Greg Dixon's weekend

THE END IS NIGH

Well, what a week to be a smoking, fundamentalist Christian who knows a terrorist when he sees one. It seems God has turned his face away from me and my people, and we have been sent from the pubs into the wilderness to puff unhappily among just-married sodomites and just-released Algerians. It's certainly had the pastor of my local house of worship, the Dysentery Church, fuming. I had to ask him to step outside. But there's more anti smoking-fundamentalist-Christians legislation on the way. Apparently burning bushes are to be banned because of the second-hand smoke risk and the threat to the conservation estate. And just when the lunacy seems to have peaked, that mysterious and nefarious group known as "health officials" have announced they want to educate parents about "the link" between pocket money and smoking. Presumably these fascists believe kids use their tiny stipend from mum and dad to buy smokes. Expect the Smokefree Pocket Money Prevention Bill to be introduced in the new year.

ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY

Wellington, city of wind, bureaucrats and Government surpluses, now has a new epithet. Transport Minister Pete Hodgson, in these parts to open another god-awful section of our god-awful motorway system, announced he was delighted to be in Auckland away from " the shiny-arsed city".

STARS OVER BETHLEHEM

Jesus, Mary and Joseph, is nothing sacred? Apparently not at Madame Tussauds wax museum in London, where its celebrity Nativity scene has Becks and Posh as Joseph and Mary, Tony Blair, Sheriff Dubya and the Duke of Edinburgh as the Three Wise Men and Kylie Minogue as the angel. Wickedness! Blasphemy! Genius! And it's just the sort of thing that should be put on at Te Papa, where they appreciate fine art. At our place, Joseph would of course be Jonah, and Mary whoever was the last person Jonah married without his parents' knowledge. Our Three Wise Men would be Helen Clark, Margaret Wilson and Sian Elias and would come bearing no golden handshakes but have plenty of frank, common sense and mirthlessness. The angel would naturally be Ahmed Zaoui because angels arrive by air without passports.

THE COCK AND BULL

Given that the Sunday Star-Times has come over all literary and suggested that our spooky spies live in a world of " fog and fen", can we expect the paper's local watering hole, Galbraiths Alehouse, to change its name to The Fog And Fen? And is the SIS bugging it?

CAUGHT AND BOWLED

Well, me and my big mouth! No sooner do I suggest our cricketers are the Black Craps than they turn up for test matches against the vile Australians, then prove themselves the black not-so-craps at the one-day game. They and the umpire should give me the finger. I know I would.

CAN'T SEE THE WOOD FOR THE HILL

Ahmed Zaoui, television's most sought-after interview of the year, was, as expected, on the Holmes show replacement, Close Up @ 7. But, what's this? The interview isn't conducted by the new Holmes, HRH Susan Wood. It's done by Kim Hill. Was it my imagination, or did Wood announce this fact, and that the Hill and her team had been working with Zaoui for some months, through gritted teeth? Clearly TVNZ news boss Bill Ralston wasn't telling porkies when he said the new show would be "providing high-quality, reporter-driven, current affairs stories" and not sending a presenter to do an interviewer's job.

To contact Greg Dixon, email dixonweek@nzherald.co.nz