Team Winston is off to roll around in the English mud.
Team Winston is off to roll around in the English mud.
It needs to be made clear at the start that you are not paying for a bunch of MPs to travel to England to participate in the Parliamentary Rugby World Cup (PRWC) or, as those taking part know it: "I Can't Believe We're Getting Away With This".
At least you're not paying for their fares and accommodation.
You are paying their wages while they are away for nearly two weeks. And some corporate sponsors are also chipping in selflessly with no thought of any return.
The PRWC, or ICBWGAWT, has a venerable tradition stretching all the way back to 1995 when someone decided that flying MPs to the location of the real Rugby World Cup at, coincidentally, the time of the real Rugby World Cup, was just what the world needed.
But this year's team are only away in a physical sense.
Because Parliament needs a certain number of members to "function", the absentees will be deemed to be present even though they are rolling around in English mud - in the pub carpark after the game.
Not for the first time, some sad old men will represent our country in an area where they are completely out of their depth.
But at least at the UN Security Council Murray McCully couldn't do a lot of real damage, because if there's one thing the UN is good at, it's not making a difference. McCully was a member of that original 1995 ICBWGAWT known - its name being modelled on the Invincibles and the Originals - as the Unspeakables.
When it comes to rugby, however, we do have more of an international reputation to uphold than we do in global security matters, which makes it deeply concerning that one of those taking part is Winston Peters.
He is going along as media manager - so his sense of humour is clearly match fit.
"I hope they are not going to be that desperate," he said when asked if he intended to play. Clearly they aren't, though they're equally clearly not burdened with an oversupply of potential media managers.
It's hard to imagine what he will do in the role. Normally it's all a rugby media manager can do to get his or her charges to say "full credit" and "game of two halves" in the right order. Winston will be managing a bunch of people who can talk under water.
The truism that sport brings people of different nations together despite their differences holds true here. And if we weren't already the object of intentional derision with our preposterous posing at the UN, this junketing should finally get us over the line.
Prison manager Serco's brand awareness has gone through the roof. Photo / HOS
of organised fights at Auckland's Mt Eden Prison has had unintended consequences. To begin with, many of us hadn't heard that they'd changed the first rule of Fight Club. Second, prison manager Serco's brand awareness has gone through the roof. So they'd have to be happy with that.
Third, as the old lags the media dug up to comment made clear, this sort of behaviour is nothing new. Which is probably the most important revelation because, if there were ever any doubt that prisons do not rehabilitate or reform people and do not help them gain skills that will make better people than they were when they went in, that doubt has been removed forever.
