Clark at ease in lecture hall

Politics at the chalk-face Helen Clark gave a stunning performance in a steeply tiered lecture theatre of the Otago Medical School in Dunedin this week, not for the content so much as the natural delivery. It was as though the former political science lecturer had never been away, as she paced back and forth, arms folded, addressing about 200 enthralled people. Pressing a point on student loans, "Professor" Clark could not resist the chalk and blackboard to set out a case-study on the advantages of Labour's policy.

Something amiss Unusually for Helen Clark, she kept a packed gathering in the Dunedin Town Hall waiting for 15 minutes before her entrance. It wasn't jitters that kept her nervously pinned to the front doors watching the street outside. The driver of her crown car had taken off for an early lunch, unaware that her speech was still in the back seat.

Helen who?

The Labour leader may need a little more work to raise her profile in Blenheim on the evidence of a superannuitant emerging from the $2 shop, who asked: "Is that Mrs Shipley?"

Unpicking the past If you thought Helen Clark had a touch of the guilty white liberal, there may be a reason. We discovered on the Sky television leaders' debate early in the week that the Waikato farm on which she grew up was confiscated Maori land.

And we also found out in her conversations with Hamilton fashion factory owner Enid Heskett that sewing was not her forte in the third form. Mature women with less-than-happy memories of home science instruction may relate to Helen Clark's ordeal in completing the obligatory draw-string blouse.

"Then there was the disaster with the rompers, which were perfectly made, but not for any known human shape: about an 18-inch waist and 40-inch hips. By the time we got to the dress, I didn't get much beyond cutting out the pattern."