So when I heard the No Vote website had a cartoon page (AND clip art navigation!) I just had to go and look and I pretty much got what I expected.


Seems someone doesn't like Mike Moreu.

Hil-arious.

(Quick update: The cartoon appears to be from one Stan Blanch earlier in the year.

See this post on Moreu's blog. Particularly in the comments: "The one he drew in that family first cartoon was a much better likness. Actually, come to think of it, it looks like he just traced the face from the banner on your blog."

Moreu's summary of the business he was actually posting about at the end of the thread is also informative, and adds to the unhappy impression of Stan that you get from skimming his google results.)

This is the kind of thing that makes them look like the kind of people that the kind of people they think think like the person in the cartoon think they are.

I'm stealing their bandwidth, but I take some consolation that image loads by this blog's readership will, shall we say, not be significant.

And also, in this case, I don't care if they suffer.

Labels: cartoons, mike moreu, pseudo-mike moreu, referendum, section 59, stan blanch

While looking for source images for Little Miss Muffet I found out a couple of things.

The first is that if you're looking for a Miss Muffet costume that isn't a sexy Bo-Peep outfit, you'll be looking pretty (pun observed-and-not-removed) hard.

The other would be that nursery rhymes are be gothically inspiring.


Ash Sivils


Fee Harding


Paula Rego


Gerald Brom

Labels: art, graphics, miss muffet, nursery rhymes

Click to enlarge

Parliament is back from recess, so that means it must be story time...

***

Georgie Porgie pudding and pie,
Kissed the girls and made them cry.
When the boys came out to play,
Georgie Porgie ran away.

The PM refused to cement
The implied connection between those events
Which left everybody rather unsure
Why a Minister and MP went out the door.

***

Melissa Lee
Went to Mt Albert
In a shower of rain.
She stepped in a puddle
Right up to her middle.
Which wasn't the last mistake she made.

***

A testfiying Thai tiler touched on Taito*;
The foreign fastener fingered Phillip Field.
Since Sunan Siriwan swore a solemn statement,
It's time to try a trial for Phillip Field.

* (a title)

***

Sing a song of tax cuts, a pocket full of nothing,
Two-odd million voters played for a muffin.
When the books were opened the Nats began to spin,
About the situation that the Government books were in.

The first round of tax cuts were mostly for the rich,
The second round was pretty much thrown in a ditch.
The election was a while ago and lots has happened since,
But can we say the end result is pure coincidence?

***

Wee Willie Winkie runs through the town,
Upstairs and downstairs in his nightgown,
Tapping at the window and crying through the lock,
Are all the children in their beds? I'll crush their cars, if not.

***

Mary, Mary quite contrary,
Did you notice that in his statement
Richard Worth said he'd earlier resigned as a Cabinet Minister
When he was actually a Minister outside cabinet?
Yes, I thought you'd find that amusing.

***

The Grand old Duke of York he had ten thousand men
He marched them up to the top of the hill
And he marched them down again.
When they were up, they were up
And when they were down, they were down
And when they were only halfway up
They were neither up nor down.
They were about as reliable
As the New Zealand dollar.

***

There was a crooked man and he walked a crooked mile,
He found a crooked sixpence upon a crooked stile.
He bought a crooked cat, which caught a crooked mouse.
And they all got together and started a finance company.

***

Baa baa black sheep, have you any wool?
Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full!
Because my Shearer got two bags
For every one all the other candidates got.

***

Peter Peter pumpkin eater,
Had a wife and couldn't beat her
Because at some point they changed the law,
To make it no more legal to hit your wife
Than it is to hit anyone else.
I imagine it caused quite a fuss at the time.

***

"Who killed Cock Robin?" "I," said the Sparrow,
"With my bow and arrow, I killed Cock Robin."
Or, to be fastidous, that's the police's take;
I've heard the tape - I think it's gibberish.

***

This little piggy went to market,
This little piggy stayed at home,
The first little piggy gave its friends flu because it went out despite feeling ill,
The second one was trapped in sow crate,
But everyone's probably gone back to buying whatever kind of pork they normally do,
All the way home.

***

Auckland City's falling down,
Falling down, falling down,
Auckland City's falling down,
My fair Rodney.

Consider the commision for a few days,
A few hours, a few days,
Then decide to do it your way,
My fair Rodney.

First bill passed quick as can be,
As can be, as can be;
Make it a fait accompli,
My fair Rodney.

Opposition won't shut up,
Won't shut up, won't shut up.
Say, "In time for the World Cup!"
My fair Rodney.

Get a little help from Banks
Help from Banks, help from Banks,
It was bad before, but now it tanks,
My fair Rodney.

A referendum's not a go,
Not a go, not a go,
If you did that, they might vote 'No'!
My fair Rodney.

Make a committee and then stack it,
And then stack it, and then stack it,
Try the 'consultation' racket,
My fair Rodney.

Then send in Melissa Lee,
'Lissa Lee, 'Lissa Lee,
Least she's not from your party,
My fair Rodney.

Build a motorway straight through
'Way straight through, 'way straight through
That'd be a helpful thing to do,
My fair Rodney.

Your voters might feel double crossed,
Double crossed, double crossed,
That you don't care what it will cost,
My fair Rodney.

Spend their money on party central,
Party central, party central,
Circuses and... maybe lentils,
My fair Rodney.

Then tie them up with shipping cable,
Shipping cable, shipping cable,
To stop them getting in the way of your self-imposed timetable
My fair Rodney.

This Auckland stuff is a mug's game,
A mug's game, a mug's game,
Key grins, and you just get the blame
My fair Rodney.

********

Labels: auckland, david bain, nursery rhymes, nz politics, richard worth, satire

By special request, Giovanni delves into his awesomeness collection and pulls out more John Heartfield (Gallery), also saying kind things about yours truly.

I may as well add that Lew called me "dependably excellent" earlier.

Don't mind me - just using a post about collages as a scrapbook.


On the occasion of the intervention of the Third Reich agasint the international caricaturists exhibition in Prague.
"The more images they take down from the walls, the more evident the truth becomes." (1934)

Labels: collage, graphics, John Heartfield, satire, satirists, self-commentary

Here's a link full of somethings I prepared earlier:


Lyndon Hood's Pics of the Weeks: March to May '09

Labels: graphics

So I went and saw the last night of Blood Wedding at Circa, because I thought the play was rather good when I read it.

There's now a review up on pundit. Aside from the textual analysis, which I'll have to think about, it's eerily like what I think. But clearer.

The person who went with me, she just didn't like it at all.

Labels: blood wedding, circa, reviews, theatre

Scoop's new publication Werewolf is now officially live with a range of articles that, as someone only incidentally involved in producing it, impresses me (mission statement here).

It includes a piece I wrote on misunderstanding satire which in retrospect I should have proofread for style, or at all.

The article also lacks links, but seeing as you're here you can scroll down the front page and find most of them (since they seemed busy putting together the first edition I didn't ask to add 100 words on the Chaser).

Update: Now with links! Turns out everyone else's links had been missed out so I got a chance to add some to my piece...

Labels: satire, satirists, scoop, werewolf

I'm sick of people trying to hide news by dropping it at five o'clock on a Friday night.

Labels: david bain, justice, media

More from the Chaser, oh yes:



Apparently Australia has not taken kindly to this.

(And TV3's decision to cover the controversy on the six-o'clock news makes me wonder if they're planning on picking up the show.)

It is, in my professional opinion, funny. Actually, after seeing bits of it on the news I was still chuckling in the morning.

More to say on the subject of misunderstanding ironical jokes soon, but here's what I think is happening:

Some people think some things just shouldn't be joked about, perhaps because 'jokes are frivilous'. Terminally ill children are quite likely to be one of those things.

This, and the fact that terminal illness is horrible, is clouding people's judgement on the difference between jokes about something and jokes at the expense of something.

But watching it I'm still bemused the question actually arose.

Actually, I can imagine being flipped over into horror by that last line, which is pretty harsh. But very much part of the whole. It certainly didn't happen to me. I laughed.

To be tedious:

Neither sick kids nor the Make-a-Wish people are being mocked. The sketch is not supposed to be, as the psychologists put it, demonstrating appropriate behaviour. As humour, it relies on taboo-breaking (much like the eulogy song), so the whole gag is that they're doing the opposite of appropriate.

It works because Make-a-Wish is good and everyone knows it.

And the attitude to kids (and to people's dreams) is so recognisable - obvious because it's out of context - that I'll call it satire and accuse the sketch in question of having depth.

I confess to the position that just because it's in bad taste doesn't make it bad comedy. And if you're not allowed to laugh in the face of death, you may as well pack up you clowns now.

Labels: cancer kids, comedy, death, ethics, make-a-wish foundation, satire, taste, the chaser