Chris Trotter has spent most of his adult life either engaging in or writing about politics. He was the founding editor of The New Zealand Political Review (1992-2005) and in 2007 authored No Left Turn, a political history of New Zealand. Living in Auckland with his wife and daughter, Chris describes himself as an “Old New Zealander” – i.e. someone who remembers what the country was like before Rogernomics. He has created this blog as an archive for his published work and an outlet for his more elegiac musings. It takes its name from Bowalley Road, which runs past the North Otago farm where he spent the first nine years of his life. Enjoy.
The blogosphere tends to be a very noisy, and all-too-often a very abusive, place. I intend Bowalley Road to be a much quieter, and certainly a more respectful, place. So, if you wish your comments to survive the moderation process, you will have to follow the Bowalley Road Rules. These are based on two very simple principles: Courtesy and Respect. Comments which are defamatory, vituperative, snide or hurtful will be removed, and the commentators responsible permanently banned. Anonymous comments will not be published. Real names are preferred. If this is not possible, however, commentators are asked to use a consistent pseudonym. Comments which are thoughtful, witty, creative and stimulating will be most welcome, becoming a permanent part of the Bowalley Road discourse. However, I do add this warning. If the blog seems in danger of being over-run by the usual far-Right suspects, I reserve the right to simply disable the Comments function, and will keep it that way until the perpetrators find somewhere more appropriate to vent their collective spleen.
From Bob Fosse's incomparable 1972 musical, Cabaret, Liza Minnelli and Joel Grey sing "Money Makes The World Go Around".
Video courtesy of YouTube.
3 comments:
Anonymous
said...
Sydney and many of the Aus cities 1966- 1988 would have been just as wide open and ripped as Berlin and the other german cities in weimar. The cutter was going thru Aus in those years almost as hard. The real party for the Viet r & r was their, a cutter of heroin, bent sex and every type of sex 24/7 would destroy all morality and create a sort of genocide and class wall. The results were evident in all parts of Aus society and its activities and it is one on many reasons Australia was an is a vastly different society than NZ. I always thought it laughable that the NZ elite and Mfat officials thought Aus a very similar society and the most alike. My view is that the UK in most ways was much more similar. Nevertheless the criminal excess of Australia in those years was necessary or even desirable. That NZ could never let go of its moral puritan egalitarianism is why theres not much hope here . The excess of Weimar and the war years and the reaction were also at least a half truth, rule by the KPD would have been fatal to western civilisation and a pure German military or Russian dictatorship in the 1940s proably even more terrifying than what happened. I always regarded Khe Sahn the most vital Aus song and possibly for NZers as well. The song sums up the essential recent Aus history and the crucial lyric line,'last train out of Sydney' is the crucial reflection for everyone here in a million ways.
3 comments:
Sydney and many of the Aus cities 1966- 1988 would have been just as wide open and ripped as Berlin and the other german cities in weimar. The cutter was going thru Aus in those years almost as hard. The real party for the Viet r & r was their, a cutter of heroin, bent sex and every type of sex 24/7 would destroy all morality and create a sort of genocide and class wall. The results were evident in all parts of Aus society and its activities and it is one on many reasons Australia was an is a vastly different society than NZ. I always thought it laughable that the NZ elite and Mfat officials thought Aus a very similar society and the most alike. My view is that the UK in most ways was much more similar.
Nevertheless the criminal excess of Australia in those years was necessary or even desirable. That NZ could never let go of its moral puritan egalitarianism is why theres not much hope here .
The excess of Weimar and the war years and the reaction were also at least a half truth, rule by the KPD would have been fatal to western civilisation and a pure German military or Russian dictatorship in the 1940s proably even more terrifying than what happened.
I always regarded Khe Sahn the most vital Aus song and possibly for NZers as well. The song sums up the essential recent Aus history and the crucial lyric line,'last train out of Sydney' is the crucial reflection for everyone here in a million ways.
Cabaret is Bob Fosse's in what way, exactly?
Bob Fosse directed the movie - even (and quite deservedly) winning an Oscar for it.
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