On Politics: Part one - NZd's Hottest Politicians 2011

Now that we're coming into election month, I thought I'd write a series of posts which cover my thoughts on party policy (because I rant about it so much) around the following important areas:

- Finance

- Health and wellbeing

- Environment

- Education

- Fairness and equality

BUT, before I get all serious about politics I’d like to take some time to talk about the most fun way to vote in this election: by hottest MP. So I thought I'd look into this and reveal the hottest faces in politics, the hottest area, and, most importantly, the hottest party in New Zealand. Now this is an area of great discussion between my husband and I as we drive into the zone of his number one hottest lady in politics (ahh, Carmel). So before I give you MY thoughts, I’ll remind you of this years hottest lot as voted in The Durex Valentine's Day Foreplay Election Survey.

For the ladies:

1) Jacinda Adern (Labour)

2) Nikki Kaye (National)

3) Paula Bennett (National)

And for the gentlemen:

1) John Key(National)

2) Simon Bridges (National)

3) Bill English (National)

Jacinda and Nikki not only have to battle it out in the 'hot' seat, but they are also both standing for the Auckland Central seat. In my personal opinion, Nikki out-hots Jacinda by a country mile. If Jacinda learnt to smile without using all her teeth, she might be slightly better competition. And Paula Bennett, well, I’m not a huge fan of her policies, but I agree she’s a bit of alright in the looks department.

Now this is John Key.

He has won this for two years running now, and I have to say I have no idea why. Yes, he's been in Woman's Day more than the rest, but surely that doesn't make him a hot man? I don’t find him attractive at all. His jaw line is undefined, he has kind of piggy eyes, and let’s face it, that nose does him no favours. I do see that he is a charismatic man, and I know that charisma trumps looks, but really people, are you sure about this guy?

Simon Bridges who took out second, is definitely a hot man. I can't see why he's not number one though. He is much better looking than Mr Key. Bill English, like John, is a mystery to me. Bill is one of the few National MP’s I actually like, but I don’t find him attractive at all.

I don’t know what was up with this election survey. There are some very hot politicians missing from the top spots. I am very surprised to see Melissa Lee from National not in the top three this year. She is currently ranked the 50^th hottest woman in politics worldwide. And yes, I know, she was extremely offensive to the entire South Auckland populace, but this is about looks people, and I have to agree that she’s smoking hot.

After scouring the party lists for Labour, National, Greens, NZ First, The Maori

Party, Mana Party, Alliance, Act and Democrats for Social Credit (that's a LOT

of MP's!) I found a couple of other gems. Carmel Supuloni from Labour, Waitakere, is who my husband is in love with. I have to admit, Carmel (top of blog post), is pretty banging. I think she definitely out hots Paula Bennett, and it's easy to see this as their billboards are often almost side by side.

But my number one hottest lady in politics, who is probably not mentioned as she’s ranked 46th on the party list is Sehai Orgad from Labour, Hamilton East. Hot damn! This woman is extremely good looking. She looks like a beautiful mermaid that got washed up on our shores before the Rena disaster. How she ended up in Hamilton East is anyone’s guess. I showed her to Murray and now he’s having a dilemma over Carmel. She is magical.

There was also a MILF (or GILF) that deserve notable mention. Charmaine Watts from the Greens is a bit of a minx. She has a bit of mischief in her eyes, and she’s a stunner. After discussing ‘silver foxes’ many times, we label this category the ‘silver beaver’, and Charmaine is that.

Now, on to the top blokes. The survey got this so one so wrong. The ladies, I can kind of understand, but the men? The notable people missing from this survey are: Kelvin Davis (Labour), Dion Jelley (NZ First), Peseta Sam Lotu-liga (National) and good old Winston Peters.

Now Kelvin Davis is my Carmel Sepuloni. Whenever we head West, and I see his billboards I get just a little bit hot under the collar. If I were in the Te Tai Tokerau electorate, he’d be my guy. When scanning through though the candidates, I spotted a couple of other notable mentions. I checked out Dion Jelley’s Facebook page – many hot pics of him there. Definitely should have made top four at least.

And Pesata Sam Lotu-liga just has something so warm about his face. How could anyone not fall in love with him?

Winston Peters is one of those love/hate characters who’s been in politics for a long while now. But even if you hate him, how can you deny that he is a silver fox? He’s the Howard Morrison of politics. He’s got charisma, he’s got style and I think he’s got the looks too. If he were a single man, and I were a single lady and he closed his mouth for five minutes, I’d go there. If I were voting for our next Prime Minister solely on looks, it’d be NZ First all the way.

Also have to mention Mahesh Bindra from NZ First for the most impressive tashe. He could almost fit in well here with the other Kenny Rogers lookalikes. Mahesh, you made my morning so much better.

So here are my final verdicts.

For hottest female MP it’s gotta be Sehai Orgad. Despite this being only my opinion I’m guessing she’s missing from the Durex poll purely because people thought her a vision, a mirage, because no politician in NZ could possibly be this hot. So she wins. Go Labour!

For hottest male MP based on pure looks (sorry Kelvin) it’s Simon Bridges. Simon, you look like a smarmy little prick, BUT I must admit, you are a pretty hot man. So he wins. Go National!

The hottest area of MP’s in New Zealand has gotta be Waitakere/Te Tai Tokerau with Paula Bennett, Carmel Sepuloni and Kelvin Davis (I combined electorates a little - made sense really). Number two is Auckland Central. With Nikki Kaye and Jacinda Adern - the two top picks from Durex. Number three is Tauranga, with good old Winston Peters and favourite Simon Bridges. Note that there is only one MP representing all of the South Island. You hang in there Bill!

Now we’ve reached the most important part of all – the hottest political party in New Zealand. I worked this out by allocating points to each party based on the selected MP's and ranked them based on ‘official’ ranking as well as my personal ranking.

There was a clear overall winner, which was National. Not too far behind in second, was Labour. A surprising third place goes to NZ First – a bunch of pretty good looking blokes in that party, and the Greens were worth mentioning with their 'silver beaver'. There are little to no attractive politicians to be found in any of the other parties I looked at. Kudos to Democrats for Social credit and Mana party – there were a few people that nearly made it to my final list. And Dr Pita Sharples from Maori has made the Durex list before - we can't forget that. Well done all.

So if you are choosing to vote based solely on hot politicians, vote National in the 2011 election. Don’t vote for Act.

On being silly

So I haven’t written a blog post in ages because I’ve been slack, so I thought I’d better write something. The only thing which inspired me today was my horoscope. Not the bloody RWC results, the coming election, the Rena disaster or the Occupy movement because today I have a headache, and those things are far too hard to fathom.

Here is my horoscope for today:

You haven't been celebrating life to the hilt. It's the little details that turn an ordinary scene into a party. If you haven't already, this is the perfect day to go looking for the mother of all pumpkins.

Now if I was in Dave Gorman’s Important Astrological Experiment, I would probably take this advice on board and go and find a giant pumpkin. But I am not, and I am under the weather so can’t be bothered finding a pumpkin. And given my propensity for celebrating small things, I think a more appropriate horoscope for me today would be:

You need to stop dwelling on winning the trophies you have created and maybe do something useful for a change, like seeing a dentist or getting a haircut like your flatmate Sam. Hannah, you have a mullet.

Now I don’t think I should stop celebrating small things. I think it’s a very important part of life. I was talking about it with one of my regular customers at work yesterday and we agreed that most grown-ups have forgotten what it’s like to be properly silly. I don’t mean drunken karaoke silly. I mean fall-on-your arse-when-you’re-not-drunk silly. I’m pretty good at both of these kinds of silly. And watching large amounts of It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia has kind of inspired me to be more silly more often.

I think that grown-ups with kids understand silliness a little better than people without kids. That’s mostly because children say and do ridiculous things all the time. Kids are, by nature, a bit ridiculous. The only problem being that when you HAVE kids, you tend to monitor your silly better because you have to set ‘an example’. Because I don’t have kids, and I’m silly, I am not the best when there are kids are around. I encourage them to be a bit silly, and kids being kids, have more energy for silliness than me. They out silly me, and then they get in trouble. And it really is my fault, not theirs – I don’t know how to put proper boundaries around silliness, and kids are still learning boundaries themselves, so it becomes utter chaos.

As grown-ups I think we all need to be a bit silly. Parents included. Sure, we need to do some grown up things, maybe have some financial stability, goals, be nice to people, blah blah blah, but there is always room for being silly. Here are some examples of simple ways of injecting a little silly into your life:

1. Buy a big bouncy ball from the $2 shop. See how far you can kick it. This helps you to ‘press play’, be silly and meet your neighbours!

2. Pull faces at small children that stare at you in malls, buses, parks, anywhere really. Just not a scary face. In lieu of this (if you don’t know how scary your face is), smile at small children.

3. Buy some bubble mixture. Blow bubbles in a crowded public place. This makes everyone happy.

4. Play ‘$2-$3 Challenge’ with some friends at a $2 shop, emporium, The Warehouse or K Mart.Try and buy the most awesome thing you can find. You vote afterwards and can’t vote for your own thing. And play with all the things.

5. Build a hut in your living room. Probably best to do this with household objects, not sticks and leaves. That’s a little too silly.

If you need a slightly sillier challenge, try one of these ones on for size:

1. Decide on a competition of some kind (gross food eating, cup cake decorating, four square tournament etc). Invite your friends. Make a trophy. Try really hard to win the trophy but don’t break anyone’s legs or stuff whilst doing so.

2. Create a ‘local park challenge’. Go with your friends to a local park. Design some kind of confidence course on it then time trial everyone over the course.

3. Go out to a café/supermarket in your pyjamas or some awesome dress up gears. Smile at anyone who looks at you. Make some new friends.

I encourage everyone to get their silly on. And make trophies. Then you can get a trophy cabinet and look important. Being silly is important. But so is not having a mullet.