What I’m reading

Mick Hartley is one of my favourite bloggers because he is a great source for sourced information on Sudan, North Korea, Arab anti-semitism, photography and artwank. But sometimes he comes up with something completely different, like the strange story of the Falkland Islands’ warrah.

Speaking of artwank, as Paul Litterick often does, here he is on best form on that very subject.

Here is Matt Nolan on capital gains tax and the minimum wage. Call me old-fashioned but on topics such as this I do like to hear from economists rather than newspaper columnists. 

New Zealand’s “best-known and loved writers add their support to keeping MMP”. Bully for them. Could we please have next Shearers for STV, Farmers for FPP, Plumbers for PV and Stay-at-Home Mothers for SM. I have friends who are shearers, farmers, plumbers and stay-at-home mothers, and I value their opinion every bit as much as I do those of my friends who are writers. 

Some people think that Fenella Fielding has the sexiest English voice ever. Oh yes. Here is some evidence. 

David Thompson rounds up reportage and comment on the Occupy movement. He comes down on the side of Mayor Bloomberg and others opposed to “round-the-clock drumming, unprovoked abuse and shitting in the streets”. 

The Sunday Star-Times business section reported (not online) on 13 November that:

New Zealand’s average internet connection speed in the second quarter of 2011 was 3.8Mbits per second.

The good news is that has multiplied 90 times over the past 40 years.

I am just old enough to remember 1971 and the terribly slow internet speeds we had then in the dying days of the Beatles. But Computerworld alleges that the first email from New Zealand was sent in 1983, and at InternetNZ we read that “New Zealand’s first link to the Internet was established” in 1989. Whatever. It was still way slower in 1971.

Lou Reed is doing to his catalogue what Bob Dylan is doing to his. The horror, the horror. One can hardly blame his backing band, Metallica. 

Every author knows not to respond to a reviewer but this guy did. Hilarity ensues. Not really, but it’s a good illustration of the wisdom of silence.

How to name your first novel. Mine was called Safe Sex.  Seemed a good concept at the time.