Yep, the bag might have contained a bomb – but what if it had contained someone’s tax payment?

Alf relished reading about the suspicious package that was left in a Hamilton IRD building on Friday.

He has been disposed sometimes, but only when over-fortified with an ample intake of good scotch, to muse on what might happen if he blew up Parliament Buildings while the Nats were away somewhere, so that only lefties and greenies would feel the blast.

But he is quickly sobered by the knowledge of what what happened to Guy Fawkes and a bunch of his stroppy Catholic mates when they had a go in the days of the Protestant King James.

The bombing attempt was a serious failure and the plotters were harshly dealt with.

All rise for the judge – and all power to him, too, when he cuts a swathe through human rights bullshit

Sulking at missing out on a gong today, and musing on the need to grow a beard to get one, Alf bypassed local newspapers and their stories of Kiwis who profess modesty and insist they don’t really deserve the honours they have been accorded.

In too many cases Alf is apt to agree – no, they don’t deserve them.

Not as much as he does, anyway.

By the way, he does wonder about Sir Pita Sharples professing to be embarrassed by his knighthood.

And he wonders about the title “Ta” given him by the NZ Herald.

Germaine Greer hits a discordant note on the matter of Sir Elton’s fatherhood – or is he a mother?

“Today it’s my turn to be Dad.”

Bugger me, Alf muttered as he found himself in total agreement with (a) an Australian and (b) a celebrated feminist.

Yep. He’s in tune with the thinking of Germaine Greer, at least on the matter of Sir Elton John and his domestic arrangements.

Sir Elton is married, of course, but does not have a wife.

Nope. He has a husband, a bloke by name of David Furnish.

But Furnish – it seems – is named as ‘mother’ on the birth certificates of their two sons.

Don’t ask how the pair managed to produce two sons. According to what Alf remembers of his biology class many years ago, two blokes should not be able to spawn two sons, or children of any gender, but the science on this matter may well have moved on since then.

Something or someone called a surrogate mother is said to play a role in human reproduction nowadays, but he can’t find Surrogate on a map.

The name of a rich-lister’s son is suppressed – but could news media let us see a photograph?

Oh dear, The bloody courts have done it again.

The name of the son of a New Zealand rich-lister is being kept secret – for now, at least.

Alf can understand his concern for anonymity because he has been accused of punching a female police officer in the face.

This is not chivalrous behaviour in Alf’s circles, although it must be said it might be acceptable behaviour, and even laudable, among the scions of rich-listers.

But the cop has cause to be aggrieved.

According to this report:

The police officer suffered a black eye, serious swelling to her face and needed hospital treatment.

The man has been charged with aggravated assault, resisting arrest, assaulting a security guard and damaging a window during an incident outside the popular Dunedin student haunt Shooters Bar back in March.

Nanny statists don’t want sweetness and light to come into the policy debate about obesity

Alf will be checking out how much good tax money is being squandered on fat fanatics and anti-sugar zealots. They are feeding from the public trough – excessively, it seems fair to argue – and coming up with all sorts of weird ideas.

For example, they have been banging on about the need to slap huge and embittering taxes on stuff we Grumbles like to savour, now and again and in moderation.

But their obsession is not limited to this wild urge to lift the price of sugary products to prohibitive levels. They also want to stop decent people from opening dairies – even though they are a legitimate form of retailing – to ensure prospective customers have to find black-market vendors of wares these do-gooders regard as harmful.

Or (oh dear, a loophole already) prospective customers would have to find a supermarket, although before long we would be told we shouldn’t allow new supermarkets either.

Does a head count suffice for assessing Sex Party’s virility or are members measured some other way?

The Sex Party would be in with a chance if it could muster enough members.

Alf and his mates could muster a few members among them.

He supposes it’s enough to count heads and not bring length into considerations to prove there is no shortage of the aforementioned members.  Length of service, for example.

But even if he is right with this supposition he is personally disinclined to line up to come to the aid of the troubled Australian Sex Party.

This party – we learn today – has been deregistered after the Australian Electoral Commission ruled it has fewer than 500 members.

This suggests a certain slackness in the recruitment department.

Don’t tell the Whips, but here’s one Nat who has a sneaking inclination to go AWOL on Whanau Ora

Alf is desperately looking forward to getting out of here today – the damned debating chamber – to take refuge in the Pickwick’s Bar.

For the past hour or so MPs have been banging away about the pros and cons of Whanau Ora.

Alas a highly discomforted Alf finds himself on the side of the defenders of the programme, notwithstanding the report on it from the Office of the Auditor-General.

He has had to smile approvingly while our MPs laud the role of “navigators” in our social welfare system.

Navigators?

Dunno which misguided plonker took these creatures out of the transport industry and introduced them to the Whanau Ora scheme.

The navigators perhaps should be called on to explain why so much money has – dare Alf say it – failed to reach its intended goal?

Whoa there traveller – cough up with some koha if you want to go further

No, it’s not highway robbery if we give you a plate of pork and puha in exchange.

Alf is by no means surprised to learn that the organiser of a controversial fundraiser has defended the stopping of travellers in the middle of the road to ask for cash.

That’s because – if the sheila’s name gives any clue to her ethnicity  – the organiser is one of this country’s indigenous persons.

Indigenous persons (liberally interpreted in this country to apply to the descendants of any immigrant whose boats got here before Abel Tasman or Captain Cook) have been accorded special status by our Government, perhaps because The Boss was having one of his brain fades when the Maori Party pressed him to endorse the idea.

The upshot is that indigenous persons can proudly lay claim to a great array of special entitlements, and it seems that the right to hold up people on roads in the Coromandel and relieve them of some of their money is one of them.

They tried restorative justice – now this family needs the restoration of its faith in the court system

Alf has a great deal of sympathy for the family of a woman who was killed by an overtaking car while out jogging.

The family has been angered by the sentence meted out to the plonker who was at the wheel when the woman was killed.

He should be in jail because he had 64 previous driving infringements and has lost his licence on a few previous occasions.

That he was not banged up attests to a judge who has been too lenient.

He has also been given an easy ride because he took part in some of that restorative justice nonsense that has become de rigueur in the justice business.

The pissed-off family was not told – or claim they were not told – that kow-towing to this process would result in the offender being given a lighter sentence.

Yes, other blue seats could be at risk because of economic neglect – eg Tolley’s East Coast patch

One of Alf’s mates, who has been reading some analysis by NZ Herald political hack John Armstrong, was unduly concerned about his political pal’s future.

He has been assured that Alf is safe and secure in his National stronghold.

The concern was raised by Armstrong’s observation that Winston Peters had cut a swathe through the wealthier parts of the Northland electorate in Saturday’s byelection.

This secured him the most votes in the National bastion of Kerikeri and matched the number cast for the ruling party in Wellsford.