This Braunias bloke should have communicated with pictures, when he wanted to use the “c” word

One of these blokes is Alfred E.Neuman, the other is a sacked columnist.

Alf’s attention has been drawn to the sacking of a Sunday Star-Times scribbler who looks remarkably like Alfred E Neuman, the iconic cover boy of Mad magazine.

The sacking is neither here nor there to Alf, but he delights in pointing out to his constituents that the sacked scribbler would qualify for featuring in Mad magazine on account of his exchange of execrable e-mails with – of all people – a female police prosecutor.

Down in Wellington, during the week, a few people were sufficiently bothered to conjecture on what the columnist might have done.

Here in Eketahuna, we couldn’t give a toss but one of Alf’s mates – the only one who has ever read Braunias’s stuff, it transpires – said he would have sacked the bugger long ago for failing to write in a language he understands, which turns out to be the same language that got the columnist the sack.