Greg Dixon's weekend

WE ARE NOT AMUSED

Well, the old saying "no show without Punch" was made redundant at TVNZ about the same time Richard Long was condemned to the knacker's yard. But this week's double-plus scandalous revelations suggest that, for the time being, there can still be no show without Judy at the state-owned network. Now you'd have thought that $800,000 would buy quite a lot of sympathy. Unfortunately for Judy Bailey, no one is selling, publicly. Except for the late broadcaster Paul Holmes. But what can we discern from the Great Communicator repeatedly talking about himself in the third person on the steam-operated wireless this week during his poignant, sniff, heartrending, sniff, defence of poor Jude and his angry, grrr, snarling, grrr, tirade on the "inept management" at TVNZ? To find out, I consulted my morals and emotions guru, Don the pool cleaner. He tells me that talking this way is a defence against feeling one's feelings. Apparently it's all do with having unresolved problem-leaves clogging your emotions-filter. Don, as usual, is full of it. Dixon says it's obviously the Royal Prerogative to speak of oneself in the third person.

SHOW THEM THE MONEY

Dixon calls it rather rich, quite literally rich in fact. When Helen Clark, her mien as inclement as a Wellington southerly, dubbed TVNZ "a culture of extravagance" this week, did it not occur to her, and the braying MPs who joined in condemning the state broadcaster, that this was a little bit like the cat complaining about fleas on the dog. Culture of extravagance? Our MPs are costing us more than ever before and, unlike most of us, have enjoyed successive, excessive pay rises since Labour came to power - and the PM has done better than all with a 4 per cent increase this year after an extraordinary 25 per cent hikelast year.

HANG 'EM HIGH

So it's sedition to put an axe through the window of Helen Clark's electorate office is it? Isn't charging self-confessed patriot Timothy Selwyn with seditious conspiracy for this alleged offence a little like using an intergalactic death ray to sort out an ant problem in the kitchen? Dixon thinks it is. It's a pity Selwyn doesn't have someone - say, a speeding motorcade driver - to take the rap for him.

ON YOUR BIKE

Who the hell does Hayden Roulston think he is? When his name suppression was finally lifted at the Christchurch District Court this week, Dixon was still none the wiser. Evidently - and inexplicably - this professional bike peddler seems to think himself terribly famous, despite only three people having heard of him: "You don't know who you're dealing with," he told police shortly after his arrest for belting two barmen at a watering hole. This was probably true. But one thing's for sure, Hayden, we all know now. And so do US Customs.

ON YOUR BECKS

Now clearly if David Beckham belted a barman and told the coppers "you don't know who you're dealing with", you'd know he was well and truly off his trolley. We all know who he and the missus, Posh, are: they're our new Joseph and Mary. But what a terrible shock to hear that some spiteful miscreant has attacked their Nativity appearance at Madame Tussauds in London. It is unlikely we will ever know why these charming likeness of these charming people were attacked because, as the Sun put it, the offender "legged it into the street and got away". However, Dixon assures you there is no truth to the rumour that it was in retaliation for paper cuts suffered by the thousand-quid-a-day butler Becks has hired to open his family's colossal pile of Christmas presents.