Test your Chris Liddell learnings

Diary of the last 4 years

9.10am

Exam weather. The sun is saying come on outside, and you bet I will. Lovely morning for a walk and the air is sweet with blossom and young New Zealand will shortly be turning over their papers and looking wistfully outside.

The year I sat my last exam, just the other day, the Prime Minister was Robert Muldoon and Joe Biden had only been in the senate for ten years. 

Good morning young New Zealand, taking your seats! What might be in this year’s exam papers I wonder? 

It's always fun to guess.

Media Studies

(1)Watch the introduction to this TV interview. We are told that high flying New Zealander Chris Liddell has been Donald Trump’s key man for the last four years but has not granted an interview until now. What does this mean?

a. New Zealand punches above its weight at rugby but not at scoring interviews

b. He was trying to do it on the downlow

c. TVNZ is LinkedIn for high flying New Zealanders

(2) The phrase high flying New Zealander Chris Liddell is an example of the way the language of current affairs likes to put labels on things. Name five other people whose full title in news stories is high flying New Zealander. 

(3) Compare and contrast high flying New Zealander Chris Liddell and high flying New Zealander Eric Watson.

(4) Using the words discerning, credulous, and star-stuck write 300 words about media coverage of high flying New Zealanders 

Drama

In this interview, high flying New Zealander Chris Liddell explains that his job is to get all the best people with the best ideas in front of the president so that he can make a considered decision. Write a comedy skit about a room full of people trying to get the attention of a man who is only interested in watching FOX News to see what they are saying about him.

English 

In this interview, high flying New Zealander Chris Liddell explains that his job is to get all the best people with the best ideas in front of the president so that he can make a considered decision.

(1)Write a short poem about manure that makes people think of it as apple blossom.

(2)What are three language devices you can use to pretend that your work has meaning and that you have achieved anything at all?

History

As this interview takes place with high flying New Zealander Chris Liddell somewhere else in the White House the President is coming to terms with a crushing defeat by pretending it has not happened, and high flying New Zealander Chris Liddell has said he’s not able to make a comment about that, sorry.

(1)Considering the lessons of history, do you think the President would be getting away with this sort of thing if his key person was high flying New Zealander Sir Edmund Hillary or high flying New Zealander Sir Peter Blake or high flying New Zealander Sir Helen Clark?

(2)Considering the lessons of history, what might happen next?

a. Stalingrad, but where they cut off the supply of Big Macs

b. Dunkirk, but with MAGA boats that all sink

c. Trump and high flying New Zealander Chris Liddell will be in a Downfall meme

Business studies

In this interview, high flying New Zealander Chris Liddell says:

Aspiration without action is just hollow words

and 

No aspiration and just action is just incrementalism and randomness

Using management buzzwords, explain how the United States ended up suffering so grievously even though the Obama administration had left it in a high state of preparedness for a pandemic.

More English

In this interview, high flying New Zealander Chris Liddell says they set up a separate task force to deal with the pandemic much like the Biden administration is now planning and he reckons it worked pretty well.

(1)Write a short play including a scene where Jared lines up 20 interns to go looking on behalf of the United States of America for the PPE gear they will need.

(2)Write an elegy for the CDC.

More Business studies

(1)Create a Linked-IN profile using the words in this interview that make it sound as though leaving the Paris Accord was a constructive positive move.

(2)Write 300 words on the illusion of accomplishment that can be created by a LinkedIn profile.

English - for extra credit

Translate the anodyne abstract business language in this interview that talks airily about a relatively light impact of Covid on the people of the US into something that captures the anguish of quarter of a million bereavements.

History - for extra credit

In this interview, high flying New Zealander Chris Liddell asserts that no person is one hundred percent aligned with the president, and there have been times when he has disagreed, but he has never so violently disagreed that he considered leaving.

Describe in less than 500 words how history has judged white supremacists. Describe in less than 200 words how it has judged its enablers.

When you are finished you may leave quietly and inhale the fresh spring air.