Nipple Lust

Each age brings forth men and women who, from force of action or possibly personality, live on in our memory and mindscape. I exclude here of course all Americans, whose contribution to the hero list has largely been the product of nipple-lust and the need to grab hold of anything to justify their existence and lack of history. But elsewhere we have had genuine colossi such as Alexander, Socrates, Marcus Aurelius, St Paul, Williams Blake and Wilberforce and, in our own age, Keith Locke.

Of late I have been reading of Cicero, an impressive Roman orator and successful lawyer from the First Century BC. He is appreciated primarily for his humanism and philosophical and political writings. His voluminous correspondence, much of it addressed to his friend Atticus, has been especially influential, introducing the art of refined letter writing to European culture. Cornelius Nepos, the 1st-century BC biographer of Atticus, remarked that Cicero's letters to Atticus contained such a wealth of detail "concerning the inclinations of leading men, the faults of the generals, and the revolutions in the government" that their reader had little need for a history of the period. Very much like Fryday, now that I come to think of it.

During the chaotic latter half of the first century BC, marked by civil wars and the dictatorship of Gaius Julius Caesar, Cicero championed a return to the traditional republican government. However, his career as a statesman was marked by inconsistencies and a tendency to shift his position in response to changes in the political climate. His indecision may be attributed to his sensitive and impressionable personality; he was prone to overreaction in the face of political and private change. Very much like John Key, now that I think of it.

Which is why I am drawn, sadly, to the conclusion that Mr Key and National will not now win the next election.

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