Penny Bright and Goliath.

Actually Goliath probably wasn't a bad guy, maybe he was just a giant doing what giants do. The
'Goliath' in this story certainly 'ain't no giant.' He's a little guy that is sort of puffed up and petulant. A puffed up, petulant Mayor of New Zealand's biggest city. If I seem a little impertinent it's because I can't share the Mayor's vision of the City that's going to 'become' the best city in the world with the dirtiest harbour because he won't spend money on drain filters. He can spend it on other things but drain filters no, no, no.

I don't like to be pragmatic when I'm meant to be having visions. However, when I'm trying to 'imagine' the Mayor's vision I see billions of dollars of debt. Apparently Penny Bright sees these mountains of debt as well - hidden behind the Mayor's team of spin doctors. Because we are having fantasies, imagining visions, and so on. it's quite permissible to have 'spin doctors.' Why not, it's all a bit of fun and nobody would be believe it's true anyway. But who is Penny and how did she get on board this fable. Did she even buy a ticket and if she did, where are they for sale.

Of course they could be for sale in the corner dairies. The problem is of course you can't see any the dairies anymore because the Mayor won't mow the council owned berms. He's trying to save money to employ spin doctors, they must be so much fun he needs a few dozen more. One would have to ask why shouldn't he, remembering he's having visions and one of them 'spin doctors' might actually be able to help the Mayor, minister to him, some remedy to overcome his dreaming and panting.

Now 'panting' seems an unusual word to have in a fairy tale and that could be part of the problem because Penny knows, in fact every one knows that the Mayor has sometimes been 'panting' in Mayoral Chambers wearing his gown, chains and not much else. That is until wife found out after which he had to say that he might be the son of  a preacher man but he was led astray by in one of his fantasises for a clean harbour and shining city by an assistant 30 years his junior who thought it was fine if old Lenny got buck naked in the board room with the lights on.

This is serious. More serious than you think because it seems that Penny is the bad guy and she might not be David either. In fact I'm fairly sure she just wanted the Mayor to put his clothes back on and tell the people how he was spending all their money. The Mayor wasn't going to have none of that because right at that time he'd just got a new limousine and he choosing from among options in his imagination whether he was actually to use the new limousine for 'Royal' like tours around the overgrown suburbs or put on a Fedora and have the driver cruise up and down Queen Street like he was a lone shark Mafia boss cruising around New York.

That's when the trouble started because he spotted Penny protesting in one of the parks, 'his' parks no less. Now the Mayor can be fun guy but this was no ordinary Penny, this was a 'bad' Penny who had previously run for council and who would in the future call for 'Goliath Brown's' guts for garters. Soon after that Penny would be 'assisting' a former Mayor of the great city into earlier retirement for telling porkies on his donation returns and trying to blame some body else. Even in the former Mayor was from across the political divide everyone knows Mayors are Mayors even if the odd grey one has accounting problems and others fantasy flushes. It might have been the 3 musketeers that coined the phrase 'all for one and one for all' but Mayors have got rights as well and 'all for me and none for you' has a catchy lashing of revenge attached.

Well not revenge really, not in a modern city where the Mayor hides behind darkened limo windows, and high grass berms. Why wouldn't he won't to take Penny's house for daring not to pay off his debt without being held accountable for it, with no amount of spin doctors able to put a finger on the problem, make it go away, or turn into a pleasant vision where the Mayor will once again be adored by those that were 'disappointed' when he got caught his pants down - not that I looked.

Hard to work out who is the bad 'guy' in Penny and Goliath stories these days.