Public Address - Island Life (Home)

Speaking boisterously to no-one in particular | Jul 02, 2008 09:41

I had my first encounter with drinking liberally when I was 15. In the 1970s, Flock House was the place for a young man to come and learn to be a farmer. It was a large farm near Bulls, with a grand homestead. It once belonged to my great great grandparents, the McKenzies.

There, in 1976, we had a family reunion, and there, in 1976, I had my first Bacardi and Coke, followed by another, and another, and then another, in gathering succession as I discerned that no-one would impede my progress to the bar.

Late in the evening, my parents led me, talking boisterously to no-one in particular, from the grand house to the car, where I stretched across the back seat and regaled them with an oration of which I could recall not one word the next morning. I did not feel queasy, nor did I have a headache. But I did feel mortified. Never again, I vowed and with only a thousand or two exceptions, I have kept my word.

"My name is David and I am a liberal drinker", I will say when the gathering is called to order this evening at the London Bar. I will speak of many doomed years grappling with the dreaded social lubricant. I will speak of my liver, my heart, and my lost lamented brain cells.

No I won't.

The Drinking Liberally movement has arrived in Auckland, and I will be saying a few words. My topic is drawn from the 1975 Muldoon battle cry: New Zealand the Way You Want It. I will begin by reminiscing about that and the origin of of the slogan, as described by Barry Gustafson, and we'll go from there. I expect to pass through the towns of Key, Clark, Crosby, Textor, SPARC's operating budget and the shining city on a hill called a better tomorrow. I also expect to speak the name of the hell that no Liberal dare consider: a National landslide.

The London Bar is still my favourite place to drink in all of Auckland. I'll be the one holding a scotch on the rocks and drinking slowly.

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Freshly hacked from the server | Jul 02, 2008 07:46

Every day when I get home from work, my kid asks me the same thing. "What do you do at Crosby|Textor, Dad?"

I say the same thing to him I say to everyone else: "None of ya business, ya nosey mongrel", and I give him a playful cuff under the chin. When he comes to, we play twenty minutes of Grand Theft Auto together and that's the quality time sorted for the day.

It's none of your business either, ya mongrels, but I'm sick of you Kiwis whining all day so here's a bone, alright?

What do we do all day? We tidy things up. Put it this way. I like rats. You don't. You win. Here's what we do with our rat before we send him over to your house.

First, we fix the tail. People don't like that skinny, greasy thing. We make it soft and fluffy.

The little claws are sinister. Fatten them out, put some nice soft hair on top and little soft pink pads underneath.

The big ears are a turnoff. We shrink those down and put more of that nice soft fur all over the bald ears. Then we make the rest of the body bigger to get the proportion right.

The pointy nose is homely. Flatten it down.

Fur on just the tail and ears and feet looks wrong. We'll cover the rest of the body as well.

That dirty grey colour isn't working, though. We'll change it to handsome splotches of glossy black and white. Nice.

Now clear ya throat, Rat. Give us a few bars.

That squeak is a deal-breaker. We'll give you a new sound.

Let's hear you now. Beautiful. You like that? Thought you would. We call that a meow.

And that's a purr.

Now go catch some rats, champ.

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Hunting Squirrels | Jun 26, 2008 10:24

I come to praise Helen Clark's government as we prepare to bury it. You may have heard Laila Harre on the radio on Monday. Evidence from a focus group suggests that people are not aware that credit for various changes is due to the present administration. You may also have read Audrey Young this morning praising Michael Cullen for his legacy work in Treaty negotiations. Add KiwiSaver and the Cullen fund to the list and it is clear that Michael did not come to Parliament just to eat the Torys' lunch.

Ironic, then, that an administration so derided for their profligacy in spin has turned so much straw to so little gold. Consider how much more they spent than their Opposition on advertising in the last campaign, and how little it seemed to do for them. Do they have a tin ear for advertising? Consider the happy American family from stock photo land. Yes, it's standard practice to use such things, but that doesn't mean something so anodyne is the best choice. When you create political advertising, you get to deal with the big issues. You get to do imaginative work.

If you were an advertising 'creative', what would you rather talk about: life's vital questions, or baked beans? Your children's future or laundry powder? Evidently this is not a straightforward choice for the professionals. Let's see if we amateurs can do better. Should you feel inclined to throw out a life-ring, here's your chance. Nominate a top five list: Praiseworthy Accomplishments of the Helen Clark Years. Think of it in terms that might appeal to the disenchanted voter; the one who thinks that all this administration has done is tell him he can't smack his kids.

Dave 'Mudcat' Saunders knows a thing or two about getting through when the phone is off the hook.

Mudcat, who describes himself as "an old-timey Democrat: pro-gun, pro-God, pro fiscal conservatism," is tired of teaching remedial Mudcat Math to deaf ears in his own party. It can be distilled as The Twofer Strategy: If you get a rural white voter who otherwise would have voted for McCain to switch to Obama, his vote is worth twice as much as a vote from your standard "liberal pinko commie" or your MTV Rock-the-Voter, since Obama not only accrues one vote for himself, but also takes one away from McCain. Campaigns that court the base while ignoring voters who could be won over are "hunting squirrels they've already killed."

How many squirrels are left for Helen?

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Oliver's Army | Jun 24, 2008 09:38

A crack band of Kiwi mercenaries emerges from the presidential palace with Robert Mugabe's head on a pike. The world roars its approval. We bring them home in tickertape of a volume not seen since the Americas Cup.

Too extreme? How about if they drag him out still alive, but hogtied and wriggling?

One must consider such nice questions when one is fine-tuning an audacious plan to remedy two pressing problems.

Problem One: there is a monster in Harare.

Problem Two. We are, according to the Mayor of Wanganui, being tyrannised by petty terrorists, namely: gangs.

I cannot settle for handwringing. I am a practical man. The farm where I grew up was held together by number eight wire. I have a solution.

You may not have realised it, but as you were emptying your popcorn bucket and watching the Dirty Dozen getting shot, stabbed, and blown up by Germans, you were contemplating the meaning of individualism, collectivism, cultural relativism, racism, patriotism and duty. I am obliged to Wikipedia for enlightening me.

More crucially, however, you were witnessing an ingenious solution.

For those who have not had the benefit, the Dirty Dozen proceeds on the following basis: With the D-Day landings looming, the US army needs a diversion; a suicide mission. Regular soldiers can't be risked, so instead they turn to twelve hard-core American prisoners doing life or facing execution. These lost causes are whipped into shape and sent in to wipe out a chateau full of Wehrmacht officers.

You can no doubt see where I'm going with this.

You take a dozen of the Mongrel Mob's staunchest guys from Parry. Maybe a dozen Black Power as well, just to make it really interesting. A few Killer Beez for comic value.

You whip them into a crack unit, you give them all the equipment and supplies they require, legal and otherwise, and you put them on a plane to Zimbabwe. Their mission: Get Mugabe.

The training would be crucial. I nominate Ron Mark and Willie Apiata, because they are top blokes who know their stuff. We couldn't risk them in the actual battle zone, though. Perhaps Archbishop Tamaki might volunteer. Or Chris Harder, if the Law Society should thwart him once more. Maybe a hardened coach like Grizz Wyllie or Frank Oliver. Maybe someone who's both tough and smart enough to come back alive, like Anton.

This is just win/win all the way as far as I can see. If the first lot don't come up trumps, you just send off another dozen. Rinse, repeat.The lowlife punks who shot Najtev Singh come to mind.

Some may quibble at the shaky legal basis. Alright, then, make it purely volunteer. How staunch are ya? you ask them. Wipe out Mugabe and his henchmen and we'll wipe your slate clean.

Redemption is a powerful tool for rehabilitation.

More crucially, no other bastard is doing anything. Mr Unilateral Invasion seems to have stopped reading the international section of his Washington Post, if he ever was.

Afterwards, you could make a movie of it. Temuera Morrison wouldn't even have to get a new wardrobe. Cook me some fuckin' eggs President. Antony Starr could easily play three, four, or half a dozen of the characters, and who wouldn't want to see Van and Munter on tour in Africa?

Would you include the blood and gore? It was a big step forward in 1967. Roger Ebert wrote:

I'm glad the Chicago Police Censor Board forgot about that part of the local censorship law where it says films shall not depict the burning of the human body. If you have to censor, stick to censoring sex, I say...but leave in the mutilation, leave in the sadism and by all means leave in the human beings burning to death. It's not obscene as long as they burn to death with their clothes on.

Simpler, more innocent times. These days we get to see it every night on the news.

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The longest last time | Jun 18, 2008 16:56

Wendyl Nissen said to us: there is no right way to feel when someone has died; there is no correct way to react. She said: You have permission to do whatever feels right.

Once Patricia Herbert said to me: I like a good funeral. Patricia is a historian. She had a Catholic upbringing and many teenage months in a hospital bed contemplating mortality. I agree with her, but I don't mean this one and I doubt that she would either.

We sat, we stood, we crammed into the boating club at Narrow Neck beach and listened to the unsteady voices of family and friends and children. We watched video images of a little girl: first, in a cot, then taking tottering steps, then being gathered up in her beaming mother's outstretched arms. We drank cups of tea and signed a book full of photos of a beautiful sunny-faced child who died at the age of nine from the rarest of cancers of which neither she nor her mother knew anything nine months ago.

Sandy said goodbye to Finlee by placing the lid on the coffin and blowing out a candle. The room was full of parents and their children. We watched her lean in to embrace her daughter for the longest last time and the room wept.

The other day Adrian said to me: We've got a Russian working with us. Those guys have a different way of looking at things; I like it. I said: more dour? He said: They're used to things working out badly. They expect it.

Wayne said: It's the first time Wendyl has led the service at a child's funeral. Karren said: she was wonderful.

Michelle said: It felt as though it was over in a flash. She wasn't sure if they'd done it right. I said: It was kind, it was warm, it was affecting, it showed me what Finlee had been. She said: We were working on that DVD 'til 4.00 in the morning and do you think we could get the machine to work right?

Wayne said: She's had about four hours' sleep in the last week.

Mary-Margaret said: I said to Michelle 'are you okay?' Was it okay for me to say that? Mary-Margaret said: I gave Sandy a sad look. Was it okay for me to do that? Karren said: Yes that's okay - what did Sandy say? Mary-Margaret said: she just sort of looked upset.

Sandy works at Mitre 10. So does Nat Curnow. He said the company had helped Sandy out. I said: I've been hearing a lot about that. He said: they gave her as much paid time off as she needed to be with Finlee. They paid for flights to Australia; Finlee was guest of honour at the Christmas party. I said: it's nice to know a business will care that much. He said: it's a bit of an unusual company. It's a co-op run by the owners of the stores. He said: it can be a bit hard sometimes to get something new going, but it seems to work out well. We decided that this was MMP applied to enterprise. Nat is building a house out of straw bales. I said: I'll come and visit with a microphone.

Andrea said: Sandy is going to be working with the Guardian Angels.

Guardian Angels are mothers who have been bereaved. They know what to do when the floor opens up beneath you.

Karren said: If it happened to me I would want the world to stop.

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BP-Fuelled Rage | Jun 16, 2008 08:23

Here comes an inquiry into the competitiveness of the oil market. Do you want to be better informed? It probably depends on your preference at the firing squad: blindfolded, or defiantly facing your despised enemies.

Transparency may well help at the margin and, at these fat prices, every little bit helps. We might as well have the inquiry and learn what muscle might or might not be exerted over hulking multinational cartels.

Peter Creswell and his fellow enthusiast for tiny government, Shaun Holt, have another suggestion for transparency: Why don't petrol stations advertise the cost of petrol as $1.25 plus taxes?

To be sure, a better-informed consumer may be a more discerning one, and knowledge is power. Where are we without hope?

Meanwhile, though, and leaving aside the cleaner, healthier and less costly alternative of the bicycle, there is one remaining option: thrift.

A useful web page tests various pieces of driver folklore: How much petrol can you save by turning off the air conditioner? If you drive as though there's an egg between your foot and the pedal, how much gas might you save?

Everyone likes a quiz! Take the test, then click the link.

One tip: if you pick a number above zero for the saving you'll make by turning off the A/C, think again.

1. If you drive less aggressively you may save up to

A. 87%
B. 37%
C. 17%
D. None of the above




2. If you drive more slowly you may save up to:

A. 84%
B. 34%
C. 14%
D. None of the above




3. If you use cruise control you may save up to:



A. 84%
B. 34%
C. 14%
D. None of the above


4. If you turn off the air conditioning and wind the windows down you may save up to:

A. 80%
B. 38%
C. 18%
D. None of the above




5. If you maintain the correct tyre pressure, you may save up to:

A. 80%
B. 38%
C. 18%
D. None of the above

6. If you avoid excessive idling you may save up to:

A. 80%
B. 38%
C. 18%
D. None of the above

7. What is the correct response to reading in this week's Listener cover story that you will only get the keys to Julia Hartley Moore's SUV from her cold dead hands?

A. Buy a Hummer in solidarity.
B. Hire only private detectives who drive hybrid cars.
C. Write to the Listener and tell them you would prefer Julia Hartley less.
D. Put your pedal to the metal when the rubber meets the road.

Answers here, except for the one about private detectives.

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I am not a quitter | Jun 13, 2008 09:21

You know the joke about the two friends who are out hunting when one of them falls to the ground. He doesn't seem to be breathing. His friend calls 111 and gasps out his story.

"I think he's dead! What can I do?"

The operator, in a calm soothing voice says: "Just take it easy. I can help. First, let's make sure he's dead."

There is a silence, then a shot is heard. Then the voice comes back on the line. "OK, now what?"

I feel for everyone involved in the full page story this week in Le Monde entitled: The organ donor wasn't dead.

The 45-year-old man suffered a massive heart attack and rescuers used cardiac massage to try to revive him without success before transferring him to a nearby hospital.

Due to a series of complex circumstances, revival efforts continued for longer than usual for a patient whose heart was not responding to treatment, until doctors started preparations to remove organs.

It was at that point that the astonished surgeons noticed the man was beginning to breathe unaided again, his pupils were active, he was giving signs that he could feel pain - and finally, his heart started beating again.

Several weeks later, the man can walk and talk.

Such a dilemma: we have a huge demand for organ donors; you never want to turn the ventilator off too soon. The only comfort I find in this chilling tale is that such incidents are said to be rare.

Perhaps for, safety's sake, you could add a rider to the document that declares your willingness to be an organ donor: Do resuscitate if at all possible and please keep trying for at least [insert number of hours here].

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An imperfect use of a newspaper | Jun 12, 2008 09:11

If you are missing the National Party's WasteWatch site as much as I am, there are two bits of good news. The first is that The Standard resurrected the service last month with real numbers and, heaven forbid, analysis. The second is that National has outsourced the job to the Herald. Click over to this week's John Key interview with Wammo and hear it for yourself! Wammo asks him what happened to WasteWatch.

I don't know why actually, I mean they ran it for a while, it was before I was the leader actually. Not that we don't think there's enormous waste out there, we do. But I guess it was just a matter of keeping tabs on things and it's always hard to run them. We're now relying on the Herald's Pork-o-Meter as an indicator of expenditure. I see Labour at 16 billion and we're at 1.6.

I'm transcribing accurately, but the missing context is that there's a jocular tone as he comes to the Pork-o-Meter, so I'm somewhat twisting his words. To use one of his favoured expressions: In a way that's strictly not correct really . A Herald beatup, if you will.

But seeing he's raised the Pork-o-Meter, Wammo has to ask: Don't you think that thing's a bit misleading, given that you guys have released hardly any policy to be costed? John is candid:

That's right. I mean the reality is that it's a bit of an imperfect science, let's be honest. We will release our tax cut programme and that will obviously push up things in a pretty large way so it's a bit of an imperfect science. But I mean it is a useful device, I suppose, just simply at one measure, to say "well look, politicians when they make promises have to be accountable for them" and I think that's actually going to be a really interesting challenge for Labour, because in theory Michael Cullen has got up and said "I'm going to stick to a very tight new budget spend" which, let's be honest, his track record has never been keeping to his budget, he's always spent a lot more. And he's essentially said that in relation to all of the, you know, deficits and things that are now being run in terms of, not so much the operating balance but the cash deficit and the likes, he's not comfortable with them being any larger. So by definition he hasn't got a lot to spend on the campaign trail. So if he does come out and start spending large on the campaign trail - and our expectations will be that they will do exactly that if they continue to be a long way behind in the polls - then that is going to be very problematic for explaining how they're doing that.

These guys seem pretty sure this campaign may become a bidding war. They seem to have concluded that they were outflanked by the student loans pledge last time, and it aint gonna happen again.

Let's run the tape back a little, though, to the the words Key used to describe the Pork-o-Meter. Imperfect; useful. I wonder how many traders working for him managed to earn themselves a Boxster-sized bonus on the basis that they had been imperfect but useful?

There's more in the interview, so click over and listen. Later in the piece they traverse the philosophy of wafer-thin policies: does it matter that you're light on detail? No, says candidate Key. You can trust us to honour them because we might get booted out if we don't.

Interesting, that. Might the force of the question not be: can we please see the detail in order to judge for ourselves whether the policy is as viable as you assume it to be? One certainly hopes he does indeed feel obliged to honour his pledges and one can't help but wonder why he felt the need to say so.

One might characterise his response as imperfect but useful.

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Helen who? | Jun 11, 2008 08:04

The Labour party is once again putting its hand in your pocket to pay for an ad that lets you know they're putting more cash in your pocket.

But what if those leaflets were never meant to fetch up in your letterbox? What if the glossy picture of a family lolling in a warm sun on a green lawn and smiling the white-toothed smiles of the prosperous was not meant for your eyes?

What the Herald omitted to report in this morning's front page story Pledge Card Rises From Dead is that this ad is in fact pitched at the all-important Ohio voter.

Skinny is a designer. He knows his designer stuff. When the glossy brochure hit his letterbox last weekend, he wasn't fooled.

Perhaps it takes an ex-photographer to spot a stock photo, and an American one at that…I went straight to www.istockphoto.com and on the 3rd page of a search for 'happy family' there was exactly the same image.

Skinny sees a cock-up, but I just can't imagine they would be so slow to learn their lesson. Not after the flak they copped for their Working for Families ad with iPod-bedecked kids in a designer kitchen. Not after the mockery they had to endure for the riddle-wrapped-in-an-enigma that was the dangling baby ad. Not with David Farrar waking each night from a tormented sleep to blog fresh insights on the horror that is the Electoral Finance Act.

Clearly they have concluded that there are no happy families left to be found in these gloomy isles. Like so many New Zealanders before them, the Labour Party has concluded that their only route to recovery will be export-led. Ohio is the beach-head. The haka for Laura Bush was no coincidence. And Scott Dixon? Labour voter since that afternoon many years ago when he raced against Helen Clark at the go-karts.

Expect the momentum to build from now on. It will be formidable. By the time Barack Obama faces the cameras to make his historic running mate announcement, no-one will be saying: Helen Who?

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And I just have to look away | Jun 10, 2008 09:42

This might not be the recipe for a perfect day, but you might find it self-improving. You begin by reading about the new Jesus phone. Half the price, twice the speed! I still like my Nokia 95 better for its five whole megapixels but my word there is plenty to drool over in those perfectly-designed iPhones. You spend the remainder of the day lamenting the rising cost of petrol and the cramped cost of living. You conclude your day by going to a free screening of Black Gold, courtesy of the Wild Bean people. They announced yesterday that they will henceforth be offering only fair-trade coffee, and put it in context by rolling this film.

Free! Cinema 4, Rialto, Newmarket, 6pm on Tuesday 10th, Wednesday 11th and Thursday 12th June. Email blackgoldmovie@peadpr.co.nz nominating the day of your choice and the number of tickets you'd like.

It is chastening to watch the documentation of the straitened existence eked out by coffee growers in Ethiopia. They earn a handful of cents for a kilogram of their beans. You know what your coffee costs you. 50 beans to a cup. Magic beans.

The documentary tracks the many hands in the chain who take their cut. Fair-trade seeks to diminish the number of intermediaries. It's laudable, and I would, if I were still drinking it, buy my coffee from that source. But in the long run the Ethiopian farmers we see in the documentary clearly apprehend the only viable way out: spend their meagre funds on schools and trust that their children will acquire skills that might be parlayed into a better life.

Labour-intensive primary production is a dead end street. My Dad urged us off the farm for not dissimilar reasons. I was and remain temperamentally unsuited to the life, but he either didn't notice or was kind enough not to put it that way. Perhaps he saw I needed to live in a big city where you could go to well-appointed cinemas to see interesting documentaries about the ineffable tragedies of life elsewhere on the planet.

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Songs in the life of Key | Jun 06, 2008 08:37

The candidate must lie naked all night in a coffin-like box, only his nostrils protruding above the icy water with which it is filled, and with heavy stones laid on his chest. In this position he must compose a poem of considerable length in the most difficult of the many difficult bardic meters, on a subject which is given him as he is placed in the box. On his emergence next morning he must be able to chant this poem to a melody which he had been simultaneously composing, and accompany himself on the harp.

The penalty for any failure is, of course, death.

You may be thinking this is the initiation ceremony for the Auckland Rotary club, but you would be wrong. It was the test the ancient Druids used to assess your competence in poetic composition. I learned of it on one of the blogs of Jack Ross, and my first thought was: NCEA really is easy.

My next was to wonder: if you were to make this a rite of induction, how many of the candidates would still be willing to stand for Parliament? And which of them would measure up?

I predict the Libertarians would do rather well, a good number of Green Party people too; being green is indeed not easy. ACT members would have ample Darwinian instinct to carry them through or, at any rate, the more mature ones, and their fellow traveller Stephen Franks grew up in Taihape, so he's seen worse.

Matt McCarten would be no pussy either, if he could just be persuaded to put his name on the ballot. You could expect valiant efforts from Ron Mark and Sue Bradford, but probably just a lot of whining from Peter Brown, and Jonathan Coleman looks to be more of a feet-up-with-a-cigar man.

Gerry Brownlee might rely on natural advantage to sustain him through the ordeal. As for the Maori Party MPs, I can't see Pita Sharples, proud warrior and learned orator, being at all troubled by any of it. Hone Harawira would be staunch, but could he stay within the confines of the bardic meter?

Peters would get through by making a lot of noise. He'd say he'd already done it when the media wasn't looking and he wasn't about to do it again for second-rate reporters who were too lazy to do their job properly.

And what of the heavy hitters? I keep saying I wouldn't like to find myself in a lifeboat with Helen Clark, and the more I say it in a public forum, surely the more scrotum-shrinking I make the prospect. Nonetheless it's hard to see that cross-country skiing, mountain climbing, steely politician even breaking stride for such a simple task. It would be just another day at the office; in fact I picture her reclining in the chilled waters with Heather Simpson plonked on a stool alongside, reading out the Cabinet papers.

And John Key? I think he would adopt the time-honoured practice of all CEOs with animal instincts of self-preservation. He would delegate. Bill, can you take this one? Failing that, he'd probably turn to the other technique of highly effective CEOs: deride, disparage, marginalise and discard the proposition so thoroughly that it would be seen to be neither advisable nor prudent to pursue it.

Which brings us to the other players in the drama: you, me and the rest of the little orange stick figures. As a voter, how confident do you feel that the candidates and their policies will have been well tested by election day?

Consider the prospect of a comprehensively managed six week programme of marketing, with policy McNuggets carefully drip-fed into the news cycle for the duration. The better the politicians get at modern marketing, the more an election campaign is just another product launch, and this National Party machine looks to be exceptionally well primed to roll out their latest offering.

Earlier this week John Key chatted to Wammo about the vexed business of policies. Where were they? When would he release them? He began by breezily declaring that they'd issued 14 already and they would be steadily announcing more.

Let's trade in the prevailing currency: I can give you 14 of those Chesdale slices your kids have in their lunch-boxes and I can give you 14 one-kilogram blocks of cheddar; either way it's technically correct to say I've given you 14 packets of cheese. Michael Cullen rightly calls attention to the substance - you call those policies? , but the brute reality here is that the packaging and marketing matter more. Fresh, new, ambitious John will give you a better cheese experience than sour, tired Helen and Michael.

John tells Wammo the tax cut package will come later this year, specifically: the first week or so of the election campaign. He can tell you when that will be once the Prime Minister tells him when the election will be held. Then just count on your fingers and thumbs six weeks back, and that will be the day you find out how much you'll be getting. And I hereby declare this election campaign well and truly launched.

He talks about timing: it might be pointless to talk much about policy before the election campaign: wonks might be paying attention, but the hoi polloi probably won't. Hitherto he has been saying that he doesn't want to bring out policy too soon because Labour would just pinch it, but now he's on a new tack. There's no point bringing out the big guns now, he says, because if you try to wheel them out again at election time, they won't be new and therefore you won't be the lead item on One News.

The news cycle is of supreme importance. Policy announcements will be calibrated to meet its demands, and thus do they become McNuggets. You know how it plays out as news coverage: Who's bigger, who's better, who's winning, who's losing? Before we can pause to ask of a given policy Does it create more growth or not? What kind of country will it produce? we're on to the next morsel.

News thus becomes an amplification of marketing messages; longer on emotion than reason and thus did you get a superior performance from National for most of the 2005 campaign.

Paul Williams put it concisely in a discussion thread here yesterday. Although all parties, Labour included, were guilty of similar sins, he found the Iwi/Kiwi tactics of John Ansell particularly disagreeable.

All spin and no substance, designed to polarise and certainly not to inform.

John Ansell might be gone, but surely the lesson has not been forgotten.

News cycle management is not in the least bit new. Helen Clark's lot are past masters at announcing good news on Sunday afternoon and bad news on a Friday or just before a sufficiently diverting event. But at least they have seemed to feel obliged to offer big wodges of detail in their policies and more willing to produce it sooner.

Trader John seems to be rather more interested in fizzing up the buyers and getting their signature on the contract. Don't you worry about the details. We'll sort it out. You'll get your three-garage Mediterranean style house and we promise it won't leak.

If he could put in a bardic meter and accompany it with harp music, I expect it would sound even more alluring.

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Once is never enough | Jun 04, 2008 08:09

I was both touched and humbled to receive my Queens Birthday honour for blogging. I will accept it on behalf of the many hard-working Kiwis who sit down in front of a blank screen to bang out post after post for no more reward or recognition than perhaps Blog of the Week in the newspaper of the year.

I especially want to mention my fellow blogger Russell Brown. Public Address was very much his idea as well, and I am deeply indebted to him for stepping in with an interesting post on the days when I am too busy to get one out.

I generally give the honours lists a quick scan before I crumble up my WeetBix, but this weekend I was brought up short by the composition of the Order of New Zealand, that leader board of our finest living men and women. It was always going to look a little less lustrous without Sir Ed, but all the same, I couldn't help thinking to myself: that's it? Doubtless they will list the names of the members each time a new one is added to the board, and doubtless each time my scanning will be brought up short by the name of Jonathan Hunt and then, having had the aura of greatness punctured, I will look askance at some of the other names on the list.

I have a proposal. It's a somewhat more elegant variation on the worthiness test prescribed by by Elaine in Seinfield. This one eschews the sponge, and turns to something rather less domestic. The drumbeat sound is rising: fetal and embryonic stem cells, admixed embryos; at some near point lies the possibility of cloning ourselves. Given the chance, which of our great and good would we most want to replicate?

I propose this sole, simple and elegant criterion for admission to the Order of New Zealand: is this person so good we'd like to clone them? You might refine that further: how many copies would we want?

A few Jim Bolgers might be handy. One of them could be reserved for Irish raconteur duties, the rest would be deployed to pour oil on sundry troubled waters.

I imagine the country would take as many copies as it could get of Sir Ed and Sir Peter, and it would be fascinating to see what they all might do. At least one of them would surely go boldly into outer space, and perhaps one might be prepared to take on the job of rebuilding the Labour Party in November.

How many copies of Jonathan Hunt, would you like, Mrs? Perhaps one at a time, to keep Parliament ticking over, but outside of that, I've got nothing.

The Peter Jackson machine is once more rolling across our achingly beautiful landscape, filming The Lovely Bones in Queenstown. No doubt there will be a red carpet premiere and the surely-not-replicable John Campbell will do a red carpet broadcast. Back in the days of the Lord of the Rings premieres, when Peter Jackson was still a little on the sturdy side and wildly unkempt, I fancied a stunt: you get a few rugby teams together, kit out the stout ones in a pair of round spectacles, a puffy ski jacket, large black fuzzy beard, shorts and gumboots and you let them loose all over Wellington to have sport with the credulous international media.

What's not to like about the idea of several dozen copies of that man? You just can't get too much of a good thing.

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