GREAT FRIDAY - BITS AND BOBS!

We had a lunch with Cactus and a gang of young and eager ACT boys who are involved in the ACT conference this weekend. Had fun this week with Cactus. Talking shit and politics... in a week where there was a bit to talk about. Best night was Arbitrageur . Drunk a bit of Monteiths as well...

Lunch today was at Dockside. Food was average. But we did just order the fish and chups. Fish was not quite as fresh as it should have been. She had a duck pasta and reckoned it was pretty salty.

Sons girlfriend , Lanita has just won the ANZ inhouse photography comp called "ANZ in your world," and has an extra hundy in her pocket. She is mastering her SLR very quickly. And the idea of the ANZ written in coffee was quite creative.

And we are in the Wairarapa for the weekend.. YAY!

It looks like the paddocks might contain some tasty fungi. Yummo mushie soup!

And fav mushy soup recipe.

Sweat off some spring onions and just a rasher of bacon or prosciutto in butter then cut up some mushies and add a bit of white pepper... Do a roux - thats the flour and butter mix - then add some milk or cream depending on how much coating you have on your arteries.

Then chuck all the nice ingredients in with the white stuff stir and sprinkle over some parsley...

Done ...

SHED FIVE= BELOW PAR

We managed to squeeze in a quick lunch at Shed 5 today.Its owned by Simon Gault of Masterchef NZ fame. We were with some mates , one of who was a very well known and highly respected Wellington chef.

He had a big problem with his steak.. It was not good.

Now we are seriously big fans of one of the Wellington dishes we think all food lovers should try - Snapper Pie at Arbitrageur. Comfort food at its finest.

Today we had the crab and prawn pot at Shed Five - it was crap. We do a better fish pie on a bad day with cheap fish.

However we have to say that since Stephen Morris is running front of House the service is impeccable. And the French waiter was superb.

Shame about the food.

RADIO NZ FAIL

So 15,000 people on Facebook want to "save" RNZ when it isn't really under threat..

100 people are so pissed that they protest... If I was LabourI wouldn't have even publicised such a piss poor turn out.

Which we reckon is the entire list of core listeners..

Sad bastards....

A BETTER MAN

We watched today as a man who we had a huge amount of respect for, faltered and fell on his sword at what he saw was public condemnation for a minor infringement. Phil Heatley is a good man, a family man, a great father, a good husband and Minister the fishing industry had grown to respect.

We have met him a couple of times and there were those in the fishing industry who sought our advice of what sort of Minister he would be.

Straight and true, we said. Give him a logical argument and he will give you a logical decision.

So today, we lost that good Minister over a small mistake.

We got a call from a mate up north who said they were devastated - not for what he had done but the fact that he had resigned. He commands a lot of respect in his home patch.

We think it was a mark of the man that he made the decision to put his family ahead of his public office and the public glare that goes with it.We have a feeling that his resignation today was done purely to protect those matter most to him.

For that he will always have our respect.


We hope he does come back to the fold and sits in a Ministerial seat again. The seafood industry could do with his pragmatism and the country would be well served by a man of humility.

He is a better man.

RANDOM BITS

Cactus likes the Rock.

Arbitrageur is where grown ups gather.

Why is the whole town buzzing over speculation on Chris Carters spending as a Minister? Is that why Labour went soft on Heatley and Brownlie ?

And isn't Beaujolais Duck parfait the best pate in town?

And Ian Templetons wife is a beautiful lady even if he isnt a Sir.....

RADIO ALLAH

We were quite perturbed to find a story over on Kiwiblog re the Radio NZ - Blood money junket to Iran. Farrar picked up a document we showed him at lunch and has run it as a scoop. What a tosser!.


This was the missive from RNZ spinner John Barr yesterday - note the declaration that the Iranian propaganda machine IRIB Islamic revolution of Iran Broadcasting Agency is parting with blood money so the NZ journalists can attend an international radio talkfest they are sponsoring.


John Barr 2/22/2010 2:05 PM

Two blog sites ( dont forget the NBR )- not a blog site but main stream media ) are currently running a story that Radio New Zealand is being sponsored by the Islamic Republic of Iran. To clarify the position for staff, two Radio New Zealand staff members have been invited to take part in an international radio festival and conference in Iran, but the
invitation came not from the IRIB organisers but the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union, the umbrella agency for public broadcasting in our region. Our staff are not representing Radio New Zealand, but are attending on behalf of ABU, and if that organisation had not issued the invitation, they would
not be attending. All the costs of the trip will be reimbursed by the IRIB. No programme-making or gathering of content for air on Radio New Zealand will be done during the attendance at the event.

Then we got a copy of an internal email trying to shed some " light" on the issue.

Its the one Farrar must have sifted from us at lunch.


Email dated 23rd March

As staff may be aware, there has been some ill-informed discussion on some blog sites regarding the attendance of two Radio New Zealand staff at an upcoming radio festival in Iran.

Some background information on this issue, which has been provided in response to a query from the New Zealand Herald, is attached to this email for the information of staff.

Peter Cavanagh
Chief Executive and Editor-in-Chief

ABU Invitation

Spoken Features Manager, Paul Bushnell, and Executive Producer of Drama, Adam Macaulay, have been invited by the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union (ABU) to be its representatives at a radio forum and training workshops to be held in Iran in May. The same ABU of which RNZ is a member

This approach was initiated by the ABU. Without a request from the ABU, Radio New Zealand would not be attending this event. Note the Iranian broadcaster is on the the ABU council.

The ABU is the umbrella organisation for public broadcasters in the Asia-Pacific region, representing around 200 broadcasters and broadcasting organisations from more than 60 countries. Radio New Zealand and TVNZ are both members of the ABU, as are the BBC and the ABC in Australia.

The radio workshops are an ABU event designed to help train broadcasters from the developing world. The radio forum is an event organized by the ABU and hosted by the Iranian state broadcaster, IRIB (Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting).

The two Radio New Zealand employees will be attending both events as representatives of the ABU, not as representatives of Radio New Zealand. As ABU representatives they will conduct training workshops, act as jury members for various awards and participate in forum discussions dealing with subjects such as radio features production and online broadcasting.

They will not be taking leave to attend. So they are being paid by RNZ but not representing RNZ???? So the taxpayers are paying their salary while they are guests of a corrupt regime?

Their attendance is in line with Radio New Zealand’s commitment to the ABU and other organisations such as the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association (CBA) to assist in the training of broadcasters from developing countries.

There will be no cost to Radio New Zealand. Under a separate arrangement between the ABU and the IRIB, the costs of all ABU representatives attending the event are covered by the host broadcaster.

So Iranian blood money is being used to fund the junket!

International attendance at this year’s event has not yet been finalized. By way of example however the event was attended by the BBC in 2008 and Australia’s ABC in 2009.

It is a tribute to the international professional standing of Radio New Zealand and the two individual staff members concerned that the ABU has asked them to be their representatives at this event.

No programme-making or content gathering activity will take place during this event and no material from the event will be used on air by Radio New Zealand.

And this is the organisation that has the temerity to claim that it will be tainted if it forced to accept sponsorship from big business?? So its okay for to take sponsorship from a corrupt regime thats very existence is based on the supression of freedom but not okay to have commercial sponsorship?

And then we have this small issue that Ace journo David Cohen of NBR has uncovered.

EPMU to launch Walkley media magazine

The Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union hopes to broaden the debate about the role of journalism in New Zealand with the launch of Australia’s leading media magazine, The Walkley, in Wellington this evening and in Auckland tomorrow evening.

The launches will feature a keynote speech from Chris Warren, secretary of the Australian Media Alliance and immediate past president of the International Federation of Journalists, about the challenges facing journalism in New Zealand and Australia.

Brent Edwards, chair of the EPMU print and media industry council, says the magazine has potential to make a significant contribution to journalism in New Zealand.

“The Walkley has been published for decades by a foundation set up by our sister union, the Australian Media Alliance, and has made a huge contribution to Australian journalism. It’s a great privilege to be able to work with the Alliance to make the magazine a transtasman publication.

“We’re hoping The Walkley will not only inform journalists here but also provoke a wider debate about the role of journalism and how we practice it in New Zealand and Australia.

“This is a critical time for journalism in this country and we hope working journalists will take the opportunity to contribute to the magazine and get that debate going.”

Chris Warren says he’s pleased to welcome New Zealand journalists into the Walkley community.

“This gives us an opportunity to discuss and debate issues that affect us across Australia and New Zealand. We’ve got a lot to share and a lot to learn in what is becoming an increasingly common media space – same employers, same challenges, same issues.”

The first transtasman edition of The Walkley will feature Brent Edwards writing about the EPMU’s Journalism Matters campaign and Gael Woods on the debate over how name suppression and contempt of court should apply to bloggers.

Journalists, whether union or non-union, are invited to the Wellington launch this evening at the Connolly Hall, Guildford Tce (behind Sacred Heart Church, Hill street) from 6-8pm, and the Auckland launch tomorrow from 6-8pm upstairs at the Shakespeare.

For more information about The Walkley visit www.walkleys.com/magazine

ENDS

Apparently Brent Edwards and Gael Woods, both high profile RNz staffers and lefty unionists are allowed to write about highly political articles in union publications...

Something its not okay for Sean Plunket to do..

So we think its time for RNZ to stop pretending that it is a bastion of political neutrality when in fact it is a hotbed of leftist views and staff are prepared to suck up to corrupt regimes for a junket to the other side of the world.

Time for a new board .....

EPIC FAIL - TELECOM

Well we are underwhelmed. We looked at our last bill and it appears we got a measly 12 bucks credit for the last little XT meltdown.

So we went onto the Telecom web site to find out what was the latest news this time . Down in the bottom right hand corner is a wee XT button taking you to a statement re the outage. It was almost too small to register...

Sorry PR 101 - It should have been the dominant feature of the home page. Why no direct texts saying sorry? We don't feel that this is a personal response - rather a mass apology. It would have been so easy for them to make it a little more personal..
We do not want any more Telecom people ringing to tell us that a switch to XT will mean will save money..We only stay with Telecom because of the coverage. We wont upgrade the blackberry to the XT system until we are convinced its safe so have to endure the outrageous bills on the old system. 3 Telecom salespeople have said that we will save $100 a month upgrading to XT so we are being financially disadvantaged by the lack of integrity in the XT system because we are forced to delay the change over.

We expect more.

Sorry Telecom.. we remain unimpressed.....

SEX BOMBS

Well did we miss out on the action this week.

The sexy Welshman Tom Jones( yip we know girls who would shag him) was dished up some good ol kiwi hospitality last night from some of our mates. He dined at Zicos, the favourite restaurant of those in Wellington who love good food and service without the pretension. Then it was off to the inner sanctum of Oceanic Ltd, the home of the boys who are hard out raising funds for project Protect and and Heal - aimed at helping rebuild the community heart of tsunami ravaged Samoa.

The boys played pool with the The Voice until about 5am in the morning... So the man, some say is the sexiest septuagenarian on the planet ,kept up with the wild boys Locky and Tonis of Wellington.

That aint easy.

In fact its legend.

Damn we wished we were there..

But at least we got the pictures.

COME TAKE MY STUFF

We have a mate who tweets and facebooks thru some sort of widget that shows where she is at any time by homing into a GPs signal on her phone..

Looks like its a dumb idea.

Some guys have set up a site that shows that this sort of info can be used by crims to work out when people arent at home..

Yikes!

RNZ CORPORATE MEMBER OF THE ABU

Funny how bullshit can catch up with you .

We have expressed disgust at the fact that RNZ workers have been sponsored to attend a Radio talkfest in Iran hosted by the Iranian propaganda machine the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) and event they are promoting and and jointly funding with the Asian Pacific Broadcasting Union ( ABU )



Now when we ran the story RNZ's mouthpiece John Barr was quick to distance the broadcaster from the event.

Two Radio New Zealand staff members have been invited to take part in an international radio festival and conference in Iran, but the invitation came not from the IRIB organisers but the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union, the umbrella agency for public broadcasting in our region. Our staff are not representing Radio New Zealand, but are attending on behalf of ABU, and if that organisation had not issued the invitation, they would not be attending.

John Barr
Communications Manager
Radio New Zealand

Now a simple search of the ABU site shows that RNZ is an Associate member.



But its getting even more interesting... the IRIB is a not only a member - its on the ruling council of the ABU.

So this raises a couple of interesting issues. Firstly it is disingenuous of Barr to try and distance RNZ from the event. Secondly if RNZ has not officially sanctioned the trip then have the RNZ staffers asked official permission as they are required to do under the terms of the Editorial Policy 2005 that states that all staff must get permission of the CE for any junkets or non RNZ engagements?

After all we all watched with interest when the state broadcaster came down on Sean Plunket for writing a column in Metro , which apparently is outside the the terms of the 2005 policy.

So

• we have RNZ employees being sponsored to speak at an international conference that is being sponsored and hosted by the corrupt Iranian State Broadcaster.

• We have RNZ's mouthpeice saying its staff are not representing RNZ at the talk fest.

• We have RNZ being a member of the organisation co-hosting and funding the event

• We dont know if the staffers have official permission of the CE to take part in a non - RNZ event which will be in a highly charged political environment.

And just in case you are wondering why we think its an affront to every New Zealander that the RNZ staffers appear at a conference that is essentially hosted ( and we bet largely funded ) by the Iranian propaganda machine the IRIB ...

Then here is the reason why.



And this man who heads the organisation IRIB that is effectively sponsoring the RNZ junket lied about it as he called the video a fabrication.

Everyone who cares about democracy, in the name of Neda Agha Soltan, should write to RNZ at rnz@radionz.co.nz and express their deep concern that this has been allowed to happen.