Three quotes

Without yet again exercising my Eeyore characteristics – that is, being dour about everything I read – I have to say that the following paragraph in today’s Otago Daily Times surely serves as a good example of gobbledegook:

In her detailed 324-page report commissioned by the council, [Jackie Gillies] said additions to the exterior of the town hall would need to be ‘extremely carefully considered in order to avoid detracting from both the bulk appearance of the building and/or the rhythm provided by the articulation and placing of the openings on all facades.’ It’s hardly surprising it took Ms Gillies 324 pages to write her report. 

In another place (in the now defunct Dunedin freebie newspaper, Deadline), I found this piece of rather unsubstantiated journalism: I agree with his sentiments on the stupidity of NZ’s marijuana laws, which are (as far as I can make out), principally there because some Christian nut-job blackmailed the government into backing away from the reforms recommended by their own legal and medical experts. ‘some Christian nut-job blackmailed the government’ – oh, puleese, Mr Ben Vidgen. If the Closed Brethren couldn’t change the way a party thought by using a heck of a lot of money, I don’t personally think that any Christian nut-job (whatever that may actually be in real life) could blackmail the government. But then again, maybe I’m as wrong as I think you are! 

 

And the last of my quotes today is this paragraph from a wonderful piece of humorous writing by David Hill, whose fairly regular pieces in the ODT opinion pages are invariably a delight to read. He’s talking about walk shorts, those wonderful pieces of menswear that were fashionable in the 70s (and still are, in some circles). I still have those walk-shorts. Partly this is because men bond much more with their clothing than women do. Those who claim Anglo-Saxon males aren’t capable of deep emotional attachment have never seen a man trying to throw out a 12-year-old T-shirt. I can empathise entirely with this: I’ll wear clothes until they’re practically falling apart, if they’ve been something I enjoy wearing. I don’t like to part with clothes until I’ve got my last ounce of wear out of them, for one thing, but equally I hate trying out new clothes. 

You can read Hill’s piece here. The Otago Daily Time’s approach to archiving older material is much improved from the time I wrote this post. (You can now find some of my book reviews there along with other bits of writing.)

 

Photo of (one bit of) the Dunedin Town Hall by bronzebrew, on Flickr.com

This post was updated on the 12.10.20 due to various links being out of date.