.. been levelled and replaced by a housing estate. We’d played the gig, which was bizarre enough, with our performance being repeatedly interrupted by stinking trucks laden with doomed cattle driving in between us and the workers listening to us stony-faced in their blood-spattered work clothes, when we were asked by a union official if…
When I was much younger (which of necessity was a long, long time ago) these values and their importance were drummed into my impressionable skull by a vast array of the minions of the state from parents, grandparents, school, church and children’s literature. This brainwashing was both overt and covert but as an outcome of…
..religiously writing down your every dream, especially since dreams are by their nature exceptionally elusive and easily forgotten, and you really have to do it hot off the press. But the writing down or relating of it is the important part – because another thing I’ve noticed is that the dreams are often visual puns,…
.. I mean the advent of the Howard and Pauline Hanson years- the conspicuous flaunting of the flag was not a common vice. Overt patriotism as a method of cultural division was not an established d practice Unlike the United States where one of the first thing that a visitor notices is the constant display…
Mike’s Pith & Wind cont. .. that it was the background music for the show that really gave her the creeps. Now, the background music for Doctor Who is not to be confused with Ron Grainer’s theme music, which is one of the all-time great TV series’ themes. No, this is the background music, the…
It’s not that the female characters aren’t fleshed out either, but very few of them even attempt to challenge the male dominance that was an accepted part of life in the early sixties. However, they do get their own way by various ways and means, mostly sexually, an arena where the men positively flounder. As…
..Love. Perhaps it is fitting that in 2009 Spector was convicted of the second-degree murder of actress Lana Clarkson and is serving a prison sentence of nineteen years to life. There was a dude who surely changed the perception of popular music but just as surely believed his own publicity citing him as a genius….
At the moment multiverses and string theory are the ’go to’ explanations of the world as we don’t know it. Intermittently I console myself with the thought that we are a young species with that has only recently confirmed the existence of the Higgs boson so perhaps there is a way to go yet in…
Dick’s Toolbox cont. ..too expensive to make. And they were still seriously, seriously good. So when I returned this year, once again with Elizabeth, to find ‘For Rent’ signs in the window and the view inside of an overturned table and scattered newspapers on the floor; I felt desolated. The world, my world, was diminished….
Mike’s Pith & Wind cont. ..without advertising their presence to the hapless motorists gliding below. I’m not absolutely sure what the thinking is – I’m pretty sure the traffic would more obediently slow down if the cameras’ presence was advertised, because I’ve seen this working in Auckland, and I believe it operates this way in…
..a priority for humankind since the year dot. Wikipedia tells us that: ‘The first mirrors used by people were most likely pools of dark, still water, or water collected in a primitive vessel of some sort. The earliest manufactured mirrors were pieces of polished stone such as obsidian, a naturally occurring volcanic glass. Examples of…
..some sadistic minion of the state. Even given the intermittently risible state of our politicians it is still worth voting as your vote does count. The opportunity to vote early and often for the highest bidder is no longer an option – we have long traded $2 and all the beer you can drink for…
.. Pepper could well have used Bill as their model and I’m sure you can think of many more examples. He was actually once asked if he’d consider playing the role of Derek Smalls in a Spinal Tap musical – or was it a Spinal Tap tribute band? Either way he wasn’t interested – in…
..global political domination. Or to hide their affairs with attractive members of either sex, dreadful schemes with the tobacco industry or some financial skulduggery. These ‘terminated with extreme prejudice’ people may not have stood before any tribunal to have their crimes weighed in the balance of Justice, but extinguished they are with the single bullet…
.. follower I’ve also had to endure on occasions Listening to a raft of national anthems in a row, like at the Olympic Games for instance, is not that different to being an unwilling spectator at the Eurovision Song Contest. It’s not just Australia that needs to review its choice of song as a national…
.. communist plot. It was always so though never so pathetically blatant as now. In fact, if you took the events of the past month: the shooting down of the Air Malaysia aircraft, the events in Gaza, and the outbreak of the Ebola virus you might find good reason to be a tad depressed. But…
Mike’s Pith & Wind cont. ..winner taking home both tubes in triumph. There are endless examples of feeble synchronicity that we all experience daily – we just have to keep our senses alert to the possiblities. I’m not sure what it proves, but cumulatively it can have a pretty disconcerting effect, which might have something…
Dick’s Toolbox cont. .. argument that global warming is not just happening, (surprise), but is happening at a rate far greater than expected. We have an expanding population, (yes Virginia, there are far too many people), opting for the cheapest (coal fired) solutions to energy generation. Couple with virtually no power conservation, garnish generously with…
..from a couple of old geezers venting about how things have deteriorated since ‘our day’. Vaguely apropos of that, I usually have no idea what I’m going to write about when approaching these P&W follies of mine and so I have adopted a standard preparatory procedure. First I have a quick squiz at Christchurch’s The…
.. on the highway at speeds so slow that they could be confused with reverse why break the habit of a lifetime? We were quite young and so the intrepid band of fisherfolk set off from the west bank of the lake and some considerable time later reached the east side trout free and sunburnt….