Prime Minister Bill English came under global attack recently - his face being shown across American television screens and words of critique and "please explain" being issued during the verbals.
Mr English made the news ... in America.
Wow.
For an "issue" the host of the television show described as serious enough to create an international incident ... albeit an incident which would likely be fought with pots and pans.
The pizza Mr English had described during an on-line posting (why he was posting tales from his kitchen is anyone's guess) caught the attention, and cynical ire of a chap by the name of Jimmy Kimmel.
Kimmel has a TV show which veers toward the irreverent (given some of the lingo he rolls out).
After the PM had posted the relatively innocuous photo of the meal he threw together for his kids on Twitter the airwaves and audioways began to hum.
Now I wasn't surprised as when a country's leader posts something on Twitter (check out some of Mr Trump's bewildering posts) then people tend to sit up and take notes, and then post notes - reactions and responses which are, 99.9 per cent of the time, highly critical of course.
Now if Bill the kids' chef had posted something about maybe considering raising the tax on beer or getting the All Blacks to put a big blue stripe down one side of their strip then one could understand the emergence of public disdain.
But this global "disaster" on a plate was pretty much a throwaway post ... the sort which would fly under everyone's radar were it not for the fact it was posted by Prime Minister Bill (pass the tomato sauce) English.
It came to Kimmel's attention and he could not resist having a dig, and good on him because the resulting dig was a light-hearted affair in which he jokingly accused New Zealand's leader of "declaring war on Italy" in the wake of showing off his pizza.
A pizza made with canned spaghetti, chunks of tomato and pineapple pieces.
Oh, and a bit of cheese and spring onion (you daring chap!).
"We can be pretty hard on Donald Trump but they have a guy in New Zealand, the Prime Minister of New Zealand, a gentleman named Bill English, who I think is even worse and I'm going to show you why," Kimmel declared to a curious audience.
The image of that alleged pizza flashed up as Kimmel continued.
"Not only did he put tinned spaghetti on a pizza, he put it on a pineapple pizza - he put canned spaghetti and pineapples on a pizza?"
I suppose in the heart of Milan or Rome of Venice it likely would be.
I had my first genuine Italian pizza in Sorrento while OE'ing between bars many moons back and it was sparse ... but remarkable.
Not for Billy the Spaghetti Kid though, and the social media result was for him to headline an American prime-time show ... for all the wrong reasons.
Now of course Kimmel took the mickey and that was fine and dandy ... but it did not end there.
Other more serious centres of media sparked up to express genuine disappointment and disgust at what he had whipped up for the kids.
The Evening Standard in England ran a headline declaring "New Zealand PM Bill English causes storm with 'atrocious' tinned spaghetti and pineapple pizza".
Metro questioned the wisdom of the country's leader with a story titled "The Prime Minister of New Zealand thinks tinned spaghetti is an acceptable pizza topping" while the opinion and analysis on-line Huffington Post wrote "New Zealand's Prime Minister Just Concocted A Crime Against Pizza".
A leading Italian chef also stepped into the online battle of the bases to grumpily state that what Bill the Pineapple Slicer had created did not "deserve to be called pizza".
It was the processed food he'd spread across it you see, and I have to admit smearing tinned spaghetti and tomato sauce all over the thing as a base was not exactly Jamie Oliver material.
Nor was it reason for global questioning for that matter, for while it started as a laugh it morphed into spots of serious criticism.
But I have a sneaking suspicion (knowing what kids do enjoy to quaff) that his youngsters were delighted and accordingly devoured it.
Whereas had Bill the Mozzarella Avoider daubed it with sliced olives, sun-dried tomatoes, smoked chicken and slices of pepperoni the kids would have just picked away at it and looked glumly at the unopened can of tinned spaghetti (Watties of course) in the larder.