New Years Eve

So ten years ago today we were looking at the dawn of a new millenium, 1999 was drawing to a close and the Y2K bug was giving IT people a headache.

Have a great New Years and see you next year….

Image on The Kete: Agricultural and Pastoral Association 2

Another image from our Kete. This time a second image from an early A & P show. This one is interesting, as on the back it indicates that the shot of some people in a grandstand, is from the A & P show of 1909. Next year’s show is the Centenary of the A & P show which would mean the first was in 1910. Somewhere there are either dates wrong, or the A & P committee are basing their Centenary on some other criteria. I would be interested to know, so if anyone out there has any ideas, drop me a line.

Author Of The Week: December 28 – January 3

Thomas L Friedman

Thomas Lauren Friedman (born July 20, 1953) is an American journalist, columnist, Marshall Scholar and multi Pulitzer Prize winning author. He is an op-ed contributor to The New York Times, whose column appears twice weekly. He has written extensively on foreign affairs including global trade, the Middle East and environmental issues. He has won the Pulitzer Prize three times, twice for International Reporting (1983, 1988) and once for Commentary (2002). He has been a member of the Pulitzer Prize Board from 2004 until the present.

Friedman’s books have seen considerable commercial success. His book The World Is Flat, was on the New York Times Best Seller list from its publication in April 2005 until May 2007. Since July 2006, the book has sold more than two million copies.

Bibliography

• From Beirut to Jerusalem (1989; revised edition 1990)
• The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization (1999; revised edition 2000)
• Longitudes and Attitudes: Exploring the World After September 11 (2002; reprinted 2003 as Longitudes and Attitudes: The World in the Age of Terrorism)
• The World Is Flat: A Brief History of The Twenty-first Century (2005; expanded edition 2006; revised edition 2007)
• Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution—And How It Can Renew America (2008)

Merry Christmas

What Are you doing here? Have a great and safe Holiday!

Troll Returns From Mysterious Journey

Olaf the Troll has been returned to Norsewood, unfortunately not unharmed.

Bruised, battered, beheaded but … OLAF’S BACK [From the Hawkes Bay Today]

Olaf the Troll is back in Norsewood – battered, broken and beheaded.

Having been stolen on December 7, the southern Hawke’s Bay town’s iconic statue almost made it home safe.

Unfortunately, his hijackers, possibly feeling the heat of nationwide publicity, left him in the middle of the on-ramp to Norsewood. And in the early hours of last Monday morning his 1.6m frame was violently shortened by a car driven by the town’s chief fire officer.

Roger Montgomery was returning from his maintenance shift at Silver Fern Farms in Takapau at 1.15am when his vehicle hit something “pretty hard”.

In the gloom he couldn’t tell what it was, but returned in the morning to find wooden splinters all over the road.

 Not far away, down a bank, lay Olaf minus his head.

“I got a bit of a fright when it happened,” Mr Montgomery, whose car suffered minor damage, since fixed, said.

As news of Olaf’s fate spread, he “had been getting a hard time over it”.

“There are some people who don’t like the trolls and they’ve been coming up and shaking my hand. The others were pleased to get it back. They’re going to get it fixed.”

Ella Domper of Norsewood Promotions said other than the missing head, damage to Olaf included a broken arm and missing “bits”.

Members of the Norsewood Promotions Group suspect the culprits hastily returned Olaf when they heard of the bad luck that would befall them because they had removed the troll from his home. Mrs Domper said they were thrilled with all the publicity which they believe was a factor in his return.

“Even Television New Zealand featured the theft of Olaf on their Breakfast show, and what with all the newspaper and radio coverage, I think the robbers were scared to hang on to our loveable troll any longer,” she said.

“I just wish [the thieves] had appreciated Olaf as much as the children and visitors to the village do and hadn’t dumped him in the road at night.”

Olaf has been in Norsewood for 10 years, and was recently moved to his new home at the bridge from where he was stolen. Norsewood resident Lyn McConchie said she was annoyed by the actions of “idiots who didn’t think about the consequences of their actions”.

“It may have started out as a Christmas prank but could have turned lethal if someone had been speeding and smashed into the solid lump of wood that’s Olaf,” she said. “And can you imagine what Roger’s insurance company thought when told he’d hit a troll in the middle of Norsewood.”

A clue to the thieves identity was some evidence left behind – spaghetti.

“Yes, there were traces of spaghetti on Olaf, so those responsible obviously enjoyed a meal of the stuff while our troll was with them,” Mrs Domper said.

Norsewood Police Senior Constable Mike Kist is investigating what appears to be an “Italian job” on a Scandinavian town.

Christmas Eve

Well it is Christmas Eve, and a number of you have come in to look for holiday reading. We hope you have a great Christmas, and a safe Christmas.

And while it always seems a bit odd for us with a summer Christmas, here is a version of “The Night Before Christmas” featuring mice and snow.

Here are our holdings,  if after Christmas you want to see some of the many versions we have in the library.

Image Use Here And Kete: Creative Commons License

Since we are putting up new content on the Kete, and sharing it across here on the blog, it  is therefore appropriate to point out the licensing and copyright provisions that cover our images.

This site and the Kete  is about sharing content and therefore we have adopted the Creative Commons Licence arrangements to govern how you may use content indicated as ‘Shared Content’ on the Site and how any material you post will automatically become Shared Content for others to use.

Whenever you post content on the Site, you agree to make it available under the terms of the Creative Commons Licence which governs all Shared Content on the Site. This means that users of the Site will be able to:

•copy, distribute, display and perform the Shared Content; and

•make derivative works from it,

provided that:

•they do not use it for any commercial purpose

•when they use it elsewhere they credit you as the original author

•if they re-use or distribute the Shared Content, they make it clear to others the terms on which the Shared Content is made available by explaining to them these licence terms

•if they make any derivative work that they create from the Shared Content available to other users on the same Creative Commons Licence terms.

Other Registered Users will be able to amend, overwrite or even delete your content on or from the Site without consulting you.

All images are released under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 New Zealand License

Christmas Crafts And Cooking

Looking for last minute ideas top bring the festive season to life? Or to make that Christmas meal that leaves everyone super impressed?

We have a number of books on Christmas Crafts and Cooking ideas.

From The Kete: Boer War 1900 Picture

Another picture from Kete Tararua.

Fifth photo in army series. Boer War 1900. People watching parade of soldiers.

Wording on back:

“Boer war 1900 Troops parading prior to their departure.

Site: Cnr Millers Rd and Stanley St Paynes house on the right still there HBF garage on left hand corner”

Author OF The Week: December 21 – December 27

Nora Roberts AKA J. D. Robb

Nora Roberts (b. Eleanor Marie Robertson, October 10, 1950 in Silver Spring, Maryland, USA), is a bestselling American author of more than 165 romance novels, and she writes as J.D. Robb for the “In Death” series. She also has written under the pseudonym Jill March, and by error some of her works were published in the UK as Sarah Hardesty.

Nora Roberts was born in Silver Spring, Maryland, the youngest of five children. After a school career that included some time in Catholic school and the disciplines of nuns, she married young and settled in Keedysville, Maryland.

She worked briefly as a legal secretary. “I could type fast but couldn’t spell, I was the worst legal secretary ever,” she says now. After her sons were born she stayed home and tried every craft that came along. A blizzard in February 1979 forced her hand to try another creative outlet. She was snowed in with a three and six year old with no kindergarten respite in sight and a dwindling supply of chocolate.

Born into a family of readers, Nora had never known a time that she wasn’t reading or making up stories. During the now-famous blizzard, she pulled out a pencil and notebook and began to write down one of those stories. It was there that a career was born. Several manuscripts and rejections later, her first book, Irish Thoroughbred, was published by Silhouette in 1981.

Nora met her second husband, Bruce Wilder, when she hired him to build bookshelves. They were married in July 1985. Since that time, they’ve expanded their home, traveled the world and opened a bookstore together.

Through the years, Nora has always been surrounded by men. Not only was she the youngest in her family, but she was also the only girl. She has raised two sons. Having spent her life surrounded by men, Ms. Roberts has a fairly good view of the workings of the male mind, which is a constant delight to her readers. It was, she’s been quoted as saying, a choice between figuring men out or running away screaming.

Nora is a member of several writers groups and has won countless awards from her colleagues and the publishing industry. Recently The New Yorker called her “America’s favourite novelist.”