1. Are you still enjoying providing the questions?
If so, they are yours for the asking with an electronic fruit cake for anyone who stumps everyone.
Homepaddock
A rural perspective with a blue tint by Ele Ludemann
Recent Comments
Family failures | Th… on Family failures 
Heather Adam on Family failures 
kevn on Taxing talk Taxing talk | The In… on Taxing talk 
pdm1946 on Taxing talk Guinness goes well w… on Guinness goes well with l… 
Kiwi Blog- Inquiring Mind
- Aussie TV Drama: Sea Patrol – #9 – Under the Hammer – S01E09 – Ian Stenlake, Lisa McCune, Steve Bisley
- Aussie TV Drama: Sea Patrol – Through the Storm – #8 – S01E08 – Ian Stenlake, Lisa McCune, Steve Bisley
- Afternoon Drama: The Doctor Blake Mysteries with Craig McLachlan, Nadine Garner, Charlie Cousins, Cate Wolfe, Rodger Corser – #31 – S04 E03 – Lucky Numbers
- Joint Account: #13 – S02E07 – Hannah Gordon, Peter Egan, John Bird,
- Spooks – #53 – S06E07 – The Broadcast – Peter Firth, Rupert Penry-Jones, Raza Jaffrey, Miranda Raison, Hermione Norris
- Raffles – S01E06 – The Last Laugh – Anthony Valentine
- The Good Karma Hospital: #19 – S04E01 – Amanda Redman, Amrita Acharia, James Krishna Floyd, Neil Morrissey, Darshan Jariwala
- Friday Night Movie: Working Girl (1988) – Harrison Ford, Sigourney Weaver, Melanie Griffiths
- Howard’s Way: #69 – S06E04
- Classic Comedy: Waiting for God – Graham Crowden, Stephanie Cole, Janine Duvitski, Daniel Hill – #10 – S02E03 – Daisy Takes Charge
- No Minister
- Hobsons Pledge Get Hit Hard By `The Thugs Veto’.
- Snakes winning the Limbo Dance
- Fake News, Helen?
- WHO WILL EAT PINE NEEDLE SALAD?
- A Different Sort Of Poll – Updated.
- Not Quite Correct
- Winston, the Arch Manipulator?
- Two English Radicals
- Death of a Journalist
- Terrorist Status for Hawaiian-Shirted Incels Removed
- PointOfOrderNZ
- Mitchell’s injuries
- The death of public sector expertise: How the rise of the generic official hollowed out the state
- To what policy problem is this the solution?
- 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
- 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
- An error has occurred; the feed is probably down. Try again later.
- 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
- ELLIOT IKILEI: We cannot let the bullies win
- ROGER PARTRIDGE: The death of public sector expertise: How the rise of the generic official hollowed out the state
- 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
- Not PC
- "Bad economic ideas don't just create poverty—they destroy the institutional foundations of free society."
- "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"
- 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
- Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Jacinda, Grant, Chippy and Ayesha can't prevent accountability
- Ryan Bridge: What has Chris Hipkins got to hide over Covid?
- Breaking Views Update: Week of 10.8.25
- Mike's Minute: Ardern, Hipkins, Robertson - They should be ashamed of themselves
- Olivia Pierson: New Zealand Betrays Israel, Again
- Peter Dunne: Political threat
- 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
- 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
- For a de minimus threshold for mergers
- 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?
- 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
- An error has occurred; the feed is probably down. Try again later.
- 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
- An error has occurred; the feed is probably down. Try again later.
- Imperator Fish
- An error has occurred; the feed is probably down. Try again later.
- 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
- An error has occurred; the feed is probably down. Try again later.
- Latitude 44
- An error has occurred; the feed is probably down. Try again later.
Loaded Web
Statcounter
Homepaddock 
Can you put a name to this face and give the name by which he is better known to history?
LikeLike
Rasputin or Mubarak in their younger days. Or is it you Andrei?
LikeLike
Just finished reading the book by Simon Sebag Montefiore so I can be cryptic.. Surname Jughashvili or Joe to his mates?
LikeLike
Joe Stalin- yes?
Bulaman: SSM has a brother and author Hugh SB – who is an historian
LikeLike
Most definitely Uncle Joe..
LikeLike
Just arrived back in NZ yesterday having sailed from New Caledonia on Peter Blake’s Steinlager 2… so the question is: what is the redeeming feature of Noumea? (If there is one, mist it…)
LikeLike
A golf question for the sports geeks.
Willie Anderson won the US Open 3 times in a row in 1903, 04 & 05.
Part 1: Who is the only other player to win 3 US Opens 3 times in a row in the years he was able to?
Part 2: What was unusual about his 3 wins and why?
LikeLike