Bored by a gimlet
Oh dear. The Virtual Critic has been most unkind....as one New Zealand political commentator observed, if there’s anywhere that deserves Michael Laws as Mayor, it’s Wanganui. Michael Laws is a man who has been a failure at everything he has done. He was a failure as a politician (remember that ill-timed defection from National to New Zealand First in 1996?). He was a failure as an author (you probably don’t remember his truly terrible novel, Dancing With Beelzebub). He may or may not have been a failure on Celebrity Treasure Island (I could never bring myself to watch), but his whining and whimpering through Ecuador on TV One’s execrable Intrepid Journeys does not inspire confidence. And now he’s on track to be a glorious, flamboyant, disastrous failure as a mayor as well.
Yet – incredibly – the people of Wanganui voted for this gimlet in droves... Laws has spent the six months since his election burning bridges with astonishing assiduity. First, he threatened to do away with the Serjeant Gallery – which is quite possibly the only remotely good thing about Wanganui – and now he’s libelling his constituents through his newspaper columns. Like John Tamihere, Laws’ undoing is his arrogance; unlike Tamihere, Laws’ arrogance is not founded on any substance. His columns in the Sunday Star Times are full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
Gimlet?! Surely not! Related words include borer and of course, tool.
Comments on this post are now closed.
41 comments:
we're getting desperate if some student rag is what we need to quote for our jollies. The bad thing about LawsWatch is that it sees evil in all Laws does. That makes it harder to defeat him because you then dont get the perspective of what works with Joe Public and what doesn't. I'd like to have his media profile and his booksales.
Tsk, such ageism. Their website beats the pants off the Chron's (or any other mainstream newspaper) design-wise, so they're reasonably serious about what they do.
Book sales?! The Diva's books have dropped out of the remainder bin and now can't sell in a no-reserve auction.
Perhaps he'd care to share (properly audited) book sales data with us? We'd wager that, with the exception of the Norm Hewitt bio (sold on the strength of it's subject matter rather than it's author) they'd be pretty dire.
And no, we don't believe there's evil in all Laws does. He must sleep at least part of the day ;-)
I'm not sure that attacking the Diva talent (or lack of it) is the point. I don't give a stuff if he's the worst puffed up non-event of a celebrity in the world. What matters is what he does in the name of "democracy" or in the name of Wanganui, and how we can restore some sanity into our local government instead of the half-bright popularity contest we've got now.
I'm in the booktrade. We keep bestseller lists and I wanted to check whether it was true, as the pre-election publicity claimed, that he was "a best-selling writer". Crap, I thought. I was horribly displeased to get the lists from Booksellers NZ. His first book (the autobio Demon Profession) peaked at #3, the fictional (?) Dancing with Beezle-whatever at #10, and the rugby book hit #1 and stayed there for 6 weeks. I have a copy of Demon Profession here at home (know your enemy, I say). It is a second reprint so that's not bad going. I'd say he sold between 10-12,000 copies of it, or at least Harpercollins did. Good publishing house, not as good as Random or VUP but good.
(lol) I bought DH Lawrence in a remainder bin for 10 cents. Not sure that proves too much.
Great blog Lawswatch. R-e-a-l politics, you are the bomb. I;m with anon earlier. F*** the opinions of others, its what he's doing here. Have you noticed though that he dividses and conquers? Arts vs Sport. Port v Riverfront. Splash v Gallery. And we dance and that is not the bomb.
shouldn't that be dividses and conquerses, precious? Sorry couldn't resist
Yes, the artificial creation and promotion of division is part of Laws' M.O. I sometimes wonder whether in his dearest fantasies he imagines starting a civil war.
Laws Watch said:
"He may or may not have been a failure on Celebrity Treasure Island"
Now isn't that a hoot. After all the hype and bullshit and the hives and the "product placement" and the best-ever-thing for WangaVegas, his time on Celeb Treasure Island just fizzled like a damp squib and he's never mentioned it again. Neither has the Spin Fairy nor the Chron(ic) who collaborated in putting all the aforesaid hype and bullshit in front of the good citizens of WangaVegas.
He looked like a total pale and pasty plonker who'd strayed onto the set from a day trip to Walmington-On-Sea, and when it came time for outski Michael he just sloped off and none of the "real" celebs even bothered to acknowledge his departure.
Then he comes back to the real world and ghost writes the Stand By My Man piece of crap for the unLoverly Leo and the Chron runs it, with its revealing insights into the inveterate dishonesty the Diva brings to any enterprise. And he ends up sharing his island bedtime secrets with Woman's Day, for god's sake - before the truth about his ignoble exit emerged on prime time tv.
Wonder what his fan club thought of all that.
the first anonymous said....."The bad thing about LawsWatch is that it sees evil in all Laws does. That makes it harder to defeat him because you then dont get the perspective of what works with Joe Public and what doesn't.".....
I agree :)
First time in this blog...
some joker called anonymous seems to do all the talking...
I reckon pseudonym needs to have a go :)
makes it easier to follow the rapier-like thrusts ?
Seen todays Chron.? Public sculpture paid for by Council, crap art at Castlecliff beach on the front page, then on page 12, more crap Sarjeant art making international headlines for Wanganui. Crap. Still, it's a good thing people around the world identify Wanganui with crap art, 'cos let's face it, it's the only thing that gives us any sort of international coverage at all.
Just a warning to those of you who want artists "in their place": we're getting out again, better have another go! Poxy creativity!
Harold, welcome. It's you and me and Lawswatch, bro. And some guy called Brian. Our mate anonymous appears to have about 20 different personalities.
Someone was complaining about unsubstantiated rumours. I figure Wanganui turns up so many fairy tales we're bound to get them here. The interesting ones to me are where Laws' supporters keep quiet about them. Like the contact with auction houses rumour, or the Wanganui Gas rumour.
I think the Tuffy/Laws stoush is pretty sad. A project such as this deserves better consideration. I'm not overly concerned about Tuffy's past. He courageously defended his own property. He took risks with his own money and paid the price. Plenty of the rich and successful have been bankrupts. Our own Bob Jones once punched a reporter and broke his nose. The key is whether they rise above it, get the right advice and a good team: no-one can do this alone.
If Macquarie Bank want to do a feasibility study, let them: it's their money. They're not going to walk away from an investment opportunity because one of the principles involved in the project has a past. If Council, and other interested parties have their own projects they'd like to push, let them too. When was the last time their was potential for some real commercial competition (actually, it was the Sarjeant extension, but...) for a project like this in Wanganui? How can the fact that there might be up to three competing proposals be bad for the ratepayers? Perhaps Michael has his own vision for a port concept that he's not quite ready to share with us yet. Who knows...
Does that count as a rumour now?
About the extension: Wanganui has demonstrated quite bad faith with developers. Perhaps Macquarie would be better looking elsewhere.
"unLoverly Leo"? You must be blind, she's beautiful. No idea how she ended up with Laws.
This Macquarie thing is interesting. There's no indication, in either the Chron or the council papers, that they were going to invest anything anywhere. More to the point, they're not funders - they assemble funding.
The only reason anyone has even heard the name Macquarie bank is because Laws started blabbing to them. How did he know to phone Macquarie and wreck the project in the first place if Macquarie weren't potentially involved? I'm not involved in the project personally. I've had it explained to me from an investment and engineering perspective, and it makes commercial sense at face value. Business is business, money is money. Perhaps we'd be better off with a mariner for rich yahoos and celebrities to hang out here, while we develop a service economy to provide them with restaurants to eat in. Or perhaps we'd be better off expanding our maunfacturing base and increasing our delivery options. At the very least we'd be better off hearing the debate without it becoming personalised.
Furthermore, if it turns out that people promoting this project are unreliable, then the usual response in business is to buy/take the project off them, not run squealing to the media.
Actually it was the POW people who ran squealing, not Laws. Read the Chron story on the issue - tghey put out the press release & he responded to their criticism.
There's a sick joke appeared on COuncil's website:
http://www.wanganui.govt.nz/news/showNews.asp?id=327&show=single
wtf does Dotty think she is telling Wanganui to get creative? If you're reading this, Dotty, you might like to hear another statistic: more New Zealanders participate in arts-related activities than sports (source - statistics nz).
Yes, New Plymouth got the National award for creative places. The mayor there was interviewed on National radio saying that when he talks to professional types who want to relocate to New Plymouth, the Govett Brewster Art Gallery is a huge draw card. The interviewer couldn't resist, and asked him what it's like having the anti-Art mayor to the South. He said it's great; less competition for all that money and prestige that the arts bring to a town.
Then piss off to NP then - we'll make more money out of sports.
Yes, that's the level of your intellect, isn't it? You are utterly incapable of imagining a scenario whereby we support both arts and sports. What a small minded person. Are you Michael Laws?
Gidday Matt, Lawswatch, Brian and co...
The PoW scuttling does look a bit suspect...maybe Michael wants the harbour basin kept open for a mayoral swim ?
Jones punched the reporter once after he helicoptered in on him trout fishing...twit deserved it
No, I'm not ML> Just someone who gets pissed off that you arts types expect the rest of us to subsidise you. Get a real job.
Anonymous (11.19am)said to Anonymous(11.08am)...
"Yes, that's the level of your intellect, isn't it? You are utterly incapable of imagining a scenario whereby we support both arts and sports. What a small minded person. Are you Michael Laws?"
who knows ?
maybe if people took the time to give themselves a pen name their comments might be more friendly ? easy to slag off a no name
Hasn't the sports thing been done before?
Anon is right. Tuffy squealed.
Oh well, we're back here again. Someone who doesn't know that the arts sector turns over tens of millions of dollars a year in Wanganui alone. Architecture and Graphic Design go alongside painting and glassblowing. If your job isn't creative and satisfying enough, tough. Artists don't require subsidy, nor are we asking for any, so get your facts straight.
what's $4.5m-plus ratepayer subsidy of the Sarjeant extension if not a subsidy? that's $100 for every man woman & child in wangas.
Those paintings belong to Wanganui and Wanganui has every reason to be proud of them. Not only that, we owe a duty of care, of stewardship, in honour of the vision of our forefathers. You should go and really have a look at the Sarjeant Gallery's collection. They change it around. You'll find common ground with a lot of it. Those of us who have made friends with it have. Get some love in your life.
Check out the Council website. Rates 2005/06. The spin is in.
I paid my $100 twelve times last year.
$3.25 million maximum underwrite from Council to Sarjeant extension. Fact.
So that's only $72 for each of us. I paid my $72 sixteen times last year!
2.65 million and 3.25 to underwrite, now that was before this council lost the goverment money. But the Splash ( which I will enjoy too ) is costing us 2.5 million, but no outside money coming in. Seems a shame we could not have rised the bar and had both with better leadership of the council.
The LTCCP has both Splash & Sarjeant Extension in it. So did last years annual plan. In fact, these things simply weren't competing against one another at all until asshole came along.
And where would the money come from? Fact 1: The council was to provide $3.3 m to the Sarjeant extension but UNDERWRITE all other fund-raising. So, at worst it was up for $8.3m - govt's $2.2m. Lots of money. Fact 2: The community did not support the extension & we all know that. Fact 3: the Splash Centre has already got $500K from Powerco Trust & hasn't tapped Lotteries Comm, Whanganui Community Trust, or other trusts yet. They'll get the money easy.
Fact 4: The Council is selling land assets to fund its contribution of $2.5m to Splash. (Annual Plan 2005/6)
Now ... someone explain to me. How could Wanganui have afforded both the Sarjeant extension AND the Splash extension? The money doesn't exist.
Final point. Has no-one read the debt projections for copuncil, the Audit Office report or the Mitchell report? All reported ion the Chron.
Moral: there are none so blind, as those that can't read.
Now ... someone explain to me. How could Wanganui have afforded both the Sarjeant extension AND the Splash extension? The money doesn't exist.
That's what a ten year plan is for...we hadn't planned to do them both at the same time...did you "forget" to read that part? Or are you actually as illiterate as you accuse others of being?
Fact, it was fuckwit populists just like Michael Laws who got us into the debt mess in the first place. So your solution is more fuckwit populism. Uh huh.
How can Laws decide the Harbour committee is now a specialist committee? I thought it was a standing committee. Has he acted illegally again?
Anon said:
Has no-one read the debt projections for council ...
Yes, and it's scary stuff. It makes me wonder why anyone thinks we can afford either the splash centre or the extension. And if it's as dire as the Diva would have us believe, why isn't he concentrating on ways to tackle the debt mountain rather than tarting up the swimming pool, kowhai park, etc?
Post a Comment