page 16

Out Side Left

Mr. N. E. Kirk, M.P., Leader of the Opposition, will open the Blossom Festival, it was announced today. Commentators suggest this is a shrewd attempt to win the hippie vote.

* * *

Blossom will be invited to the opening of Parliament next year, at the suggestion of the Labour Opposition. "Sea elephants are not always what they seem," said an Opposition leader yesterday.

* * *

Wonder what happens to all those socialists who headmasters don't want at their schools? Are they legally excluded from compulsory schooling? Or is it the headmasters who are advocating a breach of the law?

* * *

Not that we're on the side either of all these Brave New Socialists who are trying to convert schoolchildren because they've given up adults. Judging by the attendance at the Kelburn School meeting last Sunday, the whole thing is going to be a training ground for middle class administrators —like, of course, our own glorious Stud Ass.

* * *

One of the many mis-statements made in Salient this year was Roger Wilde's claim that nobody supported the Soviet invasion here in Godzone. You'll be glad to hear good old Brez and Kosh still have some friends here and the Socialist Unity Party thinks they saved Eastern Europe from Nazism last August. It's a bit late to announce this now, but then think how much bad publicity they would've got if they'd decided Russia was right a bit earlier. The only noise they made back in August came from their Dunedin vice - president, whose statement supporting the Czech check had not been cleared with his Auckland H.Q.

* * *

So You wondered why there was so little money coughed up for the New Zealand Ballet recently? Seems that in the little office in Bowen State where all these decisions are made there's a little man who says "all ballet dancers are queers". Not that that would influence a Government decision. Not ever.

* * *

And After all that kerfuffle about students being allowed to go to Student Union Management Committee meetings nobody did, when it was open house for the first time ever?