A few pedants tried to tell us that the 21st century didn’t start on January 1, 2000 and now they’re trying to tell us that tomorrow isn’t the start of this century’s second decade.
They were right mathematically then and they’re right now because there was no year 0.
But language beats logic.
Just as 2000 didn’t sound like the 20th century, 2010 doesn’t sound like the noughties. As the years roll on this argument becomes even more compelling; most of us say we enter our 20s when we’re 20 not 21 and few would be willing to wait to 101 to claim the title of centenarian.
Adam at Inquiring Mind takes the contrary view, and while it may be correct it’s a minority one.
This is one instance when right sounds wrong and most of us will go with a new decade starting tomorrow not a year hence because of the way it looks and sounds in spite of the logic and the maths.
Does the type of person someone is count at least as much as what s/he does? Should s/he be be judged not only on what s/he does but the way s/he does it? Do not just deeds but character matter?
I wouldn’t have minded if she’d been made a Dame, although her aversion to titular honours would have precluded that.
My disappointment isn’t because of politics. I don’t agree with a lot of what she did but redistribution and encouraging dependency on the state are consistent with her socialist views.
It’s what some of her actions say about her character that’s the problem.
She didn’t just forge one painting. She admitted to signing “about half a dozen” works of art which she hadn’t produced “over 20 years” and then couldn’t understand what was wrong with that.
She didn’t support the police who drove too fast to get her from Waimate to Christchurch.
She used taxpayers’ money illegally to pay for Labour’s campaigns, changed the law to make that spending legal and passed an Act in an attempt to allow that spending to continue while restricting what other individuals and groups could spend.
She backed Phillip Field in the face of strong evidence against him and did her best to thwart the inquiry into his actions.
She continued to back Winston Peters as a minister long after he showed he could not be trusted.
The Order of New Zealand is restricted to just 20 living New Zealanders.
If one of our 20 greatest isn’t also good it reflects very badly on the rest of us.
1999 Boris Yeltsin resigned as President of Russia, leaving Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as the acting President.
1999 – The United States Government hands control of the Panama Canal (as well all the adjacent land to the canal known as the Panama Canal Zone) to Panama. This act complied with the signing of the 1977 Torrijos-Carter Treaties.
2004 The official opening of Taipei 101, the tallest skyscraper at that time in the world, standing at a height of 509 metres (1,670 ft).
It’s 1,578 metres high and those who climb it are rewarded with panoramic views across the lake and up the Matukituki Valley to Mount Aspiring.
My first ascent of Mount Roy was with my best friend and her family when we were about 10.
A hundred or so metres short of the summit we were ready to give up but her father fed us chocolate and talked us to the top.
I’ve walked up several times since then, the last time was New Year’s Eve, 1999. I’ve contemplated climbing it again since then but never got further than good intentions.
However, those good intentions will translate into action soon because the friend with whom I first climbed the hill and I are planning to tackle it again this summer.
I’m taking my training reasonably seriously. It includes a walk up Mount Iron every morning and some days it feels harder than others.
That encourages me to keep training because it’s just 240 metres high and takes me about 30 minutes from the car park to the top. Last time I tackled Mount Roy it took about 3 1/4 hours and as I gaze across to it from Mt Iron I get the feeling it will have got stepper and higher since then.
1066 Granada massacre: A Muslim mob stormed the royal palace in Granada, crucified Jewish vizier Joseph ibn Naghrela and massacred most of the Jewish population of the city.
1. What was the best Christmas present you’ve ever had?
2. And the worst?
3. What’s your favourite Christmas Day menu?
4. What was your best Christmas?
5. And the worst?
Deborah, Rob, Paul Tremewan and Gravedodger tied for first place with 5/5 because there were no wrong answers.
1. So many to chose from . . . but ones which stand out: a dolls house my father made when I was about 4; a watch when I was 10; the sapphire pendent my farmer gave me the first Christmas after we met;the book Chicken Soupfor the Soul my mother gave me – yes I know it’s syrupy, but I was coming to terms with life with a son with multiple handicaps at the time and syrup helped.
2. Least appreciated was a pair of frilly knickers, given by an aunt when I was about seven. I’d much rather have had the sweets she gave my brothers.
The one which made me feel the worst was bronchitis 8 years ago.
3. Ham, tomatoes with basil, green salad, new potatoes and nut roast (made by one of my sisters in law who is vegetarian) followed by pavlova, strawberries, raspberries and cherries.
4. All but the one below - spent with extended family and or/friends. One which stands out was 1988, the sun shone, the adults lounged in the shade of a tree on the lawn while the children (eight cousins aged from 3 to 10) played with giant bubble makers near by.
5. I’ve had only one not so happy Christmas – it was the first away from home when I was working as a kitchen hand in Omarama in the university holidays. I’d had the two days before off and went back on the bus on Christmas Eve. It was full of blokes who were working at Twizel, they were all drunk and one threw up at the start of the two hour trip. Christmas Day was just another day at work.
The ODT confirms that the fire we witnessed near Butchers Dam yesterday (two posts back) was on conservation land.
About 20 hectares of the 813 estate was burned.
Shingle Creek farmer Jack Miller said the fire was “something that was just waiting to happen”.
The ungrazed conservation estate was a fire risk, he said.
“And when you lock up vast amounts of land like this, it becomes a huge fire risk for everyone,” Mr Miller said.
However Doc deputy principal rural fire officer for Otago, Trevor Mitchell, said:
. . . the fire risk and the dryness of the property was the same whether it was conservation land or farmland.
Who owns the property has no impact on how dry it is but that’s not the only factor which adds to the danger of fire.
Farmed property is grazed. Most land under DoC management isn’t and at this time of year it’s covered in dry grass and scrub which provides more fuel for fires.
1170 Thomas Becket: Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, was assassinated inside Canterbury Cathedral by followers of King Henry II; he subsequently becomes a saint and martyr in the Anglican Church and the Roman Catholic Church.
13th-century manuscript illumination, an early depiction of Becket’s assassination.
Wood engraving published in Harper’s Weekly, 20 January 1877
1880 Tuhiata, or Tuhi, was hanged in Wellington for the murder of the artist Mary Dobie at Te Namu Bay, Opunake. Tuhi wrote to the Governor days before his execution asking that ‘my bad companions, your children, beer, rum and other spirits die with me’.
1890 United States soldiers kill more than 200 Oglala Lakota men, women, and children with 4 Hotchkiss guns in the Wounded Knee Massacre.
1911 Sun Yat-sen became the provisional President of the Republic of China.
1911 Mongolia gained independence from the Qing dynasty.
2003 The last known speaker of Akkala Sami - died, rendering the language that was spoken in the Sami villages of A´kkel and Ču´kksuâl, in the inland parts of the Kola Peninsula in Russia extinct.
1929 ‘Black Saturday’ in Samoa – the day that New Zealand military police fired on a Mau demonstration in Apia, killing 11 Samoans, including the independence leader Tupua Tamasese Lealofi III. This led the Mau movement to demand independence for Samoa.
This year an uncle and an aunt died leaving just two of my mother’s seven siblings.
At my aunt’s funeral my cousins and I discussed how we’d have to work harder to keep in touch now our parents who used to pass on the family news had died.
Someone suggested a get together on Boxing Day and yesterday three generations gathered at a family crib at St Bathans.
We pooled Christmas leftovers for lunch, exchanged news, walked a little and laughed lots.
Before we parted we started making plans for another gathering next year because yesterday’s successlaid the foundation for what we hope will be a family Boxing Day tradition.
Posted by homepaddock 
Posted by homepaddock 
Posted by homepaddock 
This red gurnard was collected by Charles Darwin when the Beagle visited the Bay of Islands.
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