When in strife, grab a string of cliches

If life is more of a cliche than a metaphor then I would like to apologise, in advance, to readers for any potential future, past or current offence at any of the following. Note to politicians, fame junkies, A, B, B+, or C-listed failed and flawed celebrities and various vacuous non-entities - when things go wrong a cliche will always do.

It is important to get on to the Sorry-Go Round as quickly as possible, take it for a spin, strip mine every cliche you can find, rehabilitate your career and move on. A picture of you with something cute, a dog or small child, can often smooth the path down Redemption Street. If you feel any attention is better than none at all then name suppression is a great way to get people talking about you.

Apology - example No1 "Do you know that at this moment in time, at the end of the day and in the fullness of time with due consideration for all the iconic blue sky thinking, we have made an executive decision to fast track our denial and say - just get over it."

Sorry - example No2 "When complex things like this go pear-shaped we need to fess up as it goes with the territory. The jury is out on the knock-on effects because life is too short and there is no magic bullet and there is no pain-no gain so while trying to take it too the next level mistakes will be made."

Excuse - example No3 "This fiasco has been the mother of all fiascos. It's a wake-up call. What goes round comes round so we need to go back to basics and consider the over-rated sub-text of the structural differences in the model applied in this context."

Losing at sport - example No4 "We are gutted. It was a game of two halves. We played to our game plan but on the day we gave it our best shot. We are gutted that the decisions made in the dying minutes of the game went against us. It is a sad day for the fans - we gave 135.5 per cent on the field and are completely gutted."

Denying failure - example No5 "We thought we had all our ducks in a row and by our best guestimates had all the bases covered with our hands-off approach to the learning curve. We had not counted on the goal posts being shifted."

Cabinet ministers response to a massive cock up - example No6. "In the light of recent media reports, I categorically deny any involvement in deals by business leaders to influence government policy. I would like to draw a line under it and move on. Calls for my resignation are premature. The facts speak for themselves. After a full and frank discussion with my ministerial colleagues, I am considering my position. Let's be absolutely clear about this. I'm not ruling anything in and I'm not ruling anything out. I have no further comment to make at this time."

Sources close to the situation noted it's not rocket science.

Terry Sarten lives in Whanganui and describes himself as a signed up member of the satirista movement. Feedback email: tgs@inspire.net.nz