KEY POINTS:
I find myself standing in for many of the country's cartoonists over January.
At this time of year, it's the equivalent of volunteering for the dog watch on a North Atlantic convoy run in darkest 1942.
It's pitch black outside with a rolling sea and nothing blips on
the radar or asdic. In other words, the media are scratching for news and I'm alone on the bridge trying to invent banal cartoons about shopping mall sales and credit cards.
Most cartoonists wisely decide to holiday during this silly season, when both the country and political life closes down. I understand the Prime Minister is once again indulging in self-inflicted purgatory in Norway.
Some bizarre activity called cross-country skiing, which is a brutish activity, physically very demanding, according to experts.
I sympathise with the Prime Minister's desire for extreme fitness. I too, push my body to the limits by daily strolling around a local Auckland park with a small dog.
It takes me through an avenue of trees known as Cherry Tree Lane. With a 200m uphill stretch, the hike is not for the faint-hearted. Thankfully, there is a cafe at the end where coffee and scrambled eggs await the weary.
I believe the most popular cross-country skiing route in Norway is called the Troll Track, a 170km mountainous trail running between Hvringen and Lillehammer.
Trolls are those fearsome members of a mythical anthropomorphic race of Scandinavian origin. Trolls can be male or female. Both are brutish and scary if cornered.
The females are sometimes hard to detect, as their stern manner and tendency to dress in male clothing can confuse innocent bystanders. Anyhow, if you need to contact the Prime Minister urgently, you will most likely find her happily slogging it out somewhere on the Troll Track. She is clearly drawn to the area, this being her third holiday in the region.
Sadly, there is little prospect of drawing amusing cartoons about political leaders pursuing pastimes in snow-bound Norway.
I understand the new leader of the National Party is somewhere up north. I haven't come to grips with John Key's facial characteristics and suspect that, like the late Bill Rowling, he's going to be hard to draw. I have no research to prove the matter, but experience suggests that politicians with bland, smooth features tend to be rather boring personalities in office.
The Prime Minister, on the other hand, has grown into the job. Every year her physical features have become more severe - a bit like the changing picture of Dorian Gray.
As her grip on absolute power solidifies, the stern looks and baleful, uncompromising eye plus the down-turned mouth suggest some creepy metamorphosis process is at work.
In a recent idle moment, I discovered that I could draw one half of the Prime Minister's face and combine it seamlessly with the late Robert Muldoon's.
Readers may be shocked that I would willingly carry out such a devious Frankenstein-like experiment on our beloved leader and dare publish such ghastly images, but hey! I'm only the messenger, so don't shoot me.