Comic relief for a wretch of a week
How a free-spirited toddler’s viral video made us realise the importance of acting like no one’s watching.
It’s the walk that kills you. The 4-year-old marching into the room with such a swagger that her head rocked from side to side and she needed to coordinate her elbows just to make sure she could walk straight.
It didn’t matter that her father, Professor Robert E Kelly – an expert on East Asian relations – was doing a serious interview on BBC and tried to swat her aside without even looking.
This toddler had already given the world one of the most iconic and comedic moments of this new century. And gosh, did we need it.
This has been a week when American politics continued its drunken stagger away from a place that makes any sense. The free world can no longer look at the US as its leader and we have to realise that idea has been consigned to 20th century history, alongside cassettes, video tapes and asbestos.
Mind you, maybe those things might make a comeback considering the number of other 20th century delights that are returning . . . such as racism, intolerance and a disdain for the environment.
Meanwhile in New Zealand: toupee or not toupee, that was the question. Probably for the Corrections Department now, the answer will be ‘‘toupee’’, after convicted murderer Phillip Smith argued successfully in the High Court that his hairpiece was an important part of his freedom of self-expression.
Corrections prevented Smith from wearing the toupee after he used it to disguise himself when he fled to Brazil while on temporary release from prison in 2014. Yet according to a judgment released this week, Smith successfully argued that his rights had been breached and he had been humiliated when his baldness was revealed.
Although I’d hope that wasn’t the thing that most people would have been horrified about: I’m pretty sure, it was more the thought of a prisoner doing time for a horrific crime, getting a passport while inside, and then escaping to Brazil.
Also this week, the country’s most beloved comic strip artist was laid to rest and the life of national treasure Murray Ball was celebrated by his friends and family in Gisborne.
Even urban kids, whose closest
‘ The free world can no longer look at the US as its leader – that idea has been consigned to 20th century history.’
experience of anything resembling a farm were the sheep on One Tree Hill, used to read Footrot Flats and love it as something uniquely of our country.
In such a week, thank goodness for the comedy cameo from young Marion Kelly and the innocent exuberance of a walk that turned into a marvellous magical moment.
These days, we’re so snowed under by the weight of ‘‘mustwatch’’ viral videos that news – often just slickly packaged presentations designed to influence how we think, feel or consume – doesn’t seem to make sense anymore.
An unguarded comedic moment such as a 4-year-old swaggering into her dad’s office when he’s busy trying to look cool on TV, is the sort of normal everyday moment that can transcend all that.
And it reminds us that the cool one isn’t the one with the qualifications trying to look serious and important. It’s the free spirit who walks like no one is looking, and just wants to have a good time.