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The Persuader
My personal blog, started in 2006. No paid or guest posts, no link sales.
Posts tagged ‘COVID-19’
03.12.2021
Our governmentâs response to COVID-19 has been better than many nationsâ, but it is far from perfect, as Ian Powell points out in a well reasoned blog post, and in his article for Business Desk. Itâs backed up by a piece by Marc Daalder for Newsroom. To me, Powellâs piece makes a great deal of sense, and for those who feel the new system feels, instinctively, politically driven, then they are right. He says, inter alia:
At the time I thought that the traffic lights system had been initiated by the Ministry of Health (experts outside the Ministry were not supportive). Subsequently, however, according to senior Health Ministry officials privately, it came from the Prime Ministerâs department.
This helps explain the working it out as you go along approach that is causing confusion among many. Jacinda Ardernâs claim of the system being world leading is overcooked.
He cites Daalder, who writes:
While the outbreak was expected to have a long tail, the Government fully intended to return to zero cases and even to maintain an elimination status after reopening the borders in 2022.
Just two weeks later, Cabinet threw in the towel on elimination.
We know that the government is working on overdrive through this whole pandemic, but it seems there are areas where the experts are being overridden.
But what does our opposition do? Instead of firing at the targets that Powell and Daalder have helpfully revealed, new leader Christopher Luxon repeats the ad nauseam cries of his predecessors to open up, to put Auckland into the âgreenâ. Any expectation that National had found pragmatism with its new leadership vanished in smoke mere days after Luxon took the helm.
This is the identical complaint I have over Sir Phony Blair over in the UK with not only missing the targets painted on the Tories by themselves, but turning 180 degrees and firing the other way.
We need an opposition that holds a government to account but it seems Luxon, who bafflingly refers to Simon Bridges as having âintellectual heftâ, might be yet another ideologue, importing more of the same but in more hidden, calm language than his predecessor.
Are there any pragmatists left in politics, or is everyone following ideology these days?
Tags: 2021, Aotearoa, Auckland, blogosphere, COVID-19, health, Labour, media, National Party, New Zealand, Newsroom, pandemic, politics, TÄmaki Makaurau Posted in media, New Zealand, politics | No Comments »
01.12.2021
Here are December 2021âs imagesâaides-mĂ©moires, photos of interest, and miscellaneous items. I append to this gallery through the month.
Notes
Roger Moore and Ford Fiesta Mk I, via George Cochrane on Twitter.
More on the Volkswagen Fox in Autocade.
More on the Ford Consul Corsair at Autocade.
The Guardian article excerpt, full story here.
The devil drives Kia? Reposted from Twitter.
Audi maths on an A3, via Richard Porteous on Twitter.
Christmas decoration, via Rob Ritchie on Twitter.
Back to the â70s: Holden Sandman used for Panhead Sandman craft beer promotions.
GeorgiaâPacific panelling promotions, 1968, via Wendy O’Rourke on Twitter.
Ford Cortina Mk II US advertisement via the Car Factoids on Twitter.
Bridal fashion by Luna Novias, recently featured in Lucire.
Deborah Grant in UFO, with the VWâPorsche 914, which would have looked very modern at the time.
Freeze frame from episode 1 of The Champions (1968), with William Gaunt, Stuart Damon and Alexandra Bastedo.
Our rejected greeting card design, with a picture shot at Oriental Parade, Wellington.
Ford Taunus GT brochure spread via the Car Factoids on Twitter.
My Daddy Is a Giant image and UK measures, reposted from Twitter.
Richard Nixon attempts to appeal to younger voters, 1972. Simple, modernist design using Futura Bold.
A 1983 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am advertisement.
Mazda Savanna brochure via George Cochrane on Twitter.
More on the Renault Mégane E-Tech Electric in Autocade.
Lucire issue 44 cover, photographed by Lindsay Adler, layout by me.
Tags: 1960s, 1963, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1970s, 1971, 1972, 1980s, 1983, 1988, 2000s, 2006, 2021, actor, actress, advertising, Aotearoa, Audi, book, Brazil, car, celebrity, Christmas, COVID-19, design, election, electric cars, fashion, fashion magazine, film, Ford, GeorgiaâPacific, GM, graphic design, Holden, humour, ITC, Japan, JY&A Media, Kia, Lindsay Adler, Lucire, magazine, marketing, Mazda, media, modernism, New Zealand, newspaper, Norway, photography, politics, Pontiac, Porsche, Renault, Roger Moore, The Guardian, TV, Twitter, typography, UK, USA, Volkswagen, Wellington, Whanganui-a-Tara Posted in cars, culture, design, gallery, humour, interests, media, New Zealand, politics, publishing, TV, typography, UK, USA, Wellington | No Comments »
01.10.2021
Here are October 2021âs imagesâaides-mĂ©moires, photos of interest, and miscellaneous items. I append to this gallery through the month. Might have to be our Instagram replacement!
Notes
Chrysler’s finest? The 300M rates as one of my favourites.
The original cast of Hustle, one of my favourite 2000s series.
Boris Johnson ‘wage growth’ quotationâwhat matters to a eugenicist isn’t human life, after all. Reposted from Twitter.
For our wonderful niece Esme, a Lego airport set. It is an uncle and aunt’s duty to get decent Lego. My parents got me a great set (Lego 40) when I was six, so getting one at four is a real treat!
Publicity still of Barbara Bach in The Spy Who Loved Me. Reposted from Twitter.
Koala reposted from Twitter.
Photostat of an advertisement in a 1989 issue of the London Review of Books, which my friend Philip’s father lent me. I copied a bunch of pages for some homework. I have since reused a lot of the backs of those pages, but for some reason this 1989 layout intrigued me. It’s very period.
Fiat brochure for Belgium, 1970, with the 128 taking pride of place, and looking far more modern than lesser models in the range.
John Lewis Christmas 2016 parody ad still, reposted from Twitter.
More on the Triumph Mk II at Autocade. Reposted from Car Brochure Addict on Twitter.
The origins of the Lucire trade mark, as told to Amanda’s cousin in an email.
More on the Kenmeri Nissan Skyline at Autocade.
Renault Talisman interior and exterior for the facelifted model.
The original 1971 Lamborghini Countach LP500 by Bertone show car. Read more in Lucire.
More on the Audi A2 in Autocade.
Tags: 1960s, 1967, 1970, 1970s, 1971, 1977, 1980s, 1989, 2000, 2000s, 2014, 2016, 2019, 2020, 2021, actors, actress, advertisement, advertising, Alarm fĂŒr Cobra 11: die Autobahnpolizei, Audi, Audrey Hepburn, Australia, Autocade, BBC, Belgium, Bertone, Boris Johnson, British Leyland, car, celebrity, China, Chrysler, COVID-19, design, email, England, Eon Productions, family, Fiat, film, friends, futurism, GenĂšve, Germany, graphic design, high-tech, Hong Kong, humour, Hustle, Italy, James Bond, JY&A Media, Lamborghini, law, Lego, London Review of Books, Lucire, Marcello Gandini, marketing, media, Nissan, parody, politics, Red China, Renault, retro, RTL, science fiction, Scotland, Switzerland, technology, toy, trade mark, Triumph, TV, Twitter, typography, UK, USA, Volkswagen Posted in cars, China, culture, design, gallery, Hong Kong, humour, interests, marketing, media, politics, TV, UK, USA | No Comments »
11.08.2021
Here are August 2021âs imagesâaides-mĂ©moires, photos of interest, and miscellaneous items. I append to this gallery through the month.
Sources
Volkswagen Gol G4âmore at Autocade.
The fake friends of social media being the junk food equivalent of real friendships, from this post by Umair Haque.
Stay at home, wear a maskâgeek humour shared from Twitter.
Thaikila swimwearâseems to have an interesting history.
More on the Fiat 124 Sport Spider here at Autocade.
Jerry Inzerillo, first male on the cover of an issue of Lucire anywhere in the world, in this case the August 2021 issue of Lucire KSA. The story can be found here on our website.
Tags: 1960s, 1970s, 1990s, 2000, 2010s, 2011, 2021, actor, advertisement, advertising, Bali, Brazil, business, car, celebrity, COVID-19, culture, fashion, fashion magazine, Fiat, Ford, France, Google, humour, Indonesia, internet, Jerry Inzerillo, Lucire, Lucire KSA, magazine, Mazda, newspaper, Otosan, prediction, publishing, Renault, Sean Connery, society, Turkey, Twitter, UK, Umair Haque, USA, Volkswagen Posted in business, cars, culture, gallery, internet, publishing, USA, Wellington | No Comments »
12.07.2021
This thread echoes what a lot of us feel in New Zealand when we see intentional misinformation on Twitter, possibly from the US. I answered back to one of these parties over the weekend, as did many, to see us all branded as ‘the left’ (I suppose if your politics are eugenics-led libertarianism, everyone is ‘the left’), while another “journalist” claimed that anyone who did so were part of a government op using taxpayer dollars (to which some of us asked, ‘Where’s my cheque?’). Folks, sometimes you just have to look at the evidenceâdo I believe the first-hand accounts of people I know plus what I myself observe, or the one single case you’ve hand-picked or the one single out-of-context quote you’ve intentionally misrepresented?
While this explains what the foreign agenda are, it makes you wonder why certain media talking heads in this country, usually ones who work for foreign-owned news outlets, would be just as keen to sell us out. A lack of patriotism, a lack of perspective, a lack of ethics, or just a lack of bollocks?
Tags: 2021, Aotearoa, COVID-19, deception, media, New Zealand, social media, Twitter, USA Posted in internet, New Zealand, politics, USA | No Comments »
10.07.2021
At the beginning of July I noticed Facebook had changed its reporting options. Gone is the option labelled âFake accountâ, replaced by âHarmful or spamâ. Itâs a small change that, I believe, is designed to get Facebook off the hook for failing to remove fake accounts: since you canât report them, then you canât say theyâve failed to take them down.

Except, if you choose âHarmful or spamâ, Facebook does acknowledge that your report is for a fake account:

Of course theyâre harmful. Harmful to us regular people who have to pay more and more money to reach our human supporters since the fakes command an increasing amount of fans on our pages, for instance. It isnât harmful for Facebookâs revenue or Zuckerbergâs wealth. So it really depends how you define harmful; one would imagine that a competent court would define it from a consumerâs point of view.
Their new group policy, where Facebook has also given up against the bot epidemic, letting fake accounts join public groups, is a disaster. As you can see, the majority of new members to one group I overseeâand where I usually get tips to new bot accountsâare fakes. They’ve used scripts to join. It’s a bit of a giveaway when there are brand-new accounts joining groups before they’ve even made friends. The legit names have been pixellated; the fakes I’ve left for you to see.

It’s not as bad as, say, giving up on the people who elected you to run the country and letting COVID-19 do whatever it wants, killing citizens in the process. But it comes from the same dark place of putting people second and lining your pockets firstâMark Zuckerberg does it, Robert Mugabe did it, etc. Distract and plunder.
In The Guardian:
Boris Johnson will revoke hundreds of Covid regulations and make England the most unrestricted society in Europe from 19 July despite saying new cases could soar to 50,000 a day before masks and social distancing are ditched.
In fact, one Tweeter jokingly showed his interpretation of the UK’s COVID alert levels:

On this, let our own Prof Michael Baker have the last word. Also in The Guardian, which I shared three days ago on Mastodon:
Baker said public health professionals were âdisturbedâ by the UKâs return to allowing Covid to circulate unchecked, and that the phrase âliving with itâ was a âmeaningless sloganâ that failed to communicate the consequences of millions of infections, or the alternative options for managing the virus.
âWe often absorb a lot of our rhetoric from Europe and North America, which have really managed the pandemic very badly,â he said. âI donât think we should necessarily follow or accept Boris Johnson and co saying: âOh, we have to learn to live with virus.â
âWe always have to be a bit sceptical about learning lessons from countries that have failed very badly.â
We really need to be confident of our own position on this. There are too many, especially those propelled by foreign forces with their friends in the foreign-owned media, advocating that we follow other Anglophone countriesâprobably because they lack either intelligence, imagination, pride, or empathy. I’ve spent a good part of my career saying, ‘Why should we follow when we can lead?’
Tags: 2021, Aotearoa, Big Tech, Boris Johnson, COVID-19, deception, epidemiology, Facebook, leadership, media, Michael Baker, New Zealand, newspaper, pandemic, politics, social media, The Guardian, UK Posted in business, internet, leadership, media, New Zealand, politics, UK, USA | No Comments »
02.07.2021
Here are July 2021âs imagesâaides-mĂ©moires, photos of interest, and miscellaneous items. I append to this gallery through the month.
Sources
Star Trek: 1999 reposted from Alex on NewTumbl. Didn’t Star Trek and Space: 1999 share a producer?
Publicity shot for French actress Manon Azem, from Section de recherches.
Charlie Chaplin got there first with this meme. Reposted from Twitter.
I realize the history page in Lucire KSA for July 2021 suggests that you need a four-letter surname to work for Lucire.
The 1981 Morris Ital two-doorâsold only as a low-spec 1·3 for export. Reposted from the Car Factoids on Twitter.
Ford Capri 1300 double-page spread, reposted from the Car Factoids on Twitter.
Alexa Breit photographed by Felix Graf, reposted from Instagram.
South America relief map, reposted from Twitter.
From the Alarm fĂŒr Cobra 11: die Autobahnpolizei episode ‘Abflug’, to air July 29, 2021. RTL publicity photo.
Lucireâs Festival de Cannes coverage can be found here. Photo courtesy L’OrĂ©al Paris.
Last of the Ford Vedette wagons, as the Simca Jangada in Brazil, for the 1967 model year. The facelift later that year saw to the wagon’s demise.
Ford Consul advertisement in Germany, announcing the 17M’s successor. Interesting that the fastback, so often referred to as a coupĂ©, is captioned as a two-door saloon, even though Ford did launch a “standard” two-door. More on the Consul in Autocade here. Image from the Car Factoids on Twitter.
Tags: 1910s, 1960s, 1966, 1967, 1970s, 1972, 1980s, 1981, 2010s, 2020, 2021, actor, actress, advertisement, advertising, Alarm fĂŒr Cobra 11: die Autobahnpolizei, BL, Brazil, Cannes, car, cartography, celebrity, Charlie Chaplin, China, Chrysler, COVID-19, culture, electric cars, Facebook, film, Ford, France, Geely, Germany, history, humour, Lucire, Lucire KSA, media, Mercedes-Benz, modelling, newspaper, parody, popular culture, privacy, publishing, retro, RTL, South America, Sweden, TV, Twitter, UK, USA, Volvo Posted in cars, China, culture, design, France, gallery, humour, internet, marketing, New Zealand, publishing, Sweden, technology, TV, UK, USA | No Comments »
29.06.2021
I havenât done one of these since February, where I look at the COVID-19 positivity rates of selected countries. The arrows indicate the direction of change since that post. Happily, I imagine with the vaccine roll-outs, we are seeing drops, though there is a new wave in Taiwan, contributing to a rise; other territories showing rises are Brazil, India, Germany, and South Korea.
Brazil 34·67% â
Sweden 10·06% â
India 7·43% â
Spain 7·20% â
USA 6·84% â
France 6·21% â
Italy 5·98% â
Germany 5·85% â
Russia 3·68% â
UK 2·26% â
KSA 2·23% â
South Korea 1·48% â
Taiwan 0·67% â
Singapore 0·47% â
Australia 0·15% â
New Zealand 0·12% â
Hong Kong 0·07% â
This is also a good time to remind people of a Toot that was liked and shared quite a few times on Mastodon. For me, itâs a record.
As Umair Haque put it (original emphases):
Its creators â researchers â pledged to make it open source, available to manufacture and develop anywhere. After all, this was a global pandemic. And yet â with some helpful intervention from Bill Gates â the Oxford vaccine was privatized. Given exclusively to AstraZeneca, Britainâs key pharmaceutical corporation.
So instead of vaccinating the world â or at least helping the world get vaccinated â Britain engaged in the stupid, selfish game of vaccine nationalism. It kept its newly privatised vaccine for itself. It prevented even Europe from having the Oxford vaccine. What was being selfish about a vaccine going to do? Breed vaccine resistance.
In India, meanwhile, there werenât enough vaccines available. So Covid mutated and mutated, until new mutations could âescapeâ the vaccine, by altering the shape of the âspike protein.â If all that sounds like gibberish to you, donât worry â the point is simple. By keeping its vaccine to itself, all Britain did was ensure that variants resistant to it would breed at light speed, in the worldâs worst hit countries â like India.
You can read the rest of his post here. Donât point the blame for delta at India. Itâs been British policy since day one to use the UK as a COVID-19 mutation petri dish. And now it wants to export this tactic to other places. Their friends are getting rich off this. Reminds me a bit of what happened in Zimbabwe when Mugabe and his cronies took everything while tanking the country.
Tags: 2021, Bill Gates, COVID-19, England, health, India, Oxford University, politics, UK, Umair Haque Posted in India, politics, UK | No Comments »
01.05.2021
Here are May 2021âs imagesâaides-mĂ©moires, photos of interest, and miscellaneous items. I append to this gallery through the month.
Sources
Viki Odintcova, via Instagram.
Alexa Breit, photographed by Weniamin Schmidt, via Instagram.
Vickery Electrical advertisement: something I asked my Dad to photocopy for me in the 1980s. Briefly we had one of those Apple II portables, on loan from a colleague of Dad. I can’t recall if it had one disk drive or two, but it was a fun little unit to have in my bedroom for that period. Dad was prepared to buy it if I wanted to keep it, but I didn’t have much software to run, plus I already had the Commodore 64 for schoolwork.
Lucire issue 43 cover, photographed by Damien Carney, creative direction and fashion styling by Nikko Kefalas, make-up by Joanne Gair, hair by Kirsten Brooke Anderson, and assisted by Rachel Bell, and modelled by Elena Sartison. Find out more here.
Drew Barrymore quotation from Elephant Journal on Twitter.
I still have plenty of old stamps, which I tend to save for family (though I’m less discerning about those discounted Christmas ones, which I always used to buy in bulk). This is going to my cousin’s daughter and her husband, and their family.
Comments after an article on Buzzfeed News. Business as usual for Facebook.
Happy birthday to our niece Esme!
Tania Dawson promotes Rabbit Borrows, from Instagram.
Bizarre that the only car with a manual transmission on sale at Archibalds is from the 1950s. Iâm sure New Zealand was majority-manual into the first decade of this century.
More on the 1982â94 Chevrolet Cavalier at Autocade.
Citroën C5 X, as covered in Lucire.
Amira Aly (Mrs Oliver Pocher) photographed by Christoph Gellert, reposted from Instagram.
Gaza statistics, sourced from Twitter.
Even after 44œ years of living in the occident, I find certain western customs very strange. From Twitter.
Number crunching from Private Eye, reposted from Twitter.
Evaporated milk, reposted from Twitter.
Triumph Herald advertisement from the Car Factoids on Twitter.
Cadillac tailfins, reposted from Tumblr.
This photo of Sophia Loren was captioned ‘© David Hurn | Sophia Loren, Inglaterra, 1965â on Tumblr. I wonder if she is on the set of Stanley Donen’s Arabesque. Reposted from Tumblr.
I had the pleasure of watching Peggy Sue Got Married again a few weeks ago. This was a nice scene at the end, that seemed to suggest that Peggy Sue had travelled back in time. John Barry’s score is sublime.
The Murdoch method: reposted from my old NewTumbl account.
Alexa Breit photographed by Sagaj, reposted from Instagram.
Tags: 1940s, 1950s, 1955, 1960s, 1965, 1967, 1980s, 1985, 1986, 1990s, 2021, actress, advertisement, advertising, Aotearoa, Apple, Autocade, business, Cadillac, car, celebrity, Channel 4, Chevrolet, Christchurch, CitroĂ«n, computing, COVID-19, Damien Carney, design, England, Facebook, family, fashion, fashion magazine, film, France, Germany, GM, humour, India, Instagram, Joanne Gair, John Barry, JY&A Media, Köln, Leyland, London, Lucire, magazine, Matt Lucas, media, MG, modelling, New York, New Zealand, New Zealand Post, NewTumbl, Nikko Kefalas, NY, Palestine, Peugeot, philately, photography, PSA, publishing, retro, Russia, social media, Stanley Donen, statistics, Stellantis, Tania Dawson, technology, trend, Triumph, UK, USA, Wellington, Whanganui-a-Tara Posted in business, cars, design, France, gallery, humour, India, interests, internet, marketing, media, New Zealand, politics, publishing, TV, UK, USA, Wellington | No Comments »
16.02.2021
It brings me very little pleasure to do these calculations. After reading Umair Haqueâs January 24 piece on the UKâs poor response to COVID-19âat the time the country had, by his reckoning, the highest death toll per capita in the worldâI decided to feed in the numbers again, as of 9 a.m. GMT today. Here are the percentages of positive cases out of total tests done, based on the official figures. I know itâs not scientific, but it gives me a rough idea of whoâs doing worse and whoâs doing better, relative to the last set (December 7, 2020), and, I hate to say it, the slap-dash response by some countries is prolonging our pain as a planet.
Brazil 34·50% â
Sweden 10·66% â
USA 8·42% â
Spain 8·27% â
Italy 7·51% â
France 7·08% â
Germany 5·62% â
India 5·27% â
UK 4·90% â
Russia 3·82% â
KSA 2·88% â
South Korea 1·36% â
Singapore 0·88% â
Taiwan 0·56% â
Australia 0·21% â
Hong Kong 0·152% â
New Zealand 0·146% â
He also notes that the UK was going to delay people getting their second vaccination shots. I hope the country has since changed its tune, but looking at the likes of Johnson and Hancock, who helped to gift the world the British mutation, I doubt they have the nous. Even my fifth form science will tell me this (original emphases):
Because science says so. Animal models already tell us that if the second dose isnât had within about a month, the immune cascade vaccines trigger fails to happen. Immunity doesnât result. Antibodies arenât developed âŠ
Whatâs the upshot likely to be for Britain? The entire countryâs vaccination program is likely to fail. There are going to be a whole lot of people who get one dose, but not the second in time, and most of those people will not develop immunity. Do you know what happens when you cross a halfway vaccinated population with a fast evolving virus? Thatâs right, vaccine resistance. Britain already made itself a perfect petri dish for new strains of Covid â but what Britainâs doing right now is making it the perfect petri dish for deadlier, more infectious, and much, much more vaccine resistant strains of the virus.
I have dear friends there, at least one who is immuno-compromised, and this is, to put it bluntly, a shitshow. I’m glad their daily infection numbers have now fallen under 10,000, but all this needn’t have happened.
Tags: 2021, Boris Johnson, coronavirus, COVID-19, health, statistics, UK, Umair Haque Posted in general, politics, UK | 1 Comment »
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