It’s a sad day when things get hot for a party leader for being questioned in a sauna

Couldn’t this have been filmed by the Fox bunch?

Sir John Kirwan – gone as coach of the Blues and Alf did nicely, thank you, on some punts with his mates.

Next?

Alf is tempted to put some money on Colin Craig being a goner fairly soon.

Mind you, he has not been given any inside tips on this matter.

He is reliant on the news media and is bound to say this means he is listening to journalists,and journalists are at the bottom of the pecking order when it comes to public trust.

For what it’s worth, therefore, consider this:

Bad buggers will now find it that much harder to persuade the Parole Board to give them a break

Alf looks forward to returning home at the end of the week to bask in the acclamation of his mates in the Eketahuna Club. They are tough on law and order and will be chuffed about the passage of some legislation dealing with parole hearings.

The Bill was aimed at reducing the number of unnecessary parole hearings for offenders who still pose a threat to the community.

It increases the maximum interval between hearings from one year to two years. For serious offenders on indeterminate sentences – such as life imprisonment or preventive detention – or sentences of 10 or more years, the maximum time between parole hearings increases from three to five years.

The Bill also includes a range of measures to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the parole system.

Helped by an “aye” vote from Alf, it passed its third and final reading in Parliament last night.

Judge Jane should dip into her history book and get a steer on sentencing from The Hanging Judge

The Sensible Sentencing Trust almost makes a case for having the judging business declared a caper fit for blokes only.

Preferably blokes with no whiff of greenie, leftie or any other namby-pamby leanings.

But Sensible Sentencing falls short of saying this and obviously has opted to pull its punches while preparing a news item headed:

Violent thug deserves four year sentence, not sympathy from a Judge

The news release says Sensible Sentencing wonders why trained Judges seem to find a very simple law hard to follow.

Presumably they mean some judges and moreover they probably mean some modern judges, because blokes like Judge George Jeffreys had no trouble following a simple law, and if they did, they simply resolved the matter by sentencing the defendant to a stiff sentence, often of the life-terminating variety.

An indecent attack is odious enough – but why should assailant be allowed to keep victim gagged?

It’s unacceptable enough that a woman is subjected to some sort of indecent assault.

But it becomes outrageous when her attacker can then gag her as well, aided and abetted by the justice system.

Alf refers to a Sunday Herald report that tells us the victim of an indecent act is outraged her attacker is allowed a say in whether she can reveal her identity.

Rolf was a grumpy bugger, back in the 1980s, when his kiddie fiddling flair was a dark secret

And I use this for sniffing out my prey.

The Waikato Times has caught up with Maxine Hodgson, who was involved in bringing Rolf Harris to Hamilton in the 1980s.

Harris, of course, is a performer with a special talent for playing a wobbleboard and – as he is more notoriously known nowadays – for his flair as a furtive kiddie fiddler.

Alf is inclined to think it might be better not to mention having anything to do with Harris.

Especially when the irony around one’s involvement with the disgraced Ozzie wobbleboarder is brought into considerations.

More folly from Tolley? Yep – she doesn’t care what we call the slammer where felons are locked up

The main thing to be mist should be life on the outside.

We can be a colourless and soulless mob, at times, clearly lacking an appreciation of poetry and good language.

Correction. Some of us on occasions don’t appreciate the application of poetic language in palpably inappropriate circumstances.

“Correction” (as it happens) is the operative word in this post.

Alf’s attention has been drawn to this Herald on Sunday report, which kicks off:

A decision to name New Zealand’s biggest new private prison a place to “move out of the mist” is being called “potty” by justice campaigners.

Backing sterilisation will bring more blue votes (probably) than urging help for mum with a record

So how long will this go on for, and how many state-run children’s homes will be needed to cope with the consequences of Oriwa Kemp’s fecundity?

Oh – and by the way – will the aforementioned Oriwa Kemp ever get a chance to demonstrate that maybe she can bring up her children without the need for state intervention?

Those are among the lofty questions tackled over the Grumbles’ breakfast table this morning, while we ploughed our way through the Sunday newspapers.

Oriwa Kemp, if you don’t happen to know it, was banged up for a while for cruelty to Rotorua toddler Nia Glassie.