GENERAL KNOWLEDGE
Across 1.
Birds featured in the carol The Twelve Days of Christmas (6,4)
6. Athenian philosopher, 470-399 BCE, who proclaimed that the only thing he was aware of was his ignorance (8)
10. ! "produced in Italy (10)
11. The name of 13 popes, the most recent dying in 1903 (3)
12. Rural district in central Canterbury which includes Rolleston,
# % " ! "
15. 3000-year-old port on a bay of the Strait of Gibraltar (7)
17. Small casserole dish in which individual portions can be cooked (7)
18. Midwestern US state known as the crossroads of America (7)
19. Former pupil or student of a college or university (7)
22. The ___ Trap & '* Lindsay Lohan played twins (6)
25. Character in A Midsummer Night’s Dream who tries to stop his daughter from marrying Lysander (5)
27. Word with the same spelling as another, but a different pronunciation and meaning (9)
30. Apple cultivar developed by growers in Japan in the late 1930s (4)
31. Plant in the class Polypodiopsida which would be studied by a pteridologist (4)
32. Author whose works are mostly set in Cornwall, where she spent most of her life (2,7)
34. Birthstone for the month of November (5)
37. Wallace and Gromit have a fondness for this (6)
41. Genre of electronic dance music that originated in the early 2000s in London (7)
43. Small, large-eyed antelope of Africa and Asia (7)
44. ___ ___ Jazz, song from the 1975 musical Chicago (3,4)
45. Surname of actress Jane and actor Kurt (7)
48. President of the United States 54. # + *#/* ;! * "industrial operation which opened in 1971 (5,5)
Down
1. Paper size of 216 x 343mm (8)
2. The ____, third in the Dirty Harry & < !# < ! < " #
3. Actor who played the father in Malcolm in the Middle and Walter White in Breaking Bad (8)
4. Informal meal popularised by the Duchess of Bedford, who began the tradition in 1840 (4,3)
5. Item held in the left hand in Michelangelo’s sculpture of David (5)
6. <#%+! & #<# <*'! radio play (5)
7. Saddles or passes in a range of mountains (4)
8. First name of George Clooney’s wife (4)
9. Term used to describe Japan’s bullet trains, meaning ‘new trunk line’ (10)
13. Name of the Jack Russell terrier in the sitcom Frasier (5)
14. Marine mammal associated with the minor prophet Jonah (5)
16. “The poor man who enters into a partnership with one who is rich makes a ___ venture”: Plautus (5)
20. Biblical character who angels saved from the destruction of Sodom, but lost his wife (3)
21. Nobleman ranked above a count when the Berlin Wall came down (6) (7)
51. Central, calm part of a tornado (3) 23. ___ McCartney, New Zealand
52. Hard timber known for its pole vaulter who won a bronze medal durability and beautiful colour (10) at the 2016 Olympics (5)
53. Type of lock which needs a key or 24. 34th book in the Discworld series handle to open it and has no spring by Terry Pratchett (4)
(8) 26. An unintentional social blunder (5)
28. “The worst wheel of the cart makes the most ___ “: Benjamin Franklin (5)
29. Abbreviation of a word meaning ‘soldier for hire’ (4)
30. !# ! !< & < ! %#< % '* < The Last Tycoon, was completed after his death by a friend and published in 1941 (10)
33. ___ the Sea, song from the
#< = & The Little Mermaid (5)
35. Savoury dish of Italian origin '* < & ' < !< " % & more than 1200 years ago (5)
36. Magical princess who is the title character in a video game series launched in 1986 (5)
38. Ancient toy which became a craze in the 1950s (4,4)
39. And The Mountains ___, third novel by Afghan-American author Khaled Hosseini (6)
40. Port where merchandise can be imported and exported with no customs duties imposed (8)
42. Ancient city in Syria, much of which was destroyed in 2015 during the Syrian Civil War (7)
46. "# " !<# + &
47. Tube implanted temporarily in a vessel to relieve obstruction (5)
49. Spandau Ballet’s second-highest charting single (4)
50. Word, meaning ‘very small’, used < ;! > # < + & < ! & (4)
It’s clear that Grant has been happy with Western economies, including New Zealand’s, for the past 40 years or so because the neoliberal dogma of small governments that need to get out of the way of oh-so-efficient private enterprise has reigned supreme.
No matter that this dogma and the austerity programmes it requires is the cause of the evergrowing, obscene levels of inequity inside our society and between nations on a worldwide scale.
No matter that this dogma is greatly exacerbating the most dangerous threats to human existence, namely climate change and the exhaustion of the natural world’s ability to keep us all alive.
Instead of uttering his plea for austerity, which is what a National/ACT coalition will impose if it is elected, he should read economics Professor Mariana Mazzucato’s Mission Economy: A Moonshot Guide to Changing Capitalism, which will show him why austerity doesn’t work and how we can enjoy more prosperity for all, better public services and have a chance of solving the climate crisis.