Alf has put his prime ministerial ambitions on hold today.
He had always expected that on becoming the country’s leader he could do lots of things – dissemble, fib, forget the details of meetings, chat regularly with Whale Oil, appoint mates to good jobs in the state services, play golf with Obama and so on.
He also thought that with the diplomatic protection squad blokes on hand to protect him, he might be able to pull the pony tails of pretty young sheilas in cafes, confident the the protection squad would step in and protect him should the sheilas retaliate and try to kick him in the nuts, which is what Mrs Grumble said she would do if she had a pony tail and a bloke pulled it.
Alf thought the pulling of pony tails very appropriately could be explained away as horse play.
And if anyone was crass enough to demand explanations, well, a bit of eloquently expressed horse shit should ensure against too much fuss.
It seems The Boss had much the same expectations of what is possible when you become Prime Minister and ticked off some of the items on Alf’s bucket list of what to do on becoming PM.
Alf does not know how many pony tails The Boss has pulled.
But he does know that in one case that has been well publicised today, the lass with the pony tail finally said nay, no more.
Moreover she went whinnying to some tosser of the left-wing persuasion who operates a blog, and this tosser let her tell her story.
An oupouring of indignation has followed and the story has quickly been beamed around the world.
The PM has done his best with the horse shit.
Prime Minister John Key has dismissed his hair-pulling pranks as “a bit of banter”, saying he apologised to an Auckland waitress when it became clear his approaches were unwanted.
But it looks like he will be the butt of much mirth for a while.
The waitress reportedly made the claims that Key repeatedly tugged on her ponytail in an anonymous contribution to The Daily Blog.
She is said to be a waitress at a Rosie, a cafe frequented by Key and his wife Bronagh near their Parnell mansion.
Key was on his way to Anzac Centenary commemorations in Gallipoli when he spoke to reporters in Los Angeles not about the importance of the occasion to which he was headed but about his hair pulling.
“We have lots of fun and games there, there’s always lots of practical jokes and things. It’s a very warm and friendly relationship.
“But if you look at it now, no. When I realised she took offence by that I just sort of immediately went back, gave her some wine, apologised and said I was terribly sorry,” he said.
Key said he apologised because at that point he realised she had actually taken offence.
“It was all in the context of a bit of banter that was going on, and so obviously I immediately apologised for that.
“She thanked me for that and said ‘that’s all fine, no drama'”.
No drama?
Sad to say, no way.
The rest of the story can be pieced together by visiting a raft of blogs and web sites.
Meanwhile Alf has been sobered into wondering if he might just settle for remaining a back-bencher.
For now.
Although the prospect of Crusher becoming the next leader might have him thinking about it again.
Alf Grumble 