Every now and then, you hear a phrase so crystal perfect it makes the ears sit up and the mind tingle the way your skin does when it's licked by a kitten.

Several years ago, ex-Otago and All Blacks coach Tony Gilbert used such a phrase on a flight from somewhere to somewhere else. He was talking about the famous first five Tony Brown.

Tony was one of his favourite players, the coach said, not least because "he's as tough as goat's knees".

Now that is a great compliment. And a testament to the resilience of our hard and hairy traditions that it still resonates, even after years of rambification imposed upon us by the social engineers in Wellington.

Another sporting fellow, some Aussie league chap, offered an equally apt expression this week.

Asked how he felt after Mad Monday - the end-of-season leer-up for all the teams except those in the grand final - this sad and hungover gent simply said he was "in a box of hurt".

Which is pretty much exactly where a whole bunch of folk in Wall Street and Washington were as well about the same time; because, of course, they'd had a Mad Monday of their own.

Given the relatively simple task of saving the world and ensuring financial peace in our time, the noble US House of Representatives somehow managed to drop the ball and bomb a certain try.

It turns out there are elections in a month. And many of the steel marshmallows in Congress had copped a spray, as the league commentators would say, from their constituents, who weren't happy about fat cats getting handouts from Uncle Sam.

Acutely aware this displeasure could be reflected in the ballot box and mindful of how this may affect their access to such baubles as are bestowed upon elected persons in Washington, these cowed and earbashed creatures demonstrated they have absolutely nothing in common with the knees of your average goat.

As fat cats fell like hail from the upper storeys of Wall Street skyscrapers, they voted to save their own skins and to hell with the economy.

There's something strangely comforting about this, if only because it demonstrates the reliable consistency of human nature.

Just like the oft-condemned and much maligned financial wizards who'd precipitated the crisis, the men and women of Congress had, predictably, put self-interest first.