Island Life by David Slack

Martin Luther King is the second most admired person of the 20th century, according to a Gallup poll.

I don't know how he'd go in Townsville.

You can rail all you like at the media for putting Millie Holmes front and centre in their bulletins, but the stats don't lie. Look at the most-read stories on the Herald website this morning.

Number 1: Family devastated by Millie's drug charges: Holmes (+photos)

And at Number 3 (with a bullet?):

Holmes' daughter to contest drugs charges.

Maybe the news is being read with more sympathy than schadenfreude, but it pays to be realistic. Wherever you travel, they have an expression for this kind of thing. The Brazilians have a proverb: Pimenta nos olhos dos outros é refresco : The pepper in somebody else's eyes is refreshing. My Finnish neighbour will know more about this, but apparently his people have an expression: "schadenfreude is the purest joy, since it doesn't include a bit of envy".

Perhaps, nevertheless, people feel sympathy, as Paul Holmes hopes we do, when he reminds us that being the parent of a teenager is no easy thing. What we are seeing here is the full price of a magazine cover. If you're offered up as the virtual neighbour about whom the whole country knows every little thing - from the colour of the bib little Reuben wore for the first photo op, and all the way on up - whatever effort you might make to delineate your own celebrity from that of your family, the barrier will always be porous and, when the police come calling, completely meaningless.

The most meaning to be taken from this story comes in the words of the district court judge who reminded the media how thoroughly commonplace and unremarkable the case was. This is where Holmes' remarks - exceptional though his own daughter's circumstances may be - have some pertinence. How thrilled are you about the possiblity of your own teenager having fun with P?

I am thousands of miles from Valencia. At this remove, it’s hard to know who to believe when Ernesto Bertarelli says the New Zealanders are getting boorish, oafish and mean. I can see the possibility of the thing. I have sat in Jade Stadium. I have seen the kind of behaviour that gives Christchurch sports fans their reputation for being one-eyed.

But it wasn’t the whole of the stadium. Stereotypes will always trip you up, and that’s kind of the point, isn’t it? To be a jeering, taunting sports fan, best you diminish human beings to caricatures.

I’m a poor spectator. I will keep my eye on the play if I have money wagered, and I can be truly awed by athletic prowess, but I have never been inclined to lather up in the fervour about what “we” are winning. It’s their accomplishment, not mine.

If it fills their heart with pride to wear the Silver Fern and take the flag on a victory lap, then more power to them, but the accomplishment is theirs, not the nation’s. If the All Blacks win the World Cup, it reflects well on the efforts of the thousands of people, both paid and volunteer, who love the game. You might say it also reflects well on the goodwill of the fans who turned out to buy the tickets and cheer for the team. Perhaps that’s enough to make you feel part of the team, but the connection’s a bit tenuous for me. I’m not the one drenched in sweat.

Maybe these people who are reported to be hissing “traitor” at their compatriot sailors in Spain really do feel part of the Emirates team. Perhaps they think they’re doing good crew work. But from a few thousand miles away, it really just sounds childish.

The world is full of cheats. They take the carparks for the disabled at the mall, they don't leave money in the honesty box, they run telemarketing businesses, and they pretend they didn't see you waiting at the bar. They just love the internet.

Yesterday morning, a Google ad caught my eye. It looked like a gimmick site. I make the odd internet gimmick site myself; I'll always stop to look. This one was plainly all sizzle and no sausage. "Welcome all," it says, "My name is Zoltar and I can grant you 1 wish and 1 wish only."

Okay, here's my wish: I wish that people wouldn't use cellphone text language in other media.

Following the instructions, I enter the wish and click the button.

Step 2. Enter your name.
Sure! "David Farrar".

Step 3. David Farrar, Please choose your sign, and I can predict your future
I make a guess. "Libra".

Step 4. David Farrar, tell me your cell phone number so that I may text message you your future.
I look up Farrar's number and punch it in. Just kidding. I enter 021 3333 3333 and get this:

David Farrar, I have text messaged you your secret wish number, you should receive it shortly. Please enter it below so I may send you your fortune.

It's all too clear now. Or at least, it's clear if you squint hard and read the fine print at the bottom of the page:

Summary terms:
By signing up for this service and by entering your personal PIN Code which will be sent to the mobile phone number supplied by you on this website, you acknowledge that you are subscribing to our service. All plans are subject to the Terms and Conditions. You may stop this subscription service at any time by sending a text message with STOP, to short code 4212. Your phone must be polyphonic compatible, be Internet-enabled and have text messaging capability. You must be the owner of this device and either be at least sixteen years old or have the permission of your parent or guardian. Vodafone and Telecom customers will receive the Destiny Horoscopes club at $5 twice per wk. Standard/other text messaging rates may apply. For Information text HELP to 4212 or call 0800440619. Please click here to see

It's another of those phone scammers that Juha wrote about a while ago. In fact, it looks as though it might be the same one.

I email a message across the street to Juha. It's there in a flash. He sees it for what it is and drops the Commerce Commission a line. Take that, evil scammers! Or not. You drop a nuclear device, ten minutes later, the cockroaches are scurrying around again. All you can really do is keep the spotlight trained on them.

Public Address got on the phone yesterday and asked the disgraced World Bank chief Paul Wolfowitz if he could shine some big brain power on the problem of New Zealand's high dollar. The interview began with a little rancour.

Wolfowitz. But it's 3am. Are you insane?

Public Address. Sorry about that, it's just that our Reserve Bank governor has intervened in the market, and we can't help wondering if George Soros and his friends might not be about to get mediaeval on his ass.

W. Oh, well that's different. As you may know, imbalances in the mediaeval money markets were in many ways the precursor to the problems of tyranny in the Ottoman Empire, which

PA. [Interrupting] Yes. We were wondering if the markets might just beat up Alan Bollard like they did Norman Lamont in 1992.

W. Oh yeah, that was spectacular. That guy had balls. He blew 6 billion pounds trying to beat the market. What's this guy Bollard like? Is he staunch? Is he resolute? Do you think he might need some help? I'm between contracts at the moment, you know.

PA. Don't know. To be honest, you might be a bit too much of a zealot for his blood.

W. Zealot? In what way? Who says?

PA. Well some people say that when you were getting the Iraq War on the launching pad you inflated the myth of a dangerous enemy, and that many people died because of it.

W. And your point?

PA. Well, is it possible that you can get obsessed with a theory and end up doing more harm than good?

W. I have no idea what you're talking about. Look, do you have Bollard's number?