Author Archive
The amazing restorative powers of Snake Oil, oops, US tax liens – and a canine love story?
The repeated sabre-rattling (‘legal threats’) by Shaun Stenning and Dean Letfus sparked by David Whitburn’s critical blog on the NZ Property Guru’s [sic] promotion of US tax liens recently reminded me of an earlier incident involving marketing US tax liens as ‘investments’ to guileless New Zealanders … It led to an undignified outcome for another […]
James Taylor and Carole King – Auckland 10/4/10
The phrase ‘music that is the soundtrack of our lives’ has acquired the quality of a cliché — but by golly, bathing in the glory of these two troubadours at their Auckland concert tonight, the phrase fits. I was so happy to hear them, to see them and enjoy their camaraderie and their art. They […]
Exposing a dangerous fraud
Wow! Straight-talking, clear writing like this is a welcome thing. I applaud it. Exposing manipulators, fakers and dishonest hucksters for what they are is a truly worthwhile activity. Reading this encourages me to keep after the weeds — native and imported — in our own back yard … in spite of the insults, threats and abuse […]
Top 10 NZ property investment books – Auckland City Libraries
Auckland City Libraries Readers Services team picks: The top 10 titles on New Zealand Property Investment in 2009. I’m chuffed that four of the top ten are published by Empower Leaders Publishing. (Cool.) Congratulations to all the authors on the list…
It can be messy, copyright…
Billy T James’ family in a dispute over rights to some material included in the best-selling DVD compilation The Comic Genius of Billy T James. (Via NZ Herald) Sony believed it had obtained the rights to use film and sound tracks in an agreement with the Billy T. James Family Trust, which has administered the […]
Questions — which declare values
Tiger, I am more prone to be inquisitive, to promote discussion. I want to find out what your thinking was. I want to find what your feelings are. … and did you learn anything? Boy! Great mission. — Tiger Woods’ father Earl Woods’ voice features in this new Nike/Tiger Woods ad April 2010. Gutsy. Fantastic […]
Barricades Of Heaven – Jackson Browne
Bliss. I love his passion and his essence. “Pages turning, pages we were years from learning Straight into the night our hearts were flung Better bring your own redemption when you come To the barricades of Heaven where I’m from. All the world was shining from those hills The stars above and the lights below […]
The Marshmallow Theory — finding a soft centre
Remember we talked about how caving in to a bully just makes it more likely you’ll be bullied again? (That was one of the morals of the story of Poormastery’s parable.) I’ve been recently reminded of an influential cabinet minister from my time working at Parliament’s Press Gallery: Lawyer, later Finance Minister, David Caygill was […]
And the spin goes on … Shaun Stenning’s latest
Here’s Shaun Stenning‘s latest effort to get the genie back in the bottle … by (again) threatening legal action and spinning a yarn about how copyright works. It’s interesting to see how he operates. Read the full letter here (160k PDF) for yourself and see how plausible you find it. Background: A bunch of very […]
The ‘message’ of SHAME
I mentioned Steven Pressfield and his model of ‘Resistance’ — as a force/’personality’ and ever-changing foe to overcome in your own creative endeavour or ‘life-work’ — in a reply to Graeme yesterday. I highly recommend Pressfield’s book The War of Art for anyone seeking to move forward … in anything. He writes a ‘Writing Wednesdays’ […]
What the scammers rely on … Believers
THE BELIEVERS: How America Fell for Bernard Madoff’s $65 Billion Investment Scam by Adam LeBor It was in luxurious Palm Beach, by the manicured lawns and Olympic-sized swimming pool, that financier Bernard Madoff ravaged the world of philanthropy and high society he had strived so hard to join, vaporising the assets of charities, foundations and […]
Elizabeth Gilbert: What’s not to love?
Elizabeth Gilbert writing in her new book Committed: I am sorry to confess that I possessed a scant amount of honour in my youth, if any, and behaving in a flighty and thoughtless manner was a bit of a speciality of mine. But being a person of character matters to me now, and matters only […]
ex-Reporter Helps Convict a Con Man
No, not me. I have Google alerts loaded for all my authors — the search engine automatically sends me an email message with a reference when one of them is mentioned on the internet. So for several years, among the articles, interviews, TV appearances and reviews of my authors, I’ve also been getting alerts about […]
Scarlett Johansson actualizing ‘Black Widow’
Returning to our occasional theme of the essentially derivative nature of art. If you recall, in January in a post called ‘Nothing new under the sun…‘ we discussed the serious inspirational debt the character of ‘Black Widow’ in the comic series Ironman owed to the portrayal by Diana Rigg of Mrs Emma Peel in the […]
