Writers
Susan Grimsdell
After retiring from audiology some years ago, Susan’s finding life’s pretty good with lots of time to do what she likes. That includes walking, reading, having coffee with friends, and a bit of activism thrown in. Also, day by day doing her best not to worry too much over the many threats to our gorgeous planet.
Read Susan’s Blog
Trevor Plumbly
Meet Trevor. He’s had quite a colourful career, from his early days as a pub manager in Tunbridge Wells he went on to become Dunedin’s leading auctioneer. Trevor is a published author and was something of a TV personality in the 1980s as a regular panellist on a show about antiques.
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Emily Smart
Emily is very loud, and has really bad taste in cheesy pop music. When not at work flogging goods to the public via advertising and marketing campaigns, she can be found hiding from her partner and children at the local pub. If you’re easily offended or don’t appreciate the constant use of profanities, then you probably shouldn’t read Emily’s posts. You have been warned!
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Angela Caldin
Angela has had many roles in her life including: schoolgirl, student, daughter, friend, civil servant, wife, lover, mother, manager, magistrate, landlady, teacher, grandmother, blogger, editor and proofreader.
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The latest
Being a good bloke by Susan Grimsdell
There’s a programme on BBC called the Kindness Test designed to show the level of kindness in the general population. The questions are along the lines of “Would you go to someone’s aid if you could see they needed help?” or “Do you hold doors open for other people?” “Do you give to charity?” “Do you volunteer?” and so on. Now I grant that kindness is a difficult thing to measure, but I contacted the researchers to suggest that superficial small acts of kindness are not really an indication of the underlying… Read More
Fishers of men by Trevor Plumbly
Ploughshares and swords I’ve always been reluctant to ‘do’ politics: there’s so little humour in it and social unrest seems to bring out the worst of the breed. If the old political adage ‘never let a good crisis go to waste’ stands, leaders have never had it so good. With Afghanistan out of the way, the USA can get back to comparing penis sizes with the Chinese, leaving others with climate change and the pandemic to argue about. China doesn’t seem to worry us much down here; we have a ‘trade relationship’:… Read More
Power and corruption by Angela Caldin
‘Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.’ Famous words from 19th Century historian and politician Lord Acton to Bishop Creighton. He also said, ‘I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men, with a favourable presumption that they did no wrong. If there is any presumption it is the other way against holders of power, increasing as power increases.’ I was thinking about these wise words in the wake of the revelations this week in the Pandora Papers which show how the love… Read More
Scooters then and now by Susan Grimsdell
There was a wonderful photo in the Christchurch NZ newspaper a week ago. It showed about a dozen 10-year-old boys in the year 1921 at a primary school in a small Canterbury town, lined up on their home-made wooden scooters, looking deadly serious, several of them with bare feet. The picture tells a story about each of those boys and their scooters. We can be almost certain they had help from a parent or sibling through everything it took to get to the finished scooter. Planning and designing, scrounging timber from around… Read More
The eyes have it! By Trevor Plumbly
Dirty politics This month will see me reach my 80th birthday. It is, for me, a time to reflect on my place in the scheme of things. What’s concerning me is that the ‘we know best’ lobby won’t give up, and I reckon they’ve been shoving campaign leaflets in my letter box. As a result, someone in the family must have found something like the ‘How to be a happy blindy’ app and suggested that my path to contentment lay in getting out and about more. I wasn’t present when the vote… Read More
The Writers
We’re four Brits who made the big move from the UK to the other side of the world. We love New Zealand, the English language having a good laugh and the occasional moan. Ah, just read our posts and you’ll get the gist.
