Just where do you sit politically?

To find out just take this dandy quiz http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz.html.

Do you ever wonder where New Zealand's main political parties would sit on that grid?

In theory they should be evenly spread but in practice I suspect that the majority would be in the left hand side of the centrist square or the right side of liberal with the Act party all on its own the the conservative side.

The worrying part of that is that even though Labour could very well not get a majority in the next election- largely because after 9 years Joe Bloggs has had it up to the back teeth with them, most of the smaller parties happier working with Labour than with National even though National seems to be currently doing a good job of ignoring its right hand side. the only minor party currently in parliament that couldn't work with Labour is Act. The devil we know too well could be the government yet again simply because it managed to cobble together agreements with several minor parties.

Even more oddly much of the most unpopular legislation that has been put in place in the last 9 years began as electoral promises made by minor parties that Labour agreed to support in order to be the government.

All this is going to National and uphill battle to form a government. They may have to win 60 seats outright to have a snowball's chance and Labour simply doesn't have that big a hurdle.

Which narrows the choices at the ballot booth somewhat. If you don't want a Labour government you are going to have to vote National. If you don't want National but can't bring yourself to vote labour there is a wealth of choice out there.

All of which will make the next election interesting.

Emergancy call reponse times

I am in the dog's box.



OK, not literally as we don't have any creature as dumb as a dog living here but I am definitely figuratively in the dog's box.



I only wanted some attention.

My blog had not been typed up in nearly a fortnight after all.



I just resorted to my usual tactic of standing on the fax machine buttons in order to make it beep. That is all.



OK, I did keep it up for longer than usual. Well, how was I to know my secretary was asleep?

He who earns money had just kicked me off my usual spot on the bed after all.



So it was a hot night. Why should that change my sleeping arrangements?



To retaliate I stomped on the fax machine key pad.



This is something I do regularly after all.



So I took it one step further than usual and activated the hands free function. I was pretty annoyed after all.



OK, so I wasn't watching which numbers I was standing on. It 11:30pm and dark after all.



I was so surprised I couldn't speak to the nice lady who answered my call before it rang.



I didn't need fire, police or ambulance anyway so why was the lady asking me which one I wanted?



Now everybody is cross at me.



I didn't even dial 7 digits.



In fact I only dialed 1 - 3 times.



I guess we now know that the New Zealand 111 service does answer calls promptly.

Responding to calls may be a different story but they do answer quickly.