NBR defames me

Now look I don’t mind NBR taking the piss out of me every week. I can handle the derision, the jeers, the not at all subtle piss-takes, but when they claim I am from Wainuiomata – well that is just a step too far. Next they’ll be calling me Chloe!

Ignoring minor conventions like copyright, I present below this week’s effort:

David’s email
The National Business Review – 27 May 2005 : 12-02

Subject: Benson-Pope inquiry

To: testimonials@ministers.govt.nz

Sadistic bully or a model teacher? The testimonials continue …

“Hello. I am a National Party constituency MP for the seat of Banks Peninsula. Last year, I chaired the primary production select committee that considered Mr David Benson-Pope’s Aquaculture Reform Bill. It was an experience I will not easily forget. The reason I am coming forward today is that I do not feel Mr Benson-Pope ever really listened to many of the legitimate concerns that I and some of my colleagues raised. When challenged on several of his statements, he often assumed a haughty air, stroking his moustache as he gazed back at us with thinly disguised contempt. He never listened to my advice. And to be honest, there were times I could have shied a tennis ball at him.” – Hon David Carter, Christchurch

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“David Benson-Pope, or BP as we used to call him never to his face, mind you!, was a fair teacher. Fair but tough. Make no mistake, in our classroom back in the 1980s, the pupils certainly knew who was in charge. None of this Johnny-calling-the-teacher-by-his-first-name kind of rubbish you hear about so often nowadays. Today’s undisciplined young people, I suspect, would benefit from being under the wing of BP. Did he ever administer ‘six of the best?’ Yes he did, although only ever as a last resort and let’s not forget we are talking about a very different era here and only to the hardest cases. On the odd occasion BP asked me to ‘touch my toes,’ I can’t say the walloping wasn’t 100% deserved. He may have been 20 years my junior but by golly I learned to respect that man!”

– Garth George, Mission Bay

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“Terrible things may have happened in the past, but we need to forgive and move on. This is what I have come to your country to preach. Peace and understanding. As it is written, ‘Verily, let there be brotherhood among the Muslim imam, the Jewish rabbi and the Benson pope.’ So power to the people. Let’s dance. More olives on my pizza, thank you very much.

– Rev Ahmed Zaoui, Newton

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“A number of people have asked why I removed my glasses for my television appearance on this week’s Paul Holmes item to do with blogging. Did I do it, they ask, because I secretly think wearing glasses does not go with my sexy blogger image? The simple answer is no. In fact, it’s a habit I picked up many years ago from an old schoolteacher and now very, very good friend, Mr David Benson-Pope. Although David was a master and I was just a lowly junior back then, I came to see that, in a very real sense, he already respected my judgment on many fronts. During our after-school chats in his old study, he would remove his glasses and say, ‘David P Farrar, I feel you are the only person who really understands what’s going on in this damn school.’ Which of course was only the truth.”

– David P Farrar, Wainuiomata

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“To be honest, I don’t remember tennis balls getting shoved in pupils’ mouths or anyone getting their hands taped to the desk. But speaking personally, I sometimes found he could behave a little … well, irrationally. One day he would be calling you the greatest guy in the country, the next he’d be calling you a traitor. For somebody with so much to offer, it was my impression that Jim Sutton certainly knew how to behave like a very confused man.” – Tim Groser, Geneva