One bronze of ‘Dying Dove’

Five kilos of honey dew

Raft trip on the Hurunui

Jet Boat the Waimak Gorge

Four Copies of ‘Franzi & the Great Terrain Robbery’

So here's how it goes:

The shadow of the key is overlaid with the text; Twenty seconds. The key-hole in the electricity box on the other side of the painting must be held on-screen for twenty seconds before it opens to reveal a young man walking away from a city, and from a handful of cowled men. It is a self portrait painted about thirty years ago when I first left town to live in the country. The close up of the face should reveal that it has blue eyes, although I realise that on some screens this is hard to see.

The exact answer does not lie in the news clip videos but in Bob Dylan's song; Hard rain. The last verse is the most poignant, especially the lines, “I'll know my song well before I start singing,” and “I'll reflect from the mountains so all souls can hear it.” Five times in the song he repeats the refrain, “…my blue eyed son.” And that's the answer. I'm sorry it proved to be so obscure.

However, there were many answers close to the idea, such as: “It is us,” and “It is the people.”

Rebecca Gibbs wins the bronze dove. For the sake of privacy I will refer to the other winners by their first names: Two of you arrived at the correct answer, and both of you are called Rebecca. Esteban, Barry and Rob were either very close or so creative in the process of trying to work it out that they deserve a prize of some kind.

Creating this site was a rather desperate act, I have to admit. But we had somehow to grab the distracted public eye. It is not hard to attract attention, of course, you just have to occupy the unoccupied space and then be appalling. But how to stay within the line of favour long enough to convey your message; that is a trick worth learning.

As far as the present website is concerned, it will not come down. We will rename it 'The Key files,' and add to it every time Key breaks his word to us.

Thank you for taking an interest.

Regards, Sam Mahon

First let me thank you for playing the game, or at least for expressing your interest in the project. There were some very inventive stabs at the answer along the way including this one from Rob T:

“I have looked at it all many times and I don't know if I've figured it out but I think Lockwood Smith pulled the trigger because he would only have promised to resign [with regard to his promise to cancel student fees] if he had in fact believed Key in private. Knowing what he knew, he knew that if his own leader would lie to him in private then the only right thing to do would be to resign because he couldn't come out and say, “Hey, Key lied to me...” just wouldn't be cricket. I believe Smith to be a man of his word. His motive for the murrrderrr is in the fact that he is a healthy active man who may well have spent many more years in parliament had this not happened — and for me — motivation enough. Either that or English's stupidity [taped remarks at a cocktail party regarding the sale of Kiwi Bank] sunk the National parade…”

The answer is metaphorical, of course. Key is a fiction — like most politicians he is woven out of pragmatism, great expectations, and the tawdry fabric of marketing and spin. History, I believe, will be his unraveling, and we will think of him one day in the same way as we think now of Muldoon and Rodger Douglas. The killer is our children, those whom he is incrementally disinheriting.

The Key Files

So here's how it goes: