Dearest Kim.
How's it going in the Dotcom mansion?
I trust you're not too stir crazy and the twins are not keeping you awake at night. It must be great to have such a big house you need never hear the little darlings screeching.
I hope you don't think it presumptuous of me greeting you like an old friend. The trouble is, I can't remember whether you are one or not.
Sadly, I don't remember much about any of your parties either, but for those of us who have been partying since the '70s, that's not unusual.
I also can't remember if you have helicoptered me to any gatherings, but I put that down to my phobia about helicopter travel generally.
What I find most discombobulating, however, is that, given your apparent enthusiasm for backing losers, you do not seem to have contributed funds to any of my campaigns.
Perhaps you could check your records and just make sure that "anonymous" donations meant for me, possibly two at $25,000 apiece, have not inadvertently been sent to someone else.
In case you are suffering from baby brain (I know it is women who are supposed to get that, but there's no reason any sensitive new-age guy with too much time on his hands couldn't be afflicted), it might help to remind you of some of my causes, as yet non celebre.
• You can have friends without Facebook and Twitter. This campaign was designed to show that you can live a happy, less frazzled and probably more private life without F and T. You can avoid boring quite so many people. This is true friendship. You will also never need to see photographs taken of you after you have had one too many gins.
That campaign was closely linked to my Bring back the aerogramme campaign which, if it ever got off the ground, could help save New Zealand Post.
• Kill the death euphemisms. Let's stop saying people pass away, pass on or even pass (pass what - something on the great motorway of life?) when what they have done is die. And, when they die after a diagnosis of cancer, stop saying they had a battle with that disease. Apparently we do not battle any other illness. Why?
If you had put some money towards that campaign, I would have siphoned a little of it off to support another of my futile pursuits - my push against reporters' over-use of square brackets in direct quotes. This may have foundered because of the uncatchiness of the campaign slogan:
If a quote doesn't make sense [without square brackets], use indirect speech. Don't run the risk of irritating readers or treating them like idiots.
• Bring back the wind-up window.
This campaign has a health component. Arm muscles get a workout when you wind your own car window up and down and the whole upper body benefits when you lean across the car to reach the winder on the opposite side. Only those who should be banned from driving would cause head-on collisions during this manoeuvre.
• I'll have ethics with that please. This has been a war waged on a variety of fronts, but about as successful as those dead cancer patients' battles with their disease. Last year, for instance, I raised concerns about the before-game dishing out of caffeine pills to players in a representative Otago sports team competing at a tournament.
I knew the World Anti-doping Agency no longer banned caffeine, although it still features on its monitoring programme.
I brought up a variety of issues relating to such pill popping, including possible safety and how easy it might be for players to refuse the pills in the team setting, even if they had been told it wasn't mandatory.
A major concern for me was that any sport organisation, by sanctioning the use of this drug, or somehow convincing itself it is equivalent to taking a nutritional supplement or vitamins, runs the risk of sending the wrong message about its attitude to drugs and sport.
The fact something is legal and everyone is supposedly doing it doesn't necessarily make it ethical, does it?
I imagine, Kim, as you rattle around in your mansion, you will have much time to reflect on questions such as these, but don't get so carried away you forget to check your cheque stubs for any donation to me that might have gone astray.
In the meantime, I have decided to stick to my favourite childhood tipple, raspberry fizz, when I attend a birthday party this Saturday. It will go with my I'm a loser T-shirt. If anyone has plans to thrust big bucks in my direction, they'll know the deal and I'll remember to thank them properly and publicly.
That's it for now. Big hugs and kisses.
- Elspeth McLean is a Dunedin writer.
