The biz: Jumping through the wrong hoops

Less than one hour after discovering TVNZ's much heralded anti-child-abuse campaign had instead donated free air time to former wife and child-basher Rangi Whakaruru - exposed with great relish by competitor TV3 - what did their PR flunkey, Liam Jeory, do? Hastily draw up a damage-control strategy? Organise a press release? Quite the contrary. Mr Jeory instead decided to spend his time watching the true spin-professionals - ie, acrobats performing from a great height at the Cirque du Soleil media-sponsor bash. Possibly an easier and less perilous job than his at present.

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And while on the topic of anti-child-abuse child abusers, does Core Communications PR woman Lisa Finucane need some PR advice herself? As a communications specialist from a company that hires itself out to do the communicating, is it possible her quote in the Herald, explaining away the hiring of Rangi Whakaruru as a "communications breakdown," could have been communicated slightly better?

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From the "why can't that happen to us" file: financial information conglomerate Bloomberg put on one heck of a Christmas bash for its 2000 European employees. The party - costing an estimated £9.16 million ($30.5 million) - was held over four floors and featured massage and shiatsu rooms, manicure booths, a sushi bar, cabaret, a casino, drag queens, a disco and live bands. The event was so large it required 40 security guards, three first aid stations and an ambulance standing outside. The party's theme was "the seven deadly sins." One bar, representing gluttony, was lined with a trough packed with truffles and sweets. Entertainers acting as "fatties" lay on the floor having food shoved into their mouths.

The family-friendly newswire would not elucidate on events from the lust room. While most of the guests were awed and entertained by the spectacle - which was also attended by billionaire founder Michael Bloomberg - not everyone had a good evening.

Drag queen Candy Floss reported having an "absolutely vile" time, and, referring to the company's business journos, financial analysts and other assorted bean counters, proclaimed they "just weren't the right audience for a drag queen!" Maybe just not in public, honey.

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Perhaps he should have paid his library fees, but ... a Biz colleague reports being deluged with messages from a group claiming to have a direct line with "cosmic friends," promising great woes unless he undertakes "sponsorship of spreading information." The information? "Warning you, and everybody on the planet Earth, in the face of inactivity and passivity, which you're arguing with so-called wild card programmes as you are approximately 95 per cent controlled by the Saurians (negative extraterrestrials) with their bosses - pseudocreators and also earthly henchmans."

Unless we become more spiritual we will suffer because we vibrate so slowly that the Saurians use us like marionettes, apparently. Not only that, but if we don't, "civilisation will come into similar misery, truly demonstrated in Matrix movie and several other."

All that we can assume is that spreading the word of one of the original devil's henchmen - Bill Gates - will land you on the wrong side of at least 99 per cent of the world's soothsayers.

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"I've had too much of a tea break," declared the real estate agent. Indeed. Having just cited the sale of an Auckland property, he got the figure out by a resounding million dollars.

The agent concluded that his holiday must have been extremely relaxing, hence a somewhat cavalier approach to the numbers. "Mind you, I might need retraining," said the gun in a self-effacing manner.