Why Hollywood never beckoned

For those of you who have never met me I thought I should describe myself. I’m tall and handsome, but not dark. My body is not too dissimilar to Joseph Parker’s and from time to time people mistake me for either Robert Redford or George Clooney. It’s about then that I wake up. The only film star comparisons ever made are either with Jimmy “Schnozz” Durante or Marty Feldman - and they’re both dead!As for Joseph Parker’s body - well mine...

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Beware the official crash rate

The role of the Reserve Bank Governor is to keep a lid on inflation. He does this by raising or lowering the Official Cash Rate (OCR) and then apparently sitting back to see how his machinations have worked out. I suspect he gets an obscenely high salary for doing this which in itself is inflationary.My erstwhile bookkeeping teachers at Wairarapa College, Mr Munn and Mr Brown, both taught me that the definition of inflation was “too much...

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Can a house really kill people?

Two year old Emma-Lita Bourne died in hospital last August of a brain-bleed caused by a pneumonia-like illness. Coroner Brandt Shortland said it was entirely possible the condition of the house she lived in had contributed to the illness. He described the housing New Zealand property where the family resided as “very cold and not getting much sunshine with no carpet and only floorboards.” The government rental agency had apparently conceded...

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The chartered clubs' catch 22

Back in the 1970’s two of my closest friends, Lew Milne and Melvin Carroll, along with others, decided that Masterton needed a Cosmopolitan Club. I had just been elected on to the Masterton Licensing Trust and the Trust vigorously opposed the clubs application for a charter. This was on the grounds that the proposed club would take clients away from their public bars with potentially devastating economic outcomes.So at the hearing, held...

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