The casting couch won’t work for Gerry – maybe that why he’s giving millions to movie moguls?

And if we can come up with another $100 million, they will let me play Henry VIII.

Alf finds it hard to fathom what’s going on in the Beehive nowadays.

Mean, lean Bill English is banging on about the need for fiscal rigour (although he is apt to forget this when throwing money around for Polynesian employment projects)

Generous and chubby Gerry Brownlee, on the other hand, is doling out millions of dollars to American movie moguls – the sorts of people who can count their profits in billions.

The long-suffering taxpayers of Eketahuna North accordingly are confused.

Today they have been pressing Alf for explanations, after the Sunday Star-Times disclosed that the public purse bankrolled blockbuster film and TV productions to the tune of $75 million over the past two years.

A government grant to grow vegies – well, yes, but only for those deemed to be “special” citizens

Ooh, that sounds like a great scheme, Mrs Grumble gurgled this morning on hearing that the Government is giving away money to help people grow their own vegetables.

Fair to say, Alf didn’t think it such a good idea unless Mrs Grumble was willing to do all the digging, the hoeing, the weeding and so on.

Let’s face it: you can get vegetables a helluva lot quicker by driving down to the supermarket than by growing them at home.

But Mrs Grumble was on a roll. Her argument: you don’t know where those supermarket vegetables have been grown or to what extent they have been drenched in bloody herbicides and pesticides? And that being so, then how are we to know when eating that stuff might be tantamount to suicide?