Column Comment
A most irregular column
The new Metro is good, isn’t it. “Barney’s rubble” is a great cover line for the Pavement story, and it’s a great story by Simon Farrell-Green.
Graeme Hunt has an excellent map of Waiheke Island showing where the rich people live. Frances – not Fran – Walsh has a good story taking a different tack from North & South's on Wither Hills and the wine competitions, with a sidebar in which Simon Wilson explains what a good editor of Cuisine he was but the publisher just didn’t understand. He may well be right. But usually publishers are – they pay for the Piper-Heidsieck, so they call the tune.
And it’s nice – but sad – to see an obituary for Georg Kohlap. I didn’t know him well but adored him. Plus, he got Warwick Roger and William Chen to do his bidding. Not many people can say that.
The Listener has been good recently – I can’t understand the 11% drop in circulation. Can you? – but this week’s issue has a dreadful cover, possibly the worst ever. The typography is all to hell, and look at this:
But wait, there’s more. On pages 12-13 there’s an interview with Paolo Rotondo, who’s such a nice bloke that they shouldn't have let him say in print that “Maori and Italians have both got a disrespect for authority because of colonisation.” When was the last time the Italians got colonised? The Greeks did them over about a couple of millennia ago and Napoleon had a crack later. But in between there was a little thing called the Roman Empire, and much later there was Abyssinia. A bit more out-colonising than in-colonising there. What’s the Maori for “bollocks”?
Which brings us to Philip Matthews. He’s a terrific writer but he does like to let us know that he’s, you know, politically okay. In the TV Films section, he starts on The Hollow Man with “Not the long-awaited Don Brash biopic…” Yee-es.
Next, his review of the 2004 remake of Around the World in 80 Days opens, “The standard version of this Jules Verne fantasy contraption might still be the 1956 version in which David Niven played Phileas Fogg; certainly, it seemed an easier film to make in the fading days of empire (wasn’t 1956 also the year of the Suez crisis?) than now.”
I won’t quibble about that semi-colon, though others might. And I won’t quibble about 1956 being the year of the Suez crisis. But this is an American film, released in 1956 hence almost certainly shot in 1955 at the latest ie before the Suez crisis – which America stopped by making England, France and Israel back off. So what is the point of mentioning it? Something to do with Iraq, I suppose, ie nothing to do with the fucking film.
The new Metro is good, isn’t it. “Barney’s rubble” is a great cover line for the Pavement story, and it’s a great story by Simon Farrell-Green.
Graeme Hunt has an excellent map of Waiheke Island showing where the rich people live. Frances – not Fran – Walsh has a good story taking a different tack from North & South's on Wither Hills and the wine competitions, with a sidebar in which Simon Wilson explains what a good editor of Cuisine he was but the publisher just didn’t understand. He may well be right. But usually publishers are – they pay for the Piper-Heidsieck, so they call the tune.
And it’s nice – but sad – to see an obituary for Georg Kohlap. I didn’t know him well but adored him. Plus, he got Warwick Roger and William Chen to do his bidding. Not many people can say that.
The Listener has been good recently – I can’t understand the 11% drop in circulation. Can you? – but this week’s issue has a dreadful cover, possibly the worst ever. The typography is all to hell, and look at this:
Will the warWrong in so many ways, but here’s two: you want the phrase “climate change” to be readable, and “change kill” is just daft. Designed by a designer and proof-read by nobody. Or so one hopes.
on climate
change kill
our trade
& tourism?
But wait, there’s more. On pages 12-13 there’s an interview with Paolo Rotondo, who’s such a nice bloke that they shouldn't have let him say in print that “Maori and Italians have both got a disrespect for authority because of colonisation.” When was the last time the Italians got colonised? The Greeks did them over about a couple of millennia ago and Napoleon had a crack later. But in between there was a little thing called the Roman Empire, and much later there was Abyssinia. A bit more out-colonising than in-colonising there. What’s the Maori for “bollocks”?
Which brings us to Philip Matthews. He’s a terrific writer but he does like to let us know that he’s, you know, politically okay. In the TV Films section, he starts on The Hollow Man with “Not the long-awaited Don Brash biopic…” Yee-es.
Next, his review of the 2004 remake of Around the World in 80 Days opens, “The standard version of this Jules Verne fantasy contraption might still be the 1956 version in which David Niven played Phileas Fogg; certainly, it seemed an easier film to make in the fading days of empire (wasn’t 1956 also the year of the Suez crisis?) than now.”
I won’t quibble about that semi-colon, though others might. And I won’t quibble about 1956 being the year of the Suez crisis. But this is an American film, released in 1956 hence almost certainly shot in 1955 at the latest ie before the Suez crisis – which America stopped by making England, France and Israel back off. So what is the point of mentioning it? Something to do with Iraq, I suppose, ie nothing to do with the fucking film.
posted by Stephen Stratford at 10:22 PM
9 Comments:
It has dropped by 11% because of Joanne Black, who is an odious women, and an awful writer.
At least that is why I have cancelled my sub.
I cancelled mine not specifically because of Black (though I can only read so much about her trips to Thorndon New World) but because of the post Nicky Hager coverage.
Clifton's spin (nothing to see here, business as usual in politics, don'tchaknow) and Black's panegyric on Key were both woefully biased, and the editor (I use that term loosely) declined to print disclosures next to either piece.
Clifton & McCully and Black's husband being Key's senior advisor. Just. Plain. Shoddy.
Ed - Clifton and McCully are no longer. Haven't been for some time.
Do keep up.
...then she should have really put the knife in.
Clifton has always been a good political commentator, despite shacking up with McCully...
But as for Joanne Black, I did not know that, but I'm not surprised, she just smacks of a whinging, right-wing, KKK (Khandallah, Kelburn, other suburb) housewife
Quite right. The Listener shouldn't employ anyone who is not a member of the Labour party or the Greens. Diversity of opinion is all very well, but it must be responsible and appropriate diversity.
Well I like Joanne Black's stuff - her reporting is solid and her column is amusing to this reader who isn't a KKK housewife. Mind you, I'm a Mt Eden semi-househusband which may be the same thing.
And I bet the 11% drop in circulation or was it readership is because for the last year the mag hasn't had a proper dedicated publisher. It has one now, so it will be interesting to see the next survey results.
Yes Metro has definitely got better, but there was a big hole in the Pavement story - why did Barney have to get a new set of teeth last year? I think we should be told.
The Listener started to tank when the mealy-mouthed Pamela Stirling got her paws on it.
"According to focus groups, readers want less things to read."*
*a direct quote from the woman herself.
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home