Posts by Son of Dad
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Polity: Four thoughts on polling in…, in reply to Hilary Stace,
Sadly, with a young family and the necessity of making ends meet, I do not enjoy the privilege of having sufficient spare time to attend candidates' meetings. A living wage is important to my real life, and I would have liked to have been able to read what candidates' positions were on such matters.
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For the first time in nearly thirty years, I chose not to vote in the local body elections.
I feel deeply ashamed (and also annoyed) that I felt I could not participate in the democratic process, but I could not, in all conscience, give my support to any of the unctuous candidates for the Wellington mayoralty: there just wasn't sufficient information on their actual policies beyond glib phrases and vague aspirational comments. -
Thank you for sharing that Emma. It made me think of 'Barlow's House' by Dead Famous People:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NU6qBS0m2bo -
As a teen I loved Robert van Gulik's Judge Dee novels set in Tang Dynasty China. The novels were based (I think) on the life of a real Tang Dynasty official.
Also, the dire Johnny Depp film notwithstanding, Kyril Bonfiglioli's damn weird novels featuring dissolute art dealer / thief Charlie Mortdecai will happily beguile an afternoon's leisure.
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As an aside, I recommend Colin Watson's 'Snobbery With Violence: English Crime Stories and Their Audience'. Watson was a fine crime novelist himself, and his witty and astute history of the genre from the 1920s through the 1960s makes for a very entertaining read.
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Olivia Manning's Harriet Pringle on the men of the NZEF she sees in a Greek cinema: 'there were New Zealanders, tall, sun-burnt, men, who seemed to retain their seriousness as a source of power.'
I'm not convinced about a link between egalitarianism and undemonstrativeness. In fact, I was brought up with a rather classist attitude to emotional displays: Americans and plebby vulgarians were visibly emotional sorts.
I always remember Frasier and Niles Crane (unemotional Americans) agreeing on the wisdom of their mother's view that 'a handshake is as good as a hug.'
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Up Front: Well, Read Women, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
Sadly 'The House that Beebo Built', 'Beebo and the Fizzimen' (my personal favourite), and 'Beebo and the Funny Machine' are long out of print and sell for hundreds of dollars. Even on TradeMe - where you usually find a guileless amateur seller if you wait long enough - the prices are consistently in line with those asked by professional booksellers.
I've long thought the Beebo books were overdue for re-discovery and re-issue with their gentle lefty cleverness, whimsy, and healthy suspicion of consumerism and the free market.
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Poor Van Beynen: he's such a slow moving target. Henry Miller in his fedora, bless.
The writings of Margaret Atwood and Angela Carter had more of an influence on the larval Son of Dad than any other authors. They really opened my world.
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There have been some truly strange responses to this Anzac Day. There's a French delicatessen in my neighbourhood oddly named after a resistance group from the Second World War (and grotesquely named in my opinion; kind of like calling a German-themed florist 'the White Rose'). This shop advertised an Anzac day barbeque and two-up competition. Is that opportunism or community-building?
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Hard News: The other kind of phone tapping, in reply to Steve Barnes,
I was always thought of myself as refined rather than wimpy...