Dub dot dash

Legendary reggae producer Coxsone Dodd dies.
"FOUR days after the City of Kingston honoured him by naming a street for his famous Studio One recording label, Jamaican music pioneer Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd died suddenly yesterday.
He apparently suffered a heart attack at his offices at 13 Studio One Boulevard, which, until last Friday's big civic ceremony in honour of Dodd, was Brentford Road. Dodd was 72.
In a statement last night, Opposition leader, Edward Seaga, a contemporary of Dodd in the music business in the 1950s and 1960s, described him as "one of the fathers of Jamaican music". He said that Dodd was "an extraordinary talent". Read more here, here and here.

What time is it?
TV2 repeated the insightful documentary Hiphop NZ on Tuesday night after the Comedy Festival Gala (did you see Benjamin Crellin doing Paul Holmes as Gollum? Brilliant). This doco originally screened last year, and with a NZ Music Month logo tacked on the front gave TV2 the appearance of giving a damn about local music, so good on em. Directed by Sima Urale (King Kapisi's sister), the final word in the show went to DJ DLT, talking about what hiphop means to him;
"Remember, hiphop is the description that a journalist had to sort of encompass a feeling, and put it into a word so that Joe Coffeetable could go there and trip with this journalist. So we gotta be very careful with how we label things.
"Hiphop is about 'what are you thinking now?' - 'Show me!', and let's see if I understand what you're trying to portray - it's life itself".


School Principal suffers loss of irony, humour bypass.
"The headmaster of Nelson College today called for a boycott of Farmers stores over "man-bashing" products advertised in their Mother's Day catalogue.
Salvi Gargiulo said he had received three letters from people disturbed by slogans such as "Boys are stupid: throw rocks at them" and "Stupid factory: where boys are made" printed on slippers and bags in the catalogue. He said it was time for people to stop finding humour by putting people down. "I think a lot of bashing goes on under the heading of humour, but it's not humorous. If you joke like that you condone it."

A consumer writes...
I've long been a fan of Wrigleys Juicyfruit chewing gum. I bought a packet at the weekend, and it now comes in a new funky, hip packaging. Gone is the distinctive logo, replaced with some 'groovy' typeface, and a note saying "now longer lasting", but it felt like the packet has got smaller.
Then yesterday, I bought an old-style packet of Juicyfruit from a gas station that still had some of the old stock, and what do you know - the old packet weighed 17g and the new, longer lasting packet is 14g - for the same price as the old packet. So this new redesigned labelling comes with a catch - you are getting ripped off. How can gum be longer lasting? That's subjective. I'm never buying Juicyfruit ever again. If you happen to know anyone who works for Wrigleys, can you find out why they are screwing their customers like this? Thank you.