On Wednesday, to the surprise of hardly anyone, Adrian Dix announced he would be stepping down as leader of the provincial NDP, promising to lend his awkward human interaction skills, cardboard-like public persona and nebbish rigidity to rebuilding his party after it suffered a stunning election loss four months ago. By the way, Nebbish Rigidity is available to all you aspiring indie bands looking for a name.
While Dix was clearly dismayed by his party’s fortunes last May, it also hit the pun-lovers at K&K pretty hard. For light-deprived, overworked, dread-filled journalists, there is no brighter light at the end of the tunnel than puns. Whether it’s to bounce around the office, use in a headline or tell yourself over and over until the tears stop and you finally fall asleep.
Dix and his pun-friendly name represented a gift from God. And for a time it was good. Before the Liberals chose Christy Clark as their queen it looked as if spiky midlife hairdo model Kevin Falcon stood a chance of becoming the premier. Just the thought of potential headlines like “Falcon tears into ...” or, if Falcon was ever given Dix’s order at McDonald’s by mistake (“Falcon eats a bag of ...”), filled us with prepubescent glee.
Even after the Liberals went with Clark over Falcon, we felt we had enough material to work with heading into the provincial election.
As previously mentioned in an older K&K post, we were prepared for anything. If David Eby defeated Clark in the riding of Vancouver Point Grey (which he did), we were ready to employ “Eby does it does” or “Nice and Eby.” We also kept “Eby rider” in our holster for any bike route-related announcements, and on the off chance Eby got caught hot-boxing the bathroom of the NDP campaign bus, we were ready to unleash “Eby bake oven.”
We also looked forward to using “Dix on Dicks” anytime the NDP leader appeared on Richards Street, “Yo, Adrian. He did it” if he won the election, “Dix shift” if he flipflopped on policy, “Pick up, Dix” for our editorial urging him to be actually interesting, and if he ever met with urban farmers and took a tour of someone’s backyard chicken coop… “Chicks with Dix.”
Even the Liberal’s surprise victory over the NDP permitted us to consider “Christy, almighty,” “Resurrection of the Christy,” “Clark, the herald angels sing” and, it goes without saying, “Clark beats ...”, and you get the rest.
Sadly, that untapped well of puns is now sealed up as Dix retreats from the political spotlight, leaving some blandly named politician to take his place. Cullen? Horgan? Farnsworth? Borrrrrrrrring. B.C. politics, now with less Dix.
