Posts by Gabor Toth
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"I saw the decade in wishing the world would change in the blink of an eye". This is relevant now because it is a new decade (just like the '90s was!!!)
I've just noticed how they have changed it from the original "I saw the decade in when it seemed that the world could change in the blink of an eye" - thus managing to strip it of its Cold War reference to the fact that millions of people had been sh*t scared of a nuclear strike for a couple of generations.
OK - I admit that I have always had a soft-spot for the original. I was living in Hungary at the time it came out and despite its cheesyness, with its easy-to-understand lyrics and its video montage of news footage, the song really hit the spot with the youth of Central & Eastern Europe. It was on pretty high rotate on MTV Europe which had become available in Hungary (for free) via satellite about three years before (IMHO this actually helped play a part in the downfall of the communist regime by a mass exposure of the population to Western youth culture. You no longer had to surreptitiously seek the stuff out, it fell into your lap). That young children there were still having nuclear-strike drills at primary school in the mid-1980s' (no doubt resulting in horrific nightmares for many) helps explain the impact that the song had with many teenagers.
With that all hanging around in my memory - yeah something more local for the RWC would have been more appropriate.
Dishonourable mention: the 1974 Commonwealth Games theme song, "Join Together".
Again - context is everything. "Join Together" may appear to be sentimental pap today but lets not forget that the message of the song was radical enough at the time to have it completely banned by authorities in South Africa.
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We had a handpump serving "bag-conditioned" Nerdherder pale ale (it is essentially a huge bladder - like a giant version of the bags that cask wine goes into).
I know someone who has successfully smuggled wine cask bladders into various music festivals and outdoor concerts on several occasions by strapping them to her tummy and pretending to be pregnant. Is anyone willing to give it a crack at the test match at the Basin on Friday with a bladder of Nerdherder? 36 pints of beer would be a little trickier than three litres of wine but if a bloke were to strap it on high around the torso, it might pass as a substantial paunch + man boobs. Throw on some loose fitting clothing and it should be sweet.
It was easily the biggest volume seller at our stand, which is funny because although we've been doing it for 18 months I'm always really nervous about what the average drinker will think of "flat beer".
Hmmm... flat beer... (drool)
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I'm still hoping that we may see more hand-pumped cask-conditioned real ale in Wellington in the future. With such an active quality beer scene at the moment it's a shame that this style of beer is almost completely ignored. Often when I have managed to find it locally, either the person serving doesn't know how to work the beer engine properly, the engine is poorly maintained (resulting in 50 / 50 froth+ beer mixture) or it is served far too cold. After developing a taste for it while living in the UK, there are few things more pleasurable to my taste buds than a full imperial pint of cellar- temperature best bitter. I just wish it were more commonly available in NZ.
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Christchurch benefits from an architectural tradition; its buildings are of high quality and it is not afraid of the Modern. Its architects were taught by their elders. It has a community which is concerned with the city centre.
Well - concerned about the centre as broadly defined by the track loop that the touristy tram runs around. Their concern doesn't seem to extend much beyond that – either for the preservation of old buildings or the architecture of what replaces them. Over the past 12 years or so that I have been regularly visiting Christchurch (my in-laws live there) I've been shocked at the number of early 20th century commercial buildings south-east of the Square and in Sydenham that have been demolished at a time when most cities are trying to save and reuse them. In the late 1990's I was amazed to see so many of these buildings still standing. Since then wrecking balls have been hard at work. The historic Sydenham Town Hall (dating back to when the suburb was a separate local authority) also bit the dust in 2000 without too much fuss from the broader community. It’s now the site of Hell’s Pizza and the Mad Butcher. Much of the charming Edwardian architecture along the southern length of Manchester Street was similarly wiped out over this period to be replaced by car yards and dull retail cubes. One time I went to re-visit the Ambassador's Hotel on Manchester Street to photograph all their exquisite lead-light windows from the inside - only to find it a pile of rubble.
There seems to be some very fixed ideas about what constitutes a heritage building in Christchurch, e.g...
- Victorian stone buildings with pointy bits = good.
- Edwardian commercial buildings (particularly those in old working-class areas) need not apply. -
NZ's just as bad. We continue to run coal and gas fired power plants because of the naive belief that nuclear energy = bad.
Well not quite as bad (far from it really). We generate only about 30% of our power from coal and gas where as Australia generates over 90% (the large bulk of which is coal). It doesn't help that modern Australia is addicted to air conditioning which hoovers up huge amounts of power. A direct comparison makes Australia look even worse. They have about a 50,000 MW generating capacity from coal, we only have about 1500 MW.
However we really have to stop patting ourselves on the back about how much better we are at renewable electricity production than Australia is (or anyone else) as CO2 doesn't stay within a country's borders.The whole nuclear power thing makes much better sense in Australia (for one thing, they are sitting on huge reserves of uranium).
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Somehow they've made a decision that this approach is 'best for us' and they will win an election on Climate Change and then tell us all what to do. It's hard not to really really hate them. They are so WRONG in every sense.
Often what it comes down to with Australian politicians is protecting the jobs of workers in their electorates / States. Keeping people gainfully employed seems to take on a far higher importance in Australia than it does here where on the whole politicians don't seem to be too fussed either way. While to some extent this is admirable, in Australia's case many of these jobs are in environmentally unfriendly activities. This is why the coal industry continues to hold such an influence in Australia and leads to things like the Hazelwood Power Station getting a 25 year extension on their operating license. Though closing and replacing Hazelwood (and others like it) with something less environmentally hideous would seem to be the blindingly obvious thing to do, these stations (and their associated mines) tend to be located in areas where there are bugger-all other employment opportunities. Whenever the closure of a heavy-industrial plant is mooted in Australia, the "what about the jobs?" question is immediately raised by politicians who want to keep their jobs. There are other factors involved for sure, but the whole employment thing is often the first thing mentioned.
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...what happens when we go to South Africa?
Well hopefully certain supporters will leave their "White Power" banners at home as that particular slogan may not go down too well in the Republic...
One observation about the crowd on Saturday: The crowd support was fantastic and then the final whistle blew and BAM - I don't think I've seen the stadium so full yet empty so fast. I half suspected there was a race on to see who could get to Courtenay Place first.
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I was working in London in a fancy-pants pub in Mayfair earlier in 1989 when Hungary announced that it was going to remove the barbed-wire fences on the Austria-Hungary boarder and down-size their border security. I had spent the best part of a year until that point moving between my "motherland" (Hungary) and the UK and was well versed in East/West politics. I was gobsmacked when i heard this announcement, knowing that hoards of East Germans would holiday every year in Hungary and that the main summer tourist season was about to begin. I tried to explain (as best as a young man in his early 20s could) to whoever would listen that this potentially could lead to the collapse of East Germany. For any Ossie who could afford to get themselves to Hungary, the Berlin wall might as well not be there. Everyone thought I was bonkers...
My video memory is a trashy-pop number from a year later, but it summarizes the extraordinary feeling of relief (and release) of 1989 brilliantly. The simple lyrics (and obvious video imagery) meant that it was a huge pop hit across continental Europe where even those with only a basic grasp of English could understand the sentiment.
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How was Melbourne?
Best of luck with the running by the way, but do consider road cycling if you are thinking about keeping up with this fitness malarkey for the medium-long term. With well set-up road bike you can achieve very high levels of fitness but you don't get the punishing hammering of the body that comes from running. Of course there is the small issue of being knocked over, but in small groups it's reasonably safe. I know a few folk in their 50's whose bodies are now suffering from all the running they did in their 30's and 40's (knees, hips etc...). -
That tourism film is pure gold!
I mean even the You Tube identification code speaks volumes -
ADOCkFuqyQ8 for goodness sake!But what street in what NZ city is at 0.49? I can't figure it out.
Looks like Queen St to me. Definitely not in Wellywood.
Oh yes it is! Freeze at 0.49 and you'll see that it is a shot looking up Willis Street with a long lens (making the Council housing block at the top of Willis Street seem closer than it actually is). You can see the neon sign for the old Majestic Theatre (now the site of the Majestic Centre on the corner of Willis and Boulcott Streets) just to the right of centre of the frame.