Labradors Eat Anything - True or False?

Dear Drontal

Every month my vet sends me two of your big white worm tablets.

They look like pessaries.

Actually, it would be a lot easier if I did just have to shove them up the arses of my two black Labs.

But no.

I have to make them eat the damn things.

"Just swallow the pill, Goddammit."

I mean, Labradors aren't dogs, they are garbage disposal units. I live on a vineyard, and it's commonly known that grapes, the pips in particular, are fatal to dogs.

Not for Hawk and Whetu. They just eat the grapes and poo out the pips. Whole.

Whetu will eat anything - zucchini which have swelled into marrows because I forgot to pick them, chook poo which gives her an itchy bum so she's developed this method of planting her anus on the ground then sticking her back legs in the air and pulling herself along on her front legs so she can scratch her toosh, cat shit, windfall apples, rabbits they catch and devour every scrap including the fur and claws, crayfish - they both love crayfish bodies, in short nothing is safe from forever hungry Labradors.

Except worm pills.

I wrap them in tasty mince.

Every little bitty scrap of mince gets eaten then the pill gets spat out.

I smother them in honey. The honey gets licked off.

There's only one way to worm these dogs. Every month I wrestle them to the ground, wrench open their jaws, thrust the pill far down into their throats past those sharp white teeth, past their gagging mechanism then quickly hold their jaws shut until they're forced to swallow.

They hate me for it.

Until they get a little treat one second later.

Please, Drontal, do you think you could come up with rabbit flavoured worm pills?



Ten Commandments from Parliament

INCASEYOUMISSEDIT (as the NZ Herald loves to proclaim when it repeats stuff from Buzzfeed) the National Cabinet issued new edicts. Ministers were influenced by the Minister of Corrections' extremely thoughtful directive of last week in which MPs were rescued from potential attacks from savage criminals due to so many random prison visits.  Henceforth, SHEWHOMUSTBEOBEYED wrote, MPs must ask for permission from the Minister's office when they wish to visit prisons and bugger the Corrections Act 2004 (my swear word).

So the following visits are from this day off-limits for all MPs without express permission:

1. Minister of Finance: Thou shalt not visit a bank lest thou borrow money thou canst repay.

2. Minister of Education: Thou shalt not ride a school bus if thou name be Winston.

3. Minister of Education (yes, again): Thou shalt not visit a school lest thou be a teacher not under supervision by the Education Council.

4. Minister of Health: Thou shalt not visit a hospital lest thou wait too long in ED and end up on front page of Dominion Post in its weekly OIA sweep.

5. Minister of America's Cup: Thou shalt not go to any series lest thou stay away from The House for months and never want to come home.

6. Minister of Justice: Thou shalt not drop in on a court case lest thou be tempted to remove all thou clothes and end up in the Herald on Sunday.

7. Minister of Internal Affairs: Thou shalt not visit the Office of the Chief Censor lest thou become addicted to porn, wrestle with thou addiction, then out thouself on social media.

8. Minister of Agriculture: Thou shalt not visit a farm lest thou pee into a river.

9. Minister of Social Welfare: Thou shalt not visit Housing NZ house lest thou be tempted to attack mould with bleach and a scrubbing brush and deprive media of sob stories.

10. Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery: Thou shalt not visit Christchurch lest a wardrobe fall on thou with its key poking out and thou give birth to baby wardrobes.

Amine, waiho ki tena.

Can we CrowdSell New Zealand?

Sometimes I wonder.

If two mates over beers can galvanise the country to crowdfund and buy an inlet, why can't we reverse the process and sell the entire country?

CrowdSelling. Cos that's what Kiwis do.

They weren't celebrities endorsing. One even had an apostrophe in the middle of his name where someone forgot how to spell.

Why do I suggest selling three main islands and assorted cling-ons, lock stock and barrel?

Because who appreciates this place any more?

Look around and all you see is a glass-half-empty attitude.

Take that latest Fonterra survey. It found just over one in ten dairy farmers are feeling pressured by banks so that means more than one in eight farmers are doing okay.

But nah mate. You'd think from the radio reports we're all going to hell in a handcart.

Sit down with a gin at six to watch the news on telly, which should really be called the olds because it's not new, and it's car crashes or stabbings, crime or some munter in court yelling at a judge. The cops are bad and the crims are saints.

Everything's the fault of the gummint.

The minimum wage is raised but it's not high enough. Students go to Dunedin to burn down houses and couches, generally destroy property.

Gangs abuse their missuses and kids but live the life of Riley on welfare and drug-dealing cos they're just "misunderstood", while honest women (mostly) who clean up shit and piss and care for elderly in old folks homes earn fuck all.  And if you're dying of cancer you have to beg a career politician with a Bouffant Billy hairstyle and a penchant for wearing a bowties for permission to go gentle into the good night with the aid of medicinal cannabis.

Shoot me now.

We're finger-wagged and lectured over what we can drink, how much we eat, we're too fat, too thin, swear too much, mustn't streak across a cricket pitch, shouldn't eat peas with our knife, drink coffee, keep a rooster, eat pies, go naked at a nudist camp, smoke cigars, fuck the hottie at a Xmas party with the blinds up, be Mayor and have an affair, be an MP and buy wine, be PM and touch head hair that belongs to someone else, (are we there yet? No, but that's e-bloody-nough, Ed).

Am I grumpy?

Yes I am right now.

It's out of character for me, because recently Andy Sutherland, a contractor and grape-grower asked if I sleep with a smile on my face.

Life is not a dress rehearsal. New Zealanders don't appreciate what we've got. Listen to Joni.

Goodbye Mr Smith, Let's Go Slumming

A song today to farewell a good friend and a good young man, Mr Smith, who died at 6.30 last night.

Gone too soon.

As his daughter Verity said in her text to me this morning, "The Coddington Taylor Marshall Smith kids meant the world to Dad."

Mr Smith was a regular at my first restaurant at Russell, The Cavalli Beachfront Café, and then again at my second, The Gables.

When Mr Smith knew he didn't have much time left one thing he wanted to do was go for a blat in a Ferrari.

We tried to organize this, so big thanks to my good friend James who, when I asked if he could take Mr Smith out in one of his Ferraris, said yes immediately. Alas, the Reaper intervened.

Mr Smith liked to listen to Genevieve Waite in my restaurants; we played LPs back in those days.

So here's a song for Mr Smith.

 

Arise Sir Arthur Taylor; 'The Nation' is prostrate before your Statue

Sir Bob's smackdown of Sir Gareth Morgan last week was a delight. A 5000m-high statue, no less, of Our Saviour celebrating his "overwhelming wonderfulness" which Sir Robert would erect on land currently occupied by his Solnet House, a building he'd demolish to accommodate the grand Gareth-the-Redeemer (a la Rio de Janeiro's Christ).

But Gareth lost his sense of humour and was offended by the suggestion. He is a humble man. He loathes publicity. Shuns fame. Hates reporters forcing comment from him. Shut up Sir Bob, and leave this shy, retiring fellow be.

There are others who deserve immortalizing in granite or marble or stone.

Mai Chen for a start: selfless in her inspiration of other women. A 5000m-high dedication to boosting the turnover of Adrienne Winkelmann, and spitting in the face of racism against Asians. Ms Chen's statue should be modelled in the manner of Rosa Parks, sitting on a corner in Dallas.


Then there's her mentor Geoffrey Palmer who loyally allows his name to remain knotted to hers, when just a bucket of water could separate the 'Chen' & 'Palmer' for ever. He would look great in the image of an Easter Island statue, as has already very kindly been pointed out some years ago by the editor of Metro magazine.

In the US Supreme Court is a famous statue of the 4th Chief Justice John Marshall, seated in a chair, right hand outstretched. Sir Bob could well do (ahem) justice to that great expert in all things legal in this country, Dr Bill Hodge, by knocking down his beloved (former Fay, Richwhite) building in Auckland and commissioning a 5000m replica of the media's go-to legal expert Dr Hodge.

But surely the one person most deserving of our total respect, the current media darling, is that cheeky fellow Arthur Taylor, soon no doubt to be Sir Arthur Taylor?

The "Goody Baddie" as folks in television like to call him.

As Labour MP Kelvin Davis well knows, what Taylor doesn't know about the inside of prisons, is not worth knowing. He is the absolute authority. And from what Lisa Owen discovered in the weekend on 'The Nation', Taylor's legal mind is the finest in the country. Can we soon expect an announcement: Sir Arthur Taylor, Queens Counsel? I think so.

There is, of course, no question that Sir Arthur is telling the truth at all times when he is interviewed by these people.

The fact he has, oooh about 150 criminal convictions doesn't give pause to the breathless ones, eager to rub shoulders with the bad and infamous. Of course they don't doubt him.

Arthur didn't kill anyone.

His only misdemeanors were theft, armed robbery, fraud, burglary, escaping custody, drug possession, receiving stolen property, conspiring to sell methamphetamine.....pah! mere bagatelles.

According to "The Hub" news site Arthur is polite, has a heart of gold, and is sort of "picaresque".

That's all right then. He's a kind of Robin Hood - in his own words he "sticks up for the underdog". He just nicks stuff from rich people, like those ones with a Coromandel holiday house. They weren't using it at the time.

And meth doesn't hurt people really.

Nobody, it seems, was harmed in the making of this new hero.

Start ordering the scaffolding then, Sir Bob.

Why Not Have All Judges Sit Naked in Court?

Eyes. Rolling. Backwards. Such a fuss from so few over a District Court Judge shedding his clobber at a private nudist camp.

The hapless bugger was innocently raking his balls (Boules, you silly woman, it's a type of petanque, Ed.] and next thing he's before the Office of the Judicial Conduct Commission. No doubt sent there by the same busy-bodies who dobbed him in to the media.

These delicate petals (Offended-Mother-Of-Six-From-Wainuiomata; you know the kind, Catholics probably) who spotted the photos in a promotional pamphlet, or some such, have come all over with an attack of the vapours. Quick, nurse, a screen and smelling salts!

Patricia Bartlett has not left the building. (Yes, she's well dead, Ed.)

Is she? Taken too early. That's what comes from not enough good Rogering.

Must have been Mary Whitehouse then. (She's dead too, Ed.)

Whatever.

Said Judge is not now allegedly fit and proper to pass judgment on sexual assault cases, cases of indecent exposure (oh give me a break!) and other such indecencies.

Just because he chose to air his giblets.

Oh dear. Maybe all judges who drive faster than 110kph should recuse themselves from hearings over defended speeding tickets. 

Actually that's not a good comparison because technically it is illegal whereas baring all in private? Well, what law does that break? Where will it ever end? Barristers must always shower with their clothes on just in case they may be admitted to the Bench and someone wanders past a window and espies them in the raw? A female judge sunbathes topless at a Mediterranean beach (and who doesn't?) then some random Kiwi tourist takes a photo which gets posted on social media, recognized, and she's then deemed unfit for office?

Tut-tut yes according to "We" the self-appointed guardians of public morals. "We" are not amused. "We" are offended.

Oh please. I saw the "offensive" photographs in an article in The Daily Mail ['Every woman needs her Daily Mail' - that was a good 70s ad campaign. Would have been even better if they'd added 'two times or more a day'.]

And apart from a smudge where normally his togs would be (and it was only a tiny little smudge), there was nothing anyone could blanch at.

I've seen more sick-making images of men cold-bloodedly beheaded by ISIS savages.

If those sensitive souls who channel Pat Bartlett don't like it they should avert their eyes.

But here's a thought.

Why not have all sitting judges dispense with all their clobber - gowns and suits - and appear in court totally naked. To be fair, we could bring back wigs so the bald-headed ones wouldn't feel discriminated against.

Lady Justice is blindfolded, so she won't mind.

It would certainly improve the aesthetic appeal of the Supreme Court, and cases in all courts would proceed more rapidly. Imagine, when a porky judge tells a recidivist, "I don't wish to see you before me again," you can be pretty assured that won't happen.

The crime rate may well plummet.

Another advantage - it would let us all clearly see how the members of our judiciary lie, which way they're stacked.

From the moment the judge enters the court to the call of, "All rise", we the public would have the chance to look around and see just how effective our judges - both men and women - really are.

Yes, I know I'm being Childish and Ridiculous. About as C and R as those huffing and puffing about the naked judge.

NZ Saved From Sky Fall By Road Sign

Get down on your knees and give thanks, everybody, we have all been saved from a fate worse than death by a man (presume it's a man but I could well be wrong - whoever it is doesn't have the guts to identify him or herself publicly) who calls himself a road sign.

No Right Turn.

Why would you call yourself a road sign? Perhaps he had a crush on that Australian rock band when he was little.

No matter. This person has selflessly sacrificed his time to battle away at bureaucracy, has spent who-knows-how-much taxpayers' dollars, to bring us crucial information sent to the Prime Minister by a gossip columnist.

Is your life not a whole lot better for knowing what she wrote?

Did you not wake up so much happier last week with the knowledge that Rachel Glucina texted John Key and said (drum roll please):

"Piece of work. Massive political agenda."

No! Rachel Glucina should be shot at dawn for that.

"Massive political agenda" is a pretty heinous aspersion to cast at an innocent young woman just doing her job working hard at a café, trying not to have her ponytailgate pulled.

Nobody these days has a "massive political agenda". It's just not done. Especially when they choose to tell their story on a completely neutral bombsite blog operated by a fair-minded rational person like Martyn Bradbury.

Annette King was one senior MP prepared to speak out in favour of Road Sign's heroic uncovering of the unspeakable horrors of this text message. So let's hope we can look forward to the more transparency in the future when MPs, Ministers or Prime Ministers receive unsolicited messages to which they don't reply.

There must be examples from the past....like, oh I don't know, perhaps messages Hon Annette King herself received when a sexual complaint was made against poor Darren Hughes when he was living at King's house, and which caused Hughes to resign from Parliament. Yes I know, this too was a beat-up, like the above so-called Ponytailgate.

But it's vital we know about the itty-bitty details of this minutiae. Not only does it keep the morons occupied in front of their computers all day, whining about what goes on Parliament, it makes their dreadfully bland lives just that little tiny bit less dreary.

And what would they do without something to hang a gate on?