Ben Espiner: Can beer be racist?

There are very few things I’d stick my neck out for in life, beer is one of them.

Cultural and social advisers in New Zealand do some decent work. They can be important in facilitating events and processes in companies or organisations that must be culturally cognisant in their undertakings.

Frank Newman: Ice cream DOES make me happy!

As far as I am concerned, the link between ice cream and happiness is a fact. 

And I am not the only one of that view, which is why the decision of the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) to uphold a complaint about an ICE CREAM MAKES U HAPPY sign on a dairy in Tui Crescent in Maunu, Whangarei is so bizarre.

We live in weird times.

Stephen Franks: Business lying bad – Official lying OK

According to the Wellington  Regional Council Mayor, not being allowed to lie in official advertising “could drastically restrict how local bodies operate”. She believes that having to live up to the standards expected of business “poses a real risk to robust political debate”. 

Putting aside the inconvenient fact that Council advertising should be informative, not political propaganda, it is incredible that there is no media furore over her further defence that seeking the Advertising Standards Authority ruling was “legal nitpicking”.