How had I reached 30 without taking part in a pub quiz? At Lawrence's behest (happy birthday!) we descended upon a local establishment, answered 80+ questions to the best of our ability, and were rewarded with a $50 bar tab for being the most trivial-minded folk there. Yay. It was no surprise that we got ten out of ten for the music and movies categories, but I think someone is going to have to brush up on their darts and snooker statistics...

Simon and others in nz-blog-land have been a bit iffy about our very first 100% New Zealand music radio station, Kiwi FM. Yes, there might be a ghettoising issue, yes, it's awfully commercial... but I'm still glad that it exists. (I do not, of course, denigrate the bnet stations by saying this, because they've been pro-local music from the year dot, but they do have a slightly different brief.) I remember the resistance to the NZ music quota suggestions in the early 90s and I also remember how 'weird' it was to like NZ bands (with a few Enz-and-Dobbyn-related exceptions) when I was a teenager on the Shore. I don't know if that crippling cultural cringe was less apparent in other times and other places, but it's nice to think that it might be ebbing away. (OTOH, there's a theory that as we become less ashamed of our own musical art and produce it primarily commercially, it becomes less identifiably 'Kiwi'; that's something that I'm still tossing around in my head.) But how much do I need to theorise after hearing 'All I Can Do' by the Dance Exponents for the first time in at least a decade this morning? Or DD Smash's wondrous and rarely-currently-played 80s cheesefest cover of Luther's 'She Loves Me Back'? More dorky songs of my youth, please, Kiwi!