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The Rumour Machine
Juicy gossip travels swiftly; Truth is hidden behind a wall. Lives disappear each moment While trade negotiations stall. Algorithmic amplification. Biometric identification. Spreading rumours throughout our hive; Bloody good thing they're not alive. Juicy gossip leaves your tongue. Truth is hidden behind your ear. Lives crumbling into dust: It's hard to know who to cheer. Parasocial hypergroupies. Neural-networked mass simulations. Spreading rumours while they look: Bloo
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Amanda Riddell
4 days ago1 min read
Sing It From Your Heart
Bm7 Dmaj7 You can conquer all your fears. Bm7 Dmaj7 You can finally shed those tears. Dmaj7 Cmaj7 They'll say you're on the mend, Bm7 Dmaj7 And you're living with your friend. Bm7 C#dim7 Sing it from your heart! Dmaj7 Cmaj7 We'll make a brand new start. Bm7 C#dim7 Make i
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Amanda Riddell
6 days ago1 min read
Paramilitary Jamboree
(3/4) C7 They gave us guns D7 And they gave us freedom. C7 The President elect, D7 He gave us a pardon. C7 Now I've got a hard-on D7 For shooting up spics. C7 No dirty tricks G C We're as free as can be: (two-step, cut time) D A7 It's a paramilitary jamboree! E7 Shooting up them darkies, A That's the life for me D A7 It's the paramilitary ICE! E7 Shooting up them darkies,
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Amanda Riddell
Feb 102 min read
Falling Back In Love With Her
Intro: Bm7(sus4)/A, A (A) Bm7(sus4)/A The same old lies reprised Amaj7 The same old cries in bed A7 The same old tears we shed Bm7 E7 Amaj7 'Cause I'm falling back in love with her. (Amaj7) Bm7(sus4)/A I can't control my pride: Amaj7 It's swollen twice it's size. A7 'Cause when I met her eyes, I said: Bm7 E7
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Amanda Riddell
Feb 61 min read
Weeded Out: final letter to the lawyers
Weeded Out is an original dramatic work authored solely by me, with authorship and originality established by time-stamped drafts spanning 2020–2022, demonstrating continuous and consistent “creative DNA” (characters, plot architecture, themes, and scene sequence) predating all later conflicts. My subsequent prose project Just Like Yesterday (commenced 2024 and still incomplete) is a derivative adaptation of that underlying screenplay, and the absence of a final prose ending
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Amanda Riddell
Jan 232 min read
Re: Beatles Invade New Zealand! — feature screenplay proposal
Dear Apple Corps, Wētā and WingNut I am writing to submit a feature screenplay proposal titled Beatles Invade New Zealand! , a scripted film set during The Beatles’ 1964 visit to New Zealand. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1q1-y8Sya90U2BTsUNHBQTcQzM9xetbBm/view?usp=sharing This project has been written not as a conventional “biopic”, but as a reconstruction film : cinema that restores an historical event with a method closer to archival practice than dramatic invention. It
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Amanda Riddell
Jan 205 min read
Children Of The Rich
Em7 A The fucked-up children of the rich; Em7 A All they do is bitch, bitch, bitch! F# E F#7/C# They leave their castoffs in a ditch: Bb11 F#7(b9)/C# Fuck the children of the rich! D Dmaj7 D9 Our precious lifeboats are nearly gone, D Ebdim7 E7 B7
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Amanda Riddell
Jan 191 min read
Celebrity Confession Industry
Eb7 You scrutinise our faces Ab7 Making movies of our phrases Eb7 Then you edit out the truth Bb7 C7 And you sell us to your youth Bmaj7 Emaj7 It's the celebrity confession industry Bmaj7 Emaj7 Making up the headlines that they want to see Bmaj 7 Emaj7 Yes, the celebrity confession industry Eb7 Db7
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Amanda Riddell
Jan 141 min read
Rest Up, Fight Back
Intro: F7-F7sus4 F7 It's not a big surprise Bb9 So don't feign dismay F7 They're the same old cries Db7 Ab7 While the children play C7 They're the same old boots B7 Acting in cahoots Bb9 Stomping on our throats F#7 F7 While the Eggman gloats Dmaj7 Amaj7 Charity isn't easy to find F#7 As you wind up in the middle B7 of another dirty riddle Dmaj7 Amaj7 Clarity isn't easy just for the
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Amanda Riddell
Jan 121 min read
Fry Up The Eggman!
Emaj7/G# Drones that flutter high above us Dmaj7/F# Phones that mutter that they love us Gmaj13/B Tasers that they use to shove us Eb69 Bb7b9 All because of who we let in Emaj7/G# Counting up his mounting millions Dmaj7/F# As he murders our civilians Gmaj13/B And his buddies rake in trillions Eb69 Bb7b9 Let's help someone new to get in. Cadd2 Let's fry up the Eggman! Bb9 Let's scramble his egg pan! Dmaj7 Let's brin
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Amanda Riddell
Jan 91 min read
Ad song
D Sticking to a lamp post Asus4 A Inches from the drain D I am just a story A7 D People don't explain D Could be selling undies Asus4 A Could be selling Spain D E7/A I can't see my body D6 So I can't explain. C#-7 B-7 I'm just another ad C#-7 B-7 Don't know if I'm good or bad Eb-7 Db-7 I'm just another ad Db-7 Cb-7 Feeling sorta s
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Amanda Riddell
Jan 81 min read
Moments Flow
A A/G# Time has sung A/G F#sus4 Her final song: D6 D69 Loud and proud. D6 D69 Always proud. A A/G# Rhyme has wrung A/G F#sus4 Her last embrace: D6 D69 Sweet and sad, D6 D69 Then you're glad. B-7 Moments flow C#-7 Then they go [Bb-7sus4] A A/G# Time has sung A/G F#sus4 Her last refrain: D6 D69 Free from pain. D6 D69 (hums) Emaj9 Moments flow Emin11 Sweet and slow... A
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Amanda Riddell
Dec 31, 20251 min read
when the end comes
when the end comes it will be just another day; another day of drinking room temperature beer; of yelling/laughing/crying at the TV; of corporate interests overtaking human rights; of grey skies and dark clouds floating on the horizon; of wishing you were anywhere else, under some other tsar. corruption doesn't happen overnight: it's built in stages. performative rage is their most devious tool. stoking our base desires, their fires inspire some new homicidal fool. s
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Amanda Riddell
Nov 26, 20251 min read
The Sands of Time - lyrics and chords
Intro - 1. Dsus2/F#, Dm/F, E 2. Dsus2/F#, F, E Also, remember the pauses; it's not entirely in 12/8. There's a rest beat in the A-section, so it's also in 15/8. D/F# Asus2/G# (15/8) The sands of time E5 F#m/C# Are drifting sky D/F# Asus2/G# Fragments of E5 F#m/C# A life gone by D/F# (12/8) The lands of time E Are drawing near F#m/C# G Hear me Whisper G Amaj7/G# In your ear (C#, F#, G, B) All our struggles D Feel meant t
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Amanda Riddell
Nov 25, 20251 min read


The Sands of Time (Reo version)
It's not a perfect lyric in English, so here's a Māori version. Also, remember the pauses; it's not entirely in 12/8. There's a rest beat in the A-section, so it's also in 15/8. Intro - 1. Dsus2/F#, Dm/F, E 2. Dsus2/F#, F, E ROSE (15/8) D/F# Asus2/G# Te taipū o te wā E5 F#m/C# e rangi D/F# Asus2/G# Tūāporo E5 F#m/C# mauri ai D/F# E (12/8) Te hotahota o te wā F#m/C# G Hine, hine Amaj7/G# Taringa! (C#, F#, G, B) D
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Amanda Riddell
Nov 23, 20251 min read
whakapapa
Put another way: Billy T is buried on the same mountain as my Dad's ashes. I recall it being very nearby to Henry and Ross's farm. Carmen was from a nearby tribe. Alistair Riddell's a distant relative. Don McGlashan is distantly related via Ruby King.
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Amanda Riddell
Nov 22, 20251 min read


Rí Airgíalla
That's the Irish title. I studied the entire Duolingo module, but that was in 2017-2018. My mother's family comes from Northern Ireland. Mostly Scots-Irish. Not sure if it's that region, but it might be. Either way, in Early Medieval Ireland, these were the hostages and slaves. The O'Neill's were the boorish Australians to the North. Sandwiched between the two O'Neill territories, in fact.
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Amanda Riddell
Nov 22, 20251 min read
Ponga and Puhihuia: A Blue Pacific Retelling
The Blue Continent and the Shores of Tāmaki Before Europeans marked Aotearoa on their charts, the seas between Kāwhia, Tāmaki, and...
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Amanda Riddell
Oct 12, 20253 min read


whakapapa - brief version
When I looked up the Puhihuia song, the sheet music said that Ruby King had been told that story by Chief Tahuri Kaora of Ngāti Hikairo. Dr. Brown sent me an article in reply, stating that the story was usually attributed to Auckland tribes, such as Maungawhau and Awhitu, but that was George Grey's bowdlerised version of the story. This new attribution might be a more authentic telling of the mōteatea. Anyway, that was a pretty clear sign of whakapapa. - My Dad's family
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Amanda Riddell
Oct 12, 20251 min read


String Quartet No. 1 (2025):
The Māori in European Art: Reclaiming the Iconomy of Sound by Amanda Michelina When Leonard Bell published The Māori in European Art in 1980, he was documenting more than just a collection of colonial paintings and engravings. He was tracing the European imagination of the Māori — a field of vision shaped as much by fantasy as by observation. In his introduction, Bell remarks on an engraving from around 1800, and a photograph from around 1900: “The engraver responsible for
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Amanda Riddell
Oct 10, 20257 min read
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