Talk about a modern-day superhero! Inglewood, New Zealand priest Gary Husband which, come to think of it, is a real funny name for a priest you must admit, has volunteered to undertake a Panty Pilgrimage. It seems the town has been knickerless since the local store stopped carrying ladies’ underwear over a year ago. Apparently, neither the internet nor the Sears catalogue are available in this remote corner of Kiwilandia either, which of course makes the crisis all that much more severe.

The priest organized ad-hoc panty raids to the neighboring settlement of New Plymouth, but now, thanks to the fervent prayers of his parishioners, a regular bus schedule has been organized and paid for by the government.

Council’s operations director Rob Phillips says the Tranzit Coachlines trips will be subsidised for a year “to ensure people were really serious about buying those new knickers – and anything else that might take their fancy”.

That’s contemporary socialism for you. From each according to her ability, to each according to how she feels about the Disney print granny panties they happened to have in stock. But it’s not a trivial issue; no indeed, it could accurately be called seminal, at least once more of the local fellows get involved.

In a world fraught with the threat of terrorism, the very last thing you want to do is turn an entire gender into commandos.