Handsel – gift to express goodwill at start of new year or enterprise; a first insallment or payment; inaugural gift; a speciman or foretaste of what’s to come.
Homepaddock
A rural perspective with a blue tint by Ele Ludemann
Recent Comments
Kiwi Blog- Key recent events for Education in NZ.
- A pointless petition
- Can the Government answer these questions if it recognises a Palestinian State?
- The obvious answer is Trump
- The Covid cowards
- They’re idiots, not terrorists
- General Debate 14 August 2025
- Didn’t turn up to her own policy launch!
- Former Minister refuse to appear before Covid-19 Royal Commission
- Treasury states what we all knew
- Inquiring Mind
- DI Ruth Hunter Series: #4 – The Killings By Simon McCleave read by Deryn Edwards
- The Late, Late Movie: North West Frontier 1959 (Original Uncut British Release ) Kenneth More, Lauren Bacall, Herbert Lom, Wilfrid Hyde-White, I.S.Johar
- Mitch Rapp Series #7: Memorial Day by Vince Flynn – Audiobook
- Late Night Movie: We Were Soldiers | Mel Gibson, Madeleine Stowe, Sam Elliott, Greg Kinnear,
- McLevy – The Edinburgh Detective with Brian Cox – #23 – S06E02 – End of the Line
- New Tricks: #76 – S09 E09
- Aussie TV Drama: Sea Patrol – Rescue Me – #7 – S01E07 – Ian Stenlake, Lisa McCune, Steve Bisley
- The Doctor Blake Mysteries with Craig McLachlan, Nadine Garner, Charlie Cousins, Cate Wolfe, Rodger Corser – #30 – S04 E02 – Golden Years
- Joint Account: #12 – S02E06 – Hannah Gordon, Peter Egan, John Bird,
- Spooks – #52 – S06E06 – The Courier – Peter Firth, Rupert Penry-Jones, Raza Jaffrey, Miranda Raison, Hermione Norris
- No Minister
- David Farrar Sums Up Ardern, Robertson, Hipkins And Verrall
- Bomber Bradbury outdoes himself with his naivety!
- Yeah. Yeah, Winston!
- Jim Lovell Reaches Eternity
- Once Upon A Time, Scrambling involved motor bikes, apparently not now so much?
- I Am Gobsmacked, Astounded In Fact
- There will not be peace as long as Hamas remains in power.
- Europe: Where Shocked Face is Combined With “Doh”
- Willow-Jean Prime Strikes Again
- NET STUPIDITY!
- PointOfOrderNZ
- Treasury states what we all knew
- One more Treasury OIA about RB spending
- Short memories
- Unemployment – digging beneath the headline rate
- National has a storytelling problem
- Balancing the climate narrative – the science is not settled
- Breaking the internet
- Raising taxes will be a hard-sell for Chris Hipkins if all the additional revenue is pledged to funding pay equity
- Quotes of the week
- Chlöe Swarbrick’s homelessness hyperbole
- Lindsay Mitchell
- Unemployment - Digging beneath the headline rate
- Study results baffle researchers
- Proof that National is Labour-lite
- PM's new line
- Is there a relationship between marriage rates and welfare dependence?
- Who relies most heavily on welfare?
- The Death of Personal Responsibility
- Is 'by Maori for Maori' shifting the dial?
- Ardern: If she insists on being remembered, I will oblige
- Means-testing Jobseeker Benefits for 18–19-year-olds: What does it amount to?
- Cactus Kate
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- Valerie Davies
- Oamaru Life
- Dawn over Oamaru Harbour
- The Night Sky in North Otago
- Another New Oamaru Attraction Opens
- Fire and canapés awaiting our guests.
- Whitestone City Opens in Oamaru
- New Book on Oamaru and the Waitaki Released
- The Town Bike Opens for Business
- So Much is New in Oamaru!
- First Annual Great North Otago Potato Race
- Oamaru’s Pen-y-bryn Lodge on TV
- Karl du Fresne
- On objectivity, balance and honesty in journalism
- Echoes of Citizens for Rowling
- Harlan County USA: still compelling after nearly 50 years
- Bob Jones, Sitiveni Rabuka and me
- Colonisation and the burden of guilt
- Featherston Booktown: The book festival where books are optional
- Little stands to capture the 'Anyone but Whanau' vote
- Andrew Little signals a tilt at the Wellington mayoralty
- My war with the NZTA: Part Deux
- My war with the NZTA: Part One
- Stephen Franks
- Parliament trumps the lawyer/clerics – blow against ‘heritage blight’
- Allow easy firing of dud bosses
- Maori understood geo-politics better in 1824 than Queenstown Lakes District Council now
- Who’s calling the shots on co-governance? Lawyers or MPs? Will the Court of Appeal order disclosure?
- How to repeal Labour/Green entrenchment of Water Services control by iwi elite
- Outcomes of the Parliamentary occupation
- Vax resistance and the snobbery of the PMC
- Free Speech Union against name suppression for alleged Wanaka escapees
- Are “local boards” and “community boards” real democracy?
- Continuous Disclosure Folly
- Bassett Brash & Hide
- JOHN RAINE: BALANCING THE CLIMATE NARRATIVE – THE SCIENCE IS NOT SETTLED
- LINDSAY MITCHELL: Unemployment - Digging beneath the headline rate
- PETER WILLIAMS: Blurred Lines
- DON BRASH: The truth about our Māori Ward billboards
- GRAHAM ADAMS: Peters and Seymour tussle over ‘Maorification’
- LINDSAY MITCHELL: Study results baffle researchers
- ROGER PARTRIDGE: When Populism Drives Policy, Everyone Pays
- MATUA KAHURANGI: New Zealand First moves to legally cement "New Zealand" as the country's official name
- MICHAEL BASSETT - WELLINGTON: WHAT'S WRONG WITH IT?
- ROGER PARTRIDGE: When Transparency Becomes a Threat
- Not PC
- "If there’s one thing in scandalously short supply in local government—shorter even than pothole repair crews—it’s thinking."
- 'A Note on "Trump Derangement Syndrome"'
- "There has been Twitter speculation that all of this is about age-gating social media."
- "This case is of exceptional importance, addressing the legality of using copyrighted works for generative AI"
- 15 YEARS AGO: Here's how Key helped fuel the gravy-train
- Art should ask questions
- Whatever happened to the adverb?
- "Is art produced by non-humans actually art?"
- "Yet Another Misleading Report on 'Low-Cost' Wind and Solar"
- John Key is still a fucking moron
- WHatSheSaidNZ
- Nobody said it would be easy.
- My toddler will break me before you do.
- Listen to your farmers New Zealand.
- You know you have a toddler 2.0…
- Why I’m ALWAYS late
- There is no Perfect, only Perspective
- 5 Things To Consider Before Going Back To Work…
- Family Planning Anxiety
- Does thinking positively actually work?
- Let’s talk about our mental health
- No Punches Pulled
- Croaking Cassandra
- One more Treasury OIA about RB spending
- One in five roles could go at the Reserve Bank
- Thinking about the MPC
- Labour market data, and silly comparisons
- Reserve Bank bits and pieces
- Still waiting for a Governor
- That 24 February meeting again
- Orr, Quigley, and Willis: 31 July edition
- The Treasury file note of the 24 February meeting
- Rereading the material
- Barbar’s meaty issues
- Project will identify marketing potential of regenerative agriculture
- Decades of dietary advice misguided
- Meat industry continues to do a superb job
- Long way from being out of the woods yet
- Time for sector to find united voice
- Falling co-product prices prompt changes
- Regulation risks hindering innovation
- Taste Pure Nature one year on
- ANZCO achieves a huge turnaround
- Agility and innovation essential for meat exporters
- Rivetting Kate Taylor
- Uptown Farm
- Barrie Saunders
- When transparency becomes a threat
- “Media” some dangerous proposals
- The growth puzzle – its cultural
- Open letter to Hon Paul Goldsmith
- Utopia and government
- Treaty Principles – will the ACT Bill achieve its objectives?
- The Australian paradox
- How to exit an ethnic rabbit hole – contrast with Australia
- Lobbyists – specific regulation?
- Democracy or partnership revisited
- Quoteunquotenz
- Blog the Globe
- One of the most beautiful cities in France – Bordeaux
- Boudeaux’s best Cooking School -The Gastronome
- Dunstan trail and 3 gorges.
- Highlights of Buenos Aries
- My 12 day expedition to Antarctica
- Salta – Argentina
- Cordoba, Argentina
- Santiago, Chile – what to do in 48 hours
- A taste of Tunisia, PLUS a 7-day itinerary.
- The highlights of Florence, with grandchildren
- Armstrong on Politics
- The Democrats’debacle: some lessons from Donald Trump’s triumph and Hillary Clinton’s humiliation
- Australia’s 60 Minutes; one long hour of tabloid trash
- Gareth Morgan’s Opportunities knocks
- Pheonix rising? Part One. Same old Aussies, always cheating.
- A Little goes the wrong way
- A man in a big hurry
- Craig comes an awful cropper (twice); National counts its blessings it never struck a deal with the Conservatives’ flawed leader
- Something’s in the water; something’s astray in the Bay
- Fox on the run: Marama miscues
- Auckland housing Part One: Not everything is big in Texas
- Breaking Views
- Dr Eric Crampton: One small step towards better land transport funding
- Dr Oliver Hartwich: ‘Drowning electorally’ - Luxon’s premiership under pressure
- Winston Peters: Why Won’t They Front Up?
- Ele Ludemann: Taxing talk
- David Farrar: The Covid cowards
- Untitled
- Steven Gaskell: What a day will be like under Maori Council Wards
- Owen Jennings: Driving a stake through the steak
- Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Why has Parliament become such a circus?
- Ryan Bridge: Labour's getting protest votes
- Agrarian
- Why Consistency Beats Intensity in Rural Sales: The Key to Long-Term Success
- Reason Why Leading Indicators Beat Lagging Indicators in Rural Sales
- Why We Hate Sales People and How Serving First Turns the Tide in Rural Sales
- Gain the Upper Hand: Positioning Yourself in Rural Sales Success
- Why Discounting Is Dangerous to Your Rural Business — Stop Doing It
- Are You Ready for Tougher Times? Here’s How Rural Businesses Can Stay Resilient
- Where Does Confidence Come From? Competence Not Clichés
- Stop the Spiral: How to Turn Diminishing Returns into Accelerating Success
- Comfort Costs You More Than You Think & Discomfort Drives Rural Sales Growth
- Crack the Code: Master Buyer Personas to Boost Your Sales
- Offsetting Behaviour
- To what policy problem is this the solution?
- Breaking the internet
- I'd love a Kalshi market on this one
- Misunderstanding the policy process
- The price of butter
- Compensation for regulatory takings - reader mailbag
- Social media slippery slopes
- A social media trilemma
- Maybe allow competition?
- Misuse of land use planning
- Autism & Oughtimsms
- My New Blog: Sounding Out Dyslexia
- So long, and thanks for all the clicks :)
- Five (or Six) Diagnoses, Two Woo-tastic Communities, and an Eight Year Old Under a Pohutukawa Tree
- Drowning in Need: Autism and Swimming in New Zealand
- “Choose Your Battles” (and dealing with those who didn’t get their copy of the battle plan)
- Understanding the cuts to IDEA autism services * UPDATED *
- Revelations
- What to look for when choosing a school for a child with special needs, in NZ
- We Stand Together, or We Fall Apart
- Seclusion versus Time Out, and Alternatives
- visible hand
- What is an ATAR and what does this have to do with income?
- Pandemic preferences – the case of housing
- New Year, New Steam Sale
- How did our 2023 forecasts go?
- Where have all the good Boxing Day sales gone
- Unrealised losses, high interest rates, and financial market distress
- What can a new lawnmower tell us about labour markets?
- Cost of job loss: Wage scarring
- Was the New Zealand 2023/24 Budget inflationary?
- How much does benefit abatement influence labour supply?
- Stats Chat
- Macdoctor
- Finding the best solicitors in Sydney
- The importance of insurance for small businesses in New Zealand
- What you need to keep in mind before hiring family lawyers in Sydney
- High-Quality Screen Repairs for Samsung Phones
- What Makes Tax Accountants Important in Every Small Business?
- 4 Major Reasons Why New Businesses Fail
- You Can Heal Anything: You Are the New Medicine
- How to Organize Your Medicine Cabinet
- NZ’s Got Talent
- My Work Here Is Done - by Mark Weldon
- Self-indulgent Spoiled Brats of the World Unite! - by V for Verity Johnson
- Out There In The Arena - an exclusive extract from Diane Foreman's Biography
- What About Me? - by Jeeves Clifton
- Alex Hazlehust: You've Never Been Loved - by The City of London
- At Least I Am Not on Ashley Madison - by Alex Hazlehurst
- Singing Home The Whale - a Children's book by Nicky and Mandy Hager
- I Will Return - by Dita De Boni
- I Don't Have a Penis, Hear Me Raw - by Rachel Smalley
- Mike's Minute (transcript) - by Mike Hosking
- interest.co.nz
- An error has occurred; the feed is probably down. Try again later.
- Bowalleyroad
- Vox Populi: Ageing Boomers, Laurie & Les, Talk Politics.
- Fighting Monsters.
- Legislating For Liberty.
- Highway Twenty-Nine: Ageing Boomers, Laurie & Les, Talk Politics.
- Making Deserts.
- Mother Countries and Sentinel Sons.
- The Woke War On the Cultural Conduits of Capitalism.
- What’s on the Label -vs- What’s in the Tin.
- Our Rough Beast.
- What does India Want? What is New Zealand willing to give?
- Dim Post
- An error has occurred; the feed is probably down. Try again later.
- Election results
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- Story People
- Exercise 2: 5 Days of Practicing Love (for the Real World)
- 5 Days of Practicing Love (for the Real World): Exercise 1
- It's the Middle Things
- Stuff We Just ... Say
- Ingredients of Writing
- Getting That Namaste Going
- Healing Our Creativity
- Buy Like There's a Tomorrow (and it's magical)
- What The Cool Kids Are Doing
- Talking about Peace without Shouting
- Liberty Scott
- An Act devised by silly people, passed by silly people, enforced by silly people
- No to another mega-Ministry
- Local government will not be constrained by the current proposals
- Who likes swinging the wrecking ball?
- Does Dame Anne Salmond really want to debate the Regulatory Standards Bill?
- Ending Iran's nuclear programme is a must, defeating the Islamic Republic is the ideal
- Pay Equity is a fundamentally flawed concept
- Feeding "our" children
- There's no leader of the free world anymore
- Trump Derangement Syndrome
- Open Parachute
- The Science and Mātauranga Māori debate
- A new paper challenges the consensus on the cost-benefit analysis of community water fluoridation
- Ukraine war enters new stage – an anti-terrorist operation?
- Ukrainian drone attack on Russian strategic bombers – why the concern?
- Why is there no progress in Ukrainian war peace talks?
- Can we now find out who the real Vladimir Putin is?
- Nuclear Ukraine: Budapest Memorandum – what it says and is it relevant?
- Trump, political partisanship, and world peace
- The Trump victory – do people accept democracy?
- Who should we thank for the defeat of the Nazis
- Sciblogs
- An error has occurred; the feed is probably down. Try again later.
- Liberation
- Cartoons about Budget 2021
- Cartoons about public sector worker and CEO pay
- Cartoons about the National Party in 2021
- Cartoons about National Party leader Todd Muller
- John Moore: Podcast on the Politics of the Coronavirus crisis
- John Moore: Podcast on International Working Women's Day
- John Moore: Podcast on FGM
- Cartoons about the politics of law and order in NZ
- Cartoons about the NZ First donations scandal
- Cartoons about #MeTooLabour
- YourNZ
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- Imperator Fish
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- Life Behind the Iron Drape
- Signing off - My Last Blog Post | Nicky Hager; Heather Du Plessis-Allan; Deborah Hill-Cone; Giovanni Tiso - Individualism & the Tyranny of Each Other.
- National’s Anti-Money Laundering & Countering Financing of Terrorism Monster - iPredict the State Gulag
- Paris Has Changed Me – Logic Bombing the Left on Multiculturalism.
- Today’s Letter to the Editor | For Anthony Green, Muslim Association of Canterbury.
- I Have the Answer: Individualism … #Paris
- $1 Billion To Tinker With a Bit of Out-Of-The-Box Stasi Software | Women MPs Go Walk About
- If You Support The Voluntary Transactions of Capitalism, Avoid NZ Banks. #Privacy
- Today's Letter to the Editor - Christchurch Press | Euthanasia
- Mils Muliaina and Reversing the Burden of Proof in Sexual Assault Cases.
- Health Minister Jonathan Coleman Stand Down Please – Obesity to the Police State.
- PM of NZ
- "We're here to help" #5436
- Now to get back to previous business...
- The screaming is about to start
- The tribalists have a win. For now.
- Absolutely no!
- Mr. Luxon: What will it be?
- And the band played Waltzing Matilda...
- The latest BS from Climatard HQ
- Mr Luxon: A question for you
- A small step in the right direction
- Something Should Go Here
- 2020 now up
- 2019 done, halfway through 2020
- 2018 now complete
- The Ardern Files
- Crickets
- Labour chooses to be fair to beneficiaries
- Morgan Godfery, and the mystery of the inflated job title
- Fact Checkers
- Another church Farrier could raise concerns about
- David Farrier – “churches are the problem (and let me throw in some racism too)”
- Pundit
- An error has occurred; the feed is probably down. Try again later.
- kiwipolitico
- Watching Brief
- Stellar Cafe
- Oamaru Opera House
- Mad March
- A message from OoH Director
- What a Start!!!
- So this is Christmas...
- Aoraki Polytechnic Oamaru Campus Graduation
- Shows at The Oamaru Opera House in 2011
- Oamaru Victorian Heritage Celebrations Programme
- Trash n Treasure This Sunday!!
- Tim Beveridge at The Oamaru Opera House this Saturday night.
- The Great Trash n Treasure Garage Sale November 14th
- Keeping Stock
- Dave Gee life from right field
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- Latitude 44
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