KEY POINTS:
This Government is a puzzling lot. First, they say they will pay the lot if Auckland builds a waterfront stadium for the 2011 Rugby World Cup.
Then, when the waterfront stadium concept rightly drowns, Trevor Mallard and co reluctantly anoint Eden Park as The Stadium - but won't pay for it.
Apparently the waterfront stadium was a 'national' stadium (translation: a monument to the Labour Government) but Eden Park is a 'regional' stadium (translation: pay for it yourself, you ungrateful sods).
Quite apart from anything else, they have now unleashed the Hound Of The Banks-ervilles - newly elected mayor John Banks, backing off putting Auckland money into the stadium and ready to tear the throat out of any misguided individual who might be prepared to offer the opinion that maybe Auckland ratepayers should pay a bit, because Auckland will benefit.
It's not often that I agree with Banks, on anything much, but I'm probably with him on this one. It's just that I don't quite understand how a new, shiny waterfront stadium is a national treasure when up the road, over the hill and turn right Eden Park is a bit of a regional boil on the bum in comparison.
All this has done has highlight how gloriously useless Auckland - whether it be Dick Hubbard's or John Banks' Auckland - is when it comes to getting anything done. No wonder the rest of the country thinks we are barking mad and if they had a chainsaw big enough, they'd cut us loose and push us in the general direction of Niue.
It's a stadium, for Pete's sake. It's not a nuclear power station nor a concentration camp for people roaming the Ureweras. It's not a testing ground for chemical warfare nor a restaurant which serves dog. It's somewhere where sport is played - and an attraction to overseas types who want to come to big sporting carnivals here and bring their lovely foreign lolly with them.
Just build the damn thing. Somebody, please. We have already toned down the plans from the multi-multi-million dollar version which would have made us all proud - and we've settled for the Warehouse version, made in China but what lovely plastic...
I mean, are we all crazy or what? Not just in Auckland, Wellington too.
The Government was plenty happy to take all the kudos when it helped win the 2011 event.
They looked like Important International Statespeople then, didn't they? But when they got home, they descended back into parish pump politics. We all know the Government will come riding over the hill like white knights in election year and untangle the mess, (while trying to ignore the fact that their horses are breaking wind and damaging our carbon footprint).
So save us the bother, please. How many billions are we in surplus again? Just pay for it and get on with it, will you?
Once every four years, they come out. The closet vultures and instant experts; those who don't watch rugby normally but who are attracted by the bleeding of a nation when, regular as clockwork, the All Blacks go out of the Rugby World Cup.
They are generally people for whom sport was a trial when they were young and where they covered their inadequacies by affecting an air of intellectual superiority. Generally speaking, the formula is consistent. They adopt a pose of wry detachment, curling a textual lip at the emotive reaction of the masses following the All Blacks' exit.
Then they too seek someone to blame, ironically aping the behaviour of that following, only with better grammar.
Like Bill Ralston, writing in a recent issue of the Listener who says the reason for all the bewailing and bemoaning is the nation's sports media. Apparently, we are too busy cheerleading to ask the hard questions and are so entranced by our "idols" that we let an atmosphere of false hope prevail.
"There's an expectation of some objectivity, some serious scrutiny", he writes. Pot. Kettle. Black.
Apart from being decades out of date, Ralston's view is just plain wrong. A simple bit of research or a phone call would have familiarised him with the thousands of words questioning the approach of Graham Henry and co. Even if there hadn't been, Henry's All Blacks had a 90 per cent win record leading into the World Cup - deflects a fair bit of criticism, no?
Sports writing has not been as described by Mr Ralston, 72, for generations. The All Blacks are now a thoroughly media-trained and controlled bunch, available only in artificial moments and press conferences. There is little or no opportunity for sports writers to snuggle up to their "idols" nor do most of them want to, preferring the impartiality of distance.
It's like saying that all TVNZ heads of news and current affairs preside over eras where their product loses ratings and credibility. Just doesn't happen all the time, does it, Bill? Bill?
Or it's like saying that a veteran newsman who has himself tasted celebrity and who has assigned journalists to stories involving the rich and famous always goes into an incandescent rage - igniting like Cameron Dormer's car - when questioned about a member of his own family.
No, rather than questioning the credentials of those who operate in an area he doesn't really understand, Ralston might be better off examining the mysteries of the internet.
Because at least most sportswriters are smart enough to send their columns to the right recipient.
