Mid-week music – Do Wah Diddy

In recognition of Manfred Mann’s birthday-  Do Wah Diddy:

Hairy Maclary’s Caterwaul Caper

There had to be at least one book by Lynley Dodd in my contribution to New Zealand Book Month.

It could have been any or all of them, but I chose Hairy Maclary’s Caterwaul Caper partly because Deborah and Rob have already posted on other titles, and mostly because – like all of the others – it’s a delight to read.

Hairy Maclary and his friends, Hercules Morse,  Bottomley Potts, Muffin McLay, Bitzer Maloney and Schnitzel von Krumm, Scarface Claw and Miss Plum play a rhyming rhythmy role in this rollicking tale.

That this is the only author which all of us doing the post a day challenge have posted on says a lot about Lynley Dodd and her books.

Wonderful words and fantastic pictures - the author does her own illustrations – make this one of those books I didn’t mind reading again and again and again.

Post 21 in the post a day for New Zealand Book Month challenge.

Over at In A Strange Land Deborah is celebrating Pohutukawa, written and illustrated by Sandra Morris. 

P.S. If you’re a Lynley Dodd/Hairy Maclary fan you might want to test your memory with the Hairy Maclary quiz. I managed only 22/32 the first time last week. I’ve done some re-reading since then and managed 28 last night.

Backwards, forwards and sideways

Confused about what’s happening with the All Blacks?

Need to know more about rotating players and coaches?

Jim Hopkins has got the backwards, forwards and sideways sussed:

The forward coach is becoming the back coach, the back coach is going sideways to be the defensive coach, the defensive coach will be handling the attacks from the backs while the attack coach will be looking at the defence from the forwards . . .

Well it made sense when he  explained it all to Jamie McKay on the Farming Show.

Is Agria the answer?

The market approved of the Chinese company Agria taking a stake in PGG Wrightson with an initial lift in PGW”s share price.

However, the subscriber-only section of the NBR raised questions which the ODT mentions too.

Silver Fern Farms took advantage of the price rise to cash in the shares they’d got in part settlement after PGW’s offer to take a 50% share in the meat company fell through.

I think that’s a wise move because as a newsletter from our sharebroker said: . . . any targeted upside from the strategic partnership is mostly aspirational and long term at this point . . .

Agria might be part of the answer to PGW’s problems but a need for investors isn’t the company’s only worry.

Its attempt to buy in to SFF was seen by many as a ticket-clipping exercise, not unlike its involvement with Farming Systems Uruguay.

Farmers unhappy about these moves have taken their business elsewhere and the company has lost some of its good stock agents too.

It’s got a lot of ground to recover in the field and its new partner won’t be able to help with that.

Trust and confidence

Investment requires confidence and that is based on trust.

Events over the past few months have eroded both.

This was obvious at a meeting of a charitable organisation of which I am a trustee.

We have some modest investments.

When decisions were made on where to put the money we trusted the companies in which we invested and had confidence in them

The companies are government guaranteed which gives us reassurance that the money is safe for now.

But two investments mature next year. Chances are, unless something happens to boost our confidence we won’t be reinvesting in these two companies.

We’ve lost confidence and because of that we can’t trust them with the Trust’s money.

That sentiment is not uncommon and caution by individuals and organisations with far more to invest than this Trust will be a brake on economic recovery.

Money might make the world go round but until confidence and trust are restored it will be going round more slowly.

GW or GM

If you see a member of an endangered species eating an endangered plant, what do you do?

That’s an environmental conundrum and here’s another: what if genetic modification could reduce globbal warming?

AgResearch is seeking approval for trials of transgenic grasses which it thinks could reduce greenhouse emissions.

AgResearch’s applied biotechnologies manager, Jimmy Suttie, said the transgenic grasses had both environmental and productivity advantages.

The grasses were high in energy, which meant fewer animals were needed to get the same production, reducing the amount of methane released.

The science behind the forage meant digestion of the plant was more efficient, cutting the amount of methane produced by animals and increasing energy that went into tissue and productivity.

But Dr Suttie said the technology also had implications for further research to cut methane emissions and reduce the volume of water required by the plants.

A lot of people who oppose oppose genetic modification also support radical efforts to reduce greenhouse gases.

Would they be prepared to relax their opposition to genetic modification if it could be part of the solution to global warming?

GW or GM? Some see both as threats but GM also provides opportunities.

Australia to exclude ag from ETS?

Australian Opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull has his coalition’s blessing to negotiate agriculture out of his country’s emissions trading scheme.

“New Zealand’s headlong rush into an ETS was always the tail attempting to wag the Australian dog,” says Don Nicolson, Federated Farmers President.

“With recent political developments in Australia, the New Zealand ETS without amendment, looks like a dog with fleas.

“While the balance of power in the Australian Senate rests on a knife edge, the Coalition’s new proposals seem to have the backing of Independent Senator, Nick Xenophon.  That gives the Opposition potentially 39 Senate votes to the Labor/Green Party’s combined 37.

If we have to have an ETS – and I’d rather we didn’t – it makes sense to keep pace with what Australia does. 

It’s not only our biggest trading partner, its producers also compete with ours in many markets.

If Australia exempts agriculture from its ETS while we include it in ours, primary production here is going to be at a disadvantage in the international market place.

October 21 in history

On October 21:

1520 Ferdinand Magellan discoversed what is now known as the Strait of Magellan.

1772 English poet  Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born.

1805  The Battle of Trafalgar took place.A British fleet led by Admiral Lord Nelson defeated a combined French and Spanish fleet off the coast of Spain under Admiral Villeneuve.

The Battle of Trafalgar, as seen from the mizzen
starboard shrouds of the Victory
by J. M. W. Turner (oil on canvas, 1806 to 1808)

1824 Joseph Aspdin patented Portland cement.

1833 Alfred Nobel, Swedish inventor and founder of the Nobel Prize was born.

1854 Florence Nightingale and a staff of 38 nurses were sent to the Crimean War.

1917 US musician Dizzy Gillespie was born.

1921 English composer Sir Malcolm Arnold was born.

1929 US author  Ursula K. Le Guin was born.

1931 English actress Vivian Pickles was born.

1940 English cricketer Geoff Boycott was born.

1940 English musician Manfred Mann was born.

1942 Judy Sheindlin, American judge (“Judge Judy“) was born.

1945 Argentine military officer and politician Juan Perón married  actress Evita (María Eva Duarte de Perón).

 

 

1952 Trevor Chappell, Australian cricketer, was born.

1953 British politician Peter Mandelson was born.

1956 US author and actress Carrie Fisher was born.

1959 The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York opened to the public.

1964 Peter Snell won his second gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics.

1966 A coal tip fellon the village of Aberfan in Wales, killing 144 people, mostly schoolchildren.

 1983 The metre was defined at the seventeenth General Conference on Weights and Measures in terms of the speed of light as the distance light travels in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia.

Timeless Land

Brian Turner’s poetry, Owen Marshall’s prose and Grahame Sydney’s paintings combine to capture the people and places of heartland New Zealand.

Timeless Land, published by Longacre Press, is a glorious tribute to Central Otago.

In Place,  Turner writes: Once in a while/you may come across a place/where everything/seems as close to perfection/ as you will ever need . . .

Once in a while you may come across a book in which everything seems as close to perfection as you will ever need. This is such a book, one to linger over, read and re-read.

Post 20 in the post a day for New Zealand Book Month challenge.

Deborah at In A Strange Land posts on Matariki by Melanie Drewery, illustrated by Bruce Potter.

Oswald Bastable posts on Jim Henderson’s Open Country  and Shooting from the HipLip by Lee Hughes.

 

Bagging customer service

Paper Plus has a new look  and a new focus on books.

The Oamaru store in one of the first in the country to get a makeover. It looks quite different but has retained the friendly, helpful customer service to which I’ve been accustomed.

I bought several books today and was given a reusable bag in which to carry them.

I went from there to the supermarket where I spent a similar sum of money and was charged an extra 15 cents for plastic bags.

Next time I’ll have to remember to take my Paper Plus bag to the supermarket.

Tuesday’s answers

Monday’s questions were:

1. What does fiat panis mean?

2. What is a Kārearea?

3. Who said: “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and it may be necessary from time to time to give a stupid of misinformed beholder a black eye.”?

4. Where is Timbuktu?

5. Who wrote Beak of the Moon?

Samo is this week’s champion with a clean sweep.

Gravedodger got three right, a half for knowing where the motto came from in #1 and a bonus for extra information in answering 2 & 4.

Lilacsigil got three right and a bonus for getting the whole answer to #1.

Cactus Kate gets a point because it was inevitable someone would make the suggestion she did.

PDM got 2 and a bonus for reasoning, albeit wrongly, with #3.

Paul Tremewan got two, a half for his answer to #2 (not wrong but not the whole answer) and a bonus for remembering school Latin.

The answers follow the break:

Deciding how to vote

Justice Minister Simon Power has announced that the first referendum on MMP will be held with the 2011 election.

We’ll be asked if we want the status quo or a change and then which of the alternatives we’d prefer.

If a majority want a change a second referendum between the system which gets the most votes and MMP will be held with the 2014 election.

Cabinet hasn’t yet drafted the questions to be included in the first referendum, the alternate electoral systems to be offered, and how that referendum will be conducted.

I hope they’ll consider using preferential voting for the second part when we’re being asked to decide between different systems.

When too many people still don’t understand how MMP works the information campaigns on alternatives will be interesting.

If you’re interested in testing your understanding of MMP, the Electoral Commission has a quiz here and an advanced quiz here.

I got 9/9 in the first but only 7/9 in the advanced one.

RadioNZ poll

Yesterday’s post asking for additional nominations for RadioNZ’s best broadcaster and best programme attracted a modest response.

This could mean the most popular ones had already been nominated.

This could mean not many people are interested.

Be that as it may, I promised a poll and not one but two polls are now posted in the sidebar (thanks to Scrubone whose instructions on how to do it I managed to follow at the third attempt).

I’ll leave it there until I remember to close it (let’s not pretend this is scientific) and will send the winners a box of Whitestone Cheese.

Adam Smith asked for a most unpopular broadcaster category but I decided there was sufficient ignominy in not being included in the best

I was surprised no-one nominated Sean Plunket, if for nothing else but sympathy because he’s not allowed to write a column for Metro in his spare time. Cactus sums up that as only she can.

Fatemathics

Two blocks of cheese in the supermarket chiller.

Both are edam.

The 700 gram block says it’s got 25% less fat than standard cheddar.

The 900 gram block says it’s got 28% less fat than standard cheddar.

If different blocks of edam produced by different companies have different fat contents did the standard cheddars against which they were measured also have different fat contents?

If so is it possible the block with 25% less fat might have less fat than the block with 28% less fat?

Is the difference between 25% less fat and 28% less fat significant?

Does it matter?

But is it news?

Children do stupid thing.

That’s not a good headline and it’s not a news story either.

Children have always done stupid things.

Until recently unless they were caught doing them and if no-one told someone in authority they usually got away with it. If they were found out they would have been punished appropriately and the matter would have ended there.

But now if children do something stupid, someone’s silly enough to post pictures of themselves doing it and it becomes headline news.

Most of the time if shouldn’t.

If, as is the latest case, the children do the ignorant act during a school trip it is up to the school and the children’s parents to punish them.

There is no need for the rest of us to know about it.

That’s not censorship, it’s acknowledgement that not everything that happens should be published or broadcast through the media.

Once it is, reporters then seek comments from people who have been offended, not understanding that they are party to the offense. Had the reporters not reported the acts people who were offended, albeit often justifiably, wouldn’t have known about them and therefore wouldn’t have been offended.

This in no way excuses what happened.

What these children did was stupid, insensitive and ignorant and their stupidity, insensitivity and ignorance was compounded when photos of what they did were posted on Facebook.

But that still doesn’t make it news.

October 20 in history

On October 20:

1632 Sir Christopher Wren, English architect, was born.

1740 Maria Theresa tookthe throne of Austria.

1859 US philosopher John Dewey was born.

1904 English actress Anna Neagle was born.

1932 William Christopher, US actor who played Father Mulcahy in M*A*S*H, was born.

The cast of M*A*S*H from Season 8 onwards (clockwise from left): Mike Farrell, William Christopher, Jamie Farr, David Ogden Stiers, Loretta Swit, Alan Alda, Harry Morgan.

1934 Japanese emporess Michiko was born.

1935 The Long March ended.

Overview map of the route of the Long March

1941 Police shot Stan Graham who had been on the run for 12 days.

1950 US singer Tom Petty was born.

1968 Former US First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy  married Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis.

1973 The Sydney Opera House opened.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia.

Google Doodles

Google asked New Zealand school chidlren to come up with Google Doodles.

The winner will be used on the Google NZ page for a day next year.

The finalists are here  and you can vote for your favourite.

This by Andrei Golovka appealed to me:

So did this by Ashley Brown

Overkill

Who said New Zealander’s can’t do who-dunnits?

Ngaio Marsh did, Mary Scott and Joyce West did and now Vanda Symon is doing it too.

Overkill is set in Mataura where Sam Shephard is sole-charge police constable. She discovers the body of a young woman washed up on the banks of the river was murdered. The victim hapens to be the wife of Sam’s former lover and soon she’s a suspect.

I bought the book after reading a review and saved it for a long flight and reading it helped make the journey pass quickly.

Sam is not your typical detective but she’s got grit and I liked her enough to read Symon’s second novel, Ring Master, in which she stars too.

Post 19 in the post a day for New Zealand Book Month challenge.

Deborah at In A Strange Land has picked Annie and the Moon by Miriam Smith illustrated by Lesley Moyes.

Oswald Bastable  posts on Oracles and Miracles by Stevan Eldred-Grigg.

Monday’s questions

1. What does fiat panis mean?

2. What is a Kārearea?

3. Who said: “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and it may be necessary from time to time to give a stupid of misinformed beholder a black eye.”?

4. Where is Timbuktu?

5. Who wrote Beak of the Moon?

Did you see the one about . . .

Weatherston appeal reproach to Court of Appeal - Stephen Franks speaks sense on meritless appeals.

What makes good political interviewing? – Tim Watkins defends Guyon Espiner’s interview with Metiria Turei.

Why I bought a bookstore  Jeff Mayersohn at the Huffington Post reckons there’s a future for books and the stores which sell them.(Hat Tip: Beatties Book Blog).

Just - Stripy sock studio on being “just” a job description (Hat Tip: Art & My LIfe)

After the fisking charges are laid - feel the frsutration over political interference in roading changes from Opinionated Mummy.

Williamson and the theory of firm - Anit Dismal on the joint winner of the Nobel Prize for economics.

Fun Police # 2 Don’t let them eat cake - Liberty Scott on the birthday cake blues.

Not exactly deaf - Macdoctor says 6%  hearing loss is barely noticeable.

VUWSA’s VSM violations - Scrubone guest posts at M&M on voluntary student membership machinations.

The poor are not helpless victims - Hernado de Soto – Not PC has found a hero.

Is this the worst hotel in the world? - Motella shows where not to stay.