Remembering Ron

Thank you for the story on Ron Brinsdon ( Nelson Mail, September 23).

Ron was a lovely man who was always quick to smile, nod and greet you. In a unique way, I’ve known Ron almost since I first moved to Nelson from Auckland in 2006.

Living and working in Nelson city, I would always bump into Ron when walking to and from work most days.

In summer after 5pm, I would find Ron sometimes sitting out on a seat in Montgomery Square car park in the sun listening to the latest New Zealand cricket test on his radio.

I would ask him for a score update and he was always obliging with a full run down of all the wickets and highlights from the day.

Ron and I shared a passion for cricket; especially test match cricket.

Take care Ron. I hope you find peace and a radio station that provides ball by ball coverage of test match cricket. Democracy in New Zealand has slipped away .

With MMP(Mixed Member Proportional) only 70/120 (approximately 60 per cent) of representatives are elected by voters. The other 40 per cent are appointed by the party.

Coercion and ‘‘political blackmail’’ have been used by coalition parties culminating in a political party dictatorship – not democracy. MMPhas become MMD(Mixed Member Disproportionate).

The present election result presents an opportunity to reintroduce some democracy into New Zealand’s governance.

New Zealand First could join with National to form a stable Government.

The prime requirement would be – within a defined time-frame make Citizen Initiated Referenda (which is already in place) binding with a, for example, 66 per cent threshold as in Switzerland.

With ‘‘pollsters’’ presumably still having systems in place how about running a poll on whether or not New Zealanders are in favour of this system?

This could provide a directive for coalition negotiations. OPINION: Gorge rising, egg sandwiches threatening to repeat, I have just watched 10 minutes of Trump making a speech. He was in Alabama.

I have a connection with Alabama. A lecturer at a minor college there teaches a class on world trade. And one of his course texts is a book I wrote about Chinese underpants. Yes, I’m as astonished as you are.

But the upshot is that once a year I travel by Skype to a screen in his classroom to answer any questions his students might ask. Those students are all white, male, corn-fed, Alabama-born and Alabama-raised. They are very polite, though the questions they ask do not scintillate.

This year I asked them a question back. I wanted to know what they thought of Trump. And they told me, unhesitatingly and unanimously, that they liked him, that they thought him an admirable president in every way. They seemed not to see what you and I and anyone indeed who’s not from Alabama or somewhere similar cannot help seeing, which is that Trump is concerned with only one thing. And that one thing is Trump.

His egomania is without limit. It is his all, his purpose. As he sees it the world exists to serve his love of himself. This is the grandfather who had a fake Time magazine cover made up, with his own face on it and words praising him, and who had copies of it framed and hung in each of his golf clubs. An adolescent caught doing something similar would shrivel with embarrassment. Not so with Grandpa Trump. When the story came to light he was not in the least abashed. His vanity is undentable. His ego and he are one.

All of which was evident in the 10 minutes of speech I managed to watch. Ostensibly he was promoting some candidate for the senate. Actually he was promoting Trump. Trump needs praise as you