Former McGillicuddy Serious leader Graeme Cairns now divides his time between penny farthings, medical training and street theatre, and his latest endeavour, "doing pennants," features a bicycle-powered sewing machine.

Graeme founded the McGillicuddy Serious Party - to contest the 1984 election with its campaign plank of the Great Leap Backwards.

It predicted upheaval, chaos and the breakdown of society as we know it and a plan to insulate New Zealand from the worst excesses of the future. 

Despite a defence policy of removing New Zealand from all world maps, its political ambitions came to nought, and Graeme threw in the towel in 2000.

Now known as the ‘Laird of Hamilton’, he is also a musician, a founding member of the Big Muffin Serious Band and an actor.