A while back Dean Parker wrote this and for some reason it keeps springing back to mind. I don't know why. No, really ... If you haven't already read it, you must.

I also came across this full text of Samuel Johnson's Life of Savage, which is brilliant - and free! Declared a bastard at birth by Act of Parliament and harassed by his mother, to the point where she tried to see him hanged, he died in a poorhouse after his friends failed to deliver on promises of a pension. A classic loser's tale told with the utmost sympathy.

Finally Dion Tuuta's Hot Night in a Small Town, the story of a relatively small treaty claim by Ngati Mutunga in Taranaki, is a refreshingly honest reflection on how the Maori and Pakeha communities in New Zealand relate, or rather how they fail to relate.

Oh, and a gratuitous pic of Scarlett, who at the first NZBC board meeting in 28 years a few nights ago was unanimously elected our blog muse.