$300,000 for a media officer
Paddy Lewis
FANTASTIC news last week!
I qualified for the World Towel Butt Flicking Championships after fighting off my wife and two kids in a battle to the death in our hallway.
I immediately rang parliament and asked to speak to John Key’s office about my $300,000 for a media officer, programmes for promising 17 and 18 year old butt flickers (God knows it was a popular sport when I was 17 or 18, even if it has fallen on hard times since), and to revamp the “Butt Bandits” website.
They told me to piss off. They obviously don’t realise that I’ve studied “Do you want to learn how to turn an ordinary towel into a painful and effective weapon?” and “Stealth Tea Towel Flicking For Fun and Pain”.
Parliamentary security better be on the lookout.
I thought I was in with a reasonable shot, given there are approximately 1 billion occasional tea towel flickers in the world and 140 million serious athletes. I mean, compare that with soccer: FIFA says 3.5 billion people have an interest in soccer – but that includes your 48 stone sister-in-law who watches it when she can’t find the TV remote in her stomach folds.
The other thing going in my favour was the fact that I wasn’t going to receive $10 million from the world governing body for attending the world champs, nor had I just received $1 million-plus from the same world governing body for playing in some half-arsed Confederation tournament.
In fact, I was going to have to pay my own way to Gore, where the current world champion Hamish “The Black Towel” McMadd had laid down the, um, tea towel as a challenge.
New Zealand Football has money pouring out of its place I would normally flick with my trusty competition tea towel. So why do they get $300,000 for what is essentially something they should be self-funding anyway?
As for some of that money going on a “media manager” for the World Cup, well, I flick my towel disdainfully at that suggestion. Let’s say a major newspaper decided to take “wire” coverage of the World Cup to save money.
Their soccer writer would no doubt be miffed – but would be happy to go as an unpaid assistant to the All Whites if the paper said it was OK (which they would, because they could clip the ticket as well, getting insights no other New Zealand news media would get).
I can count at least six reasonable journos on the fingers of my flicking hand (no, I don’t have six fingers, but I count my impressively muscled flicking wrist as an extra finger) who would jump at the chance.
As for money to upgrade their website – well , bugger me. That’s going to have every bastard sport with a world championship on the horizon queuing up at SPARC’s flimsy doors for the same cash. As an aside, I am available to keep them back with my trusty “Cities of New Zealand” tea towel for a meagre $300,000.
John Key has not done himself any favours by making this very public announcement. We might be able to run the Butt Flicking World Champs on a budget of donated cheese rolls and a crate of Speights for the winner (and probably some security guards, as Hamish isn’t going to be happy when I leave him redder than a ginger in the desert), but other sports with less funding and more needs won’t like it.
We may yet see a surge in tea towel flicking if this doesn’t set a precedent. Politicians beware. We’re everywhere.
I qualified for the World Towel Butt Flicking Championships after fighting off my wife and two kids in a battle to the death in our hallway.
I immediately rang parliament and asked to speak to John Key’s office about my $300,000 for a media officer, programmes for promising 17 and 18 year old butt flickers (God knows it was a popular sport when I was 17 or 18, even if it has fallen on hard times since), and to revamp the “Butt Bandits” website.
They told me to piss off. They obviously don’t realise that I’ve studied “Do you want to learn how to turn an ordinary towel into a painful and effective weapon?” and “Stealth Tea Towel Flicking For Fun and Pain”.
Parliamentary security better be on the lookout.
I thought I was in with a reasonable shot, given there are approximately 1 billion occasional tea towel flickers in the world and 140 million serious athletes. I mean, compare that with soccer: FIFA says 3.5 billion people have an interest in soccer – but that includes your 48 stone sister-in-law who watches it when she can’t find the TV remote in her stomach folds.
The other thing going in my favour was the fact that I wasn’t going to receive $10 million from the world governing body for attending the world champs, nor had I just received $1 million-plus from the same world governing body for playing in some half-arsed Confederation tournament.
In fact, I was going to have to pay my own way to Gore, where the current world champion Hamish “The Black Towel” McMadd had laid down the, um, tea towel as a challenge.
New Zealand Football has money pouring out of its place I would normally flick with my trusty competition tea towel. So why do they get $300,000 for what is essentially something they should be self-funding anyway?
As for some of that money going on a “media manager” for the World Cup, well, I flick my towel disdainfully at that suggestion. Let’s say a major newspaper decided to take “wire” coverage of the World Cup to save money.
Their soccer writer would no doubt be miffed – but would be happy to go as an unpaid assistant to the All Whites if the paper said it was OK (which they would, because they could clip the ticket as well, getting insights no other New Zealand news media would get).
I can count at least six reasonable journos on the fingers of my flicking hand (no, I don’t have six fingers, but I count my impressively muscled flicking wrist as an extra finger) who would jump at the chance.
As for money to upgrade their website – well , bugger me. That’s going to have every bastard sport with a world championship on the horizon queuing up at SPARC’s flimsy doors for the same cash. As an aside, I am available to keep them back with my trusty “Cities of New Zealand” tea towel for a meagre $300,000.
John Key has not done himself any favours by making this very public announcement. We might be able to run the Butt Flicking World Champs on a budget of donated cheese rolls and a crate of Speights for the winner (and probably some security guards, as Hamish isn’t going to be happy when I leave him redder than a ginger in the desert), but other sports with less funding and more needs won’t like it.
We may yet see a surge in tea towel flicking if this doesn’t set a precedent. Politicians beware. We’re everywhere.
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