The biz: Image gets polish but takes a knock

A case of do as we say, not as we do, perhaps? After accusing the nation's media last week of an over-reliance on public-relations puffery (the so-called dark side of journalism), it appears business weekly The Independent is in talks with PR firm Consultus to give its own image a bit of polish, leaving us to wonder how that reconciles with co-owner Warren Berryman's oft-quoted description of PR agents as "paid liars."

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National Mail's former employees and investors may be finding it hard to raise a chuckle, but chairman Rick Flower can see a lighter side to the company's problems. Asked what would happen to the 650 blue mailboxes the company has squatting on city streets, Mr Flower quipped they might be useful mementos for the 400 shareholders if a buyer for the business wasn't found.

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To heck with dress code, we say - a sentiment seemingly shared by the country's top meat hawker. Rod Slater, general manager of the NZ Beef and Lamb Marketing Bureau, was spied by a Biz staffer at a black-tie event last weekend, sans black tie. Instead, he wore what appeared to be a stiff piece of white cotton sporting the marketing board's somewhat unsightly green and red logo. He had decided, thankfully, to leave his similarly logo-ed braces at home.

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National Party presidential hopeful Michelle Boag has taken offence at last week's Biz item suggesting that she is behind a possible tilt at politics in New Zealand by her former boss Sir Michael Fay. Condemning it as an "unsubstantiated rumour that she was linked to an alleged desire" by Fay to enter politics, she rightly points out that the rumours from Remuera ought to have been put to her for comment.

The Biz apologises to Miss Boag for that omission. For the record, Miss Boag understands that Sir Michael has no interest in a political career in New Zealand and she has no intention of asking him to consider one.

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At first we had a little trouble understanding why timber giant Carter Holt Harvey called its newly commercialised human resources division by the rather non-HR name Mariner7. The business' new website explains that the original Mariner7 spacecraft was launched on a Mission to Mars in March 1969, and succeeded in defying everyone's very limited expectations. But of course. We're sure that potential clients will make that connection in an instant.