Prizes for those who recognise the Shakespearean derivation of the title of this blog – play, plus Act, Scene and line number would be really impressive!
The Education and Science Select Committee is going to hear my submission on the 53,000+ petitions seeking reinstatement of funding to Adult and Community Education delivered through high schools, aka night classes. That will happen next year now, probably in February, but certainly early on in the year. It is the biggest petition tabled in Parliament so far this term.
People shouldn’t give up on this issue. This is the moment right now when Ministers are haggling with the Minister of Finance about their budget bids for next year. Or they should be by now anyway. I’d be worried if they’re not. So here is an opportunity for people to urge Anne Tolley to reconsider her decision from last year and reinstate this comparatively squitty amount of money ($13 million) and save herself another year of protests, irritating questions in the House and bad press in every national, provincial and local newspaper in the country.
If you want some help in writing to her about this issue, click here. It ain’t over yet!
Richard III Don’t know act or scene “A horse, a horse, my Kingdom for a horse.
Act 1 line 1 is “Now is the Winter of our discontent, made glorious Summer by this Prince of York” This is an obvious reference to Rt Hon John Key PM of New Zealand.
Sorry, that should have been ‘Son’ of York.
Cheers.
Othello, Act 2, scene 3, lines 262 and 263.
Methinks this whole thing is pretty enseamed.
I may be way off but it sounds a little like:
O Romeo, Romeo, where for art thou Romeo?
Act 2, Scene 2, Line 35
@Steve Reeves – you rock! My next clue word was going to be “Iago” – Othello: “Reputation, reputation, Iago – I have lost my reputation!”
@Richard Morgan – good try – also works quite well. Yes of course it was “Son” of York – to be a play on sun and summer vis-a-vis winter etc etc. You get runner-up! For Shakespeare – not for adulation of the smiling villain! (Another quotation – this time from which play….this could go on forever!)
Hamlet!!!
Very appropriate, considering where our particular SV is going (seemingly against his will…)
“O villain, villain, smiling, damnèd villain!
My tables—meet it is I set it down
That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain—
At least I am sure it may be so in Denmark.”
Hamlet Act 1, scene 5, 105–109
You couldn’t make it up! Oh, Shakespeare did!
@Richard – Shakespeare, if he were observing Question Time lately, might well say “Prince of Dork”
Hamlet Act1 Scene 5 Lines 105-109 (Thanks Google) Refers to Hamlet’s mother whose name may have been Maryan Rue, but I’m not sure.
Can anyone tell me how a adult education program such as Auckland University’s New Start program would/would not be affected by this?
Fantastic, I love the way you made the title of the post into a quiz so that the content became irrelevant.
I always thought of Key when we were studying two-faced Iago’s soliloquies…
Whoops sorry for the double comment.
@Maryan – isn’t it Cassio who’s worried abut his reputation?
Hey LabRat – don’t be such a miseryguts! Can’t a girl have some fun? Besides – what did you think of Steve Reeves’ use of Hamlet I v 105-109 to describe John Key? The old bard still has a poignant way with words I think…
)
@Nicola Wood – yes, it absolutely is Cassio who says the line which started all this. The play is Othello. Poor old Cassio – played like a violin by evil Iago. Any members of the National caucus come to mind? (See LabRat – we can continue this game endlessly!
@Chris – yes, there is an impact on the NewStart programme at Auckland Uni. I will endeavour to get more info on this.
The Minister of Education,Anne Tolley,is represenative of a class of people who are pampered,rich and extremely self-serving. They are not interested in an egalitarian society. Nay, they actively oppose it and individually and collectively work against the achievement of such a democratically espoused vision. I assume from the brief bio. available on Anne Tolley , that she is of farming stock – probably the most arrogant, pampered and self-serving group in this country and elsewhere. Remember the “specials” who rode on horseback into crowds of starving people in Wellington and elsewhere during the depression years – just one example of their true nature! Tolley exhibits the type of thinking that ACE funding for nightclasses is a frivolous waste of time and money on the poor masses who should be out working and fully paying their own way – despite the inhibitave costs. She(and presumably her cabinet colleagues)fail to realise/or more correctly refuse to see that unlike her welloff bretheren, many of the ordinary people in New Zealand cannot afford to meet the full cost of such classes. Furthermore, Tolley et al fail/refuse to see the matrix of benefits that eminate from such funded classes. The consequenses of these cuts will reverberate throughout the whole of New Zealand to the detriment of the health and wellbeing of many. The Government will fnd that the so called saving of a mere $16 million will cost probably tenfold or more in additional spending through the negative flow-on effcts of these cuts. Tolley of course will deny this but then she is crass, blinkered and clearly a willing accolyte of the Business Roundtable and its one dimensional ethos and ethics.
Roll on 2011 when we can vote these buggers out!!