In an entertaining recent Australian libel case the presiding Judge, Justice Flick, wrote the following pompous blah in his judgement.

“The evidence establishes his knowledge of prostitution being carried on out of premises he either owned or had a not insignificant interest in and that he was involved in prostitution and participated in the receipt of monies earned from that source”.

I wonder if Justice Flick talks like that at home. It would be torture for his family. Here’s what he should have written.

I confess to bewilderment at the outbreak of seeming fashionable hysteria over measles vaccinations. Why has it suddenly become a major issue now but never hitherto?

Given there’s a vaccine for it, as for any potential illness, then obviously it’s desirable to have it but the current carry-on makes it sound like a newly arisen life and death issue. Furthermore, it seems unique to New Zealand, perhaps a reflection of our small isolated society in which nothing much happens. Certainly there’s no such news domination in Britain or Australia on this topic.

We now entered the 8th month since the NZ Herald website first ran an item titled “The Life and Tragic Death of Sonny Fai”.

Fai was a young league player who drowned while swimming a decade earlier. On the decade of his death the Herald, this being the non‑news Xmas to February period, known colloquially in New Zealand journalism as the “silly season”, in which with everyone on holiday, reporters have to create stories, they decided to run one on Fai.

By all accounts he was “promising” in this minor sport but too young to have achieved anything noteworthy. Creating this “story” was silly. Keeping it permanently on their pay wall website is simply mind‑boggling.

Here’s a tale to lighten your day. A few weeks back with 3 colleagues I was in York on a book‑buying expedition. York boasts of surpassing Hay‑On‑Wye as Britain’s bookshop capital (it hasn’t), aside from which, we aborted the venture after 2 days because of the intolerable tourist numbers clogging the city.

On our final night there we popped into a Chinese restaurant and encountered this notice.

“Under 120 centimetres tall, free dining”.

Chinese ethnic, Howick Councillor Paul Young, running for re‑election, has laid a complaint to the Police over bogus advertising flyers purporting he’s a member of the Chinese Communist Party. Furthermore, 15 of his hoardings have been damaged or destroyed, thus his understandable anger.

But for a bloke who’s in public life and has been here 30 years, he ought to have a better understanding of English. Why?

Because, with not a shred of evidence he claims these not uncommon election foul play tactics are – no prizes for guessing this – racist.