Oink if you're happy

After venting about all manner of sexual proclivities from chastity to masturbation in his latest Sunday rumination, the Diva gets onto a subject about which even we acknowledge his deep and abiding expertise - pork barreling:

And there's nothing better for an errant MP than pork-barrelling. It's like returning from a night out burgling and sharing the ill-gotten gains with all your mates / electorate the next morning. You become a mini-godfather, I discovered. All manner of individuals and delegations flood your office seeking special favours.

Good for the errant MP and even better for the errant mayor, it seems. For the Diva is not above doling out the porcine favours with the best of them if he thinks it can win a vote or three. Plenty of this went on in Hawkes Bay, but since we're advised to forget the past, pretend the Diva has a clean slate, to move on, to forgive and forget (enough - Ed) then perhaps it's time for a brief history lesson just of the last year's pork barrel promises, made good and otherwise:

• The "nil" rates rise (delivered for some but not for others)
• The Film Festival (a personal $20k promised but never delivered)
• The River Queen premiere (just where is all that outside money?)
• The whole referendumb farce - swimming pools, footpaths etc (promised but, in the main, not delivered - yet, anyway)
• The main street Mayoral office (yes, that again)
• Jobs for the girls (Spin Fairy, Fairy Godmother) and boys (Nygllhuw Morris at Wanganui Inc, buying Rangi Wills with a Wanganui Inc seat etc)
• Cash splash at the bowls opening - and no doubt others (while he donates some of the Mayoral salary to such things, pork barreling it is nonetheless).
• And so on... (Watchers may care to add to the list in comments)

With a by-election handily scheduled to coincide with a fun-fest of concerts, the Mayoral Mile etc., it seems the smell of bacon in the air isn't solely from the breakfast grills of Wanganui's many fine cafes.

Meanwhile, could there be any connection between Dotty's promise to "find somewhere else" to store the large Vision sign that's appeared outside the Mayoral office and her determination to supervise Guy Fawkes bonfires at Castelcliff? Surely not.

And as commenters have noticed, could there possibly be a connection between the lack of off-topic, irrational and just-plain-abusive comments and the Diva's reputed absence overseas? Again, surely not.

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