Thanks for some of the best photos I have ever seen of the Moscow Metro.

Maybe Shayne and Don had the right idea in Dunedin - instead of a regular music venue, they played the Fortune Theatre, and gently chastised us for being so quiet they weren't sure we were there. They seemed pretty relaxed and happy, and put on a fantastic show. My favourite was Short Change - a much angrier and pared down version than when performed by Adult.

Perhaps rather than saying student radio had its glory days in the 1980's, that is when it hit its stride. My experience was with Radio One - I was on the OUSA exec, and it was about 1983 we finally had sufficient stability with our licence to justify a major investment in the station - setting up a studio, buying proper equipment and hiring staff. In those days, I was too scared of the music on the One to be a regular listener, but I did end up running a couple of shows on Control about 15 years later.

Picked up a copy of sometimes i sit and think... last week, and am falling in love with it. Very much looking forward to seeing her tonight in Sheffield (should have seen her last night in Leeds, but dithered and the show sold out).

I recently had a bad experience with Suzi Q: on a road trip up to Christchurch, I slipped a CD into the machine, but her voice was so shrill I couldn't listen to it. I was wondering if I was mis-remembering my enjoyment of her music, but these tracks suggest that the problem was with the crappy recording - so thanks.

This talk about the Dunedin Sound makes me wish I had paid more attention to what was happening around me when I lived here from 1981 - 1985: who knew I was living through something that would come to be regarded as something of a musical revolution? Others, probably, but certainly not me. Idiot.

You must get wearied very easily: there is hardly a mention of hotness of curries, and no-one claiming to eat the hottest!

I hate this thread: I live in Dunedin and no-one really makes a compelling curry and it is the one important food group which I have never mastered the art of cooking. I grew up in rural New Zealand, so my only contact with curry until I was about 20 was my grand-mother's curried eggs and the dusty pack of Gregg's curry powder in the kitchen at home. Then I moved away from home for Uni, met people who were neither white nor Maori, and my life was changed.

My first curries were actually Malaysian, because I used to hang out with a bunch of Malaysians: they would make this extremely hot, yellow, soupy chicken curry and swear that it was no good if it didn't make you cry. Then in my third year, I lived with a group of guys from Gujurat: they'd cook pretty good food but I really hit the jackpot when I went home with them and ate their mums' cooking: vegetarian food so good that this kid who'd grown up on meat didn't even notice he was eating vegetarian food.

The only particularly memorable curries I have had in NZ have been Malaysian: KK Malaysian in Auckland, pretty much everywhere in Wellington and the much missed Cambodian Chicken Curry from the late Apsara, here in Dunedin. But I have traveled: India, Malaysia, Singapore (where I lived for a month or so, and made it my mission to find the best Singapore style chicken curry), Australia (there was a place in North Lygon I'd frequent) and England have all provided highlights (the last produced the quite remarkable Balti restaurant in Wolverhampton, which had its interior completely timber panelled, but not in a nice way - more like a home made 70's caravan). Japanese curry here isn't much chop, but I was quite impressed with what I found in Japan.

I'm involved in the governance of a community organisation which necessarily obtains much of its funding from central Government: for several years the Government has been doing this sort of thing. We narrowly escaped having our work being put up for tender - and the tender proposal was not because of concerns with our work, but more the result of the application of a short-sighted ideological position. We are now working through another form of "transition" with the funder. So - maybe this latest development is because the PGF is a bit of a thorn in the side of the Government, but it is also entirely consistent with the Government's attitude to community support groups of any sort. If some other entity actually did come along with "a superior offer", which seemed to allow the Government to pay less and, on the face of it, get more then that's what it would do. It might even sound sensible, but "getting more" according to the lights of our Government somehow always shows up as providing less to those who need it.

Really enjoyed the tech talk and have set aside some of those articles for later reading but, more importantly, the Windsor Castle! It started in 1846 but even if we count its second start in 1850 after the fire, why is it not a contender for the oldest pub in New Zealand? 1850 is when the Moutere Inn started (and it was not even licensed for another 7 years after that, apparently) and the Thistle Inn, while licensed earlier, changed premises.

Oh, and Puddle the Clown really nailed Royals - more feeling than the original.