Brian Viner

The names have been changed to protect the innocent – me.

"Darling, let’s dine out'' said my social organiser, putting to one side her Sky Sports magazine with the picture of John Key on the cover.

"Ok" I said, being an compliant, easy going, free spending sort of person and wondering if she is talking to me. Is that multi tasking?

“Where do you think we should go?” - Shall I add ‘my love’? – yes, well it’s taking a chance I know...

Colin James

Last year's budget stumbled on education. Class sizes were to rise to pay for more professional training of teachers. Middle class parents killed that. Bill English beat a humiliating retreat.

The policy came from the Treasury which had latched on to a germ of an idea. The public was not led through the argument so Hekia Parata's hospital pass was to sell the unsellable.

Chris Horan

UNESCO is the only UN agency with a specific mandate to defend freedom of expression and press freedom and earlier this month was carrying out that remit locally.   

On May 3, World Press Freedom Day, Professor Mark Pearson from Griffith University in Australia, was in the city to speak at UNESCO’s inaugural  Freedom of Expression lecture at AUT University.

So too was Auckland human rights lawyer and occasional Kiwiboomers columnist Tim McBride, who introduced the lecture. World Press Freedom Day is growing in significance and the reason is simple: the increasing number of serious assaults, killings and worst - the murders of  journalists around the world. 

Brian Viner

So what has happened in the past couple of weeks?

Maggie's gone for a start. Margaret Thatcher that is. Maggie to her friends and I am sure she would have counted me as a friend if we had ever met. Which we didn't, so she would have counted me as an enemy, like all people she never met.

Now Maggie was either loved or hated in her own country. Mostly hated. Which I consider most unfair. Maggie has never received the credit for what she has done for the British handbag.

• At home with her age
• How words commonly used on the Net evolved
• Wage cuts and cuppa cuts
• The Boston bombings
• A little medical mayhem

Balance is the thing. Not optimism or pessimism but realism. Representing the world accurately. But unfortunately as individuals we seem divided between optimists who think it unseemly to mention unpleasant truths and pessimists who ignore all the positive activities that are going on. See media news for the latter view of the world, probably because it’s more exciting than feel-good news. Doom and gloom is the daily message: the world is going to hell, and quickly.

Strokestown House is a Palladian-style 18th-century mansion, with all its original furnishings.

It speaks of the landed gentry, and behind it is a fully restored 2.4ha walled garden which, in the right season, is a floriferous delight.

Read more...

http://www.elsewhere.co.nz/travelstories/4737/strokestown-park-republic-of-ireland-a-feast-for-the-historian/

Graham Reid

We are about 20 miles south of coastal Cooktown in the far north of Australia when we pull off the main highway onto a side road. I glance at my map and notice a place name further down this less traveled route: The Jump Up, just past Wajul Wajul.

I have to ask.

Dean laughs.

“You'll know why when we get there. Anywhere out here where the road goes up to another level really quickly is a jump up. This one has about a one-to-three gradient.”

I'm doing the picture in my head of what that might look like – scary is my first thought…

• George Wilder escapes from prison
• NZ nurses detained on way to Spanish Civil War
• Attempted hijacking in Fiji foiled
• NZ's first sheep released
• First NZ Rugby team in action
• Parliament's first sitting in Auckland
• Bastion Point protestors evicted
• Fingerprints help convict murderer
• Auckland harbour bridge opened

An A-Z of  New Zealand traditions & Folklore by Gordon Ell                

(Published  by New Holland)

The Back Blocks

The ‘back blocks’ of land lay behind those front blocks of farmland which were handier to roads or railways lines in pioneer times. They are a relative of the back country, which lay in the hills behind the more accessible home farms.

The Back of Beyond

Traditionally this is as far inland as a man might go, though many were accompanied by their women in pioneer days. Such isolation is known to Australians as ‘The Back o’ Bourke’ or ‘Beyond the Black Stump’. In New Zealand, folk are more likely to be ‘Up the Boo-ai’.

Paul Smith