Being Prime Minister is a tough job. There's the stress, the workload, the bad food, and the political name-calling.
It doesn't help when that name-calling comes from your own son.
Most people call John Key "Prime Minister" - but Max Key, aged 13, has taken to calling his
dad "Captain Tubbs".
A rueful Key, 47, admitted yesterday that (what with elections and economic crises and whatnot) he had put on a few pounds over the course of the past year.
"It's Max's to speak to, but I'm growing in stature in more ways than one," he said yesterday.
Both Key and his predecessor, Helen Clark, have done their best to keep trim by working out - but it is inevitably difficult if your police protection officers are unenthusiastic about the security issues around going for a jog.
But Key told a newspaper last year that he was finding it increasingly difficult to find time for exercise around his 5.45am starts and 10pm finishes to the working day. While he had played squash, golf and rugby when he was younger, he was now more likely to go for a walk.
Former Maori Affairs Minister Parekura Horomia once set himself a challenge to lose weight by walking in Wellington's Botanic Gardens each day.
The 139kg former rugby forward stripped down to his trousers for the cameras, as he tried to lose 30kg. A few months later, he admitted: "Things got a bit rough ... I had a pie."
And that, John Key will discover, is the challenge in a job that can get rougher than any other.
