Dedicated Follower of Fashion

Many happy returns to Ray Davies – 66 today.

No Matter What

Many happy returns Joey Molland, 63 today.

Monday’s quiz

1. What does Wanaka  mean?

2. Ad lib is an abbreviation of what and what does it mean?

3. Who wrote The Spoilers, Wyatts Hurricand Hurricane and High Citidel?

4. What two lines follow:

 Some hae meat and canna eat,
And some wad eat that want it,

5. Name two of the four letters in the alphabet which have all dots and no dashes in Morse code.

What’ll we call the new stadium?

Dunedin’s new stadium has been controversial.

Some people think there’s  nothing wrong with Carisbrook, some don’t like the new location, many object to the cost.

I support the new stadium and its location in the north end of the city, close to the campus which is such an important part of the historical, cultural and financial fabric of Dunedin.

Saturday was very mild for winter in this part of the world – 16 degrees at lunchtime. But that’s unusual for winter and it wouldn’t be unknown for some summer days to struggle to get that high,

The idea of a roofed stadium which takes away worries about weather for event organisers is a good one for a venue which is suitable for a variety of sports, the arts and other entertainment options.

On Saturday we joined the thousands who accepted the invitation to visit the building and were impressed with what’s been achieved so far.

Wellington’s stadium is better known at the Cake Tin, Carisbrook was the ‘Brook or House of Pain.

It’s officially called the Forsyth Barr stadium and while I appreciate the need to give the major sponsors their due, that’s a bit of a mouthful and I suspect it won’t be long before it gets a nick name, but what’ll it be?

Tau Henare recovering from heart attack

National MP Tau Henare had a heart attack in the early hours of yesterday morning.

He’s recovered sufficiently to write on Facebook:

Well at 2ish this morning I had a wee heart attack. Yip that’s right. freakiest thing in the whole world. anyway, all is good they put a stent into my artery and hey presto all good on the pumping blood score. Rest and Recuperation. Don’t Panic whanau and don’t Jump for Joy either.

Tau went public about developing diabetes earlier this year and has been on a get-fit-lose-weight programme.

A draw’s a win and a loss

Last week’s post on the All Whites’ 1-1 draw with Slovenia Slovakia was to be my only one about the World Cup.

But after this morning’s game against Italy I couldn’t resist the urge to comment on perspective.

The game finished with another single goal for each side draw which is regarded as a loss for Italy and a win for us.

For more informed commentssee:

 Keeping Stock 78 versus 5

At No Minister Barnsley Bill reckons the result would be like Iceland holding the All Blacks to a draw.

Not PC says Woohoo! and has a round up of international media reports.

Bad business for good man

Allan Hubbard is Presbyterian by both faith and nature.

Although he features on the NBR’s rich list, he lives a modest life, spends little on himself and drives an old VW car.

The story of his modest beginnings  and what he’s achieved is inspiring and a  few weeks ago he talked about it to The Listener.

He grew up in the Depression, one of five children in a very poor household and the poverty he experienced then was a strong motivating factor in his life.

He did well at school but his father wouldn’t let him go to Otago Boys’ because they were working class and Allan might get ideas.

He gained School Certificate and University Entrance at night school while working fulltime, put himself through university then set up an accountancy firm in Timaru.

His company prospered and as it did he used his business acumen and wealth to help others.  Some of his business dealings and philanthropic acts are a matter of public record – including underwriting the Opuha Irrigation Scheme by buying all its shares which he  sold to farmers at the original price once the scheme was operating.

The rural grapevine tells of many other acts of generosity which aren’t public, stories of people he’s helped into farms or businesses. He backs people he trusts, who are prepared to make sacrifices to get ahead, as he did,  and , very few have let him down.

Hubbard’s company South Canterbury Finance has been the subject of several bad-news stories in recent months. Now Aorangi Securities, seven trusts and Allan and his wife Margaret ( but not  it is important to stress, SCF) have been placed into statutory management.

I know little about his business dealings but have always been impressed by him as a person.

Principals of other finance companies and organisations which have attracted negative headlines have been criticised for extravagant living at the expense of their creditors.

This is not a criticism that can be made of the Hubbards.

A fact sheet on the statutory management is here.

The NBR covers the story here.

Interest.co.nz covers it here.

UPDATE: The Timaru Herald has a statement from Hubbard here.

June 21 in history

On June 21:

524  Godomar, King of the Burgundians defeated the Franks at the Battle of Vézeronce.

1307  Külüg Khan enthroned as Khagan of the Mongols and Wuzong of the Yuan.

1528 Maria of Spain, Holy Roman Empire Empress, was born (d. 1603).

1582  The Incident at Honnō-ji  in Kyoto.

1621  Execution of 27 Czech noblemen on the Old Town Square in Prague as a consequence of the Battle of White Mountain.

 

1732 Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach, German composer, was born  (d. 1791).

1734  In Montreal, a slave known by the French name of Marie-Joseph Angélique was put to death, having been convicted of the arson that destroyed much of the city.

1749  Halifax, Nova Scotia, was founded.

1768   James Otis, Jr. offended the King and parliament in a speech to the Massachusetts General Court.

1788   New Hampshire ratified the Constitution of the United States and is admitted as the 9th state in the United States.

1791 Robert Napier, British engineer, was born  (d. 1876).

 

1798   Irish Rebellion of 1798: The British Army defeated Irish rebels at the Battle of Vinegar Hill.

1813   Peninsular War: Battle of Vitoria.

1824   Greek War of Independence: Egyptian forces captured Psara in the Aegean Sea.

1826   Maniots defeated Egyptians under Ibrahim Pasha in the Battle of Vergas.

1854  First Victoria Cross won during bombardment of Bomarsund in the Aland Islands.

1864   New Zealand Land Wars: The Tauranga Campaign ended.

1877   The Molly Maguires, ten Irish immigrants, were hanged at the Schuylkill County and Carbon County, Pennsylvania prisons.

 A “coffin notice”, allegedly posted by Molly Maguires in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania.

1879 Gemma Doyle, British developer of Planar Theories and Realms Theology, was born  (d.1959).

1895  The Kiel Canal was officially opened.

 

1898   The United States captured Guam from Spain.

1905 Jean-Paul Sartre, French philosopher and writer, Nobel Prize  laureate, was born  (declined) (d. 1980).

1912  Mary McCarthy, American writer, was born  (d. 1989).

1915  The U.S. Supreme Court handed down its decision in Guinn v. United States 238 US 347 1915, striking down an Oklahoma law denying the right to vote to some citizens.

1919  The Royal Canadian Mounted Police fired a volley into a crowd of unemployed war veterans, killing two, during the Winnipeg General Strike.

 

1919   Admiral Ludwig von Reuter scuttled the German fleet in Scapa Flow, Orkney. The nine sailors killed were the last casualties of World War I.

1921  Judy Holliday, American actress, was born  (d. 1965)

1921  Jane Russell, American actress, was born. 

1940  The first successful west-to-east navigation of Northwest Passage began at Vancouver, British Columbia.

 

1942   World War II: Tobruk fell to Italian and German forces.

1942  World War II: A Japanese submarine surfaced near the Columbia River in Oregon, firing 17 shells at nearby Fort Stevens in one of only a handful of attacks by the Japanese against the United States mainland.

1944 Ray Davies, English musician (The Kinks), was born.

1945  World War II: The Battle of Okinawa ended.

1947  Joey Molland, English musician (Badfinger), was born.

1948 Ian McEwan, English writer, was born.

1948  Columbia Records introduced the long-playing record album in a public demonstration at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.

1952  Philippine School of Commerce, through a republic act, was converted to Philippine College of Commerce; later to be the Polytechnic University of the Philippines.

1957  Ellen Louks Fairclough was sworn in as Canada’s first woman Cabinet Minister.

1964 The Beatles landed in New Zealand.

1964  Three civil rights workers, Andrew Goodman, James Chaney and Mickey Schwerner, were murdered in Neshoba County, Mississippi,, by members of the Ku Klux Klan.

   

1973   In handing down the decision in Miller v. California 413 US 15, the Supreme Court of the United States established the Miller Test, which now governs obscenity in U.S. law.

 

1982 Prince William of Wales, British prince and heir, was born.

1982  John Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity for the attempted assassination of U.S. President Ronald Reagan.

 

2000   Section 28 (outlawing the ‘promotion’ of homosexuality in the United Kingdom) was repealed in Scotland with a 99 to 17 vote.

2001  A federal grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia, indictws 13 Saudis and a Lebanese in the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 American servicemen.

 

2004   SpaceShipOne became the first privately funded spaceplane to achieve spaceflight.

2006   Pluto’s newly discovered moons were officially named Nix & Hydra.

 

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia

Could I Have This Dance?

Happy birthday Anne Murray, 65 today.

Butterflies – It’s not what I want

Happy birthday Wendy Craig – 76 today.

When I was looking for a clip I was expecting to find comedy, not:

That seems to be the plan for women like me. Women like me were born to help the women you’ll marry escape. It’s not what I want and what makes it all worse is I don’t know what I want.”

Has any mother not felt like this at some stage and is it any better now that motherhood and careers don’t have to be mutually exclusive and more fathers take a more active role in parenting  and housework than they did in previous generations?

Plans for last drink at Gardies foiled by early closing

Dunedin didn’t have the plethora of drinking options available today when I was a student there in the mid 70s. The Cook, The Bowling Green or the relatively new Gardies were the three most popular.

We weren’t supposed to be on licensed premises until we were 20 back then. although policing of the purchase age was far less strict than it is now and financial limitations probably had a greater impact than legal ones on our ability to buy booze.

 In those days before student loans, when tertiary education was “free” we had only the money earned in holidays to see us through the year and, at least in my circle of friends and flatmates, there wasn’t enough over for much alcohol.

I have vague memories of a few trips to the Gardies but nothing of note so wasn’t planning to join the hordes expected there over the weekend to mark its closure.

Those who had planned a last drink at the pub which has been sold to the University of Otago, had their plans foiled  when the Gardies  served its last drink and closed its doors at midnight  on Friday.

The early closure was to avoid any trouble. I understand why but it’s a sad indictment on society that the publican couldn’t trust the patrons to mark the closure without causing trouble.

The last test

The first game I can remember watching at Carisbrrok was a match between Otago and the Lions.

It would have been 1975ish, in the days when touring teams toured the provinces.

I can’t remember the score though I suspect we lost. It wasn’t the only Otago loss I’ve watched but I also saw some wins, most notably the day the team captained by Taine Randall won the NPC final.

We used to go down to Dunedin regularly for NPC games and in the early days of the Super 12 but in recent years we’ve had other priorities.

But we went down again for Carisbrook’s 37th and final rugby test match last night.

The city was buzzing and turned on a glroious day – blue sky, sunshine and almost no wind. The mild temperature would have been welcomed by the teams playing nude rugby in the afternoon.

As part of the pre-test entertainment, Colin Meads and Otago’s favourite sons Josh Kronfeld and Jeff Wilson told us there favourite memories of the ground.

Deborah Wai Kapohe and Judd Arthur sang the national anthems – powerfully.

Wales scored first and second, then the All Blacks found their feet.

After the final whistle, with the score at 42 -9, the City of Dunedin Pipe Band marched on to the ground to play Auld Lang Syne, Jeff Wilson dug out a piece of turf to be taken to the new Forsyth Barr Stadium and the celebration finished with a fireworks display.

The ODT editorialises in tribute to Carisbrook here.

Jim Mora chatted to Ian Galloway and Ron Polenski about Carisbrook here.

UPDATE: Keeping Stock pays tribute too.

June 20 in history

On June 20:

451  Battle of Chalons: Flavius Aetius‘ battled Attila the Hun. After the battle, which was inconclusive, Attila retreats, causing the Romans to interpret it as a victory.

1005 Ali az-Zahir, caliph, was born (d. 1036).

1214 The University of Oxford received its charter.

1631  The sack of Baltimore: the Irish village of Baltimore was attacked by Algerian pirates.

1652  Tarhoncu Ahmet Paşa appointed grand vezir of the Ottoman Empire, served until 21 March 1653.

1685  Monmouth Rebellion: James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth declared himself King of England at Bridgwater.

1723 Adam Ferguson, Scottish philosopher and historian, was born  (d. 1816).

 

1756  A British garrison was imprisoned in the Black Hole of Calcutta.

 

1782  The U.S. Congress adopted the Great Seal of the United States.

 

1787  Oliver Ellsworth moved at the Federal Convention to call the government the United States.

1789  Deputies of the French Third Estate took the Tennis Court Oath.

 

1791  King Louis XVI of France and his immediate family began the Flight to Varennes during The French Revolution.

1819 Jacques Offenbach, German-born French composer, was born  (d. 1880).

 

1819  The U.S. vessel SS Savannah arrived  at Liverpool, United Kingdom - the first steam-propelled vessel to cross the Atlantic, although most of the journey was made under sail.

1837  Queen Victoria succeeded to the British throne.

 Victoria receives the news of her accession to the throne from Lord Conyngham (left) and the Archbishop of Canterbury.

1840  Samuel Morse received the patent for the telegraph.

 

1862   Barbu Catargiu, the Prime Minister of Romania, was assassinated.

1863  American Civil War: West Virginia was admitted as the 35th U.S. state.

1877  Alexander Graham Bell installed the world’s first commercial telephone service in Hamilton, Ontario.

 

1893  Lizzie Borden was acquitted for the murders of her father and stepmother.

1909 Errol Flynn, Australian actor, was born (d. 1959).

1919  150 died at the Teatro Yaguez fire, Mayagüez, Puerto Rico.

1924  Chet Atkins, American guitar player and producer, was born  (d. 2001).

1934 Wendy Craig, English actress, was born.

 

1942 Brian Wilson, American musician (The Beach Boys), was born.

1944 World War II: The Battle of the Philippine Sea concluded with a decisive U.S. naval victory. The lopsided naval air battle is also known as the “Great Marianas Turkey Shoot”.

 

1944  Continuation war: Soviet Union demanded an unconditional surrender from Finland during the beginning of partially successful Vyborg–Petrozavodsk Offensive.

1945  Anne Murray, Canadian singer, was born.

1946 Xanana Gusmão, President of East Timor, was born.

1948 Ludwig Scotty, President of Nauru, was born.

1948 Toast of the Town, later The Ed Sullivan Show, made its television debut.

 1949  Lionel Richie, American musician (The Commodores) , was born.

1949  Alan Longmuir, Scottish bass guitarist (Bay City Rollers), was born. 

1950  Nouri Al-Maliki, Prime Minister of Iraq, was born. 

1954 Michael Anthony, American musician (Van Halen), was born.

1956  A Venezuelan Super-Constellation crashed in the Atlantic Ocean off Asbury Park, New Jersey, killing 74 people.

1959  A rare June hurricane struck Canada’s Gulf of St. Lawrence killing 35.

 

1960 John Taylor, English musician (Duran Duran), was born.

1960  Independence of Mali and Senegal.

1963  The so-called “red telephone“ was established between the Soviet Union and the United States following the Cuban Missile Crisis.

1967 Nicole Kidman, American-born Australian actress, was born.

1971 Josh Kronfeld, New Zealander rugby union footballer, was born.

1973  Ezeiza massacre in Buenos Aires  Snipers fired on left-wing Peronists. At least 13 were killed and more than 300 injured.

1979 ABC News correspondent Bill Stewart was shot dead by a Nicaraguan soldier under the regime of Anastasio Somoza Debayle. The murder was caught on tape and sparked international outcry of the regime.

1987 The All Blacks won the inaugural rugby World Cup.

 

1990  Asteroid Eureka was discovered.

1991  The German parliament decided to move the capital from Bonn back to Berlin.

2003 The WikiMedia Foundation was founded in St. Petersburg, Florida.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia

Saturday’s smiles

Judy Rudd an amateur genealogy researcher in southern Queensland’s, was doing some personal work on her family tree. She discovered that she and Prime Minister Kevin Rudd had an ancestor in common – her  great-great uncle, Remus Rudd, who was hanged for horse stealing and train robbery in Melbourne in 1889.

 The only known photograph of Remus shows him standing on the gallows at the Melbourne Gaol.

On the back of the picture Judy obtained during her research is this inscription: ‘Remus Rudd horse thief, sent to Melbourne Gaol 1885, escaped 1887, robbed the Melbourne-Geelong train six times. Caught by Victoria Police Force, convicted and hanged in 1889.’

 Judy  e-mailed Prime Minister Rudd for information about their great-great uncle Remus. His staff sent back the following biographical sketch for her genealogy research:

“Remus Rudd was famous in Victoria during the mid to late 1800s. His business empire grew to include acquisition of valuable equestrian assets and intimate dealings with the Melbourne-Geelong Railroad.

 “From 1883, he devoted several years of his life to government service, finally taking leave to resume his dealings with the railroad.

 In 1887, he was a key player in a vital investigation run by the Victoria Police Force. In 1889, Remus passed away during an important civic function held in his honour when the platform upon which he was standing collapsed.”

 How’s that for political spin?

P.S. – I googled Remus Rudd and found this story is a hoax but let’s not let the facts get in the way of a grin.

Paul Eddington – A Life Well Lived

While looking for a post for Paul Eddington’s birthday yesterday, I came across this tribute to him.

Part two is here.

Part three is here.

For garlic lovers

It’s soup season.

My favourite recipe is for the all purpose Tomato Soup which also serves well as a sauce for pasta and pizza.

It’s easy to make but requries lots of garlic and  I’ve never been keen on the fiddly business of getting the clove out of its papery skin.

However, I’ve no excuses now that I’ve acquired a silicone garlic peeler.

I’m wary about wonder gadgets but this one really is as good as its promise.

You simply put the clove in the tube, roll it on the bench and voila  the skin comes off – no fiddling, no smelly hands, just naked garlic, ready to be sautéed.

Assets can be liabilities

Among the dead rats National was forced to ingest before the last election was a pledge to hold on to all crown assets.

The promise was no assets would be sold this term and if there was any intention to sell any in a future term that would be announced and be part of a future campaign.

Now we’re about half way through the current term it’s a good time to look at state owned assets and question if it’s in the companiess’ and the country’s best interest to retain them in public ownership.

One of the questions to be asked is, whether investment needed for continued growth of these assets is the best use of scarce public funds.

This may well have been in the mind of Solid Energy’s chair John Palmer when he suggested that a partial sale of the SOE might be good for the company and relieve the state of the need to find the money needed for expansion.

It would be good if we could get past the emotional and ill-founded belief that state ownership is always good and private ownership is bad and looked at suggestions on a case by case basis.

Some sales, partial or full, could provide domestic  investment opportunities for those with money to spare; realise funds which the government could spend on other priorities; expose the companies to the discipline of the market and enable them to raise funds they need without going cap in hand to a cash-strapped government.

While discussing this another point to bear in mind is that assets which don’t get the continuing investment they need can turn into liabilities.

June 19 in history

On June 19:

1179 The Norwegian Battle of Kalvskinnet -  Earl Erling Skakke  was killed, and the battle changed the tide of the civil wars.

1269 King Louis IX of France ordered all Jews found in public without an identifying yellow badge to be fined ten livres of silver.

 

1306 The Earl of Pembroke’s army defeated Bruce’s Scottish army at the Battle of Methven.

1566 King James I of England and VI of Scotland, was born  (d. 1625).

 

1586 English colonists left Roanoke Island, N.C., after failing to establish England’s first permanent settlement in America.

1770 Emanuel Swedenborg reported the completion of the Second Coming of Christ in his work True Christian Religion.

1807  Admiral Dmitry Senyavin destroyed the Ottoman fleet in the Battle of Athos.

 

1816  Battle of Seven Oaks between North West Company and Hudson’s Bay Company, near Winnipeg.

1821  Decisive defeat of the Philikí Etaireía by the Ottomans at Drăgăşani (in Wallachia).

 

1846 The first officially recorded, organized baseball match was played under Alexander Joy Cartwright’s rules on Hoboken’s Elysian Fields with the New York Base Ball Club defeating the Knickerbockers 23-1. Cartwright umpired.

1850 Princess Louise of the Netherlands married Crown Prince Karl of Sweden-Norway.

1861  Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig, British Field Marshal and Commander of British forces in WW I, was born (d. 1928).

1862  The U.S. Congress prohibited slavery in United States territories, nullifying the Dred Scott Case.

1865 Dame May Whitty, English entertainer, was born  (d. 1948).

1865  Over two years after the Emancipation Proclamation, slaves in Galveston, were finally informed of their freedom.

1867  Maximilian I of the Mexican Empire was executed by a firing squad in Querétaro.

1870  After all of the Southern States were formally readmitted to the United States, the Confederate States of America ceased to exist.

1875  The Herzegovinian rebellion against the Ottoman Empire began.

1896 Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor, was born (d. 1986).

1910  The first Father’s Day was celebrated in Spokane, Washington.

1915  The USS Arizona (BB-39) was launched from the Brooklyn Navy Yard in New York..

 

1929 Thelma Barlow, English actress, was born.

1934  The Communications Act of 1934 established the United States’ Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

1940 The trans-Pacific liner Niagara was sunk by a German mine off the Northland coast..

1943  Race riots  in Beaumont, Texas.

1944  World War II: First day of the Battle of the Philippine Sea.

1947 Salman Rushdie, Indian author, was born.

1953  Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed at Sing Sing, in New York.

1961  Kuwait declared independence from the United Kingdom

1963 Rory Underwood, English rugby union footballer, was born.

1964  The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was approved after surviving an 83-day filibuster in the United States Senate.

1966 Shiv Sena was founded in Mumbai.

1970  The Patent Cooperation Treaty was signed.

1977 Rebecca Loos, Dutch model, was born.

1981 Moss Burmester, New Zealand swimmer, was born.

1982  In one of the first militant attacks by Hezbollah, David S. Dodge, president of the American University in Beirut, was kidnapped.

1982 – The body of God’s Banker, Roberto Calvi was found hanging beneath Blackfriars Bridge in London.

1987  Basque separatist group ETA committed one of its most violent attacks, in which a bomb is set off in a supermarket, Hipercor, killing 21 and injuring 45.

1990 The international law defending indigenous peoples, Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention, 1989, was ratified for the first time by Norway.

2006  Prime ministers of several northern European nations participated in a ceremonial “laying of the first stone” at the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Spitsbergen, Norway.

 

2009  British troops began Operation Panther’s Claw, one of the largest air operations in modern times, when more than 350 troops made an aerial assault on Taliban positions and subsequently repelled Taliban counter-attacks.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia

Mull of Kintyrre

Happy birthday Paul McCartney – 68 today.

In 1976ish Otago Univeristy’s capping sextet rewrote the words of this to refer to the strikes which were holding up the building of Mangere Bridge.

It went something like: : Mangare Bridge, Muldoon’s enraged, Mr Rowling’s in tears. . .  over Mangere Bridge.

Yes Minister on local councils

Paul Eddington would have been 83 today.