Prime Minister of Facebook
Diary of the last coupla days mate
Saturday morning
Take time off to do some accumulated DIY. Mention this to Twitter friends. Good cheer is offered along the lines of enjoy the hospital food and how you can do a diary without your fingers and so on and it's nice to feel the love.
Deploy various power tools without incident or injury, complete all work to a high standard, turn attention to dinner for daughter and her friends.
Saturday evening
Daughter and friends are enjoying their drinks and we have a selection of dishes from grilled meat through to gentle vegan fare. Using our excellent new bread knife to slice buns for burgers, I proceed through the bread and a decent distance into my supporting finger. Blood, thanks to my daily dose of aspirin, gushes immediately in torrents and will keep it up for the next 45 minutes.
Oh hai Twitter, happy now?
Sunday
The hangover, steadfast companion for so many Sundays is now entirely a stranger.
First you count your giving up by the days, then the weeks, then months and then years, and the relief and joy is real. Today makes nine for Lotta Dann, and congratulations Mrs D.
The day I decided to give up, I wasn't following any particular piece of advice or example but I think, actually, the motivation to act is helped by what has filled your mental landscape. I had for sure registered Lotta’s story. When you share, you show people a way out. Grateful she did.
A few weeks ago, at the end of a long day of work and no exercise, for the first time in months I had that old wine o-clock wave feeling that can wash over you and make you think what would really help is a drink.
It was a surprise, like getting someone else's mail. The further surprise was that inside a minute, as I sat there examining it, the feeling passed.
I thought about all the times before when I would have got straight to my feet when the feeling hit, walked to the fridge, pulled the door, and the direction of the rest of the night would have become something else. One minute. Just one minute for the feeling to pass and on the other side, equilibrium restored. 40 years it took for me to get there. Man.
Monday 6.45am
No hangover, but I do have Andrew King of the property investors outfit on my radio. He says before landlords spend any money to meet new heating standards for rental properties, they should see if National wins the election. Fair enough too. What kind of loser would put safe, dry, healthy accommodation for fellow New Zealanders above a precious dollar going forward, eh. Judith Collins is promising to reinstate the glorious decade of neglect. If you're the sort of person whose moral and ethical position is I’ve got mine, get lost, you should find plenty to like about it.
9.05am
News from the PM’s office: Parliament’s dissolved, so the daily 1pm press conferences are also at an end. The minister and the DG will hold one separate briefing a week each. Or something like that.
@NZStever asks the very good question: What am I supposed to do at 1pm now?? Work?
We've seen before, of course, that if things go grim, the band gets put back together. I think we all very much hope that won’t be necessary.
This is also of course a reminder that the election campaign is about to restart. The swimmers had to lope back to the blocks with the starting gun still echoing, hoist themselves out, stand around in dripping wet costumes and wait for the next gun. Now they’re about to get on their marks again and are you excited New Zealand, or have you ended up a bit shivering wet as well and want to go home?
According to this story that I couldn't be bothered reading, it won't be anything like a proper turnout, even though the supermarkets seem to be as full as ever, and even though the whole voting experience entails standing apart from one another and going to your own little cardboard coffin, and even though you can do the whole thing with an envelope and never go near a polling booth.
Well if you say so, professor. Just in case he’s not deluded, I made a contribution to the discourse.
Friends on Twitter joined in.
1m of 3mm elastic. Spotlight was sold out on Saturday.
Sausage sizzle
One time at Bunnings the fundraising sausage sizzle had a big sign with a handsome dog on it and the words North Shore Alsatians. I looked at the picture of the dog, I looked at the guy with the tongs, I looked down at the sausages and I asked have you got any that are just pork?
The great thing about having this blog as an outlet is that some innocent member of the public may be rendered less endangered by dad jokes.
But, because it’s a tradition, I will for sure walk into the polling booth and announce in a loud voice I’m here to vote for the ACT and where’s the members lounge? Here in the North Shore electorate, the outcome is a certainty. A chap named Simon Watts is about to commence, should he wish, a twenty, thirty, forty year career as our National Party MP.
How will it be conducted, the election? Will it be long weeks of wanting it to stop? Will it be barefaced bullshit lying memes, and contrite apologies for the barefaced bullshit lying memes and next morning still more barefaced bullshit lying memes?
Will it be not malls, not rallies, but people connecting with the Prime Minister on Facebook? Google Docs want to correct what I just typed to Prime Minister of Facebook and well, you can see why the algorithm might see things that way. There’s a very good take at The Conversation on the performance of Prime Minister on the Social Media battleground. If that's where all the votes were cast, she’d have not a lot to worry about.
This will be for the largest part a vote about who is trusted most to get us through this, won’t it? Despite the best efforts of the opposition to sow doubt and uncertainty, despite the best efforts of the opposition to appear a better alternative while yo-yoing from advocating an open border to locking it tight and complaining about - the irony! - yo-yo-ing, you do get the sense that there is solid confidence in the present administration, notwithstanding their mistakes. And, you know, who in the world, anywhere has managed to get it wholly right?
You could say that getting people through peril doesn't necessarily aid a Prime Minister. Britain summarily booted out Churchill. Yes, true. But the war was over.
Meanwhile the war goes on and if you're worried we’re doing it all wrong and the plan B geniuses know the real score, Marc Daalder has reliably prepared a corrective.
4.35pm
Kitchen despatches. Elsewhere in the war effort, truly glorious baking continues. Let us continue to dig, click and bake for victory, in whatever fashion suits us best.
Ohh and ps-you got there..well done. Knew there was a reason for the feeling of 'sympatico'
Ooh, as well, am I able to skite about my sourdough bread? Baked it today, and although a modest rise, it's bloody delicious.