I put up with last night’s fireside chat as much as was tolerable, then swapped the television for my book. At my age time is of the essence and I don’t have it to waste.

The problem of course is there’s basically no substantial difference policy-wise between Labour and National, thus so-called debates are reduced to trivia.

Older rugby fans will recall Grahame Thorne as a sparkling 1960s All Black five eight.

My best Thorny memory was after he gained the National selection for the solid Labour seat of Onehunga in 1990 and in the subsequent National landslide, caused a huge upset by winning it.

New Zealand’s most fearless (and thus honest) cartoonist Garrick Tremain, continues to pump out common sense commentaries.

Here’s his latest re the government’s nonsensical sign language announcement.

Today’s Dominion-Post, doubtless with heavy hearts, has abandoned writing half the paper in a language few can read (maori) and has sunk to new depths of wetness, publishing its title in bloody sign language, specifically arm waving sketches.

It’s madness and a massive distraction to television viewers when a speaker is accompanied by someone aping a spastic, this to cater for an improbable audience of people both deaf and blind.

I include blind otherwise captions would do the job adequately without the distraction of the silly sign language carry-on.

A week back a Victorian Treasury economist, Sanjeev Sabhlok, resigned in protest at the absurdly dictatorial situation imposed by the now widely loathed State Premier to combat the coronavirus. He made some interesting observations in an Australian Financial Review explanatory article.