Nickie Muir: It's not too much to ask, is it?

Nickie Muir.

'You complain, but what is it that you really want?" I felt like a fairly old and wrinkly beauty queen asked for her wishes for the world. "Um, world peace? Magical rainbow ponies for every 12-year-old girl that will fix everything evil they may encounter in life? Matching socks - or at least no powhiri that will reveal me as a recidivist offender of the mis-matched socks variety?"

I'm always surprised (and grateful) that people actually read a column and even more amazed that anyone wants to respond to one - even when I've annoyed or offended.

The writing of columns I've described as the scribbling of notes and hiffing them in bottles on the ocean of information and opinion that is our media and hoping that someone on the other side on some distant shore will open one and respond.

To be asked such a direct, open question like the above is the equivalent of finding a return to sender in the same bottle.

What is it that you want? A magical question - the escape or saviour of the innocent in many fairy tales or the nemesis that traps the greedy or malevolent, when they wish for the wrong things. What then, is the answer?

The question did not limit me to the magical three wishes so for the hell of it, here goes:

I want equity in educational opportunities for every kid in every low decile school in New Zealand and especially in Northland.

I want science teachers for every one of them, and I want Labour to cement the idea of wiping student loans for those young teachers who want to teach in the regions, especially in low decile schools.

I want the maker of blue lollipops and the marketing team that distributes them to suffer from boils on their collective butts and may a plague of locusts visit them every time they leave their executive houses.

I ask the Lord or Buddha, or even the justice system, to forgive them not, for they know exactly what they do.

I want Judith Collins to star as Cruella De Vil in the next Broadway musical of 101 Dalmatians. Muldoon dabbled in the theatrical realm outside of Parliament and it's about time that our current politicians channelled the drama and shared their talent.

I would very much like a serious discussion about the reasons why young Northlanders decide that ending their lives is better than living them and I'd like to know what to do about it.

I would like recipe books to not be our best selling books and for books to be cheap. Really cheap.

I want the recipe for the spiritually uplifting bread loaves the Hare Krishnas sell every Saturday from their Food for Life stall outside the Whangarei markets.

I want my contribution to mitigating climate change to be more interesting than my compost pile and, most of all, the next time I find myself at a powhiri - I really want my socks to match.