Tired of flogging dead horses, Sir Robert Jones now seems keen to flog commerce students.
The Lower Hutt property investor and author, who has been in the news recently ranting about police officers, Scoutmasters and men with beards, has put up a $1000 prize for the best essay on commerce student floggings.
The move comes after Victoria University's student newspaper, Salient, reviewed his novel Full Circle and, much to his disgust, referred to him as a writer mostly of business books.
"God help me. I have been frequently defamed and have done my share of defaming, as evidenced by my Commonwealth record for successful defamation defence trials, but no one has ever insulted me as much as that," he wrote to Salient.
To make his attitude clear about business books and the study of commerce, Sir Robert offered the prize to Victoria humanities students for the one-off essay-writing contest on the subject, "That the world would be a better place if all BCom students were given a daily flogging." He will judge the contest with fellow author Alan Duff.
Economics senior lecturer Martin Lally said the action was sad and pathetic, and presumably related to Sir Robert's time there as a student - he studied in the late 1950s but did not complete a degree.
"Since he doesn't have a university degree we could give him an honorary one to see if it has the calming effect on him that his knighthood clearly hasn't."
Salient editor Nikki Burrows said some entries had already been received.
- NZPA
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