacent to the school. Using interrogation tactics worthy of a spy master he gradually discovered more and more reefer maniacs. The wall of his office was like a giant spider web, with drawing pins and lengths of wool yarn illustrating the connections between the guilty and the complicit. He didn't need MySpace or Facebook. Kid "A" would be hauled into the office, reminded of the shame he was bringing upon his family, the fact the school could prevent him getting UE and ultimately, the fate of his immortal soul should he not divulge more names. Concurrently, teachers lectured their classes about the evil of sheltering the guilty. You might not smoke yourself, but if you were aware of others that did and did not inform on them, you were just as guilty. I remember feeling the eye of a teacher delivering this sermon linger on me. But if I had learned one useful life skill from school, it was not to snitch on people. Personally, I was an abstainer, protected by my nerdiness. At the same time I was a known friend of the damned due to our common interest in making music tapes and my various connections in sourcing food. My friend M in particular was a massive imbiber, but after having already opened my mind with music never even suggested I join him and his other friends on their "jogs" through the countryside. Nonetheless, the methods used on the poor bastards dragged to the DP's office were effective, and soon kids C, D and E were hauled into the office and things snowballed from there.
Being on the periphery of the above events, I didn't know which bits of wool yarn were being connected to who. But the fear got around that some very central figure must have been giving up names. And then all of a sudden, 25 people were gone. Shipped off home to different parts of the country. The population of my own dorm was reduced by 20% overnight. This was a big deal not only in the local community, but across the country.
After school I went hitching all around New Zealand and one day found myself in my old friend's home town. He had been incommunicado and I'd had to track him via his father's caravan park and his mother's church group. We met up and he related his version of events at school and asked given I was moving to Christchurch to study would I be looking up our other friends there. I said I guessed so. He asked if I believed his story about the events at school. I said yes, of course. I hit the highway south the next day. The last words I heard him say were, "Jase, you're a good friend." I never saw him again.
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KM: "Emerson's Bookbinder is like nectar from heaven."
Yes, I also like Old 95 with blue cheese and water crackers. Mmmm. Six weeks ago a friend shared with me his last remaining bottle of Taieri George, hidden since they sold out in March. I had heard of it but never seen or tasted it. (We had a couple of drams of a cask strength Islay sm afterwards.) These are things that make winter a pleasure.
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Rob, you might also try the tastings at Regional Wines. They had a great one last week and are planning a 2007 "best of the best" in November (not advertised yet). As a special treat they provided jugs of Emerson's Bookbinder from the keg downstairs as a palate cleanser between drams.
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Moving away.
I spent the best part of my childhood on Waiheke Island. Our dirt cheap 3/4 acre section was covered in fruit trees and had a waterfall and swimming hole (where I caught my first eel). We had chickens, relied on rainwater and cooked with a wood/coal burning stove. I got my first bike at seven and for the next several years had the freedom of the beaches, the bush and the sea. I earned an income from selling fruit, assembling newspapers and collecting bottles discarded by the "townies" - and spent it on comics, milkshakes and playing pool. My friends and I often trespassed on the beautiful beaches and hills owned by a toilet paper magnate, building forts and repelling fictitious invasions. We celebrated the end of disco with a bonfire. Life couldn't have been better.
Then one day we moved away. My parents tried to keep the property but eventually relinquished it after a succession of colourful tenants blew holes in the wall with a 303, advertised it as a drop in zone for hippies and got busted for stashing bags of heroin in the underground water tank. I went back a few years ago to find Waiheke crawling with 4x4s, luxury yachts and subdivisions. The place I remember, that I sometimes wish I could retreat to, has been destroyed and is no more.
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Another great thing about barbers is that they don't lure poor students into their premises with offers of free haircuts in order to perform experiments on them. The free haircut offer is a euphemism for a "styling" in which you have no say, deportation to an apprentice hairdresser competition and subsequent dumping back on to the street looking like a freak. I once got sucked in for the free haircut but fortunately was able to do a runner before I could be kidnapped. I provided merriment for those that saw me before I could borrow some clippers.
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Ben: "Well, happily we have MMP, so as long as we can make sure no one party can govern alone we might be able to mitigate any bait and switch tendencies."
Yes, I think that's been the biggest impact on NZ politics in the last decade. A party can no longer assume that winning more seats than any one other party will give them the Government. They'll probably be dependent on the Maori seats and one or more parties getting above the 5%. And the minor parties know they have to win concessions or face annihilation in the following general election.