National Caucus Party

Went to my first National Caucus Party last night, since leaving Parliament in March. As always, a fun occasion.

It was the first party in eight years which I haven’t had to arrange and manage the Karaeoke system for. Also was the first one in around the same time-frame in which I left before 2.00 a.m.

The scary thing for me was no longer knowing all the staff who work for National, and realising that at each party there will be more and more I don’t know. Just to make it worse two of the new staff both have short blond hair and of course I mixed them up and asked one MPs secretary how the other MP was. Much grovelling followed.

Somewhat amusing to be told by said new staff member that they had heard all about me. That is usually not a good thing knowing my former colleagues.

It reminds me of the time I popped into my old university hostel, Carrington Hall, a few years after I had left. I went into my old house and ran into a couple of students and said I was just looking around to see what my old room looked like. They asked what room I used to be in, and when I replied Linton 6, they exclaimed “Oh are you David Farrar, we’ve heard so much about what you used to do”.

I’m not sure the statute of limitations has run out on all these alleged activities, so I won’t supply details. One activity thought got us a good ODT photo when I managed to fit 79 people (plus ODT photographer) into the smallest bedroom in the hall (think 1.5 m x 2.5 m). The secret was in how we stacked people in. I recall the Warden not being overly happy reading about it in the newspaper, and he muttered something about fire risks and damaging the ceiling of the kitchen below.