Bob Dylan & the EFB

The Herald is virtually unreadable on a Monday. Unless Earth has collided with Saturn over the weekend (when, to be fair, producing a third rate newspaper would not be possible) there is usually no news per se to report. Granny has at last realised this and has resorted to all sorts of ploys to compensate. We have the Green Pages which are fortunately advertised by the hue of the paper and the pictures of dolphins - so there's two pages you can avoid right there. Then they have introduced an ersatz 'society' page that would have the Tatler squirming - another page not worth looking at. We must find some news so there is a quarter page on someone returning John Gallagher's World Cup winning jersey to its rightful owner who is not John Gallagher apparently - or Serge Blanco; read the riveting piece to discover the entire fascinating story. Deary me. The bourses around the world are in for a rough day after stuff like this.

What else can we find. A review of the Bob Dylan concert. I actually considered going to this but sent number two daughter to fulfill the Obald family obligatons instead. Her mother was not even a speck on the Obald horizon when The Times They Are a Changin' came out (as I recall Christine Lymer from Wimbledon Girls Grammar was the current pash) but she reported Bob to be all good if a little old. At sixty six he is entitled to look a little old I would think. My daughter's review of Bob is however a lot better than the tosh the Herald reporter comes up with. If Private Eye was still going this review would romp into Pseud's Corner without a worry.

Rudman? Why put oneself in a bad mood so early in the week. Sideswipe? Hugh Laurie (Blackadder) on US$300,000 a week - nice little earner. A comment on the swimming pig in Whangarei harbour that should be on the green paper but not much else.

Try the editorial. At last something of substance that I got briefly agitated about yesterday but which had slipped my mind. The Electoral Finances Bill. This is a ripper. This is the response the Politburo has come up with in the wake of the Exclusive Brethren affair and getting roasted over the pledge card. Remember that? The time they got caught with their hand in the till. We are now to have draconian constraints on any spending in the public domain of pretty much any kind in any year that conatins a general election. As these are usually held in September or October in New Zealand this means an effective nine mionth gag on any publicity for anything that they (i.e. the governmant bureaucracy) see to have any polical over tones. Stand up and advocate a free market and you fall foul of the law as that can be construed as supporting a National policy. Save the whales? In the slammer - Green Party policy. There is sure to be a loophole whereby public infomation campaigns promoting government initiatives are not regarded as Labour policy. Exemption for Forest & Bird is I think rumoured.

Like most things emanating from this government it stinks.

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