Suitable for Kids (apparently)

I was fossicking around through some of my old books today and came across something my parents gave me when I was quite young. It's called "Coles Funny Picture Book" and was a reprint of a childrens' book that was first published back in 1905. It'd be fair to say there was definitely a much different moral imperative back then - well compared to today anyway.

I give you:

A Deed of Horror - By J.W. Lloyd.

The night was dark,
The rain came down.
Amidst the loud
And roaring wind.

There stood a man
With look as though
Some heavy weight
Was on his mind.

With fearful stare
He gazed around;
He starts and from
His lips then come

These fearful words,
With anguish wild,
"The deed, it must,
And shall be done."

With hurried step
He onward glides,
And soon he reached
The cottage door.

Forth from his pocket
Drew a key,
He enters 'midst
The thunder roar.

He gropes his way
Across the room,
For all inside
Was dark and glum,

Again he groans
Those fearful words,
"The deed, it must,
And shall be done."

He strikes a light
Then round the room,
With stealthy step
Does slowly creep.

He reached the bed,
And thereupon
Three little children
Calmly sleep.

He fondly gazes
On their forms,
Then turns away
Quite overcome.

"I willingly
Would yield, but, no!
The deed, it must,
And shall be done."

He then drew forth
A hideous knife,
And roughly roused
The sleeping babes.

Who all shriek loudly
With affright,
Yet neither one
For mercy craves.

He drags the children
Cross the room,
Again those fearful
Words did utter,

He raised the knife
And cut - for each -
A nice thick slice
Of bread and butter.

Somehow, as much as we might like it, I don't think we could quite get away with this today.

Pity.

Since It's Christmas

Political Musings for 2008

After a year of playing poli' chaser I guess it's time to sit back and reflect on the highs and lows, as well as the fuck ups, achievements, and happenings of the year.

George W Bush Award for Dumbest Statement:


Winston Peters for his "no" comment on receiving donations from businessman Owen Glenn.
That, along with all the finagling and hypocrisy over NZ First's party funding, effectively killed Winston's 30 year political career - oh, and his party.


Balls of Steel Moment:

National Leader John Key for refusing to do a post election deal with aforementioned Winston Peters.
It could have blown up in his face had Labour run a better (or even slightly intelligent) election campaign.


Most Misguided Campaign Approach:

Labour wins this hands down.
When you're defending the actions of NZ First the last thing you should do is base your strategy on trust. It's about as intelligent as DIY circumcision.


The "What the fuck is this person doing in Parliament" Trophy:

Lots of competition for this award this year with some perennial favourites in the running. (ie Judith Tizard, Ashraf Choudhary, Colin King, Allan Peachy, Gordon Copeland, Barbara Stewart).
However the winner has to be .... Ashraf Choudhary. In the face of complete non-achievement, invisibility, and general all around lack of ability he's back in Parliament thanks to a relatively high position on Labour's Party list.
(how on earth do they work their selection system? - it sure as hell can't be based on talent or ability).

Unluckiest MP:

Labour MP Damien O'Connor. Just 40 more party votes and he'd have been back in Parliament. He never recovered from the disaster that was his stint as Minister of Corrections and lost his West Coast seat. He also had the misfortune to be the subject of a nasty and false smear campaign run by certain right wing members of the blogosphere - he should have sued them.

Paris Hilton Award for Blatant Self Promotion:

Act Leader Rodney Hide. That godawful yellow jacket. (and other publicity stunts)
Need I say more?


Darwin Award for Sheer Blind Pig Ignorance and Complete Lack of Brain Cells:

The Labour Party staffers who were dumb enough to try and flog 37 bottles of wine from the Press Gallery's end of year Xmas Party.
How can anyone work in Parliament and not know that the security cameras are everywhere and see everything? Congratulations to Mr Aidan Smith and friends - your public service careers are now terminally fucked.

The Keystone Cops Medal for Services to Political Investigations:

No contest here. Soon to be ex-Labour Party President Mike Williams is the hands down winner here.
What on earth possessed him to fly to Australia to trawl through thousands of documents trying to find dirt on National Leader John Key only he will know. Mikey, Mikey, that's what you have party flunkies for. Let them handle the shit storm if the efforts come up empty - at least that way you can have some sort of plausible deniability.

And letting reporters know exactly what you were up to was overwhelmingly dumb too. What exactly did you think might happen if you came up empty? That they might forget about it??


And finally - Politician of the Year:

Nope I'm not giving it to John Key for winning the election. It was his to lose after all. Nor am I going to give it to Helen Clark for the consummate way she handled the election defeat and the leadership succession - there can be no rewards for losers.

Instead I'm giving it to Maori Party MP Hone Harawira.
Why? Well I'll say one thing for Hone, unlike many of his peers you're never in any doubt about where he stands and what his opinions are. personally I find that rather refreshing.

Also anyone who says he wants to kill Trevor Mallard and tells Jim Anderton to go and jump in the lake can't be all bad.

Can he?

Mistletoe and - Oh Shit - Some Bugger's Pinched Me Wine!

These boys are in the shit.

And deservedly so.

Yes in the wee hours of this morning - around 2.30 am to be precise - they were nabbed making off with 37 bottles of wine from the Press Gallery's annual Christmas Party. Three boxes worth actually - and they'd even had the cheek to pinch a chilly bin and pack it with ice so they could keep the chardonnays and sauvignon blancs nicely chilled.

To be precise one was caught and referred to police but his colleagues will be as well. The wonderful thing about Parliament is that it has security cameras everywhere and today the security staff have been collecting all the shots they need to identify the three that weren't picked up. Not that it really matters as it is known who they are.

Now had they made off with a couple of bottles I suspect the Gallery members would have required they return them and left it at that (this has happened in the past with a certain gentleman that made off with a case of bubbly).

But to take over three dozen is beyond the pale. Especially given the culprits had been merrily drinking free booze all night.

A brief four line apology was sent to the Gallery Chair this afternoon via Parliament's internal mail from the person arrested. I suspect had he come down and fronted in person it might have been taken a little more seriously.

Of course the fact a note was sent might be because he's already been given the arse from the premises. I'm reliably informed there are a number of senior Labour MPs who'd happily throttle those involved.

Other than that it was a damn good party - kudos to the organisers.

Good Behaviour Bond

In the past the Radio Awards have been known for, shall we say, moments of colourful behaviour. It seems steps have been taken as next year the event has a code of conduct.

Anyone care to place a bet on whether it'll be breached?

Breaking a Trend

Now I'm normally the sort of guy that adopts a "bah humbug" approach to Christmas - yes I am a grinch and proud of it - but even a sour old bastard like me finds this pretty damn cool.

Apart from the soppy beginning. Meh!

People Who Deserve a Smack.

Today was the day of the annual Thorndon Street Fair. Now I'm not normally one to bag a good cause (and it is a good one), but I do feel the need to vent my spleen at some of the idiots who attended this year.

Particularly the friends of humanity who thought it would be a good idea to come onto our property and tip the contents of their curry lunches all over one of the landings. Cheers for that - and leaving the empty containers strewn across our carport was also a nice touch.

You are the type of people that could only be improved by being loaded into a catapult and fired into a concrete wall at point blank rage.

Mind you a special mention must be made of the intellectual genius who thought it was a great idea to discard a brick in our driveway. Discovering it by driving my new high performance car (bought less than 24 hours previously) over it so made my afternoon.

It is my considered opinion that the culprit should have his/her knees nailed together.

PS.

Why is it on the day you buy a car and take it for a test drive it sounds perfect and everything seems all hunky dory. But then the next day (after the money has been paid) all of a sudden it starts to make all sorts of funny sounds??

(please dear God let it just be that the brakes are rubbing slightly - Captain Paranoia's insisting it's a dodgy wheel bearing)