Tuesday, July 15, 2008

The Jacket

It is almost beyond belief that Rodney's jacket is getting the press it is and Rodney must be loving every minute of it. I think the vestment looks pretty sharp especially now that Mr Hide is sporting his new athletic persona. He would have looked totally absurd in it had he been in 2005 mode.

There are two attacks on the the jacket. One from the head of the Newmarket Traders or something who says it is hideous and is wrecking Newmarket's reputation as fashion capital of New Zealand. This is absurd on two fronts. New Zealand doesn't have a fashion capital although Te Awamutu could put in a claim as it probably has the largest concentration of Swanndris in the land. And who the hell is a Fashion Nazi in Newmarket to tell the rest of us what is hideous and what is not. And if something looks hideous just ignore it - don't ban it. If Rodney wants to walk around looking like a banana, who cares?

Even more absurd than some bloke in Newmarket getting nasally dislocated on fashion grounds is the idea that the jacket breaches the Electoral Finance Act. All this because he has an ACT logo on the breast pocket. All good in some ways I suppose as it demonstrates to even the terminally slow that the EFA is just the most absurd law ever foisted upon this country. The paranoid denizens of the ninth floor have cobbled together a vindictive, vicious, nasty bill to protect their own sorry backsides and it is being shown to be the absurdity it really is by the day. I'm sure even they never intended the mendacious legislation to cover sports coats but this is what you get when you get incompetent legislation drafters to do their work with unbecoming haste.

And the beneficiary of all this unexpected publicity is of course Rodney - who is laudably one of the Act's most vocal detractors.

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