Batman can't rid Gotham of Gilmore

Oh dear. Rushed legislation banning ingredients in synthetic cannabis has proved to be as effective as our Government's process for dealing with MPs who feel compelled to ask people: "Do you know who I am?"

There are new laws rumbling down the political legislative tunnel, but before they arrive the Government had announced that products such as K2 contained banned substances and would need to be removed from shelves last Thursday.

They're still there, though.

Why? Because these products do not list their ingredients.

Therefore, in a worst-case scenario, retailers can say, to the best of their knowledge, the product does not contain the banned substance and keep selling it.

A rather unfunny joke.

Which brings us back to "do you know how I am?"

Unlike the K2 scenario, texts released this week around the Aaron "Happy" Gilmore affair are funny.

Gilmore, of course, is the National Party MP who behaved like a galah and was refused wine by Batman.

Gilmore sent a text stating: "FFS the batman claims the group were racist and that I was escorted from the hotel."

Gilmore denies the group was racist, or that he was escorted out.

On the night, he felt compelled to engage Batman in conversation, and endow the caped crusader with his knowledge of how Batman could lose his job by serving an intoxicated person. Gilmore also asked Batman "do you know who I am?"

"The Joker?" might have been an apt response.

"The singer out of The Feelers?" would have also been an appropriate answer.

Batman, of course, had no need to ask Gilmore the same question, he's Batman!

WHAM!

Until Batman stepped in, not many people cared who Gilmore was. Perhaps that is why he is prone to asking people if they recognise him.

KRRRUNCH!

Having had his behaviour highlighted, the entire country now has an opinion him.

List MPs on $140,000 a year who behave like this are going to attract attention, sadly for all the wrong reasons.

KAPOW!

In terms of Gilmore and K2, it seems both are going to be around a while.

Craig Cooper is editor of the Northern Advocate