Waitak

Donald Trump

Prince Harry

Mikel Arteta

8 hours ago, Section_31 said:

 

Beirut, Liby, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan (Russians and yanks), Suez, Iran Iraq war, Iraq gassing Kurds, six day war, Arab Israeli war, Iranian revolution. Probably about another dozen or so I've forgotten. Middle East in fucked up shocker.

Korean war, Hungarian uprising, Cuban missile crisis, invasion of Czechoslovakia, construction of the Berlin wall, Malaya, Greece, Vietnam - just a few more examples of conflicts that could have escalated into something even more serious. The threat of World War 3 has been with us since the end of World War 2. 

On 10/01/2024 at 05:45, Champ said:

Tradespeople you never hear back from.

Im a bit of a ‘new year get on with jobs you’ve been putting off sort’ which has involved contacting an electrician and a boiler repairer.

The electrician came out no bother but haven’t heard from him since even though I can see his read my message and I’ve yet to hear from the boiler person who came out pretty quickly the last time. And I always pay the day the job’s done. Annoys me no end

This winds me up too. I wanted a drainage job done, and found a local company advertising their services. The owner came over, had a look at the job, then sent me a written quote a few days later. I accepted the quote by return and asked when they could start the job. This was about three months ago, and since then, it's been complete silence.  If you don't want the job, just say so. If you've got too much work on, just say so. Why even bother advertising ? 

7 minutes ago, Supremolad said:

Very good match report. Although, almost half way through reading it, I scrolled back up to check who the author was. Not a slight on you in any way, Paul. Dave's writing style is just unique. And the absence of "my boy" references got me suspecting he wasn't the author!!

 

 

Same here.  I thought Dave had discovered Chat GPT !

Billing has "Philip" on his shirt. Apparently at the start of the season he announced that he wanted to be known only as "Philip" from then on.  The match commentators have responded by relentlessly referring to him as "Billing" ever since.  

On 23/10/2023 at 23:55, CapeRed said:

Are you across the ditch in NZ ?

Sorry mate, I only just saw your question. Yes, we are in New Zealand now, but when we first left England we went to live in Taiwan. We stayed there six years, went back to the UK briefly, then moved to Hong Kong and lived there another eight years. We moved to NZ in 1997. We have no wish to live anywhere but NZ now, but I personally loved living and working in the Far East and still get back there occasionally. 

33 minutes ago, Section_31 said:

 

Him and carragher are only on for the punch and Judy stuff. They know less about football than Paris Hilton.

Great post !  In tears here....

On 21/10/2023 at 00:20, Moo said:

 

I feel ya.

 

 

UK.

Understand your point of view too, but speaking from a country where the government's response to Covid was catastrophic (see current inquiry, ongoing) I can see why people would think that some NZers don't know how lucky they were during that period. 

 

I think I speak for most Kiwis when I say we are extremely grateful we didn't have Boris Johnson or Bolsanaro in charge of New Zealand's handling of the pandemic. However, those guys set a low bar, and it doesn't mean that the Ardern Government's response was particularly good either. 

We emigrated in 1981 and have never looked back. I worked in the manufacturing industry, and after the carnage of the 1970s (and two redundancies) I'd had enough. Fortunately, my wife was fully on board with the decision, which was a major factor. It wasn't all plain sailing, but we have never regretted making the move. 

Either way, Razor will be building a new team. So many of the core players in this current team are nearing the end of their careers, or are heading overseas after this tournament.

Of greater concern is what our mates across the ditch are going to do ? They're hosting the next World Cup, but will clearly need a major upgrade if they want to compete, and I don't think Eddie Jones is the answer. 

6 hours ago, Olddantucker said:

it would be quite an achievement given some of the results over the last 4 years.  Now we are one game away, a game we should win, so we’ll probably bloody lose on Saturday morning. Nothing surprises me with an Ian Foster coached team anymore.

 

i do think Jason Ryan and Joe Schmidt have had a big say in improving the ABs performance this season.

I think Ian Foster is the Gerard Houllier of AB's coaches. I'm hoping that Scott Robertson proves to be the Jurgen Klopp.

3 hours ago, Olddantucker said:

 I don’t agree with this article at all. People in NZ have no clue how lucky they were.

 

we obviously disagree, but that’s cool. I’m going back to wondering I what it means if an Ian Foster coached team makes it into the World Cup final.

Where do you live, Brazil ? 

To your second point, it will be a major achievement, given the AB's ranking and patchy form going into the tournament.  What's your view ? 

3 hours ago, Olddantucker said:

 

There's too much revisionist bollocks being talked about here.  As a Kiwi living overseas I missed two close family funerals due to the border closures and I still say that the NZ Government response was much better than almost everywhere else in the world. 

There's nothing "revisionist" in what I've posted. I've attempted to describe what many Kiwis living in New Zealand felt at the time about the Government's handling of the pandemic from 2021. Of course, the perception from overseas may have been different, which might explain why Jacinda Ardern now has more credibility abroad than she does domestically.

Anyway, don't take my word for it, here is an excerpt from an article posted just a couple of days ago:-

Listener writer Danyl Mclauchlan also cites Covid and failure to deliver on promises: "Hipkins was indirectly responsible for much of his party's decline. He was minister for Covid, and the early phase was a triumph that voters rewarded in 2020. But 2021 saw one of the slowest vaccine rollouts in the OECD after the government failed to negotiate purchase agreements with pharmaceutical companies. The lack of vaccine coverage led to the sustained Auckland lockdown of late 2021, a policy failure that the nation's largest city has punished them for by delivering a number of Labour's safest seats to National. Mt Roskill and New Lynn have fallen, Mt Albert and Te Atatū look set to fall. Hipkins was also minister for health, education, police and public service: all areas in which his government's legacy is questionable at best." 

The full article can be found here if you're interested, but it only echoes much of what was said in the Bryce Edwards article I referenced earlier in the week.  https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/election-2023/500390/the-left-s-postmortem-on-labour-s-defeat

7 hours ago, Bloke said:

 

Link to that info? My old man passed from a cardiac arrest on 2nd September 2020 and the NZ government were an absolute disgrace. There is a reason Jacinta, McGowan and and Andrew's have all quit and it isn't burnout.

Sorry mate, my earlier response was brief to the point of rudeness. I'm very sorry to hear about your loss, and I can't imagine how frustrating it must have been to deal with your Dad's death in the face of the restrictions the Government had put in place. It will be interesting to see the response from expatriate Kiwis when the special votes (for last week's election) are counted. In recent elections, the special votes have generally favoured the left, but there are suggestions that this year will be different as a result of the Government's ham-fisted handling of the pandemic. We should have the answer within the next two weeks, and the result will certainly have an impact on the structure of the new Government. 

3 hours ago, Bloke said:

 

Link to that info? My old man passed from a cardiac arrest on 2nd September 2020 and the NZ government were an absolute disgrace. There is a reason Jacinta, McGowan and and Andrew's have all quit and it isn't burnout.

Spot on. 

35 minutes ago, Olddantucker said:

 

The handling of covid bit makes me laugh. Recent studies show the death toll would have been at least 20,000 more in NZ if handled the pandemic differently.  That's a lot of people when your population is only 5 million.

There was a lot of support for the Government's initial response, and there is no question that their approach kept the death toll down during the first wave.  Resentment started to build when the Government failed to follow up with efficient handling of MIQ, supplies of vaccines, supplies of PPE & RAT tests, and the drawn-out lockdowns.   Of course we are all happy that the death toll was no higher, but the general feeling is that this could have been achieved with much less disruption to people's lives (and less long term damage to the economy) had the response been better organised. 

8 hours ago, VladimirIlyich said:

Any time a Labour government,in the left wing sense of the word,is elected they are constantly put under pressure by the billionaires in the media and anything even slightly Socialist is criticised and fought against with lies and media headlines. This may or may not be the case in NZ. It's like factory workers complaining at their Union reps when their bosses are trying everything on a daily basis to undo or worsen conditions these Reps and workers have to fight for constantly. It is some achievement to be elected in the first place and even bigger one to stay there for a while and try to implement some of the policies that benefit ordinary people. Those people then complain and become blase after constant bombardment from every avenue about how 'bad' that government is,even if they really aren't.

That may be the case in the UK, but it certainly is not the case in New Zealand. The media here, with a few notable exceptions, is generally left-leaning, and Jacinda Ardern's election to her first term as PM in 2017 was greeted with widespread enthusiasm in the mainstream media. Ardern fed this by promising the most open and transparent Government in New Zealand's history.

What we actually got was quite different. The media was carefully managed by the Government. Favoured journalists were treated with special privilege, while dissenting voices were isolated and excluded. This approach culminated in a grant of 55 million dollars of taxpayers money from the Government to fund "public interest" journalism in 2021, which was seen by many at the time as a bribe to keep the media on side.

One unpleasant outcome of this was that Ardern was subjected to a barrage of hateful personal attacks on social media, which may have been partially a consequence of the Government's suppression of criticism via the normal channels.   

9 hours ago, SasaS said:

 

 

Could you link to it please?

Here you go:- https://democracyproject.nz/2023/10/03/bryce-edwards-ten-reasons-labours-support-has-halved/

45 minutes ago, Creator Supreme said:

Sad to see the Kiwis have swung right in the latest election. I don't understand people.

A New Zealand political commentator recently summed up 10 reasons why the Labour Government's support halved in the period leading up to the election, and he correctly predicted Labour's defeat. There is a lot of detail in his article, but the headings are:-

1. Labour's handling of Covid

2. Failure to deliver the promised transformation or even the basics

3. Poor management of the economy

4. Public dissatisfaction with deteriorating public services

5. Failure on tax reform

6. Perception that Labour is arrogant and out of touch

7. Lack of clarity about what Labour believe in

8. Labour's focus on "woke" politics instead of working class politics

9. Labour's radical reinterpretation of the Treaty of Waitangi

10. Labour Minister's integrity scandals

Labour won an outright majority in the 2020 election (a rarity under MMP) and thus had a historic opportunity to achieve many of the things you would expect a Labour government to implement, but they clearly failed to do so. Their left wing support has defected to the Greens, and their support in the centre has swung right.  

Maguire's comparing himself to Beckham now.  Goodison beckons. 

To HL's point:-

Genevieve

Zulu

The Great Escape

Every Christmas, without fail. 

5 hours ago, dave u said:

Should have mentioned this in the report but I forgot. Simon Hooper had a good game. I'm quick enough to slag them off so credit where it's due.

Totally agree. He was virtually invisible, as a good ref should be, yet was always in control of the game. 

This may have been mentioned elsewhere, but Diaz deserves huge respect for the way he handled being subbed after Virgil was sent off. Diaz must have been massively disappointed and frustrated, but he kept his feelings to himself and  congratulated Darwin at the end of the game. 

Surprised to see Robbo's name in the list of "non home grown" players there.