Everyone's been Gung Ho about New Zealand's prospects with China in recent days and weeks, not least our Prime Minister.
Freedom of speech is not absolute, even in a mature democracy.
Another week, further reminders of what a brutal and unforgiving business the political game can be.
Pardon me for being something of a contrarian, and I know how we love to despise those who consider themselves so above the herd as to apply for public office, but am I mistaken in discerning a whiff of hypocrisy and cultural cringe about the great credit-card scandal of 2010?
Bear with me while I consider the rather dry matter of water.
Was John Key's press conference conversation stopper the other day simply an unscripted slip of the scalpel - err, sorry, the tongue - or part of a deliberate ongoing bloke-next-door charm offensive?
Intermittently, ever since that rather shudder-inducing toe-sucking scandal, the Duchess of York has been at pains to embarrass herself, the Royal Family, and just about everyone else.
Tomorrow the Government will show us the colour of its money. And not an awful lot of it will be a great surprise.
In certain circles there has been a bit of a backlash against the Law Commission's report, Alcohol in Our Lives: Curbing the Harm, but not at the Athletic Marist Rugby Football Club in Oamaru.
Some time back I wrote a column deploring the sexual manners of Australia rugby league players and their tendency to come before the courts for excessive displays of physical "affection" towards their girlfriends, or others of the opposite sex with whom they happened to find themselves in hotel swimming pools, or in apartment bedrooms playing "stacks on the mill, pile on still", or in parking lots and back alleys open-throating gallons of vodka until their clothes fell off and someone got a bloody nose - if she was lucky.
We sold the railways and they were run into the ground.
I have been out of town for a week or so and thus missed much of the consternation over the sculptural installation on the south Dunedin foreshore.
On a mild and largely sunny Easter weekend, articles of faith have been reaffirmed across the country as holidaymakers mixed the traditional pastimes - beaches, fishing, swimming and so on - with religious observance.
For Minister of Energy and Resources Gerry Brownlee, the countryside appears to be something like a fruitcake.
A famous London-based composer and theatre producer frets about the future of his art form.
It was Mark Twain who said of Dunedin's Scots settlers, "They stopped here on their way from home to heaven - thinking they had arrived."
David Garrett has been thinking. Unkind people might suggest this is an oxymoron
If nothing else, the steep and unexpected rise in unemployment figures to 7.3% - comprising in large part the young - should give us an indication that all is not well out there in the jobs market.