Jim Hopkins: Forget rumpy pumpy, darling, let's make scampi pampi

Old Cupid's been busy lately. He's even managed to shaft the sonorous slumbers of somnambulant souls supposedly studying serious subjects on certain select committees.

(Love the alliteration - Ed)

Thanks, big guy. Now, back to the matter at hand. Which just happens to be the love god's bow and arrow.

He's certainly been a busy bloke, whizzing round select committees and sparking romance in the most unlikely places. It's amazing he hasn't come down with a galloping case of OOS - or workplace stress ...

(Or both - Ed)

How astute of you, Sir. Gosh, isn't that Sir Anthony O'Reilly waiting to see you in your office?

(The Ed disappears, looking worried)

At last. We're alone, dear reader. Just the two of us - and Cupid, of course. So ... umm ... would you care for a glass of madeira? Or port? Or a fortified wine? Hang the expense, my darling, let's live.

Let's do what the young ones do. Slug back a sherry and get it on. Forget the tax increase. Forget the pursed-lipped wowsers who'd price passion off the market.

Forget them, my poppet. Let's just snuggle into the newsprint, turn up the gas heater and pretend, for a sensuous moment, that I'm a lusty list MP and you're an amorous attorney. Forget rumpy pumpy, darling, let's make scampi pampi.

Good heavens. You're a proctologist from Papakura.

On second thoughts, let's not make scampi pampi. Let's just have a serious chat - man to man, if you will, or parent to parent as it may yet prove to be.

Always assuming the relevant ethics committee eventually decides to give this tragically infertile gay couple permission to hatch a sprog, so to speak.

You can imagine the heart-warming Sunday current affairs item now, can't you?

A misty lens, with lyrical shots of two sensitive old blokes scuttling round their tasteful apartment on walking frames, trying to catch some little toe rag whose sole ambition is to chuck his footy at their Judy Garland posters.

It'll be bewdiful. Absolutely bewdifulllllll. A lovely tribute to a new age.

And the same could be said for any coverage of Mr Ian Bubbly-Squeak's highly publicised and scampily-clad romance at the select committee. What a wonderful thing. Cupidity at its best. Letting us see our leaders in a new and sensuous light.

"Sex for questions" the media churlishly called it.

Well, heck, if that's all it takes, bring it on. Seriously. Imagine the implications.

A joker walks into the perfume section at Smith and Caughey's, asks the goddess in the Dior section "How's it goin'?" and before you know it, he's adjusting his garments behind the counter.

Sales will skyrocket. Interest in political parties will soar. The world will be transformed into a vast, libidinous scampi inquiry where everyone consummates their quota of questions with carnal come-hithers.

Great. More alliteration - Ed)

Lovely to have you back, Sir.

But, seriously, we should thank Mr Ian Bubbly-Squeak for letting us glimpse the warm and tender side of select committee inquiries. "I'm here to represent the community," said Ian at the weekend. "If I don't have an emotional side, a human side, if I'm just a cold, calculating person, I'm not going to be in touch with the people ... "

Quite right, dude. By this argument it's the solemn duty of our parliamentarians to have wild flings with officials and advisers - not least because it would splash them across the front page.

Assuming Don Brash is serious about being National's leader, the sooner he's caught with some lubricious young poppet the better. A blurred photograph of the good Dr rushing from the boudoir in his Reserve Bank long-johns would do his prospects a power of good.

And if Bill English is serious about keeping his job, he should abandon home and hearth and hitch up with one of the Dixie Chicks toot sweet.

Then he might be described in the glowing terms Ms Grey reserved for Mr Bubbly-Squeak when she lauded "the effort that he put into upskilling on a vast volume of scampi information".

Shucks, it ain't Boccaccio's Decameron but it clearly spins the legal wheels. And, let's face it, tragic as they are, even lawyers deserve a little happiness.

So does Mr Bubbly-Squeak. He might, in his own words, have been regarded as "a seriously boring old fart" but no longer.

He'd spent years upon the list

Yet he'd never even kissed

Or felt the thrill of Cupid's winged dart

Then a lawyer pierced the gloom of that dull committee room

And she soon subpoenad Ian's trembling heart

As he felt it pitter-patter he knew scampi didn't matter

He knew there was a more important quota

So he went on love's sweet journey with his beautiful attorney

To prove he was as human as the voter

And rightly so. Good on ya, Ian baby. Who cares if the whole scampi investigation has to be scrapped and started all over again?

Love must come first - and hang the public purse.