More Than A Feilding
Newsletter (Digital)
I’m David Slack.
I write here about things that happened in the last few hours and also the last few decades. Some of these things happened in Feilding, most of them happened some other place in New Zealand.
I’m a farm kid who went to town. I’ve been a speechwriter in the Prime Minister’s office, a breweries executive, an Internet adventurer, a barman, a drinker, a kitchen hand at KFC, McDonalds and Homestead Chicken.
I used to write for the Sunday Star Times, Sunday magazine and Your Weekend, and before that, Metro, Unlimited and Public Address.
I’ve also written Bullshit, Backlash and Bleeding Hearts, Optimistic Predictions, and Bullrush.
I like to write, I like to put it all in a newsletter. Source
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| Scope | National |
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| Language | English |
| Country | United States of America |
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More Than A Feilding now lives at davidslack.netwhere the daily edition continues as it always has, along with a good deal the old place couldn’t hold: a growing glossary of Aotearoa, a numbers desk, a daily quiz with a leaderboard, and more. If you were a subscriber, you came with me. Every subscription, free and paid, transferred automatically — the daily email arrives as usual, and paid subscriptions now run directly through the new site. You don’t need to do anything.
Never mind where’s the beef, where’s my $30?
I have been pulling at a thread that began with something Mimi Gilmour said as she explained why her Burger Burger was in receivership. To make the sums work, she said, she’d have to charge thirty dollars a burger, and you can’t sell a burger for thirty dollars. You could say, well no, I’d never pay that, it’s just a burger ffs, but the thread I’m pullin…
No one anywhere should ever be getting something that I don’t
Public transport: what a ghastly way to go! My very first ride ended in misery. I was 5, getting off the school bus, just a step down into the gravel outside school, but somehow I got it wrong and ended up slipping into a deep wet muddy ditch. Still at the same school, on the way home from a big trip, on the steep downhill from Taihape to Mangaweka, the b…
More Than A Feilding
When the last of the autumn skies shine blue the way they did this year, it takes me right back to Coronary Care. 20th of May I got wheeled in there. I spent the first night looking out the window at the lights of Whangarei and in particular the traffic lights right below — green yellow red green yellow red, over and over — determined to keep my eyes ope…
More Than A Feilding
What was it they kept saying last election, in between dog whistles about the Mahhrees? It was: people of New Zealand, your voice is being taken off ya, your say is being taken off ya, your democratic rights are being taken off ya. Say yeah nah to Three Waters. It was bullshit of course, a cynical misrepresentation of a viable solution to a 200 billion d…
More Than A Feilding
In the last post about Prime Minister and the Greatest Generation, I promised better options. Here they are. The reason the government wants to punt a couple of billion on an LNG project is that as good as our hydro lake system is, it isn’t enough. When lakes run low, the shortfall becomes a very big and very costly problem. This is why they want to bur…
More Than A Feilding
The name Christopher Luxon is not one that comes to mind when we speak of oratory, or inspiring words, or even the ability to talk in whole sentences. He’s a jargon-gargler, a happy burbler of Americanisms, a visitor from far, far away. Yet somehow he remains installed as Prime Minister of this sorry, economically-bedraggled little nation.
More Than A Feilding
You hear it all over the place now. Over coffee, over drinks, over and over, from Tories, from friends who are full-noise commie, from people with no interest in politics whatsoever. What’s AI going to do to everything? What’s there going to be for our kids? The political scientist Brian Klaas wrote a piece this week asking where the Apollo speech for AI …
More Than A Feilding
1. What is the title of the book by Jacinda Ardern that collected Ockham Awards accolades this week? a. We Won You Lost Get Over It b. Nice Guys Finish Last c. Bastards I Have Met d. A Different Kind of Power 2. What does Half asleep near the stars with a small dog licking your face describe? a. A Pilates position b. An NZ First policy position c. A Fonterra en…
More Than A Feilding
Back when I lived in the world of business I sometimes used this opening conversation gambit: How do you handle disappointment? A little joke to ease the tension, a little signal that my answer was going to be no, or a hundred thousand dollars less. Never my own money, I should add. I’m no high roller myself. They were such very much more optimistic days…