And Slaters Go Plop

Goodbye and thank you.

Here’s a message from him from last December after his 90th birthday:

Ever since I was young my mind reeled when I tried to comprehend the vastness of our universe and all that is in it. I’ve since realised that it is impossible to truly comprehend these things and that this is a limitation of the bodies and minds we find ourselves in.

However if you, like me, are fascinated by the night sky and you want to get a better understanding of “not only what we know but how we know what we know” then you won’t find a better podcast than the Astronomy Cast.

If I were an alien I’d give it three thumbs up. Check it out.

My favourite TV presenter of all time is Sir David Attenborough – I own almost all of his documentaries on DVD.

He’s just released Life in Cold Blood (a series on reptiles) which he says will be his final ‘on-site’ documentary. Understandable really; he has been doing this most of his life and, at 81, gallivanting around the Amazon or the Sahara is no small thing.

I’m looking forward to purchasing his final ‘Life’ series and, David, if you ever get to read this I want you to know that the work you’ve been involved in has extended my world’s horizons more than any other person. And for that I’m eternally grateful.

Here’s what Nancy Bank-Smith (a TV critic) has to say about his career:

David Attenborough was chasing a giant anteater on the South American savannah. It jinked and sprinted, showing, for a hefty beast, a nifty turn of speed. He followed like a schoolboy in shorts, helpless with laughter. It was the blissful spring of television. Zoo Quest was the first programme to show wild animals in the wild and the oxygenating joy of that moment I shall always remember. I remembered it when I saw, with a sympathetic twinge, how stiffly he walked at 81 in Life in Cold Blood. We are stiffer and wiser than we were. Today he would sit down beside a giant anteater and ask, in that mimicable murmur, how it was feeling. And it would reply: “Endangered.”

And here’s a snippet of what a British TV audience voted as the number 1 moment:

Last night we saw Ween play at the Powerstation in Auckland. Wow. Just wow. Dean is by far the best guitarist I’ve ever seen live and live is definitely what they do best.

They played songs from all of their albums. Chocolate and Cheese got a lot of coverage and their second song was an excellent rock reinterpretation of Spinal Meningitis which normally has the feel of creeping through a hospital ward.

Dean got plenty of solos in (unlike their latest album) and there were mammoth solos pulled off by the keyboardist (Glenn McClelland?) and the drummer, Claude Coleman. Toward the end of Claude’s solo he dropped the sticks (hardly surprising – he must have been knackered) and continued on with his hands which must have hurt.

Toward the end (almost three hours!) half of the crowd had this we’re-sore-and-we-want-to-go-home worried look in their eyes while the other half were bawling for more. Ween, in my opinion, are the essence of what rock is all about.

Was anyone else there? What did you think?

After an incredibly busy stretch Sal and I took a week off at the Botaira Resort in the Yasawa Islands in Fiji. No cell phone coverage, warm breezes, amazing snorkelling, plenty of bugs to hunt for and nothing else to do but lay around in a hammock reading books. The perfect holiday.

Just over three years ago we honeymooned in Tonga and I have to say that our Fijian experience was a better one. It may have been the fact that the Tongans were having issues with their royalty at the time but the Fijians just seem more friendly (despite what Frank Bainimarama is doing to the country at the moment) and their civil infrastructure is slightly better.

Botaira is run by the people of the local village which is on the other side of the island and suited us perfectly. No air conditioning or swimming pools but no hoards of backpackers either.

If you’re like us and are happy to live in a bure with geckos in low-tech surroundings and need to get away for a while check out Botaira.

TV One in New Zealand is showing a documentary about the life and ideas of Lloyd Geering who was tried by the Presbyterian Church for heresy in 1969. I’ve never read any of Geering’s work but he appears to have some unconventional views and the documentary should be fairly interesting.

Lloyd is still alive and well at the age of 89 and, by all accounts, as sharp as a tack.

It’s showing at 9.45pm on Saturday 12 January on TV One and again the next morning at 9.30am for those who missed it.

I regularly listen to the weekly BBC In Our Time podcast with Melvyn Bragg. It’s a podcast that covers a huge range of topics from a historical perspective. The usual format is Melvyn accompanied by two or three experts who then spend about 40 minutes dissecting whatever the topic du jour is.In the past he’s covered things like the Fibonacci sequence, oxygen, guilt, Socraties, hell, Zoroastrianism, relativism, tea… the list just goes on and on. If you are into diversity then I thoroughly recommend you check it out.

The point of this post is that next week he’s going to be addressing the topic of the Nicene Creed which, to be honest, has me positively squirming with excitement. The reason for my excitement is that it’s very difficult to find a neutral and informed conversation on this topic and I’m looking forward to hearing what his panel of experts have to say about it.

Going by the usual gold standard he sets with regard to the quality of his experts this will be a must for anyone who’s ever heard of the Nicene Creed. (If you haven’t heard of it before it’s to do with how the Bible was originally compiled about 1600 years ago and the politics that surrounded the task).

[edit] As pointed out by Dale in the comments, the creed is quite different from the council where they compiled the list of books for the Christian Bible.

Also, I was away on holiday when this aired and I’m unable to download the archived version so if anyone has an mp3 copy of this show please let me know!

Here is the preview of the upcoming Golden Compass movie:

And here is a video by a bloke who’s pretty upset about it (mind the volume, he’s a shouty one):
What he doesn’t realise is that he’s just made it ten times more likely that people are going to go out an watch it now. I know I’m going to. Hell, I might even buy the trilogy.

Way to go that guy, way to go. And good luck selling your 23 page rebuttal booklet of the movie for $5 a pop.

Ween, my favourite-ist band in the whole wide world are coming to New Zealand on 25 February next year! They’re playing at the Powerstation from 7.30pm and I’ve heard that they’re on for 2.5 hours. Tickets are $58.10 from ticketmaster.co.nz

I missed out on seeing them ten years ago and there’s no way I’m missing them this time!