I REMEMBER an ad on television a few years ago where a bloke did everything he possibly could to avoid finding out a rugby score only to have it sprawled over his fish n' chip paper, thus ruining his imminent viewing of the delayed broadcast. A similar scenario occurred for me over the weekend when a "mate" sent me a text saying, "I thought the Highlanders were better than that". Great. Cheers. I had the game against the Lions waiting for me on MySky, ready to be viewed at my convenience. But no. Thanks to that, why bother?
Still, he's a mate -- so what can you do? Unlike local body politicians, he can be forgiven. Local body politicians can't. Down here in the deep south, the Dunedin City councillors have voted themselves a 9 per cent pay rise. Nine per cent. They'll put the rates up by a few per cent again this year for the masses, but make sure they're exorbitantly compensated for the trouble. Remember, they chose to stand for election; it's not their job like the fine folk who make up the actual staff of a local authority. They do God's work having to put up with the elected buffoons rogering all their good work. I've always believed those who stand in local body elections are slightly unhinged and/or have a vastly inflated sense of their own self-worth.
We've seen numerous examples of farmers being shafted by local and regional authorities over the years and it seems to be escalating. The history of farming and local rates bills is a veritable litany of money-grubbing. Even the much heralded Waipa District Council has copped a bagging from local farmers recently who are quite rightly dismayed at the prospect of rates bills almost doubling over the next decade.
Back down here in Dunners, the Otago Cricket Association has this week asked the Dunedin City Council to stump up half the cash for a set of lights at the University Oval to enable day-night cricket, and thus attract the best international teams to the city. But the princely sum of $1 million is proving quite tricky to secure with one councillor even suggesting a $5 levy added to ticket prices to pay for the lights. What a stunning level of stupidity. Make tickets more expensive and thereby deter some people from going to games, thereby losing more revenue ... But that's the default setting for these types -- tax, tax and more tax. Did I mention a 9 per cent pay rise?
Hopefully lights at Uni Oval would net poor old Mitchell McClenaghan a few more wickets. The Mumbai Indians paceman has had an extraordinary amount of "bad luck"in the IPL with fielders dropping catches off his bowling left, right and centre. I'm a deeply cynical man, as I mentioned last week, and can't help thinking ... that Bruce Edgar was harshly treated by New Zealand Cricket. Accounts from various sources, including the horse's mouth, suggest Edgar was unceremoniously shafted by his former employers. He appears to have been poorly treated despite doing an excellent job, although I could think of worse places to watch a game of cricket than beside the wives and girlfriends of the Aussie cricketers.
