I’ve expressed the opinion in the past that I’d rather have a National government than see Labour go into coalition with New Zealand First. I take it back. After the scariest election campaign I’ve ever seen, Winston Peters as Foreign Minister seems to be a small price to pay to keep National out of the government. It’s unfortunate and unpleasant, but it could have been so much worse.

I’m disappointed to see the Greens shut out of any formal coalition arrangements, but I can see the logic of it. The Greens are not going anywhere, and Labour knows it can rely on their support. But New Zealand First and United are more risky, and locking them into a tighter working relationship ensures that National is left with fewer options. For a large party like Labour politics is all about controlling the Centre, and their influence now runs all the way from the left to the centre-right and beyond. They’re shoring up their position as the natural party of government in a way they couldn’t have done with a Labour-Progressive-Green coalition.

It also remains to be seen exactly how much influence the various parties will have. After the items agreed to in the coalition talks have been seen to, I rather suspect that Winston won’t have much further input into actual policy. He’s clearly being kept at arms length from anything to do with immigration, and Aunty Helen will presumably continue to do a great deal of Foreign Affairs work.

The Greens, on the other hand, will have a continuing relationship with Labour, and may be able to get quite a few of their policies implemented, even if they don’t have the Green name on them. That would be a problem for other minor parties, but the Green brand is strong and they’re not in danger of disappearing from public view. If they ever fell below the 5% threshold and disappeared from Parliament altogether they could still turn up at the next election and everybody would know who they were and what they stood for. So they have the luxury of being able to talk actual policy instead of fighting for media attention. When Budget time comes around it’ll be interesting to see how many green-tinged programmes get the green light.

The evolution of New Zealand politics since the arrival of MMP is particularly interesting. We’ve moved from one-party governments to formal coalition agreements to loose coalition agreements to loose agreements on supply and demand. I like seeing the rigid distinction between Government and Opposition being broken down.

After a few years of attendance, it no longer seems particularly amusing to say “Armageddon is happening this weekend”. It’s not the end of the world, it’s just a convention sort of affair. But I shall be there selling Funtime Comics issues. I have a big box of Issue 21s, and its got dinosaurs on the cover, so what can possibly go wrong? Plus there are book marks, in normal size and teeny-tiny. And a range of back issues. It’ll be great.

From time to time, I find myself in the embarrassing position of having to explain to friends, neighbours, and passers-by in the street that the mere fact that I have from time to time studied and mathematics cannot safely be construed to mean that I have the remotest understanding of economics, nor indeed of basic household finance. My thesis was in the vital field of making computers draw complicated pictures of whirlpools and messy balls of string, and had little direct connection with the mundane arithmetic employed by accountants. Mathematicians seldom actually add anything up.

So perhaps it is due purely to my own ignorance that I cannot see how anyone can develop a workable business model out of being a human statue. I see many of these minimalist buskers, and am always impressed by their ability to stand freakishly still in a busy public thoroughfare. I certainly am not capable of standing so still myself, and it seems a marvelous skill that must require years of training. No doubt this occurs in a far distant dojo, where the inscrutable ways of motionlessness are instilled by a venerable stationary master. And probably after attaining the rank of Stillmaster, they are called upon to go out into the world to do mighty deeds of immobility and pay off their student loans.

It seems to me, however, that they do not rate their stillness as highly as I do, because they give it away for free. Instead, they ask me to pay to see them move.

During the course of a normal day, I see many people moving. It is not a skill in short supply. So thus far, I have been loath to donate any money to the human statues, lest they cease their amazing stillness and start walking around hither and yon like normal people.

I can see three explanations for this behaviour. First, it is possible that they have spent so long being still that it has become familiar lost all its magic for them, and they have come to erroneously believe that everybody else is also bored with it, and would like to pay money to see movement. Second, the stillness they give away for free is just a beginning, and for a small donation they will perform even more staggering acts of transfixion. Stillness that goes beyond mere earthly stillness, into mystical dimensions of utter infinite staticity that boggle the mind and make you cry out with wonder. Third, and it saddens me to say most likely, they are perhaps not very good at business.

If it were me, and bearing in mind that I chose chaotic attractors over introductory book-keeping, and certainly no little of the quiescent arts, I would look for an approach to human statuary where I walked around a bit, holding a hat and a sign that promised, say, one minute’s stillness for every dollar placed in it. I am certain that this would be a superior approach.

Funtime Comics Presents Issue 21 has come off the press, and will be arriving soon in discerning comics shops, alternative culture vendors, and the many many other places people go to buy their anthologies of New Zealand comics. Well done Darren, and everybody else. I’m looking forward to seeing it.