‘Twas the night before Hagermas, and all through the motu
Folks posted their reckons, some random, some thought through;
The liveblogs were hung on the news-sites with care,
In hopes that our Nicholas soon would be there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Bluesky crowd nestled all snug in their bubble
And dreamed of the TPU getting in trouble;
While Unity Booksellers laid out the seating,
Preparing for crowds at the book-launching meeting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then out on the street there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the curtains and opened the sash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The streetlights were shining and down on the road,
A van had skid-spun around, spilling its load
Then what to my wondering eyes did appear,
But a bright eager man with some tiny rein-deer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He set to reloading with movements so quick,
I knew then and there that he must be our Nick.
His boxes of books had been tossed all about,
So he set his fine coursers to work with a shout:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Now, Tipster! now, Finder! now Searcher and Sneaker!
On, Ethics! on, Standards! on, Rawshark and Leaker!
Restack this book load, put the carriage to wheel!
We must be on time for our cover reveal!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a magical flurry the coursers set to,
Leaving books neatly stacked looking creaseless and new,
And the heavy van righted, quite ready to drive,
Now I knew the new Nicky would safely arrive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hager spoke not a word, but went hard to his work,
And surveilled the vehicle; then turned with a jerk,
And laying his finger to rest on his lips,
He fixed his eyes on me, and silenced my quips.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then he sprang to his van, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like a deer-guided missile.
But I heard him exclaim, ere he raced out of sight\u2014
\u201cMerry Hagermas all, and to all a good night!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
[International friends: Nicky Hager is an independent journalist down here in Aotearoa who likes to drop a book of explosive revelations on the eve of an election. As is traditional, no-one has any idea what tomorrow’s book will be about.]<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" ‘Twas the night before Hagermas, and all through the motuFolks posted their reckons, some random, some thought through;The liveblogs were hung on the news-sites with care,In hopes that our Nicholas soon would be there. The Bluesky crowd nestled all snug in their bubbleAnd dreamed of the TPU getting in trouble;While Unity Booksellers laid out the … Continue reading A visit from Nicky<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":8152,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[10],"tags":[222],"class_list":["post-8151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-everything-political","tag-nonsense"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8D9ZE-27t","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/795486816_10163062096421899_9065987800482276753_n.jpg?fit=1080%2C506&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8151"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8151\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8153,"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8151\/revisions\/8153"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}