Glob takes a close-up look

In a CV so small even footprints left by an ant dripping in ink would seem large, one honour just about turned my whole empty page around - the editorship of the student newspaper Critic.

This was an honour which seemed destined to fall into my hands unchallenged in the late 1960s. There was a recurring cycle involved, each new editor arrived after a couple of years of devoted service, considerable pages written, and the absence of anyone else. I had put in two years of writing many many pages, not just on my preferred topics of music and sport, but also with compelling features on the legalisation of marijuana, and poetry.

The latter had a full page in each issue, and with the poetry contribution box outside the OUSA office usually empty, I invariably found myself writing much of the poetry for that page. Under many different names and covering a dizzying range of human emotions. It was a skill that serves me excellently now in producing Christmas cracker poems for an extended family of up to 30.

But in the third year, I walked away. Why? Because despite my belief that music, sport, marijuana and poetry was all a student newspaper should contain, there was one more execrable bone-chillingly pointless and sphincterous issue that consumed a tiny but extremely self-important section of the campus - student politics.

It was made clear to me that I would have to continue writing pages of this poppycock, a type of cocked poppy I estimated interested no more than 11 students each year. That many of these 11 went on to become Chris Trotter, Michael Laws, Grant Robertson and a disproportionate number of other famous political thinkers means nothing to me, my interest in student politics was nil.

Nothing has changed. My interest in New Zealand politics is also nil. And yet my current political role is actually vital, for I am a proud and fierce member of the Glob, a huge body of voters that covers the middle of the voting database, populated by, at the bottom, those not terribly smart but allowed to drive cars and buy vegetables without supervision. and, further up the IQ tree, by those who have reached tertiary education but still think Close Up is good television.

Virtually anything can influence this wildly erratic band of voters, the only constant factor being it has to be on telly.

There wasn't anything worth watching on telly for the election this year, so voting was down, the Glob roamed elsewhere. There was no high comedy from a Lange or a Bob Jones, and not even the semblance of a contest, the facile Melbourne Cup aspect of the election which brings the Glob to life every three years. But last week the Glob reappeared to watch the race for the Labour Party leadership.

Naturally it began on Close Up, the three competing Davids allowing the Glob to judge their handling of Mark Sainsbury's searing intellect by paying 75c in a phone poll. The Glob decided David Shearer was their man, partly because Mr Shearer put on quite a good show, but more because the Glob like to think they make their own decisions. The political media had not told them about Shearer, so the Glob were able to discover him all by themselves.

And hey, he was big and a bit funny, hinted he was a little crazy when he was younger, and had survived Somalia. He won the phone poll in a canter. Mr Cunliffe, more impressive despite atypically smiling like a hyena, was a distant second. Mr Parker, capable, clever enough normally, was awful. He pulled out the next day. You can't fool the Glob.

I would like to have had a student newspaper editorship on my CV, but membership and understanding of the Glob is ultimately far more significant. If the Labour caucus can read the Glob, they will have a prime minister for 2014.

• Roy Colbert is a Dunedin writer.