1. Please read the following statement:
You need to be sloppy, soft and wet - i.e. open up the cheque book, as excruciating as this will feel. There is a large government surplus and the real result will be determined by who the public thinks is best to spend it. Soft centre voters are inherently self interested and will vote according to what they can get out of you. Election winning behaviour requires you to slosh those funds around and buy your way to the Treasury benches.
Does Bryan Sinclair have a future in:
A: hot and heavy erotic paperbacks?
B: a regulation-averse telco?
C: no further New Zealand political campaigns?
D: Melbourne?
2. Speaking of Melbourne, is there a Holden dealership in Caulfield, and if so, does it have a clever name?
3. For that matter, if you had a business halfway down Dominion Road, would you take the opportunity to give it a witty handle?
4. Was anyone there to hear Don Brash's speech in Whangarei last Monday? Did he deliver the speech as distributed, or did he correct this passage to sound less as though it was written by someone who knows a lot more about corporate culture than he does about recent Treaty issues?
And recently the Environment Court determined that Genesis Power can divert water from the Whanganui River, but only for the next 10 years instead of the 35 years it had sought to ensure security of supply. Environment Court Judge Gordon Whiting said in the decision: "To the Maori people, the severing of the headquarters of their rivers is a sacrilege resulting in the denigration of Maori values and beliefs affecting their self esteem."
5. Please compare these two photos:
One of these people is a virulent critic of Don Brash, the other is a cabinet minister. Which is which?
6. And finally, this one has a prize: a copy of Civil War and Other Optimistic Predictions by David Slack (Penguin, 28.00) to the person who can most accurately predict this Sunday's front page headline in the Sunday Star Times. The reply button's just below.