Too much, the Magic Bus

I gather, via the magic of Twitterbookery, that today is the anniversary of the Who recording their 'Live At Leeds' LP in 1970.

This was the first vaguely rare album I ever bought, back in my last year at school: it was out of print ( in New Zealand anyway - this was summer 1980-81) but the record store in Pukekohe had an imported copy.

It was the summer Dad got lepto & I'd been working on the farm a lot: one Saturday arvo
I hopped on my mike and cycled 35 kms to get it.

The original vinyl only had about eight tracks: an expanded version was released on CD in 1995 and I think there's since been a 'Deluxe Version' [or a 'We'll throw on a few extra demos and stuff and get the punters to buy the same product again' Version].

I loved the Who at the time (still really like them but more alive to their limitations) and this showed them at their peak.

This clip is from that show - it only has bits and will mean nothing to non-fans. What is noticeable is how much the film is focussed on drummer Keith Moon.

Normally anyone filming a band focuses on the lead singer, cutting away a bit to the other musos - with the drummer usually getting only marginally more attention than the bass player.

But Moon was a lead drummer, probably *the* lead drummer. Utterly insane, according to legend:
and unfortunately the legend took him over and killed him at 32 - but this is filmed when he was still in his prime.

He's all over the drum kit - but its not just a random bash and crash. He knows what he's doing.

Waters that fail

Lamentations. Nothing to do with the unemployment data released this morning, just some of the most achingly spiritual music ever composed.

Inspired by the Book of Lamentations, traditionally attributed to the prophet Jeremiah. At one point Jeremiah shakes his fist at God and asks him - in biblical language, of course - just what God thinks He's playing at.

This is a kind of Old Time Religion I think we should have more of.

Slap Bang numbers

Three months ago, as I was walking into Statistics New Zealand, I ran into a bloke from Economic Development Minister Steven Joyce's office.

What do you think today's figure will be like, I asked him. None of the economists were forecasting any major change - they all had it sticking at around 6.5-6.8% of the workforce, where it had been for some time.

Certainly none of them expected it to go above 7%.

He grimaced.

"I don't know about this one - we've got a feeling it might not be that good," he said. This was interesting, as my own gut feeling was similar - in fact at that stage I was starting to wonder if the economy might have even gone backwards in the third quarter of last year.

None of us, though, thought it was going to be 7.3% of the workforce.

In the event, I didn't write much about unemployment that day: running out of the Statistics NZ lock up to get a Vodafone mobile connection I stumbled into the sliding doors and wound up headbutting the gravel with extreme prejudice. Ended up in hospital with wires attached to me.

The consensus market forecast for today is I'll stay upright, and there's a lot less margin for upside/downside surprises on this forecast than there are to most economic outlooks right now.

Today's figure could go either way, I think: for NBR Online subscribers, I've done a preview here.

The impression I get is the economy picked up again in the last six to eight weeks of the year, and when you look at the other economic data the 7.3% figure seems an outlier: the surprise is not that it rose, but that it rose by quite that much.

In moody rucks...

In honour of tonight's    last weekend's test. Programmed blogger to automatically put it up on Saturday: for some reason it didn't take.



Wallace Stevens, modernist poet.  Excerpt from  The Comedian as the Letter C:

How greatly had he grown in his demesne, This auditor of insects!
He that saw 
The stride of vanishing autumn in a park 
By way of decorous melancholy; he 
That wrote his couplet yearly to the spring, 
As dissertation of profound delight,
 Stopping, on voyage, in a land of snakes, 
Found his vicissitudes had much enlarged 
His apprehension, made him intricate 
In moody rucks, and difficult and strange 
In all desires, his destitution's mark. 
He was in this as other freemen are, 
Sonorous nutshells rattling inwardly. 

 What better description of a ref's whistle than 'sonorous nutshells rattling inwardly'??

It was a uniform thing

Story in the Haerald, linked to by Danyl, had me swaying slightly uncertainly down memory lane.

University pub crawl, sometime in late '80s.  I wasn't drinking a huge amount but I'd had a couple of beers & we'd reached the best pub on the crawl  - the Shakespeare.

We're on a table next to the window and three traffic wardens amble past. I muse to the group, "I've always wanted one of their hats."

Its important to remember that at the time traffic wardens wore fairly formal uniforms. Oh, and I had a bit of a thing about women and hats.

"I dare ya," says one of the group - who is now, by the way, a highly respected university professor of philosophy at  an Ivy League American college.

"Twenty bucks?" I ask, knowing that with his family background he can well afford it.

"You're on," he says.

The three wardens are by now waiting at the traffic lights on the corner by the pub, so I dip out and sneak silently - or so I thought - up behind them.

I figured I'd go for the middle one because I didn't want to make it too easy.

As I got to striking distance she whirls around, grabs her hat in one hand and the other one shoves a finger under my nose.

"You want it?  Its thirty five bucks," she says.

With as much dignity as I could muster I pulled out my wallet and asked if she'd take a cheque.

"You've got to be joking," she says.

Quick calculation tells me if I fork over the $35 and win the bet I'm still $15 down.

I'm stingy. Besides, by then the 'cross now' signal had gone and they headed across Wyndham St. Laughing, the heartless cows.

Still. Nice uniforms they had in those days.

Thought for the Day....

It is impossible to imagine the universe run by a wise, just and omnipotent God, but it is quite easy to imagine it run by a board of gods.
- H L Mencken -