By Rebecca Barry
Source: NZherald

Nick Carter gave his best blue steel gaze and surveyed the crowd as though he was waiting for the knickers to start flying.

Then he winked and tossed a red rose (sans thorns?) into the sea of out-stretched arms.

It was a gloriously camp boy band moment, one of many during the Backstreet Boys’ fun first show in New Zealand in their 17 years together.

They also serenaded on stools, spun around their mic stands, flirted with the girls in the front row, leapt over the DJ booth and danced up a jazz-hands storm. Rock your body? Yeeah.

Now in their 30s, some of them shacked up with wives and kids, and the charismatic AJ McLean now sporting a touch of middle-aged spread, it was always going to be a test to see if the Boys still had pulling power.

But judging by the surging estrogen levels whenever Howie Dorough or Brian Littrell addressed the crowd, Auckland was more than willing to relive the 90s.

For the full 90 minutes the Boys pulled out hit after cheesy pop hit: Shape of My Heart, I’ll Never Break Your Heart, Quit Playing Games (With My Heart), Straight Through My Heart, (the latter from new album This is Us.)

This was no fancy visual fandango the likes of which can be expected of Lady Gaga this weekend.

The set appeared to have come with them from the 90s, consisting of not much more than a big screen flashing youthful images of their heyday, and multi-tiered platforms for their PVC-clad female back-up dancers to writhe on.

The band still rely on their old stable of choreographed white-man manoeuvres: it’s raining on my face, the lawn mower, side-scissor robot shuffle – and Carter’s fans’ favourite, slowly-remove-jacket-to-show-off-newly-sculpted-arms.

Seriously, you could hardly recognise the guy. Smarmy though he was, his voice soared on ballads such as Incomplete.

His bandmates, minus Kevin Richardson who left in 2006, looked genuinely excited to get such a great reception, and despite some early tuning issues, won over the crowd with some decent harmonising on Show Me The Meaning and proved backstreet’s back alright on the night’s biggest singalongs, Larger Than Life and I Want it That Way.

Where: Vector Arena

Current Mood: annoyed

And what else does the news talk about? Snow!! You must be a pretty good journalist to write about snow for a whole day, and probably the rest of the week! Read more…

Source: The Guardian

The heaviest snowfall for 18 years paralysed swaths of the country today, bringing chaos to roads, railways and airports, closing thousands of schools and businesses, and costing the economy an estimated £1.2bn in lost working hours.

Although the snow had been forecast since last week, much of Britain was overwhelmed, with conditions forcing one in five workers to stay home and resulting in the closure of as many as 3,000 schools and the cancellation of many non-urgent hospital operations.

The south-east bore the brunt of the snow, which settled to a depth of 25cm (10in) in Kent and Surrey, and saw all flights cancelled at Heathrow and London City airports, leaving thousands stranded.

London’s public transport system buckled under the stress, with all but a handful of bus routes cancelled today and 10 of the 11 underground lines either completely or partly suspended.

Rail passengers trying to travel in and out of London found services disrupted or cancelled, while motorists hoping to use snow-choked roads were warned they risked hypothermia if they failed to take reasonable precautions.

As the snowfall intensified this afternoon, and forecasters warned the cold snap could last for the rest of the week, the government and the London mayor, Boris Johnson, were under pressure to explain why they had not been better prepared.

During a press conference with the Chinese premier, Wen Jiabao, Gordon Brown said every effort was being made to get the transport system moving again.

“We are doing everything in our power to ensure that the services – road, rail and airports – are open as quickly as possible and we are continuously monitoring this throughout the day,” he said.

But the Conservatives said bad winter weather was not a wholly unexpected phenomenon and better provision should have been made. “Both our national and local transport infrastructure should have better contingency plans in place for extreme weather,” said Theresa Villiers, the shadow transport secretary. Norman Baker, the Liberal Democrat shadow transport secretary, said Britain had collapsed “into chaos at the first hint of snow”.

Johnson defended his decision to suspend London’s bus network, saying while everything possible had been done to clear the roads, the capital simply could not cope with heavy snow.

He also argued that the rarity of heavy snow in the capital meant it would be uneconomical to buy the kind of snowploughs that clear New York streets.

The mayor announced a one day suspension of the congestion charge and urged the city’s inhabitants and workers to “pull together and pool resources to get London through this difficult situation”.

A spokesman for the mayor said today there were no plans to waive the congestion charge tomorrow should the weather worsen, but added the situation was being kept under close review and a “Herculean effort” was being made to get the city moving again.

Local authorities denied suggestions their failure to grit roads in time had led to large numbers of workers staying home. The Local Government Association said it was the responsibility of Transport for London to keep arterial roads and red routes gritted. Paul Bettison, chairman of the LGA’s environment board, said councils were being used as scapegoats for others’ failure to adequately prepare. “The claim that it is local authorities’ fault that they cannot run services needs to be treated with a huge pinch of gritting salt,” he said.

The London Ambulance Service said it was responding only to “life-threatening” emergency calls because it was under pressure and had received more than 650 calls between midnight and 7am.

The weather appeared to have claimed the lives of two brothers who were crossing Snowdon over the weekend. A spokesman for the Llanberis Mountain Rescue team said the bodies of two climbers had been recovered at 9am this morning.

“I would strongly recommend that people without a lot of experience and the right equipment don’t venture on to the mountain,” he said.

Current Mood: cheerful & cold

Source: The Guardian

Heavy and drifting snow caused travel chaos for morning commuters today with trains, tubes and buses being cancelled. Those travelling to work in London were hard hit after the heaviest snowfall in decades disrupted almost all forms of public transport. Read more…

Source: http://www.stuff.co.nz

By DON NICHOLSON

“It wasn’t much pleasanter at home,” thought poor Alice, “when one wasn’t always growing larger and smaller, and being ordered about by mice and rabbits. I almost wish I hadn’t gone down that rabbit hole and yet and yet it’s rather curious, you know, this sort of life!”

Alice In Wonderland is perhaps the best way to present farming in the 21st century. Lewis Carroll, the pseudonym for Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, was a product of enlightened Victorian society. Carroll, aside from being an author, was a mathematician, logician and even an accomplished photographer. Alice is so multi-faceted and well-constructed that its appeal transcends age and intellectual ability. It is magic, but so too, is farming.

While the late David Lange was a great prime minister, he made one verbal clanger that haunts agriculture to this day the notion that agriculture was somehow a sunset industry. That to build a rich and prosperous economy, agriculture had to be consigned to the history books in favour of, well you see, that’s the point.

This was not a rogue view. We see it echoed in the writings of Rod Oram and his ilk today. Now, deep in the bowels of Treasury and with some commentators, there is a belief that a modern economy cannot be based on the primary production of food.

While loathe to ram the obvious down the throats of an educated readership, 65% of everything we sell to the world comes from the agricultural sector. This contribution comes from just 14% of New Zealand’s population. That’s right, just 14% of New Zealanders generate almost two-thirds of our entire export wealth. This export income helps pay for health, education, social services, police and everything else.

Farmers look at their economic contribution, that for 25 of the last 27 years has outperformed every other part of the economy, and rightly ask “so where the bloody hell are you?” of the other sectors.

That conveniently brings us back to “poor Alice” and why farmers see New Zealand’s economic experimentation over the last three decades as being ordered around by mice and rabbits.

In the 1970s, New Zealand was to become an industrial power under Think Big. Then the country lurched into Rogernomics and a belief we were to become a Switzerland of the South Pacific, until the 1987 crash that is. Under the last government New Zealand discovered IT, the Knowledge Wave and the Growth and Innovation Strategy.

I wonder what happened to them? We’ve tried venture capital with more failures than successes. Tourism has emerged as the new black, but are we really going to transform our economy by employing people at the adult minimum wage?

This brings us back to agriculture. It is the once and future driver of the New Zealand economy. Its potential is limited only by landmass, water storage and policy. While New Zealand can never be a major food producer because of limited land mass, it will always be a major food exporter. We export 95% of what we produce. Federated Farmers also knows of one simple way to boost productivity upwards of 25% storing rainwater when plentiful, to use when it’s in short supply.

This is so obvious and so simple that it escapes the Wonderland logic at play within parts of government. Keeping grass, arable and horticultural crops growing over summer means more export wealth. That’s the problem really. It makes so much common sense that, perversely, it almost becomes a reason not to do it. No, much easier to promote some bright new shiny economic hope than to back agriculture.

As a major agricultural exporter we need to ask ourselves why we are not leading the world in agricultural information technology?

Why we have not incubated a rural financial institution like Holland’s Rabobank? Why we have not emerged as a major exporter of veterinary medicines? There are some notable successes where companies have sprung out of what we do best, but also a catalogue of missed opportunities. The Glaxo in GlaxoSmithKline, the world’s biggest pharmaceutical company, was founded here in New Zealand with milk processing. In 2000, Fernz, for 80 years a New Zealand company, relocated its head office to Australia and became Nufarm.

To create world-class exporters does not mean copying Finland or the United States, but focusing on what we know and do best. We need an agricultural wave. Farming and farmers give New Zealand a strong future, but this can be much more than it is today, if farmers can retain value on-farm.

All farmers ask for are the policy tools and freedom to get on and farm. All we ask for is for the best brains to look anew at farming and farm-related businesses as a career choice.

All we ask is for a realisation that our future is not in copying another country, but to be uniquely Kiwi and build on what we do best.

This is also about understanding. To that end please visit a farm on Sunday, March 1, as part of Federated Farmers Farm Day. New Zealanders should be proud that farmers produce the best quality food in the world by the most efficient means.

As Alice said, “It would be so nice if something made sense for a change.” Farming does.

* Don Nicolson is the president of Federated Farmers.

Source: People.com

Backstreet Boy Howie Dorough and his wife Leigh, a real estate broker, are expecting their first child in June, they tell PEOPLE exclusively.

“I know she’s going to be a great mother,” says Howie. “If she can take care of me, the biggest baby in the entire world, I think she’s going to be okay with the little one coming along.” Read more…

Current Mood: pleased

Source: Guardian.co.uk

Fireworks burst over the ancient temple of Parthenon at the Acropolis hill in Athens. Photograph: Aris Messinis/AFP/Getty Images

Fireworks explode behind the quadriga of Berlin’s landmark Brandenburg Gate. Photograph: Clemens Bilan/AFP/Getty Images

Fireworks are seen over the Red Square in Moscow, Russia. Photograph: Ivan Sekretarev/AP

Fireworks mark the new year in Scotland’s capital city Edinburgh. Photograph: Danny Lawson/PA

Fireworks light up the London Big Ben in England. Photograph: Oli Scarff/Getty Images

Fireworks light up the London skyline in England. Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

Fireworks over the River Thames in London. Photograph: Johnny Green/PA

Cadiz , Spain: A group of men enter into the water for a New Year’s Eve swim at La Victoria beach. Photograph: Jorge Zapata/EPA

aipei, Taiwan: Fireworks explode from Taipei 101, the world’s tallest completed skyscraper. Photograph: Pichi Chuang/Reuters

Seoul, South Korean: People watch a fireworks spectacular. Photograph: Kim Jae-hwan/AFP/Getty Images

okyo, Japan: People fly balloons to celebrate New Year at the Zojo-ji Buddhist temple. Photograph: Kim Kyung-hoon/Reuters

Young Japanese people raise their arms in celebration of the first sunrise of the year at Misaki beach, Chiba province, Japan. Photograph: Everett Kennedy Brown/EPA

Hong Kong, China: Revellers enjoy a mass party at Causeway Bay. Photograph: Mike Clarke/AFP/Getty Images

Kuala Lumpur: Fireworks explode near the Petronas towers. Photograph: Zainal Abd Halim/Reuters

Ahmedabad, India: Students pose during New Year celebrations at a school. Photograph: Amit Dave/Reuters

Fireworks light the sky above the Cathedral Square in Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital. Photograph: Mindaugas Kulbis/AP

Mexico City: Mexico’s golden Angel of Independence stands in front of fireworks during New Year’s celebrations
Photograph: Eduardo Verdugo/AP

New York, USA: A couple kiss in Times Square. Photograph: Joshua Lott/Reuters

New York, USA: The Waterford Crystal Ball is raised surrounded by fireworks in preparation for its descent at midnight in Times Square. Photograph: Seth Wenig/AP

Universal City, California: A woman wearing glasses with year 2009 design arrives to join thousands of others to welcome the New Year. Photograph: Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images

The spectacular New Year’s Eve midnight fireworks display. Photograph: Mark Kolbe/Getty Images

Fireworks light up the sky above Sydney harbour. Photograph: Paul Miller/EPA

Fireworks bring in the new year during the Rhythm & Vines festival at the Waiohika estate, Gisborne, New Zealand. Photograph: Rhythm & Vines/PA

Fireworks display at the Sky Tower in Auckland, New Zealand. Photograph: Phil Walter/Getty Images

Current Mood: jubilant

…to celebrate coldest New Year’s Eve in a decade

Source: Guardian

Hundreds of thousands of revellers braved the coldest New Year’s Eve in more than a decade last night at outdoor events, defying the weather and the economic gloom.

Many more celebrated in pubs and clubs but big numbers had opted to batten down the hatches and celebrate at home. A survey of 2,160 people by YouGov estimated that 63% stayed in by the fire, with eight out of 10 of those attributing their decision to the economy, and one in 10 to being made redundant.

Some of the most heavily subscribed events in the New Year’s Eve calendar still had tickets available just before they were due to start and many offered discounted entry. Those who did venture out tried to forget the credit crunch and party as usual. In London thousands of revellers braved chilly temperatures and thronged the streets to see in the New Year.

Crowds applauded and cheered during a 12-minute fireworks display on the banks of the Thames. Colombian students Yadica Guerreo, 26, and Johana Sosa, 21, who celebrated in the shadow of Big Ben, said that being in London to see in 2009 was “like a dream come true”.

Miss Guerreo said: “It’s been pretty cold but it’s also been pretty cool. I’ve only been in London for one month and it’s a dream come true to be here.” Miss Sosa added: “It’s amazing. I’ve never thought I would be here to see this.”

Kimberley Harvey, 20, from north London, said: “We’ve been here since 8pm and we’ve been dancing all night. I’ve never been here before even though I live in London. I love it. I’ve had a great time.”

Joelle Peeters, 43, and her son Tom, 12, travelled from Brussels to spend New Year’s Eve in London. She said: “I love the fireworks. We spent the last two New Years in Paris, but this was far better. It was well worth the wait, even if it has been very cold.”

The countdown lasted for a moment longer, due to the Earth’s erratic rotation. Official timekeepers around the world inserted a “leap second” to bring the most accurate atomic clocks in line with the astronomical day.

It was expected to be the coldest New Year’s Eve since 1996 – significantly colder than even Iceland with temperatures expected to be below zero in most areas.

In Edinburgh temperatures dropped as low as -3C as about 100,000 people joined in at the big Hogmanay event and organisers released extra passes after the first 50,000 sold out four days earlier than last year, despite doubling in cost from £5 to £10. Scotland was expected to be colder than many places in Europe including Moscow, Paris and Berlin.

The Met Office advised revellers to wrap up and be careful of slippery pavements. “The last New Year’s Eve we had that was this cold was in 1996, when it was -3C degrees,” said Dave Britton, a senior forecaster at the Met Office.

Just over half of people questioned by National Saving & Investments had chosen to celebrate locally to cut costs, with many also opting for free events. “It is good to see that people are finding creative and less expensive ways to celebrate in an attempt to avoid a new year hangover,” a spokesman said.

Yesterday it was still possible to make an 11th-hour decision to attend London’s most extravagant offerings – including the Dorchester hotel’s six-course meal and live music for £320, or Elton John’s New Year’s Eve concert at the O2 arena, where tickets, many of which were originally £100, were being reduced by 50%.

We heard about this from our tour guide when we were over there. Apparently the mayor wants to pass laws which prohibit red-lights windows and coffeshops within X metres of a school. I could see why, it’s very easy for young children to see into the windows and coffeeshops. However many Amsterdamites don’t use these ‘services’ to get sex or get high. I guess when you grow up with it, it just becomes mundane. It’s mostly the tourists that use the windows or coffeeshops for fun.

The mayor also wants to loose Amsterdam’s ‘sex and drugs’ tourist reputation. Many people feel that they would loose many tourists to Amsterdam, because that’s what they usually come for, not the museams (of which there are zillions) and other attractions.

Source: The Guardian

Dissent grows over a planned crackdown on prostitution and drugs aimed at curbing organised crime in the red-light district

Read more…

Current Mood: calm

Source: Stuff.co.nz

Flight of the Conchords ditched their trademark T-shirts for tuxedos on the red carpet at the Emmy Awards in Los Angeles, but did not walk away with any awards. Read more…

Current Mood: devious & devious