It was such a relief to be told at the recent media conference that journalists should be vigorous and report freely to inform the people.
As long as it doesn't fuel racial division, nor threaten peace and order or damage our economy and people's jobs.
So you aren't going to hear me call those in high earning posts of financial responsibility 'banksters' like I heard on BBC; and I will continue to refrain from unseemly violence and racial slurs on the understanding that the Head of Household is just an ordinary, common or garden swine for staying out all weekend and it's not because of his ancestry, although I did hear his granddad was a bit of a lad.
But now I feel I can report on a discussion in the pharmacy last week.
We older citizens tend to gather in places such as doctors' waiting rooms and chemist shops more often than in luxury goods outlets or sports stores.
Many don't even get the goss from taxi drivers any more since the fares went up and the pension went down.
These people in the pharmacy were discussing the excitement of the forthcoming elections and the opportunity it gave to grant their support only to political parties that would put their needs into the party manifesto.
A strident voice demanded to know whether any responsible party was going to eliminate the Land Transport Authority because it contributed nothing.
There was some suspicion that the voice didn't belong to anyone old enough to have an opinion, but now the vote is going to go to 18 year olds, what can you say?
The voice claimed the LTA should be turning over the money it made from licensing and fining drivers to helping fix the roads.
This was on the grounds that the poor condition of the roads was the cause of most of the damage to vehicles that the LTA then fined for defects and refused to license without hideously expensive repairs and endless trouble.
The voice was clearly a person who had damaged a parent's car in that huge pothole on Grantham Rd and was rightly nudged aside by older and more imperative tones.
There was a strong lobby for a party that would put restoring the FNPF pension - the pension that was financially impossible even before the multi-millions went to Air Pacific - on the top of the list.
That provoked a hubbub among the bulk vitamins and regularity pills, I can tell you.
One of the grey brigade, being older and wiser, explained it was no good wittering on about the pension in a submission to the Constitution Commission.
The commission was working on the broader principles, which in this case would involve a snappy clause about not breaking the social contract.
After preventing any anti-decree discussion about breaking the law, arms, legs and heads, the old folk got on to the state of the environment.
Many ageing persons have developed over their lifetime a deep concern for the environment, especially the one they see on their doctor-advised daily walks.
The current bout of mangrove-wrecking around Suva came in for a lot of distressed comment even though some people liked the idea of having evicted belo birds going to bed in their gardens.
Lots of older persons who hate exercise and would rather use their walking stick for a bout of tae kwan do with their health professional than for a stroll, still do swimming and even snorkelling.
It did their blood pressure no good at all to bring up the topic of the walled off beach at Deuba, even though the security guard there is extremely polite and kind when he explains that it is now private property.
The Green Party was believed to be taking up that matter, a member of the grey brigade reported.
What Green Party? Aah, the one he was signing up to if they agreed to all his conditions.
A mature feminist - the sort you have to watch because they are now old enough to be outliving much of the male population so they know they are better, said she would only join if there were going to be at least 50 per cent of women on the political candidate nomination committee so that women had a shot at getting picked.
The Green Party man looked ever so slightly harrassed and said there was no question about that.
He was in a serious minority - most of the party members so far were women.
It looks like being an exciting moment in Fiji politics, with grey and green being the new black, as they say in the feminista fashion world.
* Seona Smiles is a frequent writer and Opinionist to The Fiji Times. The views are hers and not of this newspaper.