One of the more thankless jobs in Parliament is the father bear of the grizzlies, otherwise known as The Speaker.

Not too long ago they used to wear irritating, prickly horsehair wigs, draped around their head and flowing on to their shoulders, which probably accounted for their ill temper as they called the unruly rabble to order.

It's thankless because once they take the role then they're considered divorced from their party and are meant to dish out their orders in a non partisan way. They're not allowed to show fear nor favour when it comes to discipline and hiffing someone out of the bear pit.

One of the leading dancing bears is Luigi Peters who's always in the thick of it, daily performing to the public galleries surrounding the pit. The crack of the whip from The Speaker's chair generally falls on deaf ears which has nothing to do with his 70 years, but rather a delight in defiance.

Yesterday he was clashing with the acerbic Chris Finlayson who was essentially telling Luigi he was barking up the wrong tree. In feigned fury Peters told him he had some dirt he could dump on him unless he watched his Ps and Qs but Finlayson was having none of it, telling him he should stop getting the inspiration for his questions while dining at The Green Parrot late at night.

That particular dining establishment has seen politicians grazing there for generations. Such a regular is Luigi that he's a feature of the crowd in the bar mural on the restaurant's walls.

"Don't get sarcastic with me," Luigi taunted, adding for good measure "If you can't take it, don't dish it out sunshine."

The mere suggestion that he'd mix the pleasure of eating with business lead to an uproar with Speaker David Carter rather unfairly bearing the brunt with some cad yelling out that he was the worst bloody speaker the place had ever had. Whether he's hard of hearing or simply chose to ignore it, the cad can consider himself lucky as he most certainly should have been sent to the sin bin.

But that's the Speaker's lot and in recent days Carter's been caned, being accused of being sexist and of favouring The Tories over other parties. It's the same sort of accusations fired at Speakers for decades.

The only consolation of the job is that usually at the end of it, they're packed off to the London diplomatic circuit for three years of cocktails.

There's got to be a delicious irony in there somewhere!