An email to the Taranaki Daily Times

Posted by Lou. The time is 12.04pm here in London, UK.

from Lou
to mike.brewer@dailynews.co.nz,
jonathan.mackenzie@dailynews.co.nz,
leighton.keith@dailynews.co.nz
date Fri, Dec 4, 2009 at 12:02 PM
subject Great work on Paul Perez Coverage!


Hi guys,

Just wanted to congratulate you on the brilliant pun at the start of the item about Paul Perez! Hilarious to say "side-step", really helped maintain the light mood of a domestic violence incident in which a pregnant woman was strangled and punched in the face. I also note your fantastic headline: "No easy let off for Paul Perez". I can't help but agree - hasn't this man suffered enough? I'm sure it really hurt his hands to strangle and punch her so really I can't help but agree that a fine and a conviction is not in any way whatsoever an easy let-off for a domestic abuser. I mean, she probably deserved it right?

I'm also so glad that you went into such depth about how this might hurt his playing career and didn't once mention the welfare of the victim or the possibility that his behaviour caused developmental damage to their unborn child. I'm so sick of people acting like domestic violence is an offence that has effects on other people and isn't all about the poor man who was driven to commit it.

Fantastic reporting Leighton - you should really be nominated for a journalism award for your coverage of this.

Keep up the great work! Hopefully with more news items like this we can up those domestic violence rates and help keep New Zealand women in their place! All power to domestic abusers! They're victims too!

Best wishes,

Louise

NZ judiciary characteristically piss-poor, frankly

Posted by Lou. The time is 11.18am here in London, UK.

For all the rhetoric against domestic violence and the advertising campaigns that have prominently featured on NZ screens as long as I can remember, nothing is going to change when the judiciary continue to take a piss-poor and lax attitude towards punishing offenders.

This guy choked his pregnant partner into near unconsciousness and punched her in the face, before preventing her from seeking help by using a knife to cut their phone cord, and later shredding her possessions, all over a pair of shoes, all following on from a history of volatility, and he gets slapped with a $750 fine to go along with some paltry costs and orders to go to an anger management course. Gee, that'll teach him.

How about backing up that rhetoric with some action, hey?

Saturday Night in Warsaw: a photo essay

Posted by Lou. The time is 9.35pm here in London, UK.

Book review: Love In The Time of Cholera

Posted by Bel. The time is 11:20am here in Wellington, NZ.

This book is a romance of the sort of absurd proportions that it seems only the hot-blooded South Americans can get away with.

Florentino falls forever in love with Fermina and when after a secret engagement, built up through barely a spoken word, she arbitrarily changes her mind, and he cares not. He waits throughout her 50 year marriage to the dashing Urbino and professes on the day of his death that he loves her still and hopes that now they have a chance to be together.

Perhaps it's called Love In The Time of Cholera because it makes the reader feel a bit ill?

Oh, I jest, I jest. But you do have to be in the mood for this kind of novel. And you have to be willing to buy that someone would stake their heart on someone they barely know and who rejected them. Yet this is the tale of undying love - plus of course, of all the action he gets during those intervening years. (Red hot Latin lovers, as I was saying.)

Plot aside, Garcia Marquez's writing is just amazing. Many a pencilled line was drawn under phrases which stopped me in my tracks. (Unfortunately my copy has already been loaned on, otherwise I would be quoting verbatim right now.) His is a style that which you will either love or hate, with long sentences (paragraphs, and chapters) that may well put you off - or you will be swept up and oblivious to the lack of structure in this way.

The focus of the book shifts from character to character, in time and location, with lots of flashbacks and flashforwards, covering a several parallel lifetimes' events in great detail. It's not until more than a third through the book that we see things from Fermina's perspective.

Until then, her dramatic actions seem very arbitrary and hard to comprehend. Her character is just a shallow thing, adored by the men for no good reason other than her beauty (especially as she is loved from afar by Florentino, who doesn't even really know her). But once we get inside her mind, she is easier to admire. Essentially, however, this is more a tale of obsession and of love for love's sake.


IMPORTANT NOTE:

Whatever you do, do not, repeat: do not watch the film version of this book. The movie Love In The Time of Cholera may look like it might be good, with its reputable cast and decent director, but it is NOT. It is AWFUL. Even if you think "well, I hate long-winded writing and I'm not much of a novel reader anyways, but I feel like a nice mushy romance - let's get this out of a Sunday afternoon" - STOP! Resist! Do not do this to yourself. Please.

And if there is any chance of you reading the book, I double my pleas. Just avoid the film, at any costs.

That is all.

--
Love In The Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Sort of recommended.
English translation published 1988. Set in Columbia, late 19th C - 1930s.
#44 from 'The List'

Rapist Polanski granted bail

Posted by Bel. The time is 10:06am here in Wellington, NZ.

Things have been a bit quiet since the initial furore when Roman Polanski (pictured here in January 2009) was taken into custody.

But this morning it was announced that a Swiss court has accepted the convicted child rapist's request for bail - set at $4.5 million, US dollars I assume.

While still currently in jail, it is mostly likely he will be put under house arrest while he continues to fight extradition to the US, where he fled being sentenced for his crimes in 1978, over 30 years and one Oscar ago.

House arrest might be a crap option for you or me, with our bare cupboards and no Sky TV and board games we're already bored of, but for Polanski, it's going to be quite awesome actually.

Because, in Switzerland, he owns a property on one of the world's most expensive ski resorts! It's known as 'The Hand of God' because the locals say that God rested his hand there as he created the world. WOW!

And Polanski's chalet is called 'The Milky Way', probably because it is freekin sweet, like a Milky Way bar. Check it out:

I think the comparison is fitting.

You can read more about it here on The Times, if you wish, they have quotes from the locals about how charming he is, buying fresh bread each day and so on. I guess, what with the electronic ankle alarm and all, he might have to arrange for home delivery from now on and just enjoy the epic view out the window instead. BUMMER!!


More on the bail announcement here:

Swiss court agrees to grant Polanski bail, but he remains behind bars for now [Updated] - LA Times

Polanski wins $4.5M bail, house arrest likely - Yahoo News

Point-and-shoot sport-mode win

Posted by Lou. The time is4.53pm here in London, UK.

Djokovic serves against Davydenko in the ATP Finals round robin at the O2 in London, England.

Heroines

Posted by Lou. The time is 5.05pm here in London, UK.


The UK National Lottery has released a list of 50 Unsung British Heroes. Six of them are women - six! - and no women appear in the Top 10 despite friggin' Baldrick - Baldrick! The fictional character from Blackadder! - reaching the #6 spot. Surely when considering unsung heroes those that missed the recognition they deserved because of their gender and/or race would be the first people to investigate?!

Well, I shall focus on one of the heroines - this woman sounds spectacularly interesting! Why is there not a legend? A Hollywood film? Why do we not know about her?

Via BBC online:

MARGARET ANN BULKLEY
It was only when the distinguished doctor James Barry died of dysentery in 1865 that it was discovered "he" was in fact a woman called Mary Ann Bulkley.

According to the Science Museum, Bulkley saw very few career choices as a woman, so she hatched a plan in which she would become James Barry. After graduating from medical school in Edinburgh, she worked at St Thomas' Hospital, London, before joining the Army.

A successful career as a surgeon followed, in India and South Africa, and she eventually rose to the rank of Inspector General in charge of military hospitals.
Her methods of nursing sick and wounded soldiers from the Crimea meant she had the highest recovery rate of the whole war, and she also performed one of the first successful Caesarean sections, in 1826.

Apparently a Dutch filmmaker is making a feature about her - let's hope that and this dumb list combine to give her some of the recognition and attention she (and so many other forgotten heroines) deserve.


[I've chosen not to link to the list so as not to give it the attention it doesn't deserve]