By JOE BENNETT - The Dominion Post

OPINION: The wind scythed around corners and went for the marrow. Yet the pavements were thick with girls wearing little, girls dressed for sex.

By JOE BENNETT - The Dominion Post

OPINION: No, no, no, no, exclaimed the secretary of state for the tiny Pacific island of Columnia, "of course our president didn't write those lines himself. He's a president, not a comedian. The lines were supplied by the scriptwriters at TVNZ.

By JOE BENNETT - The Dominion Post

OPINION: Michael Jackson is now dancing with God. (If you don't like that fairytale, pick your own.)

By JOE BENNETT - The Dominion Post

OPINION: The young men trooped into the dock. They hung their heads. Their chins rested against their properly knotted school ties. Their shoulders, encased in blazers, slumped.

By JOE BENNETT - The Dominion Post

OPINION: All Blacks anthem coach Dame Kiri Te Kanawa has acknowledged that the team failed to learn the lessons from the first test against the Springboks.

By JOE BENNETT - The Dominion Post

OPINION: My parents passed on no wisdom. I don't know how they resisted the urge.

By JOE BENNETT - The Dominion Post

OPINION: Dawn. The commander stood in silence on the plain. It was bone-snapping cold.

By JOE BENNETT - The Dominion Post

OPINION: Entertainment in a trillion shoddy forms buzzes around us at all times, seeking entry by any orifice.

The Dominion Post

OPINION: Joe Bennett investigates the golden road to holistic health.

By JOE BENNETT - The Dominion Post

OPINION: I'm not going to attend the G20 summit in London. I simply can't be bothered.

By JOE BENNETT - The Dominion Post

OPINION: Things change, and it is the duty of crusty old men to bemoan change.

By JOE BENNETT - The Dominion Post

OPINION: Sunday afternoon, when time drags like a wet mattress. What better to shift the mattress, to kill the time, than Scrabble?

By JOE BENNETT - The Dominion Post

OPINION: There may well be protocols to eating in China. I never discovered them. As far as I could tell, the only rule was to get stuck in.

The Dominion Post

OPINION: Did you see the clever child? Oh it was awful. He was so precocious and so very unwisely happy. But let me begin at the beginning.

The Dominion Post

OPINION: WAKE at 10. Fetching coffee and the paper, I reflect on last night. Wonder whether our burnouts will have made the front page.

The Dominion Post

Know this, America. We have nothing to fear but getting carried away with sonorous oratory.

The Dominion Post

OPINION: There are few things more agreeable than the noise of two cars crashing. The graunching of metal sounds so emphatic and expensive. More agreeable still is the promise that comes with the noise - the promise of drivers shouting at each other.

The Press

I'll get Osama bin Laden, said John McCain, candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, "if I have to go to the gates of hell". The crowd roared with delight.

The Dominion Post

Some car insurance companies offer lower premiums to women. Insurance companies are not fools. They've looked at the stats and concluded that women drive more safely than men. So when I slid into the front seat of a small grey car in central Auckland last Friday, I was delighted to discover not only that my driver was a woman, but also that there were two more women in the back seat. This would be a very safe journey.

The Dominion Post

"We're stoked to have got him," said the vice- chancellor of Wellington University, "and our Androgyny Department is especially thrilled. Half the universities in the world were after him. You saw what happened when he came here recently to play football: our target market just fell about in adoration. He's a natural communicator. The university council was unanimous in its decision to offer him the chancellorship in perpetuity. He accepted by satellite link from his private jet, and he did so with a humble simplicity which we think bodes rather well. 'Fanks,' he said.