I tried, I promise you I did, but I must be thick because I got nowhere. The first page and a half of the Herald this morning are taken over by the latest in the never ending Treaty saga. A ’news’ bit and then Rudman who I foolishly read despite previous oaths on a stack of bibles that I would desist. The only bit of this I understand is why this Treaty business is a never ending saga. I’m even confused as to who is who and has jurisdiction over what. It is almost Abbot and Costelloesque in its serpiginous intricacy. ‘Who’s on first’ etc. This will never end and I suspect the people (lawyers) who are making the sort of decision that came out yesterday don’t want it to – they have families to feed. The settlement of a claim over some of Auckland’s cones with one iwi would be ‘unsafe’ (bloody OSH to blame again – is Mount Eden going to fall on a passer by?) because it does not take into account other iwis. That I sort of get my head around. Now it get’s complicated. Claims can only take into account matters pertaining to events after 1840 when the Treaty was signed. It is accepted that the iwi (Ngati Orakei I think) being turned down were the dominant players in the area concerned after that date. But the doges then say that history did not start in 1840 (you can see why lawyers get paid so much if they can think of that all by themselves) and so other claims must be taken into consideration. Too hard for me.
Then Rudman wades in. Typical of hand wringing pakeha when talking of affairs Maori he starts dropping Te Rao into his prose. This puts me off to start with. If you ring my place of employment and the phones are busy you get a thick Solihull accent whining ‘Kiaora and welcome to…..’ at you down the blower. I have lost count of the number of handsets I have deposited diced carrots over in the past ten years. Rudman bleats on about submissions to have maunga listed as World Heritage sites, mana and other things I suspect he understands about as well as I do – i.e. not at all. I give up and I suppose I shall just have to write off a few squillion dollars per annum of my tax take as fuel for the bottomless pit that is the Treaty Industry.
A couple of nutters make the rag this morning - Field Marshall/Air Commodore/Admiral Bananarama and Gordon Copeland. That the military gent is barking is beyond argument and Copeland adds to that affliction a large dose of naivety. Our Gordon wants to be half pregnant. ‘I want to be regarded as the 49th National MP’. Fine. ‘But I will vote for the Government on matters of Supply’ Eh? If you so want to be in National’s tent go the whole hog and do your bit to bring the pack of ratbags that occupy the treasury benches down. You cannot be both fish and fowl.
Which brings us nicely to the best bit of the paper this morning. Prehistoric birds. They have found in a valley in China the fossils of bits of the largest bird ever to wander the planet - there is a valley somewhere in China that contains anything you would care to find. I give you, ladies and gents, the Gigantoraptor. He was eight meters long and weighed fourteen hundred kilos. Or, to put it in language that is easier to understand, was a Tegel’s Size 2658. The artist’s impression of him is a bit disappointing I'm afraid. He looks a bit like your standard flesh eating dinosaur to which they have attached a beak after pulling out his teeth. They have then, rather unconvincingly, stuck a few feathers on his arms. A sort of pantomime prehistoric bird if you ask me. Still, he looks fierce enough and perfectly capable of snacking on a couple of Moa without any trouble. However the real gem of the story is not the Gigantoraptor. Oh no. The real star is the bird he took over from as the World’s Largest Ever Bird. This avian heavyweight (well welterweight now, I suppose) is resplendent in the name of Stirton’s Thunder Bird. Now how good is that for a name? I want one. I will be straight down to the pet shop in Archers Road after work and will hail the Michael Palin look alike behind the counter ‘Miss. I wish to purchase a Stirton’s Thunder Bird’
I think I might be thirty five years late – it’s been done before.
No comments:
Post a Comment