Great idea … the closer you live to the ticket booth, the cheaper should be your entry fee

A cheaper deal is on offer for locals.

The Waitangi National Trust has concocted a fee-charging formula that should be applied more widely around the country.

Under this formula, people who live close to the Waitangi Treaty Ground are treated more favourably than people who live further away.

The scheme was disclosed in a news item from Radio NZ after the trust decided to make people pay to get into the treaty grounds.

As of Saturday, as Alf understands it, New Zealanders will pay $15 to visit the treaty grounds with children up to 18 free if accompanied by parents or caregivers.

The charge for overseas visitors will remain at $25 with children free.

The Waitangi National Trust is telling us that charging Kiwis is necessary because the drop in tourism caused by the global financial crisis means there are no longer enough fee-paying overseas visitors to subsidise free entry for locals.

This has raised the dander of Kelvin Davis and taken his mind – for now – off his party’s leadership circus (which itself would command an entry fee and pull in crowds of those who enjoy a great farce).

And if your sex partner has a screw loose – would you get a discount or a refund?

Here's hoping she has been well oiled.

Fancy a bit of rumpy-pumpy with a robot?

It’s the way of the future, an astonished Alf learned today.

The Daily Mail has drawn his attention to a paper by two academics at Victoria University, in Wellington.

The academics envision the year 2050 and a group of men heading to a brothel in Amsterdam’s Red Light District.

But when they get there, instead of being met by a young woman, they are seen by an entirely different host: a robot.

This is the future, as imagined by two researchers who believe this science-fiction-style vision could become reality within 40 years.

The Daily Mail is reporting on a paper, Robots, Men And Sex Tourism, by Ian Yeoman and Michelle Mars of the Victoria Management School in Wellington, New Zealand.

Another freedom is about to be crimped as the bureaucrats move in on campers

Labour's response to a violent attack on this campervan? It wants more education of campers.

So some bugger from Christchurch – no surprises there – has been arrested for allegedly trying to set fire to a campervan with two people in it.

Alf is obliged to use words like alleged because this bloke has been charged with attempted murder.

According to the cops, they were called to a Tasman District Council reserve at Tamatea Point in Pakawau, between Collingwood and Farewell Spit, about 5.50am after a couple said someone had shot at, smashed and attempted to set fire to their campervan.

If the couple have given a correct account of what happened, then the someone who did the shooting, smashing and attempted burning has behaved in a very anti-social way.

So what would the Labour Party do?

Oh, yes. It would make campers clean up their act.

Those Chilean miners would not have been imperilled if they had taken a kaumatua’s spiritual advice

The spooks are on the march.

Last heard of somewhere in the bowels of Te Papa, a place best avoided by menstruating and pregnant women, the wee buggers have infested the Waitomo Caves, too.

Alf has it on good authority they have travelled world-wide and account – among other things – for the recent Chilean mine collapse.

Or rather, a failure to observe the right protocols in places where the spirits have taken up residence led inevitably to the collapse.

Great stuff for Fox but what do Kiwi taxpayers get back for their investments in a blockbuster?

A bloke called Luke Malpass raises a bloody good question in the Sunday Star-Times today: it’s whether taxpayers should be pumping money into our film industry.

Malpass is a Policy Analyst at The Centre for Independent Studies.

His question is something that Alf tried to bring up with Gerry Brownlee, our Minister of Economic Development. He didn’t get far.

The question was triggered for Malpass by news that the film Avatar had overtaken Titanic to become the highest grossing movie in history by raking in about $US2 billion.

Icecream has melted from today’s news from Cathedral Cove – so has the grumblers’ credibility

Alf is pleased to bring you this follow-up to his post yesterday about the march of progress into Cathedral Cove.

Despite angering some locals, young entrepreneur Shanan Laird says he has had good feedback from tourists visiting his gazebo at Cathedral Cove.

He’s come under fire from angry locals for buggering up the scenery, but he tells us tourists are relieved to see him at the end of a long, hot walk, and that he is leaving the white-sand beach cleaner than he finds it each day.

Shanan Laird, 31, said he had had nothing but positive feedback from visitors – and only two negative comments from locals – since he began selling drinks and sandwiches at the untouched spot, 30 minutes’ walk from the road.

Anger in Paradise – or the delicious humbug of an icecream stall raising the heat in Hahei

Alf is delighted this morning to find humbug alive and thriving in the Coromandel.

It was a gorgeous place, once, until the holiday-makers and property developers moved in and many of the most beautiful beaches quickly were converted into something resembling Auckland suburbia.

Now – the NZ Herald is telling us today – the buggers who live in the houses that have spoiled the Coromandel are complaining about a bloody icecream stall.

The hypocrisy is delicious.