Jim Hopkins: Secret formula for coming up smelling like roses

Benson-Pope Gets Tough On Fireworks - A scary headline

Court Cracks Down On Careless Casino - Another scary headline

Housing Bosses Will Evict Squatters - And another

Parliament Reverses Rules To Legalise Dodgy Deals - And another

Scientists discover Parallel Universe - Tomorrow's news

It's amazing," said Professor Daffyd Bunsen-Pipe, Emeritus Professor of Fatuity at the University of Dargaville's Post-Graduate School of Self-Gratification, "I've never seen anything like it!"

The great man scratched his bemused head with the charred stump of a Category A, Restricted use, Could-Be-Banned-Next-Year Celestial Rain firework and stared, mystified, at the small but palpably malodorous mound quietly festering in the Petrie dish.

Then, with a single dramatic movement, the eminent academic picked up the dish and thrust its repugnant cargo into the face of a hapless lab technician standing nearby.

"Smell this!!" ordered Professor Bunsen-Pipe in the peremptory manner of a man totally comfortable with his own genius.

"What is it?" inquired the spotty youth, sensing an immediate threat to his life expectancy.

"It's NoughtE 05," replied the Prof, "otherwise known as Unlawfuloverspendium. Go on! Smell it!"

The acned assistant gingerly positioned his large and slightly damp proboscis directly above the foul midden and took a tentative sniff.

"Yarrrooooogghhhh!!!" gasped the thin owl, clutching his nostrils as he recoiled in horror.

"Eureka!" cried the Professor. "Or, more accurately, it reekas. In fact, it smells like three-week-old possum pooh gently marinated in an art student's armpit."

The technician nodded mournfully.

"But wait," chuckled his superior, clicking a confident finger over the rancid concoction. "Try again."

Fearing another nasal assault, the lad reluctantly did as he was bid. "Amazing," he mumbled, uncomprehending. Now it smells like ... " he struggled for words, "like ... roses!!!!!!"

"Exactly!!!" cried the elated Emeritarian. "One moment it's foul, then suddenly it's fragrant. One moment it's illegal, then suddenly it's not!!! A single application of Retrospective Legislation turns wrong into right and foul into fresh. It's a miracle!!!"

"No it's not," snapped a passing cleaner whose rugged but strikingly handsome appearance belied his station in life.

The man, who some said bore an uncanny resemblance to the extinguished poet laureate, Mr Jam Hipkins, put down his bucket and approached Professor Bunsen-Pipe.

"It's not a miracle at all," said the debonair cleansing operative, who'd only been brought into the column to play devil's advocate. "It's actually the best reason yet for Mr G. Fawkes Esq to have another go!!!!!

"It really gets on my wick," continued the Clooneyesque moptologist, who was becoming more suave by the sentence, "the way those Tom Thumbs in Parliament are only too keen to ban everyone else's fireworks but nothing ever stops them pouring petrol on their own bonfire of inanities.

"What would make me Double Happy chappy is to see those Fawked-tongued hypocrites being as tough on themselves as they are on the rest of us.

"Why don't they evict themselves from their own House or ban the passing of all legislation for two days because they've been naughty?"

The Professor, who'd aged considerably during the preceding paragraphs, pursed his lips and shook his scholarly head disdainfully.

"No, we can't have that," he said. "These mysterious, albeit feral folk, have achieved something no scientist - however distinguished - can claim. They have transformed matter. Turned bad into good at the stroke of a pen. They've created a parallel universe in which New Zealand First can righteously claim 'it will repay any money which it lawfully owes' when the very same people have just passed a law saying they don't unlawfully owe a single red cent!!!!

"This is an amazing phenomenon. We must study it closely to see what other astonishments they might achieve."

"That's right!!" chirped the technician, now fully recovered from his inhalation. "They might reverse my exam results. Or the speeding ticket I got last week.

"Well, you never know," he added forlornly, aware his audience was dubious. "I mean, they are there to work for us, aren't they?"

At which point, both his older colleagues simultaneously chuckled a sceptical chuckle.

"By all means study them, Professor," said the cleaner. "But not for the reasons you advance. I think they should be studied as a classic case of Shambling Addiction."

"Don't you mean Gambling Addiction?" inquired the confused technician. "Oh, no," replied the cleaning Adonis, "it's definitely Shambling Addiction.

"They're shambling towards their own extinction, blissfully unaware there's a pack of angry voters outside Parliament who can't wait to flex their electoral muscle and stick their ballot where the sun don't shine!!!

"People aren't silly," he added. "They notice how the politicians can't find any funds for Herceptin but there's always plenty of money for Acceptin - provided they're the ones Acceptin it!!!"

At which point, mainly because the column has to end somehow, the laboratory door burst open and an innocent child rushed into the room, cradling in its tender arms a battered bundle of bloodied feathers. "Oh, Professor, Professor," sobbed the child. "Can you help? I've got a sick bird."

"Indeed you have," said Bunsen-Pipe tenderly. "If I'm not mistaken, that's an ill eagle. Yes! It is! It is! It's an ill eagle!!"

"Wait a moment!!!" cried the laureate look-alike, tearing off his cleaner's smock to reveal his real attire, the beer-strained shirt of any true journalist, "Hold the front page. I feel a headline coming on ... Lame Ducks Save Own Goose With Ill Eagle Cure."