Posts by Kyle Matthews
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We need some sort of law slipped into the legislation for the national stadium or whatever ends up happening, that this haka gets done the next time we play any team that complains about 'throat cutting'.
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"I'd wave, but that's probably not the way the cool people do it."
make it look involuntary & everyone will forgive you. :)
The only way I can see that turning out is everyone thinking he's having a fit on national TV.
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IP:
Hager's work is a beat-up by a fringe socialist who is desperately afraid of Don Brash's leadership taking National to victory next election.
Impressive that you've managed to review the book, when I presume you have yet to get your hands on a copy!
I haven't read Seeds of Distrust, which pretty much got beat up as soon as it came out, but Nicky's first two books have pretty much stood up to the light of day. He's an international expert on electronic evesdropping, and has been recognised as such. His book on Timberlands exposed some pretty horrendous activity by a SOE. I've heard him talk about his methods of research, and his work is generally pretty comprehensive, and he's intelligent and asks good questions.
Maybe you've met him yourself, and had some in-depth political discussions with him, and are therefore entitled to label him a 'fringe socialist'. Personally, from the knowledge that I have of him he's a long way from the socialist fringe. Some people on the left in NZ would regard him as a bit of a cop-out.
Perhaps it'd be better to read what he has to say this time around before dismissing it as left-wing ravings. You'll just look silly if this book leads to Don Brash falling on his sword.
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Kyle
"Like Auckland, Dunedin needed a new stadium come World Cup time"
Actually we don't ,thats part of the "problem" , we're spoilt for choice . And we're mostly having perfectly civil discussions about it.
(tho I wouldn't mind if more of them were a bit heated)Actually you do. Wellington doesn't need a new stadium come World Cup time. Auckland does, because there's currently no 60,000 seat stadium there.
If Auckland didn't need a new stadium, the debate would be between brand new expensive waterfront stadium, and existing Eden Park stadium costing $0. That's not the choice you're making however. My point is that both cities need to do something to have a stadia of World Cup quality. There's a lot of hot air about the one in Auckland, I think a lesson could be taken from Dunedin as to how to go about the whole process.
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I think the stuff that gets waved around by economic analysts about how much events and facilities bring to an economy are a little misleading. Lets say the World Cup does bring in 'a billion dollars', that's a billion dollars spread over the whole economy. All good for hospitality and tourist industries etc, directly not much good for me.
In terms of who is paying for the facilities to make the Cup possible - the government and various city councils, they'll make income from the tax on that, so in theory an additional billion dollars in economic activity would produce say... $300 million for the government and city councils, mostly the former.
That being said, if you could build facilities and then have them a third to a half paid for in this way within the first year of them opening, when they have a life of fifty years... that's an economic dream. It's like taking out a loan to open a business and paying off half of the loan in your first year. The country is going to pay for half of it, tourists are going to pay for much of the rest, the council has limited themselves to 50 million (?), which is what... $200 for each Aucklander? They'll no doubt spread that cost over several years. It's not exactly bank-breaking stuff.
If you want to see some real heated debate about a stadium, come down to Dunedin. Close to $200 million, paid for by a city of less than 150,000 people. They put this roof thing on the plans, which is forward thinking but clearly extravagent. The bill is probably going to be about $500/resident, more than twice what Aucklanders will pay, and the government isn't putting in a cent, or passing any special taxes to help us pay. And on top of that, our taxes are being used to pay for some 'National Stadium' up in Auckland.
Ah no wait, no heated debate. Down here we recognise that if you want big sporting events and their economic benefits, you have to build facilities to hold them at. The University is going to cough up a bunch of money so it's a multi-use venue, hosting teaching facilities. No one's over the moon about the cost, but there's no frantic polling, national breaking news, whinging Aucklanders 'oh my freaking god', on the TV every night, condoms and cushions etc etc ad nauseum.
Like Auckland, Dunedin needed a new stadium come World Cup time. Unlike Auckland, Dunedin is going to quietly go about making it happen.
We're probably even happier down here with the national waterfront stadium, and the costs, than Aucklanders seem to be.
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I went googling to find out what McCully got his knickers in a twist about. Here's some of the lyrics of the song:
tonight I am feeling for you
under the state of a strange land
you have sacrificed much to be here
‘there but for grace…’ as I offer my hand
welcome home, i bid you welcome, i bid you welcome
welcome home from the bottom of my heart
out here on the edge
the empire is fading by the day
and the world is so weary in war
maybe we’ll find that new waySounds like an entirely fair summation of what should be sung at a war memorial to me, even though the song is, I understand it, inspired by an anti-racism protest. Those last four lines could just as easily be the story of NZ's involvement in World Wars and how many of us feel about it.
And if Murray has a problem with one particular line, then he should take a history line - one of the major threads of 20th century world history is the fading of the empire upon which the sun never set. As NZers in particular it's been incredibly important on our nation and on us, and one of the ironies of our history is the fact that NZers signed up in droves to go fight wars for King and Country in far away places, while the vestiges of empire were slowly taken, or pushed away.
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No, it's like buying a big-ass TV for your neighbour, and then going over every weekend to watch the game, and being charged $100. And $5 a beer.
And he never has decent parties there because the old lady on the other side complains about the noise. Man, if you'd only put the TV in your house, you could party all night.
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It's a nice thought about the Waka, but it really doesn't work for something like a stadium. Stadia are broad and roundish, while waka are long and thin, so you have to extend the prow a long way out into the water to make the proportions even vaguely right.
Well of course. Nothing that you build around a stadium is going to make it not a stadium. The caketin doesn't really look like a caketin. I suspect that if the 'waka stadium' were built people would call it a dinghy with a phallus.
But I still think it looks nice, and it picks up and promotes 'our' national identity, or at least part of it. A waka is entirely appropriate as a metaphor for the activity, and entirely appropriate for the waterfront. Much better than the images of the future Eden Park, which looks like... a thousand other stadia anywhere in the world.
Except it still needs a roof. 500 million or more, and the world cup final (and the world cup cricket semifinal we're getting a few years later) is going to be a downpour, you watch.
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I'm no builder of... well anything more complex than a fence to keep my dog in really.
But I would have presumed that if there were concerns about a new stadium blocking views, you'd sink the whole thing down. Such a thing would be tremendously expensive if you had to dig out several thousand tonnes of dirt, but water displaces quite easily. Why not build the platform 5 metres below sea level rather than 5 metres above? If the platform needs to be strong enough to hold a whole stadium, then keeping out a whole heap of water shouldn't be too hard? It'd involve reclaiming the land around it and pumping the water out?
And, after looking at the waka stadium suggestion - now that at least has some vision. If the overgrown prow got shrunk so it just came out 40 or 50 metres above the top of the stadium, then I'd definitely vote for that. The rest of it really is just aesthetics, which is going to be done anyway. To me, that says 'Stadium NZ/Aotearoa' ten times more than Eden Park or anything else I've seen.
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The ability for people with high disposable incomes who work in the CBD to wander down to the stadium for the final session of a cricket test, followed by a drink or dinner nearby, or to spend less than 10 minutes walking to a Friday (or Monday) evening Super 14 rugby match, not to mention catching most of a day-night one day cricket international, is a huge part of keeping a stadium like that proposed for the waterfront filled.
Not to mention 20/20 cricket, which was tremendously popular when Australia played NZ... last season?
If England is anything to go by, it's the sort of evening (weeknight?) entertainment that could easily pull thousands for a summer evening after work, and would be much more successful in the CBD.