People fail to see the humour in the Brash taskforce report, as well as in other things, says Deborah Coddington.
We desperately need to lighten up in this country. Was I the only one who got the joke when the Brash report was released? Surely Taskforce 2025 was not serious? For years chairman Don Brash has been accused of having no sense of humour. Here was his big chance to prove otherwise.
I wipe away tears of mirth now as I picture him, hunkered down late at night with Roundtable chief executive Roger Kerr, clutching mugs of Horlicks, pouring over tattered copies of Sir Ron Trotter's radio chats from the 1990s.
Kerr: "Here's a piece we can use, Don Juan, about an SOE we didn't manage to privatise. Cut and paste this."
These guys aren't stupid. They know New Zealanders aren't going to swallow lines about vouchers in education, saving for hip replacements, paying interest on money you borrow for a tertiary degree. Why do that when the gummint will do it for you?
I can't believe no one was rolling around on the floor with laughter, holding their sides in pain when Brash delivered his report with a masterful deadpan facade.
I haven't heard anything so funny since Tom Scott gave the after-dinner speech at this year's NZ Bar Association dinner. Speaking of lightening up, those barristers need to. For example, Robert Lithgow, QC, can dish it out as a regular on National Radio, but he's a sensitive flower when the tables are turned.
In February 2006, on TVNZ's Close Up, Lithgow described the Court of Appeal as a complete waste of time, but this year as the person chosen to thank Scott for his extremely funny speech, Lithgow came over all sullen due to an off joke Scott had made which allegedly upset Lithgow's partner. Then again, we do like chivalry, sticking up for one's gal and all that.
I suppose that line will get me into trouble, but I think loyalty goes a long way. In the midst of all this hypocrisy over Tiger Woods' alleged affairs, there's something hugely distasteful about anyone - male or female - who kisses and tells. You had an affair? Well just shut up. It's the worst form of betrayal, blabbing to the world.
No doubt the Tiger will survive, and our own Prime Minister, the master of lightening up when the occasion calls for it, made the best Tiger joke while doing the cricket commentary on Sky this week at the Basin Reserve. It was a "cat and mouse game" observed Key, "and you'd definitely want to be the cat at the moment, unless you were a tiger, you wouldn't want to be a tiger right now". Dead air.
Immigration officials certainly take themselves very seriously these days. A supreme court judge friend recently supplied his name as support for his son's partner to move here, but he was rejected as not a suitable person. Perhaps she should have asked Taito Philip Field for a reference?
As for those losers who lodged complaints because they saw MP Hone Harawira on television taking a short ride around Parliament's forecourt on a motorcycle without a helmet - you deserve to receive one of his blistering emails. That's the trouble with having a Broadcasting Standards Authority - instead of people turning off their tellies when offended, they whine.
I'm often accused of crashing through life like a lightweight gadfly without a plan. I'm not sure that's a bad thing. A while ago I was elated when a media-shy executive agreed to an interview.
But it wasn't because he considered me a crash-hot journalist; he told a friend he thought I had bedroom eyes. Feminists would be outraged, but I got the interview others coveted. Taking life too seriously isn't always profitable.
That's why I find it impossible to bear grudges. I end up forgetting what I'm supposed to be bilious about.
