Category: COVID-19

The Listener and The Discerning Reader

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One of my research assistants asked this week if I wanted his back issues of The Listener. I’m now regretting my luke-warm response, given that it is barely two months since the owner, Bauer Media, closed down New Zealand’s 81-year-old current affairs magazine. German-owned Bauer Media had been trying to sell its magazines in Australasia for a while. Things came to a head with COVID-19, as magazines were not considered “essential” under NZ’s strict level…

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A doggy tale in the time of covid-19

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By Guest FOMMer Laurel Wilson As anyone who knows me would realise, I love dogs and have had various four-legged companions ever since I can remember. ‘Foxie’ was the first one − a small, non-descript, furry golden mutt, who apparently decided our place was an improvement on her previous abode. Then came ‘Rex the wonder dog’ (or at least, that’s what I called him), also a mutt, but who looked quite a bit like a…

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How deep is the financial hardship well?

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It is probably no comfort to anyone to reflect on the year when investors could get 14.95% on a bank term deposit. It was January 1991, the recession Paul Keating said we had to have. People with personal loans and credit card debt watched horrified as repayment rates went to 20% and beyond. The average variable mortgage rate rose to 17.5% at the same time. The gap between the haves and have-nots in that era…

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Ten songs that influenced teenage me

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Most of my musician friends spend time on Facebook, so that’s why I probably saw so many of those ‘10 albums which influenced your musical tastes’ challenges. It is no surprise this diversion has become popular in the uncertain time of COVID-19 because it allowed us to yearn, just a little, for those carefree days when music helped shape our lives. You can tell how much the ‘challenge’ means, as so many participants cannot leave…

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