Go away

This T-Shirt was a Christmas present from my wife, who understands me. It relates to this earlier post. If the image isn’t clear, the printed text is “Hello my name is” and the handwritten text is “Go away”. I love it, but I don’t wear it to the farmers’ market on Saturday mornings.

It is from the marketing empire of David Thorne at 27b/6, who is the funniest blogger in the world (possibly). This is from his latest post:

As an Australian staying in the United States, I have been lucky enough to experience many things previously unavailable to me. Although I still flick the switches the wrong way, think the electrical outlets look upset and cringe whenever the word aluminium is pronounced, I have fallen in love with many of the things I assume most Americans take for granted – like snow and having four actual seasons.

The four seasons in Australia consist of “Fuck it’s hot”, “Can you believe how fucking hot it is?”, “I won’t be in today because it is too fucking hot” and “Yes, the dinner plate size spiders come inside to escape from the heat. That is a fucking whopper though.” I hate spiders. If I am reincarnated as a spider, I will bite myself and not seek medical assistance.

I highly recommend his book The Internet is a Playground, a collection of his emails and articles, which I bought as a Christmas present for myself. It is so funny that I haven’t told LaughyKate I have a copy for fear she will want to borrow it and then I would never see it again.

Breaking Auckland news online

Last night National selected its candidate for Botany to replace the disgraced Pansy Wong. It’s a solid-blue seat so the winner is assured of a long parliamentary career – which makes the selection and the March by-election more than just an Auckland story. 

Of the five candidates, Jami-Lee Ross was the local boy while Maggie Barry was the celebrity outsider. Ross’s advantage was his track record  – though still only 25, he was elected to the Manukau City Council in 2004 and is currently on the Auckland council where he is co-leader of the Citizens & Ratepayers ticket. Barry’s advantage was her national profile – she would appeal to NZ First’s audience and so selecting her could be a cunning plan to stave off Winston.

The winner on the night was Ross. Fairfax’s Stuff website had the result online at 10:25 pm. At 11 pm I gave up waiting for APN’s Herald website to report it – perhaps they were all over the road at the Shakespeare. The story eventually appeared there at 5:30 am. 

Moral of the story: for breaking Auckland news, don’t go to the Auckland newspaper – check Stuff.

Today is Australia Day

But to more important things. For example:

How to dress like Samuel Beckett.

If I could be in Auckland on 30 January, I would be at the Bamboo reunion. They were a great band, and I bet they still are. Best drummer I ever worked with. The guitarists are pretty good too.

I want this, and I want it now.

The 25 commandments for journalists from Tim Radford, former Guardian science editor, letters editor, arts editor and literary editor. Bloggers could learn from this too. Best bit: the correction of his misspelling of Dashiel Hammett’s name in the first version. Even Homer nods. Good comments too.

Tim Worstall explains why food speculators are a force for good. No, really. Adam Smith understood this 235 years ago so why can’t we? 

The pic above is from Things Real People Don’t Say About Advertising. Lots more like it there, all good.

Speaking of branding, Chad Taylor has issues. When does a muse not amuse?

The Swingers sprung! Rifftastic! Chris Bourke presents the Pretty Things’ 1966 “Come See Me” and the Swingers’ 1981 “Counting the Beat”. Try to slip a thin sheet of paper between them. I suppose Phil Judd would call his song an hommage. Have to admit that the Swingers’ video is much better, though. It’s that Elam training.

And just because she was wonderful, here is Dorothy Dandridge singing “Cow Cow Boogie” in the Abbott and Costello movie Ride ’em Cowboy. More about her not so wonderful life here.

  

Blinding me with science

A headline in today’s Waikato Times announces that “Beauty sleep is no myth”. Do tell:

The key to looking attractive and healthy is as simple as a good night’s sleep, new research suggests. {. . . ]

Writing online in the British Medical Journal, the team concluded: “Our findings show that sleep-deprived people appear less healthy, attractive and more tired compared with when they are well rested. This suggests that humans are sensitive to sleep­-related facial cues, with potential implications for social and clinical judgments and behaviour.”

Who knew? Nice to have that settled, etc.

The researchers were from the Karolinska Institute in Sweden; they used 23 subjects. Yes, 23. Not convinced yet? Then you may care to read the full text of “Beauty sleep: experimental study on the perceived health and attractiveness of sleep deprived people” here. Inevitably, it calls for further research.

And here, inevitably, is Thomas Dolby:

Young love on the West Coast

A friend from Westland writes:

We have had really nice balmy clear days here now that I’m back at work. But boy, we had some crazy rain over Christmas, even by Westland standards. The river was a soup of sheep, deer, cattle and silage bales – a friend counted 85 boiling past in 20 minutes.

Our last exchange student, our niece from Denmark, had been staying with us since July. We were in her room one day and I noticed that the recently painted window sill showed signs of wear. Sure enough, whilst mowing the lawn, I found scuff marks on the outer wall. I couldn’t help myself and went and got some fishing line and set up a (very parochial) trap with a large empty coal bucket balanced on a steel hearth shovel balanced on a gold pan.

The young chap who had been tapping on her window is probably still running.

Split Enz go commercial

In 1974 Split Enz recorded the music for a 60-second TV ad for Suzuki motorbikes: “Get it together and let Suzuki blow your mind.” Not embedded because I can’t, but it is worth a look – a listen, really – here.

The NZ Film Archive is in two minds about the writing credits, first listing:

Music: Tim Finn, Phil Judd

Performed by Split Enz

and then:

This TVC is particularly significant as the song was written [by] Lindsay Marks and performed by Split Enz.

Possibly both are true: it could well be lyrics by Lindsay (who used to flat with the band’s then drummer, Geoff Chunn) and performance by Split Enz. It’s definitely them performing and the lyrics do sound like Lindsay’s. Next time I have dinner with him in Ngunguru – which won’t be until next January at the earliest – I’ll ask him. I bet he will deny all knowledge of it.

Listener paragraph of the week

In  the 29 January issue of the Listener, Bill Ralston writes in his excellent “Life” column about his rubbish disposal problems. For UK readers: this does not mean that his disposal problems are sub-optimal, just that he has problems with how he disposes of his long-term detritus. For US readers: we’re talking garbage. [Insert your own joke here.]

Anyway, this week Bill writes that he puts out a jumbo bin every year because the Auckland City Council’s bi-weekly collections are not enough to contain his annual output of rubbish [insert your own joke here] so at the end of the year he needs to do a major clear-out  and put out an industrial-size bin. And what happened this time?:

I discovered the author of this magazine’s Cultural Curmudgeon column [Hamish Keith] passing and peering into my jumbo bin. “Your rubbish isn’t as interesting as last year’s,” he said dismissively. Ever the critic.

Martin Devlin comes out

From Stuff today:

Sports broadcaster Martin Devlin has outed himself as the “celebrity” in the Auckland disorderly-behaviour name suppression case.

Devlin’s statement says:

I have no problem in admitting that I behaved like a right plum that morning on Quay Street. My wife, two young sons and I missed the 11am ferry sailing because I was watching Manchester United draw with Birmingham.

As a result, the atmosphere was a little frosty and my wife dropped me at the terminal and drove away without realising my bag and wallet were in the boot.

I walked across Quay Street into a lane of traffic to stop the car and get my bag.

Once stationary, for some inexplicable reason I sat on the car’s bonnet. It was stupid and I apologise. [. . .]

In an unconfirmed and unattributed report by the NZ Herald and herald.co.nz last week, the newspaper claimed that my wife and I were having a “rowdy tiff” on Quay Street. In yesterday’s Herald on Sunday in another unofficial report, the newspaper claimed we were having a “blazing row”. Those reports were incorrect. In fact, we weren’t actually talking to each other.

What I know about PR could be written on the back of a stamp with marker pen, but that strikes me as the way to do it. Possibly he should have done it earlier, but the tone is perfect.

Stuff headline of the day

On the front page as a teaser for this story:

Italy’s Berlusconi digs in heels

I’d like to see that. Sounds tricky. Personally, I dig in Redbands.

I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas any more

This wonderful map in last week’s Economist shows how all the US states rank internationally as economies, on 2009 or later figures, as measured by GDP in US dollars. California’s economy is slightly smaller than Italy’s, so if it were a country it would rank 8th, ahead of Brazil. New York state is Australia; neighbouring Vermont is Yemen. Way down south, Texas is Russia and Mississippi is Bangladesh.

And Kansas (GDP: $124.92 billion) is the new New Zealand ($117.79 billion).