mike carey

That's probably why there was no need to camp out for tickets.

Maybe it's just me, but I prefer the idea of travelling to meet guys rather than flying them to me. Two or three days in New York or Toronto (or both) would give you the opportunity to meet two, three, or however many you choose, of these fine gentlemen. If you're expecting to pay a return fare across the pond, it may as well be your bum on the seat.

There's even an award for that, or so I have heard.

Ouch! But well said, we can so easily lament someone's misfortune, not just their death, because they have some quality we admire.

A man who was a minor councillor on the city council of the Gold Coast, a self-absorbed locality on the outskirts of Brisbane, who allegedly murdered his father, and I should care? Nah, not happening.

I heard Simone Young talk about the performance a couple of days ago on ABC RN (on the Music Show, I think). I'm glad it lived up to her ambitions for it.

Not a very good good likeness of Edith Piaf.

Gary? Who cares about a little thing like a state border!

*Plans Ottawa stopover on my next US trip*

Gentlemen, I'm as guilty as anyone else of going down the rabbit warren of who Taylor Swift is rather than sticking to the point that @FreshFluff raised about her having set a trend on long nails, but we've pretty much done the issue to death now. Please keep to the topic of wearing nail polish from now on.

No big deal, she was just here for seven concerts in 80K and 100K stadiums, and there was nothing else on TV (I exaggerate) for a couple of weeks. I'm surprised her attendance at the Superbowl to watch her boyfriend play didn't saturate everyone's consciousness in the US. And now back to our regular scheduled programming.

her

To be pedantic AF, I wasn't quoting him I was reporting what was said, so I was writing the word as I would always write it. If I had wanted to make a point about how Ford recorded what he had said I could have written 'color' and followed it with (sic) to indicate the non-standard (to me) spelling. But now I'm being silly, and that would be my defence in court! Now, back to deposits.

I had always understood that he said the word. If indeed he spelt the word, I am grateful for that additional snippet of information!

I remember it being claimed, probably apocryphally, that Henry Ford said of the Model T that you could have any colour you want, as long as it's black. His factory, his choice. That's why to this day all Ford cars are black.

A Meta joke about Alphabet?

Possibly so, but there is another explanation, and one that the OP nods to in his choice of a thread title (and I admit to being lamentably slow in the uptake) in which he references the traditional translation of Qu'ils mangent de la brioche, which Jean-Jacques Rousseau attributed to an unnamed 'great princess' (and has since been attributed erroneously to Marie Antoinette). 'Let them eat cake' has become the byword for being monumentally out of touch. Neither sneering condescension nor being hopelessly out of touch reflects well on the CEO.

And there I was expecting this to be a thread about finding a doctor in Baltimore!

Moving this into a relevant Forum, the test match was a roller coaster ride for spectators and the teams playing at Hagley Oval alike. Australia did indeed have the advantage at the end of the second day, but what a difference a day makes. The New Zealand batsmen settled down and played aggressive cricket in their second innings, overtaking Australia's 94 run lead from the two teams' first innings. By late on the third day they had amassed a second innings total of 372 runs, a lead of 278 when they were all out. Things didn't get any better for the Australians as when they began their run chase four of their batsmen were out when the team had only scored 34. Early on day four another Australian was out when the score was 80 leaving them 199 runs to win and New Zealand only needing to get five more batsmen out for them to win. Nobody gave Australia much chance of pulling that off. Scoring more than 250 runs in the fourth innings of a test match rarely happens, and it was more than Australia had ever scored to win against the Kiwis. Mitch Marsh and the wicket keeper (a bit like a baseball catcher) Alex Carey (NR) combined to score 140 runs (dare we hope?) before Mitch was out with Australia needing a further 59 runs. The new batsman (who is in the team mainly as a bowler) was out first ball. Seven out and hope ebbs away. The nervous tension was palpable, even for someone watching on a small screen. The captain, Pat Cummins (also a bowler) came in to bat. They gradually scored runs, with Cummins, the less accomplished batsman, scoring more than Carey. Australia reached 277 runs. Cummins was at bat. Carey was 98 not out. Cummins could have played a defensive shot and left scoring the final two runs to Carey, but he hit a final ball to the boundary scoring four runs. And leaving Carey two runs short of a century. If New Zealand had won they would have reprised their first ever test victory against Australia, at Lancaster Park in Christchurch in 1974, a victory that had been marked by a reunion of surviving NZ players on the eve of the match. Many Australians would not have been too disappointed at a loss for that reason. A fitting way to mark the 50th Anniversary wasn't to be. And we had been treated to a match that was absorbing throughout and had an uncertain result almost till the end.

Christchurch is a beautiful city, although there's nothing 'must see' about it, and it has that in common with a lot of places. Australia is playing New Zealand in a cricket test at the moment (day three will be on Sunday, and Australia had the advantage at the end of day two), and that is being played at Hagley Oval which is in the same area of parkland where the botanical gardens are. Hagley Oval is a new test cricket ground, the previous venue at Lancaster Park was damaged beyond repair in the 2011 Christchurch earthquake and the area was deemed unsafe to build a new stadium. I agree with Rod, that driving anywhere in the South Island is a joy. @azdr0710 @tristanbaldwin and I drove from Picton (the ferry terminal from the North Island) to Queenstown down the west coast and it was a great trip.

Lol, my sincere thanks for your concern, and you didn't mention that it's a short domestic flight. I can assure you that the traveller in me is significantly less excited than the avgeekish part. It's a new aircraft type for Australia and an aeroplane that has been widely greeted in the FF blogs as being innovative in its 'passenger experience' (to use the jargon). I won't be wearing a Qantas A220 t-shirt by the pool at InnDulge!

There is a common culture in the Gulf Arab states, but the hired help, including airline employees are not part of it. These countries are the antithesis of diversity, there is a dominant culture, hired technocratic help (mainly western) who have no rights, and the rest who have even fewer rights, more analogous to slaves than anything else. So they offer no lessons on whether diversity in the West is a good or bad thing. Interesting as that may be, this thread is about airlines and air travel, not the advantages or otherwise of diversity or of the nature of Middle Eastern societies, so please stick to discussing travel.

(Without reading the article) there are two groups of people involved. WW customers would indeed be ill-advised to base their use of the company's products on whether she was on the board. (I wouldn't dream of saying 'stupid'.) In contrast, shareholders would be sensible to sell in anticipation of the stup, i mean irrational response of customers.

When I was growing up there was no routine smallpox vaccination within Australia with the most recent recorded case being in 1938, but vaccination was enforced at the border. Hence my vaccinations in the later seventies, and I still have my yellow WHO book. That requirement ended in 1980 when it was declared globally eradicated.

I think the site has moved on from those days.