It must be tough to be an MP: people just insist on making fun of you. Take our embattled local representative Sam Uffindell.
Talk about not being able to catch a break...

You put your head down and diligently toe the party line, but the minute you mention supermarkets and your shopping regimen people are mean to you. There was a veritable nationwide pile-on.

Even our own Jim Bunny had a crack at poor Sam.

So then you keep your mouth shut and all that happens is you get labelled as “impossible to contact”. How could people possibly think that?

To quote from a recent media story: when questioned by SunLive on whether his party is “shielding” him from media, Uffindell says he can’t comment: “I haven’t received any word from the National Party on that.” (No, I didn’t make that up.)

Another thing Sam said when questioned on his apparently too-infrequent shopping behaviour is that he works 80 hours-a-week. So, fair enough, who has time to work 80 hours-a-week and go to the supermarket?

However, I did get to wondering, as one does, what exactly Sam does for 80 hours-a-week, given that he’s not actually, y’know, in government and making laws and running a ministry and governing and stuff.

Sitting

So I checked it out. Parliament sits on six days during August, so that’s six long days of sitting and listening to other people talking. And Sam is also on the Regulations Review Committee. That sat for one day in August. But it was on one of the days the house was sitting, so does that count as an extra day’s work or is it still just the six?

That’s all I could find. So what does Sam Uffindell actually do? I haven’t a clue. Best get the answer straight from the horse’s mouth I thought – I emailed and asked. But he didn’t reply.

He’s probably too busy.

Or maybe he’s waiting for word from the National Party on that.

Moving along, Dionne Stanbridge, a multi-genre singer-songwriter who performs under stage name The Artist Red, has a new single/video out, ‘War Cry Song’.

She released her first single, ‘Mother Show Me A Remedy’, back in 2019, recorded with Shane Davies at Whakamarama’s Soundtree Productions.

Back then she was a full-time dairy farmer living in Matamata, who’d drive to Tauranga to record between milkings and working the farm. She finally moved here two years ago and the series of songs she was recording culminated in a full album, ‘Gemini Woman’, launched in May this year.

Dionne wrote ‘War Cry Song’ in February while at home sick with pneumonia, pleurisy and tonsillitis. She says most of her songs come to her in her sleep so she wakes up and records the melodies and lyrics: “‘War Cry Song’ came to me around 8am and was written within ten minutes,” she told me.

Juice

The single, also recorded at Shane’s, is a collaboration with some of the Tauranga’s finest, including bassist Brian Franks (Brilleaux) and drummers Jeff Nilsson and MrSly Tawhara. Shane also plays guitar and the music video was produced by Tauranga film-maker Jimi Colzato of ‘Foreign Pixel’. It premiered last week as part of Juice TV’s NZ new release show ‘The Plug’.

Not hanging around, Dionne was back in the studio this week, this time with Tim Julian at Welcome Bay’s Colourfield, recording two new songs. Meanwhile, you can find ‘War Cry Song’’, the song and video, on all the usual platforms.

I’ve also received a couple of other local albums which I’ll look at next week. The first is from an exceptional 13-year-old singer-songwriter Cybele Chapman, who has already written around 500 songs. (Again, I didn’t make that up).

The other is from a band that, to my eternal shame, has completely escaped my attention despite releasing three full albums this decade. I will be returning to The Knids at greater length; my thanks to Mike Shennen for his email belatedly alerting me to their existence: I’ve been enjoying their latest, ‘With A Hard “K”’, immensely. You can find them on Spotify.