I have just under a year before my British passport expires. In the great tradition of apartheid, it’s a British overseas national passport for those of us born in the colonies, and both in 1996 and 2006, I had to use a different form to British citizens. I presume Britain was worried about overseas British […]
Read More… from The trials of being a dual national (or, Kiwis are better at this stuff than Brits)
You’ve run for office, Jack. What is your favourite political speech? Something from MLK? JFK in Berlin? No, it was a completely fictional one, from the minds of Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn: I’m a good European. I believe in Europe. I believe in the European ideal! Never again shall we repeat the bloodshed […]
Read More… from The greatest political speech, by Jim Hacker, MP
For the last few years, I’ve looked back at the events of the year in a tongue-in-cheek fashion. (In fact, in 2009, I looked back at the decade.) Tumblr’s the place I look at these days for these summaries, since it tends to have my random thoughts, ones complemented by very little critical thinking. They […]
Would this be the easiest way to explain how the two major parties were during the General Election this year to those overseas? First, National; second, Labour. You may also like Steve Guttenberg shows us how a Kiwi accent is done A year of random thoughts: 2014 in review Secret “Asian” man (with apologies to […]
Read More… from National and Labour in the General Election, summarized for non-Kiwis
I chose my professions because I would be absolutely useless creating TV shows. Here are my top 10 ideas, none of which would likely fly on telly. Downtown Abby. Eight Is Enough sequel. Abby and Tom Bradford move to a swanky San Francisco apartment, now that the kids have left home. But good help […]
Has John Cleese become embittered? He suggests that the Bond films after Die Another Day (his second and final) were humourless because the producers wanted to pursue Asian audiences. Humour, he says, was out. ‘Also the big money was coming from Asia, from the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, where the audiences go to watch […]
Forty-nine hours and counting, which makes it the beginning of day three without Facebook. I didn’t really need it yesterday, so there’s something to be said about habits breaking after a couple of days. However, for work, I have needed to go on there: while Sopheak is covering for me as far as Lucire’s […]
Read More… from I might not have Facebook, but I do speak Ebonics
My friend Lou, who I enjoy winding up, just arrived in Belfast on holiday with her fiancé. I wrote on her Facebook the following slice of forgotten Irish television and film history. If I was in Belfast, I would be rapping. I pulled up to the house about seven or eight, And I yelled to […]
In two elections, I told people some blarney on why I decided to run. In 2010: ‘I was working at Lew’s Diner and this guy had been picked on. I told him, “Stand tall, boy, show some respect for yourself. Do you think I’m going to spend the rest of my life in this […]
I must have had a busy end of 2013, as I never posted my trade-mark summary of the year as viewed via my Tumblr. Here ’tis, better late than never. January 2013 Lucire has a facelift online—by December 2013, this “new look” would be history. Kylie Minogue is on the home page as the first […]