Belgium’s Eurovision entry surprised punters by getting through to the finals and by placing a very respectable 12th. And while “Love Kills” is a great pop song, I still have far more affection for another of the three songs that Roberto Bellarosa sang at the Belgium national competition. “Reste Toi” has way more sass. An ode to being yourself, it’s in Roberto’s native tongue (French) so he’s far more at ease belting out a song en français. Of course, not being in English it probably wouldn’t have done as well at Eurovision, but it’s still there on the YouTubes to make me happy.
Robyn Gallagher
Sweet baby Jesus! It’s the Dick Smith/Arnott’s biscuits rip-off gag from _Micallef Live_, possibly the funniest dumb comedy gag ever. Watch the video here.
One of the most interesting parts of the X Factor New Zealand is the Jackie Thomas controversy. Jackie is a talented young singer whose performance of “Skinny Love” was featured in the final judges’ auditions episode.
Jackie’s performance of “Skinny Love” was a faithful version of the emotional Birdy recording, rather than Bon Iver’s weirder original. It’s a song that hadn’t charted in New Zealand before, and perhaps is better known as a go-to tune for emotional scenes on television programmes or in One Direction fan videos on YouTube.
Sadly Jackie didn’t do so well at the bootcamp round, suggesting she might be one of those people who has the one song they can do really well at karaoke, but who struggle with anything else. She wasn’t selected for the top 24, which outraged her fans, prompting, yes, a Facebook group demanding she go back in the show.
But while all that outrage has been going on, people have been buying Birdy’s 2011 recording of the song. And for the first time “Skinny Love” has appeared in the New Zealand charts, sitting at number 15.
Maybe it’s not really about Jackie. Maybe it’s just about a bunch of people falling in love for the first time with this fragile song about troubled love. And their admiration for Jackie and ire against the X Factor is just a way of dealing with all the conflicting emotions they’re feeling.
Or maybe they just like having a bit of drama all up in their Facebook feed.
NEW ZEALAND MUSIC MONTH: FAVOURITE ALBUM COVERS
Carol Green from designassembly.org.nz talked to a bunch of elite #1337 music n00b warlocks about their favourite New Zealand album covers. I was one of the said elite #1337 music n00b warlocks. I selected Distance From View by Scratch22.
You can read the full feature by CLICKING HERE.
I am one of the elite #1337 music n00b warlocks who has contributed their favourite album cover. Mine has a penis in it, but it is very small.
The halfcat, attracting newly revived interest on Twitter thanks to this blog post, appears to have first been spotted in this blog post in August 2009. But there are no attributions. The latest reports pin it to Street View - not mentioned in the original posting - and it certainly appears to be Street View image, but, lacking coordinates, the halfcat seems destined to be a mystery forever, one of any number of mythical beings, lost in the Clouds.
More interesting than the halfcat’s strangeness, perhaps, is its unknowability. Someone saw the halfcat, snapped it, but the route back is lost. The databases contain such multitudes of new myths.
If this image really is from Street View, it seems strange that it would eat halfcat’s ears.
Rhys Darby explains to Stephen K. Amos what Yeah Nah means.
I’ve been trying to explain ‘yeah nah’ for so long thank you Rhys
About 10 years ago I was at a kebab shop. The kebab dude asked a guy if he wanted garlic sauce on his kebab. The guy replied “yeah… nah”, and there was a significant pause between the “yeah” and the nah”. As soon as he’d uttered the “yeah”, the kebab dude grabbed the garlic sauce and liberally squirted it all over the kebab. I don’t think he even heard the “nah”. The guy didn’t seem to notice.
The Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament on Barbadoes Street in central Christchurch suffered severe damage in the February 2011 quake. Built in the early 1900’s it was one of first buildings in New Zealand to have poured concrete walls with steel reinforcing and limestone facing.
Today I got taken around inside the cordon fence which very few people have had a chance to do since the February quake.
I was in Christchurch a month before the big earthquake. I was walking around the CBD when I suddenly noticed some grand domes peeking up over some buildings, in the way that architecture does in flat old Christchurch. So I set out on foot trying to find the source. It involved a lot of walking, and got harder as I got closer. But finally I came across the cathedral and it was good. I was disappointed that it was closed off due to minor damage from the 2010 quake, but I vowed to return once the building had been strengthened. My plans haven’t changed.
Also, there’s something strangely apt about a neoclassical building crumbling into ruins.
RIP Chrissy Amphlett. She was so cool. Along with co-Divinyl Mark McEntee she wrote and performed the sauciest pop songs. Also, she had the best hair ever.
View Larger This is my uncle in 1984.
I’m willing to bet that at a minimum, said uncle still exhibits traces of gothic styles. Goths never ungoth.
