Post your bookshelf

[djm]

Then when my books come out of the barn I can turn one of the barns into a pub seeing as the government closed pubs I am going to make my own with a bar pool table and jukebox. I may even brew my own beer in it and put a cider press into the potting shed in the orchard.

Your own little pub is the latest trendy accessory...

That looks great.

Interested to know what you make of Jacinda? She gets lauded in the UK, but most Kiwis I know think she is incompetent (they are mostly farmers in South Island).

[jyng1]

Most farmers in the South Island are "true blue" and have voted nothing but centre right National for generations. I personally didn't vote for Cindy as she's a bit too centrist for my liking. The farmers certainly don't like who I vote for, but then dairy farmers have a quite a bit of work to do to turn around the negative perception quite a large proportion of the population have about the state of rivers and the nitrate pollution going into aquifers.

It was actually Jacinda's uncle who drove a tractor up the steps of Parliament in protest against the "fart tax" in 2003. That was going to be a levy on methane emissions from livestock and was going to be hypothecated to research into reducing emissions. Farmers are so forward thinking that they had it scrapped and are now nearly two decades behind in methane research.

To be honest I wouldn't listen to any farmer about any progressive politician but saying that there is some fair criticism about Jacinda that could be laid. She promised not to introduce a capital gains tax on housing as long as she's Prime Minister for instance and housing is in a real crisis that needs something pretty drastic to happen to reign it in. It won't be a capital gains tax.

In general I think she's pretty competent and was certainly the right person in the right position last year but if you were looking for a politician that is going to radically change society to cope with climate change etc then perhaps it's not her.

The other aspect you need to take into consideration is that we have an MMP electoral system and even though Labour won outright last election, MMP creates governments that make compromises.

[djm]

Most farmers in the South Island are "true blue" and have voted nothing but centre right National for generations. I personally didn't vote for Cindy as she's a bit too centrist for my liking. The farmers certainly don't like who I vote for, but then dairy farmers have a quite a bit of work to do to turn around the negative perception quite a large proportion of the population have about the state of rivers and the nitrate pollution going into aquifers.

We are growing quickly in NZ will the sales all coming from a stabilised nitrogen (does not leach or volatilize). Farmers will switch to tech the reduces environmental impact if they are still able to be competitive doing so. Our products are more expensive per unit N applied, but you only have to use a tenth the amount as you are not losing two thirds to pollution and it is in a form more easily processed by the plant (less metabolic energy needed to convert to protein).

I have had far faster take up in NZ than here in the UK, so in my experience farmers there are happy to embrace better methods. I am only really active in the Canterbury area mostly working on potato and onions. Moved onto cereals and vineyards this season, and should have been to North Island getting started on the warmer climate crops like Avocado is it wasn't for the dreaded covid.

Have to say South Island is beautiful, usually hire a pick-up and just spend a few days driving around admiring the views. Christchurch is a right mess though.

[Ferrus]

When I moved to Spain I had to give away my old books (not that I organised them into a shelf). In the last couple of years I've had a more curated but slowly growing collection of books that is actually organised for books I value. And for those which I meanly wish to consume their content I read on my phone.

d a decent pool table.

Snooker, surely? Pool is for urban pubs frequented by the kind of troglodytes who find snooker too difficult to learn.

Although I am completely terrible at both, to be fair.

[jyng1]

Snooker, surely? Pool is for urban pubs frequented by the kind of troglodytes who find snooker too difficult to learn.

Although I am completely terrible at both, to be fair.

You need binoculars to play on a full sized snooker table.

[Utisz]

Used to play snooker like maybe three times a week during secondary school for a couple of years up to the point where the chain smoking lady working there knew all our first names. Think the highest break I every got in all that time was around 15 or 20.

The good news though was that for a while afterwards, pool was like a game for toddlers.

[djm]

I learned how to play snooker as a small child. my father who was a gambler (like most of my family on that side) used to go dog racing most nights. Hall Green dog track was the biggest venue in Birmingham, it used to get 10,000 people there on weekends, sadly it is now a housing estate. My father used to take me with him and on Wednesdays we would head to the snooker hall opposite after the dogs finished and play from 10pm until midnight. I am quite short, and was a small child so can vouch for how big the tables are!

Pool is easier, and more fun to play in a pub, but not as good a game overall.

I have never played billiards (not even sure of the rules), but there is a big billiard Hall in Clovis (Fresno Ca) near where I usually stay and am tempted to have a go next time I am there.

[Ferrus]

I have never played billiards (not even sure of the rules), but there is a big billiard Hall in Clovis (Fresno Ca) near where I usually stay and am tempted to have a go next time I am there.

Billiards is more a family of related rules than a specific game, and a bunch of games called billiards developed in different areas or even individual gentleman's clubs and among different social groups of people - like card games still are to a large extent. Snooker was considered a form of billiards originally before its dominance in the UK. (In Spain "billar" which literally means billiards is still the general name for pool or snooker.) Carom billiards (or French billiards), English billiards and Russian billiards (or Russian Pyramid) are most common general types, but within those you have a vast range of different variants and rules such as different numbers of balls and cushions. They mostly come from the 18th century before the rules got standardised into set games like snooker and pool, although in France for example until after WW2 when pool became popular after it was introduced by US soldiers carom billiards was the dominant form these kinds of games.

Almost all of these games though have rules that tend to reward clever trick shots and skilful cushion bouncing much more than modern games.


As for dog racing... I went a few times to the one in Sittingbourne. There even have a special limo for classy chavtastic parties:



My boss in the job I had in Sittingbourne was half Irish, half Chinese Singaporean (as he pointed out the only thing these two cultures had in common was a love of gambling) and took us a few times after work for a lark. The was a time when another Irish guy was there, and the look on his face when a guy who looked somewhat Chinese started speaking with an Irish accent was priceless.

Also I realise I am going off topic here are my bookshelves:

[Madrigal]

Just started taking a look at this, who collects coins??

[Ferrus]

Just started taking a look at this, who collects coins??

My wife. She's more into notes though, she collected a bunch from tourists in Barcelona who tipped her with them when she worked as a waitress.