KEY POINTS:
God, I must be getting old. I was a caricature of a talkback host this week - all sound and fury and frothing at the mouth. If I'd had a stick, I'd have been waving it. And I think I called for martial law at one point -
and what's worse, I meant it.
It was the sight of those little oiks in Christchurch that did it. Thousands of the pimply, lank-haired mutts whooping it up large and creating havoc on the streets, gesticulating and gesturing out of the windows of their tin coffins, baring their buttocks to the cameras. I've seen better looking things coming out of cheese.
It's their breathtaking arrogance that gets me - they believe they have every right to use the city as their play pen. They piss like poorly trained dogs in gardens and business premises, and they bottle the cops who try to move them on.
If it was only themselves they hurt, fine. But when they're taking out other people on the road, when they're destroying property and disturbing the peace - then they deserve to have heaped on them the wrath of the righteous.
I was praying for Samuel L. Jackson to appear among them, quoting Ezekiel and striking down with great vengeance and furious anger those street racers who drove into his path. Bring on the car crushers from Western Australia, I say.
And just when I'd recovered from that outburst, I heard the news that this year's Speaker's Tour would be made up of retiring MPs. It wouldn't have been so bad if they'd announced it as a perk of the job and a fiscal drop in the ocean of parliamentary spending, but instead the total nonsense that was spouted about the trip sent me off the deep end. It's work, said the Speaker's office. It's certainly not a junket. It's a valuable exercise for building relationships with other countries. These are highly experienced MPs who will represent New Zealand well at the top level. What a load of old cods!
I have no problem with people flying business class on business. Trips overseas are seldom perks for those doing the travelling and, in fact, the ministers I've seen over the years in business class were certainly not hooking into the free chardy and catching up on their movie viewing. They were heads down, into boring-looking documents, and talking in an intense way with advisers.
But to dress up this sow's ear of a delegation into a diplomatic silk purse stretches the imagination. What purpose does Brian Connell serve? Makes John Key's tirade about Labour's irresponsible spending seem just a teensy bit hypocritical. If we end up getting one export deal to Poland out of this lot, then I'll butter this opinion page and eat it.