@paulhellyer@mastodon.nz
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paulhellyer

@paulhellyer@mastodon.nz

An ageing pākehā with middling sensibilities. Embracing the new Aotearoa. Born in Ōtepoti, educated in Tāmaki Makaurau, living in Te Whanganui-a-Tara. Worked at IBM for decades. Was contracting to the government. Left-wing. INFJ. Liverpool fan. Strong Hungarian links.

#Ōtepoti #Aotearoa #INFJ #YNWA #Hungary

🇭🇺 🇳🇿

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paulhellyer, to random
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I had baked beans on toast for dinner tonight. It was/(they were?) delicious. Very delicious. Sometimes the old favourites - mine anyway- just hit the right spot. In my university days I would eat spaghetti on toast an awful lot. Can't quite bring myself to buy Wattie's tinned spaghetti these days, but somehow baked beans seem ok.

paulhellyer,
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@bananabob My parents used to have curried eggs for Saturday lunch. They were generally very conservative in their food tastes, i.e. meat potato and two veg, so a meal with curry in it struck me as quite exotic back then. Never thought of adding curry powder to baked beans though. Maybe next time.

paulhellyer, to Budapest
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Budapest, 1974. A happy whistle-blower with poor teeth :-). Actually a train conductor at the Újpest [New Pest] train station on the outskirts of the capital. We used to catch the train from there quite often but sadly, we didn’t seen many, if any, smiling conductors like this one.

Source: Fortepan [89466] / Urbán Tamás

paulhellyer, to random
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Byron has done a terrfic job in shining a light on the far-right and fascists in Aotearoa and is paying a heavy price for doing so. Every little bit we can do to support him helps. Please consider making a donation. https://mastodon.social/@byroncclark/112534613909201019

paulhellyer, to Budapest
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Budapest, 1960. The background to this photo isn’t entirely clear, but it is part of a fascinating series of photos from the Budapest Police’s criminal investigation department. My guess is that these three lads were caught with black market goods. They look so young - and more than a little scared.

Source: Fortepan [104046] / Budapest Capital Archives / Police Forensic Photos

paulhellyer,
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@bananabob Thanks bananabob!

billbennett, to random

When right-wing politicians talk about “the good old days” or some similar concept, most of the warm-glow memories they are invoking are from eras when everyone’s lives had been improved by left-wing governments.

paulhellyer,
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@rogerparkinson @billbennett And systemically misogynist too. Prior to 1986(!) in Aotearoa, the law stated a man could not be convicted of rape in respect of intercourse with his wife. This was because a wife impliedly gave a general consent to marital intercourse on marriage. Who in their right mind thinks those days were "the good old days"?

paulhellyer, to hungary
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Biscke, 1903. This is, to me anyway, an unmistakably Hungarian photo. The dresses, the magnificent moustaches, the headwear, and not mention the way the instruments are being held, are all demonstrably Hungarian, even though the photo was taken over 120 years ago - probably after the wine harvest. If you went to a folk music festival today in Hungary dressed as these people are, you wouldn’t look that out of place.

Source: Fortepan [31394] / Székely Márton

paulhellyer, to NewZealand
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Because I am now "retired" - thanks to Luxon - I have more time on my hands. What better way to spend some of that making a submission on the Māori Wards Bill. Didn't take long at all. I found this document very helpful in making my submission.
#nzpol

https://docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/1_5-rlCHR1jfEGBxxb_qYhuR3WB8IdIVWnTI2SY6gvKc/mobilebasic?pli=1

billbennett, to random

It's been more than 18 months since I ditched Twitter and I still can't decide if Mastodon or BlueSky is the best replacement. Each has pluses and minuses. Each has a different vibe and a (largely) different set of users. I guess I'll be using both in parallel for some time yet.

Anyone else in the same position?

paulhellyer,
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@billbennett I think if your living depends upon, or benefits from, a social media presence or participation, you have to cover as many bases as you can.

I found BlueSky harsher and very unforgiving. I made what @essjax would call "an ill-judged toot" on BlueSky and got dumped on something awful. I immediately deleted my account it was so bad - the pile-on that is, not my toot! I don't think that is as likely to happen here.

paulhellyer, to hungary
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Kecskemét, 1968. These two men don’t seem like the talkative types to me. At least not while they were at the local market in Kecskemét, a largish town on the Hungarian Southern Great Plain.

Source: Fortepan [180033] / Bojár Sándor

paulhellyer, to random
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Managed to change the oven light bulb this morning! That may not sound like much but for someone who has next to zero home maintenance skills it was quite an achievement. Even managed to get the oven door off and, more importantly, back on! Had to lie on the kitchen floor like cast sheep at one point though. Quietly chuffed.

paulhellyer,
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@bananabob I would not touch a microwave with a ten-foot barge pole either! Way out of my league. Speaking of microwaves, we recently replaced our aged one with one from K-Mart for $69! Amazing price - although I hate to think of what those involved in the supply chain and production earned from that :-(. Still, it is good enough for what we need. And they delivered it to our front door too. Bonus.

paulhellyer, to NewZealand
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So the government is changing the name of the Social Wellbeing Agency to the Social Investment Agency. Hmmm. I can’t help feeling that the idea we are all being defined in terms of “investments”, “outcomes”, “efficiencies”, or “savings”, is part of the problem. Capitalism is killing us and our environment. It simply isn’t working any more except for the few, the rich. There must surely be a day of reckoning coming soon.

[Edit: clarity]

#NZPol

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/516388/explainer-nicola-willis-pre-budget-speech-what-we-learnt

paulhellyer, to Budapest
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Budapest, 1981. A quilt maker stands in the doorway of her shop in the capital's District XIII. Hungarian goose feathers have always been highly prized in the making of pillows and quilts.

Source: Fortepan [107834] / Makovecz Benjamin

XIII

paulhellyer,
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@fulelo Wow, that's amazing! Thanks for that lovely bit of personal history, Kriszta.

paulhellyer,
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@fulelo Please don’t apologise - you have made my day :-). The first market we visited in 1997 was the one at Lehel. I had never see anything like it before. I would visit it whenever I was in the area. The smell of the vats of pickled cabbage were quite something, not to mention the rows of hanging salamis in the shops. Of course it is “better” now and always worth a visit - but the old market had a vitality that’s hard to find these days.

paulhellyer, to random
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Today is my Mastodon 'cake day'- two years since I joined this lovely community. Thank you for all your likes, boosts and comments. It's been a great two years and I look forward to a few more here!

paulhellyer,
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@bananabob Thanks bananabob. Much appreciated.

paulhellyer, to random
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This glowing review of the New Zealand TV series, After the Party, does not surprise me in the least.

"It’s no overstatement to say that this great performance [by Robyn Malcolm] ranks among the best television portrayals in years, from anywhere in the world.

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2024/apr/29/after-the-party-review-tv-series-robyn-malcolm-abc

paulhellyer, to linux
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Dragged out at old Intel i3 NUC computer (2012 era) from the back cupboard. After replacing the faulty mSATA drive, and getting wired keyboard, installed Linux Mint. I’m impressed. It runs very well considering the age of the hardware and I have even been able to access it via ssh on my iMac. Might see if I can get it running as a web server. It’s years since I tried Linux of any kind, but Mint feels very polished. The messages are very geeky and I'm still not a fan of Nano!

paulhellyer,
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@bananabob @leighelse Very strong recommendations these.

thomasbeagle, to random
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In the old days I'd assume it was a technical problem causing Reddit in the browser to get unreliable and slow, but these days I assume they're deliberately fucking it up to force people to use their app.

paulhellyer,
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@thomasbeagle I know it's not the same, but I use various instances of Libreddit. While you can't interact in the same way as you can with Reddit itself, you get 80% of the experience. For me these days, that's enough.

https://libreddit.eu.org

billbennett, to random

It’s about time New Zealand was a republic.

Actually every nation should be a republic but that’s probably too big a concept for some of them to cope with.

paulhellyer,
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@billbennett I think we are close, if not past, the tipping point where a majority of us agree. And when it finally happens, people we say, "Why didn't we do it earlier?". Big issue is Te Tiriti which will need careful thinking and navigating through. But we can do it, I am sure. As you say, the sooner the better.

paulhellyer, to earthquake
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As we looked through the photos albums of our great-uncle, it was clear he travelled extensivily throughout Aotearoa. We wondered where he got the money for this as he worked for the Post Office. We will never really know, but it was fun to speculate. He visited Ahuriri/Napier in June 1931, a few months after the devastating earthquake. In the photo below, you can see the opera house in the foreground looking very damaged by the earthquake.

#FamilyPhotos #Ahuriri #Napier #Earthquake

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