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Out Side Left

Remember back at the Labour conference when Big Norm had a workout with Princes St. battleaxe Ruth Butterworth over the NZBC?

You might have thought that everybody had been agreeing with Dr Butterworth recently, from Christine Cole up (or, as the case may be, down) and nobody was on Kirk the Murk's side.

But you would have been wrong.

The chairman of Pye Industries Limited thinks Kirk's idea of a second corporation running a second TV channel is great stuff—it might help boost his sales.

Nobody quite knew where Kirk got his ideas from— would Pye be a possibility?

* * *

Now that everybody is wondering whether the Dominion's sales are going up, down or just staying in one place like the lifts in its Mercer Street building— people should be reminded that it's a long time since the Evening Post issued an audited monthly account of its circulation.

Could it be that the new Evening Post is failing, even with a different pastel-shade-abomination-masthead every day?

* * *

Did you hear about how Salient's Advertising Manager thwarted plans for a special Salient competition?

You see, they were going to start a Guess-which-article - is - libellous - this -week thing, the prize a scholarship to do an LL.B. in libel law.

But when the Smart Boys got on to the idea they rushed off to sell the idea to Truth saying we'd make more money out of selling the idea to Truth than Salient would save.

* * *

Literary news of the week is that Barry Crump's new novel will be about Phil the Pills (otherwise known as the Duke of Edinburgh) visit to Manapouri.

We feature an excerpt, courtesy of the publishers: Well, you see, they'd sacked this Hori because he had a bigger Coronation medal than the boss, and while this boss was looking for his Union Jack so he could prove he wasn't sacking Hori for his loyalty, Hori got into the management fridge and flogged and swiped four kegs of Hokonui, so when Phil got far enough down the tunnel they downed tools and got into the booze.

"Christ," says Phil, on his second flagon, "all you boys must come up to the Castle sometime and we'll have a party.

Trouble is, Liz is a bit down on the booze since the time all the whisky got into the creeks at Glamis.

"The grouse were so stoned for the next week that grouse-shooting had to be called off because it was so cruel to put off the bloody grouse.

"Talk about crows getting stoned."