There is nothing like a dame, as the Americans would have us believe – so let’s salute Tariana

Alf’s mood today is much the same as it was yesterday.

He is in a slough of despondency after reading the NZ Herald’s report on the New Year list of gongs and finding he has been overlooked. Again.

But he has a generous heart and is willing to acknowledge that Tariana Turia is a worthy recipient of a damehood.

She might not be altogether thrilled, however, because the gong was reported like this:

Dames Companion

Ellen Adrienne, Lady Stewart, ONZM, QSM, Christchurch, for services to the arts and business

The Honourable Tariana Turia, Wanganui, for services as a member of Parliament.

 

One name is lamentably missing from Kiwi of the Year lineup – and don’t forget young Christopher

The “short list for New Zealander of the Year 2015” was announced in a press release yesterday.

The list isn’t as laudable as it should be, because the name of the hard-working member for Eketahuna North is missing.

There are some worthy names there, notwithstanding the list’s obvious inadequacy.

The big lesson is to stay safe by taking refuge in the boozer and avoiding motorised bar stools

Trouble is, a Kiwi has to fly to get there…

The NZ Herald has come up with a depressing dossier of personal tragedies this morning – typical, alas, of the way newspapers fill their columns during the holiday season.

Some were fatalities in the water.

* Water tragedies: Victims named – Police have named three people who have died in water-related accidents so far this holiday season.

Trouble is, if you don’t drown at our beaches, lakes, rivers or waterways, you could be poisoned.  The Auckland Council is reported to be putting final touches to a beach forecast model to let people find out online the level of harmful bacteria.

Getting into the air can be fraught, too, because aircraft sometimes come back to earth in unforeseen circumstances.

The Brits have figured out how to expand their economy – with drugs and sex – but France says non

An easy way to give GDP a leg-up…

Alf is keen to get back to Parliament where he will explain to Craig Foss his fiendish plan for lifting the country’s GDP.

Foss is our Minister of Statistics and the fiendish plan involves expanding the GDP data set.

It can be done by following the Brits, as we learn from this report in The Telegraph.

Britain has overtaken France to become the world’s fifth largest economy, new analysis shows.

A shake-up of the national accounts this summer, which showed the UK’s downturn during the Great Recession was shorter and shallower than previously thought, helped Britain overtake the Gallic economy by a whisker this year.

The Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) said Britain’s acceleration was also boosted by the inclusion of sex and drugs to UK growth.

Forget about petty quibbles such as the vodka – the idea of James Bond being darkened is a shocker

The poster says he is “BACK”…

Alf has become thoroughly bemused about editorial policy at The Daily Mail, a publication with which he has always felt politically comfortable.

Sadly, they have become astonishingly PC by the looks of it and have taken umbrage at remarks made by Rush Limbaugh, an American entertainer, radio talk show host, writer, conservative political commentator and loud mouth.

There have been many times when umbrage should have been taken at the utterances of this fellow.

We could – and probably should – also wonder about the quality of the genes bequeathed him by parents who gave him the preposterous name of Rush Hudson Limbaugh III.

But the Daily Mail has become antsy on this occasion because he has admitted to being ‘racist’ following comments he made about actor Idris Elba.

Golfers shouldn’t be handicapped – or barred from the trough – just because they fail a poverty test

It’s just a case of making the right pitch to have the millions spent here…

Alf’s good mate Steven Joyce is a beneficent bugger – a sort of Father Christmas for the well-off.

He distributes his largesse not on the basis of whether the beneficiary has been good or naughty over the past year, but whether he, she or it mixes in the right circles.

These are circles of people plush with money and an urge to donate to the National Party, usually to ensure against the election of a leftie or greenie government.

Steven accordingly would not have needed too much persuading when asked to consider whether taxpayers should bankroll the New Zealand Open golf tournament.

Too damned right they should.

Some niggly tossers ask: but will there be a positive return?

It doesn’t matter. We don’t get a positive return, so far as Alf can see, from the money biffed at domestic purpose beneficiaries and other people down on their uppers.

Why should golf be different?

Chicken and bread for Christmas looks like a better bet than being among several kids being buried

Alf is a generous soul and is willing to give some advice – for free – to the Invercargill couple who say their six young kids will go without on Christmas Day.

The couple are Shelly Edwards and Leo Hewett, who say their six children aged 3-10 will get no presents and have a diet of chicken and bread on Christmas Day because the Salvation Army failed to help them in their time of need.

Alf’s heart bleeds.

But he does not intend throwing money at the hard-up couple, whose story is told here at Stuff.

Instead he is giving advice in response to Shelly’s dilemma:

“How can we tell the kids there’s nothing for Christmas?” Shelly asked from their south Invercargill state house yesterday.

Easy.

The only blemish to be found on Mike Sabin (so far as is known here in Eketahuna) are his tattoos

Alf would be mortified if anything amiss has happened to terminate the three-year political career of National Northland MP Mike Sabin.

He’s a good bloke, in Alf’s book, although he would be a much better one if he had bypassed the tats.

But according to the NZ Herald his political career is in the balance.

The Boss, who normally is keen to talk about anything he knows about (and things he knows nothing about too) is being chary.

It shouldn’t matter much how a T-bone steak was produced, so long as it’s from a dead creature

The Poms can be a right bunch of prats.

Their latest foray into the domain of idiocy involves a Minister who is banging on about telling shoppers how their meat was killed.

The proposal comes from one George Eustice, an environment minister, who has given the clearest signal yet that the Government will introduce compulsory labelling of halal or kosher products.

The rationale is bizarre.

According to this report in The Telegraph:

There has been growing concern that consumers are unwittingly buying meat that was the result of religious ritual slaughter after it emerged that diners had been unknowingly served halal chicken in Pizza Express and other restaurants.

Why should someone who is about to tuck into a juicy T-bone steak give a monkey’s fuck about how the beast was slaughtered?

The nature of any prayers that were uttered will have no effect on the tenderness or flavour of the beef.

Nor will it be affected by the beast facing towards or away from Mecca.

The name of another prominent businessman – now sullied by his vile sex crimes – stays secret

There’s been news in the media of another prominent businessman coming before the courts.

Because of his name being suppressed – at least for now – we can’t be sure if it’s the same prominent businessman who has appeared on previous occasions and had his name suppressed, or a different prominent businessman.

This one has been jailed for 15 years for sexual violation and plying girls with methamphetamine for sex.

Judge Russell Collins also imposed a minimum term of eight years before he is considered for parole because of his high-risk of re-offending.

In other words, the villain of the piece is a prize ratbag.

Alas, we are not allowed to know who he is in the meantime.