Heady questions to ponder while driving through Hamilton
CURMUDGEON - BY KARL DU FRESNE
Relevant offers
Comment
OPINION: Vital questions for our times (the latest in an occasional series):
* Had a gutsful of silly cooking programmes on prime-time television?
* Has there ever been a less flattering male fashion than three-quarter pants?
* Does John Minto's haranguing of a lone Israeli tennis player mark the final phase of his gradual descent into terminal obsessive-compulsive protest disorder?
* Tired of being bombarded with heartrending images of forlorn- looking polar bears apparently marooned on ice floes?
* Why do birds make a point of defecating on newly washed cars? Have they got something against us?
* Had enough Jane bloody Austen to last a lifetime?
* Tired of things being "rolled out" and "signed off"? Whatever happened to words like "introduced" and "approved"?
* Still waiting for Radio New Zealand's Mediawatch to apply some tough critical scrutiny to Radio New Zealand?
* Has a single life been saved by all those expensive road safety ads on television?
* Where is this New Zealand city referred to by radio and TV reporters as Nowson?
* Is this the only country in the world where people say "yeah no"?
* When did the comedian known as Te Radar last say something funny? Seen enough alarmist images in the media of ice breaking off glaciers and icebergs, as if this confirms impending climate catastrophe?
* How many Fulton Hogan trucks does it take to mow a highway verge? (I recently counted four. Can anyone top that?)
* Would you feel your life had been wasted if you died never having seen an episode of Outrageous Fortune?
* Geoff Robinson and Sean Plunket on Radio NZ's Morning Report - the classic good cop-bad cop combo?
* Ever get the unsettling feeling that Treaty claims are rubber- stamped rather than subjected to rigorous testing?
* Shouldn't we all be grateful that New Zealand was colonised by poetic folk who left us a rich heritage of imaginative names like the North Island, the South Island, Northland, Westland and Southland?
* Had enough of Susan Boyle?
* Does anyone in NZ have discussions around the water cooler, as frequently claimed by various commentators?
* Has anyone calculated the increased likelihood of a child dying young if it has an unpronounceable, bizarrely spelt name that no-one has heard before?
* Was there ever a more lightweight foreign correspondent than TV3's simpering Kim Chisnall?
* Is the Nobel Peace Prize now so politicised that it has lost all credibility?
* Has anyone been able to keep track of the 137 options (at last count) for new highway routes though the Kapiti Coast?
* Now that summer has joined spring as a season of vilely unpredictable weather, why would any overseas tourist risk coming here?
* Is bowls the only sport, apart from sumo wrestling, in which overweight men can hold their own?
* Why doesn't the letter "u" come after "q" in the alphabet, just like it does everywhere else?
* Given that passenger aircraft are now so sophisticated they barely need a pilot, how come none of them have decent PA systems?
* Who are Health Minister Tony Ryall's fashion advisers, and why do they hate him so much?
* Can anyone think of a good reason why the head of the Transport Agency, arguably one of the least impressive government departments, should be our highest- paid public servant?
* Come to that, can anyone think what 221 other Transport Agency staff have done to earn annual salaries of $100,000-plus?
* Global warming - a modern form of religious mania?
* Is there any crime more reprehensible than stealing family pets and using them for dogfighting? (Well, of course there are - but not many.)
* Ever found yourself grappling in a hotel shower with a slippery shampoo sachet that was impossible to open, other than with your teeth?
* Can't Americans accomplish anything without whooping and hollering?
* Tired of TV news bulletins crossing to tongue-tied journalists reporting "live" from a scene where something happened several hours before?
* Does anyone still own a waterbed? More to the point, are they prepared to admit it?
* Eaten in a snooty restaurant lately where the waiting staff behaved as if they were doing you a favour by serving you?
* Still sitting on a stockpile of Tamiflu?
* Is Hamilton the world's most boring city to drive through?
* What would Ena Sharples make of the current inhabitants of Coronation Street?
* How come a polo shirt doesn't have a polo neck?
* Isn't it time the silly expressions "gobsmacked", "blown away" and "to die for" were retired?
* How come so many sickness beneficiaries are fit enough to assault people and break into houses?
* Who on earth buys those expensive watches with faces cluttered by so many dials and numbers that it's impossible to tell the time?
* Why do so many upper-class Englishmen stammer? Do they teach it at Eton?
- © Fairfax NZ News
Sponsored links
Newest First
Oldest First
Nigel Latta speaks with tongue in cheek of the social disadvantages of children being given made up, bizarrely-spelled names. If I remember correctly he thought research money should be spent on seeing if there is a correlation between the child being so-named and abuse, learning difficulties, later deliquency or worse. Early death? Judging by what's been going on over the last few years I would say certainly - seems to go hand in hand.
To answer your questions: Yes, yes (MC Hammer trousers), possibly, not particularly, of course not, no – don’t forget the Austin zombie thing, yep, absolutely, probably, west of Beenheem, probably not, dunno – don’t care, 427, hell yes, you can’t get more of a classic combo that that, not really, haven’t really thought of that but often wondered what would have happened if the Frogs beat the Brits, I’d had enough of Simon Cowles before Boyle came along, nope, no there’s not, yes it has, no, because they can – and they do, no – darts, because it doesn’t, because he’s Tony Ryall, no, nada, I’d say it’s more a manifestation of our rampant polluting, of course there are, no, very occasionally – yes, very much so to the point where I find the TV news rather nauseating and amateurish, I’d sincerely hope not, not lately, no, I wouldn’t qualify Hamilton as a city – more of a gathering of bogans – but yes it is the world’s most boring city to drive through, get a Ouija board and ask her yourself, because they don’t, tell that to the Dominion Post subeditors, what else is there to do? people with too much money, It’s possibly what happens after generations of inbreeding.
Absolutely brilliant column.
Good stuff- I am with you in the fight against those ridiculous short/longs; perhaps our third rate reporters should be forced to wear them as they trundle out tired and trite cliches and stock phrases.
In Italy we say "sì, no". It took the Nineties by storm, somehow.
In South Africa, they say Ja-Nee.
Did you consider stopping the car in Hamilton, having a meal and maybe a break to stretch your legs with a walk around the gardens, or the Lake, or the along the River, or into city itself instead of judging the town on its by-pass?
It would have put you in a better mood.
¨Seen enough alarmist images in the media of ice breaking off glaciers and icebergs, as if this confirms impending climate catastrophe?¨ Er, what then do shrinking polar icecaps signify to you? I live in the Patagonian desert, so no risk of an inundation here (however slowly it may creep up on us, a few decades is nothing in geoclimactic terms) - where do you live? More to the point, where will your grandchildren live? On an island, with a poetic or not-so-poetic name? Why do people still deny that the climate is changing, when we are all prepared to whinge every summer about how the weather never used to be this bad? Just because you won't live to see it doesn't mean it won't be catastrophic for somebody.
Had enough of lazy columnists who string together nonsensical comments instead of writing a real column?
All Wellington bus routes to change
Waka fills with water on Wellington Harbour
One News investigated in police probe
Man dies after being told of arrest
Small 3.9 earthquake wobbles Wellington
Fine owners over poo, say residents
Elderly woman's body found at Scorching Bay
Boy, 3, plucked from water tank
Connolly to play Hobbit great dwarf
Paraparaumu man admits cheating ACC
All Blacks stars of the show at Halberg Awards
Company claims CTV building report 'inadequate'
TVNZ included in police Electoral Act investigation
Tourist alleges police brutality
McCullum leads NZ to easy win over Zimbabwe
Waka capsizes in Wellington Harbour
Milk price inquiry to continue
Website attacks motivated by politics
Another ocean giant meets a tragic end
Kiwi game industry worth more than $179.6m
Week-long strike looms for port
Popular app's CEO apologises over privacy bungle
Lake Horowhenua toxic enough to kill a child
Small 3.9 earthquake wobbles Wellington
All Wellington bus routes to change
Elderly woman's body found at Scorching Bay
Graphics: Proposed Wellington bus routes
Man dies after being told of arrest
Waka fills with water on Wellington Harbour
One News investigated in police probe
Distinct NZ English good as gold
Do you think Kiwis are hard to understand?
Aren't some of the weirder names we see a result of semi-literate parents getting the spelling wrong? More importantly, why do so many Maori have Spanish names?