Another one bites the dust

What a blow. Rodney Hide announces his last column for the Herald on Sunday. I suppose it'll save a few minutes of my day not having to open the Herald page of a Sunday morning but that's the only upside I can think of and it's not a very good one.

There are countless opinion writers, as mentioned yesterday. There are three I take note of. Karl du Fresne, Martin van Beynen and Colin James. Occasionally I will glance at other writers columns, if the headline interests. But rarely do I reach the end. Mostly because it's recycled pap. The same ideas get expressed repeatedly with little thought about the manner of expression even. Originality is a rare commodity. In part that is why I blog infrequently now. I have said all I have to say and don't want to bore the readers or myself.

But Hide always had a new twist on something. Sometimes the twists seemed implausible but they never failed to either entertain or turn over the grey matter.

Perhaps he could be persuaded to start a blog? Creative thinkers need an outlet. And Lord knows, the rest of us need to hear their thoughts.