WHEN LIFE IMITATES ART

I like this episode of Flight of the Concords. The parody of a New Zealand Prime Minister is inspired especially as when it was made Helen Clark was PM. It seems prescient in portraying the PM as a bumbling fool, something that Clark certainly wasn't so it was broad satire. What they didn't realise in creating the character and the various trip scenarios was that soon we would have a real PM who makes Brian the satirised one seem quite normal.
In the New Zealand Town section above where the NZ Tourism department create PR opportunities for the PM the Art preceeds the Life as we now know it. Shonkey is off to USA to meet with Obama. On the way there he was to attend a NZ Tourism event in LA. This has apparently been called off so instead of changing the time of his visit to Washington Shonkey is now going to have a dinner date with his good buddies New Line Cinema the co-producers of the Hobbit in LA and then to visit San Francisco to discuss business opportunities with the Google and Facebook people. What! you might shout. Yes, our PM is going to discuss business with Google execs. No doubt he will offer Google and Face book massive tax benefits to set up in New Zealand. Hell, he might just sell them New Zealand at a bargain price. I grew up believing that leaders of countries, any countries, were more important than corporate execs. Ok, ok, I know I am and was naive. I have since learned how Reagan was in the pocket of Wall Street and successive British PM's have cow-towed to Rupert Murdoch but hell, Facebook?