That was Alf’s advice when party chiefs consulted him at the weekend on how to counter the Peters threat.
No, he was not talking about rolling out the beer barrel to liquor up the locals. That would be bribery and bribery is seriously frowned upon in our electoral laws.
Alf was recommending we roll out the pork barrel.
Pork barreling, of course, is a term used to describe the appropriation of government spending for localised projects secured solely or primarily to bring money to a representative’s district.
Alf has recommended this tactic before, and the party bosses have listened.
With a bit of luck, our navigator got it wrong and this is a beach in Miami.
It looks like it’s all on for Kiwi troops to be despatched to Iraq.
Iraq’s Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Ja’afari today met a heavyweight bunch of Alf’s colleagues, The Boss, Murray McCully and Gerry Brownlee.
There was a request for us to help his beleaguered country and as Radio NZ said:
The request for support takes New Zealand one step closer to a decision on deploying troops to help train Iraqi forces, with back-up from special forces.
The Government has repeatedly ruled out the troops having any combat role.
“If we formed another party and became co-leaders, we would each get a bigger share of this swill.”
Not for the first time, Alf is seriously pissed off with a Parliamentary Press Gallery hack who has seen fit to draw attention to MPs’ pay packets and perks.
It was not done directly by naming Alf.
It was done, nevertheless, by drawing attention to the salaries and perks of some fellow back-benchers. The good citizens of Eketahuna North are a bright bunch, quite capable of working out – roughly – the going rate for their local member.
Next bloody thing you know they will be asking him to do the shouting, either in the pub or at the Eketahuna Club, because obviously he is paid much too much and can afford it .
She supposed the parliamentary hacks at Stuff – at long last – had been musing on the PM’s failure to make much better use of the member for Eketahuna North’s vast energy and administrative and political prowess.
No doubt they were wondering why Alf was still sitting on the back benches where those talents were being wasted and the nation – surely – was suffering as a consequence.
But Mrs Grumble soon found she should not read too much into a headline.
“Check out my metabolism before weaning me off the Big Macs…”
Gotta find Gerry and Parekura and tell them the good news.
Well, encouraging news.
A bunch of researchers are saying nearly half of fat people are just as healthy as slim people – and no more at risk of developing heart problems or cancer.
They also reckon overweight and obese people should not fight the flab after having a heart attack because they are more likely to outlive their leaner counterparts.
Fair to say, though, that Gerry and Parekura would need to find if they have a certain metabolism.
The findings (as reported here) show there is a subset of obese people who are metabolically healthy.
So how many woman drivers pranged their cars when they spotted this?
It’s time our safety authorities checked out the number of traffic prangs caused by people of the opposite sex.
Alf will be raising the matter with our Transport Minister, the corpulent Gerry Brownlee, who himself is likely to be a road hazard by distracting the attention of all those women who have a thing about fat politicians.
The issue of the dangerous distraction such people cause has been highlighted in a Daily Mail report (here).
We learn that – in Britain – ogling drivers cause nearly one million crashes every year because they are too busy concentrating on members of the opposite sex.
Posted by Alf Grumble 
Alf Grumble 