I know your face but just can’t pinpoint your name . . .

‘‘OSWALD Montgomery Gentle, you are charged with assault with an offensive weapon, namely one large butternut pumpkin. How do you plead?’’

‘‘Not guilty, sir.’’

‘‘Mr Fairplay, I understand you appear for the defendant?’’

‘‘Yes, sir. It is my intention to show the court that my client was provoked beyond human endurance in this pumpkin matter and that he should never have been charged with what is regarded as a serious misdemeanour. Mr Gentle, would you be so kind as to tell the court what happened on the

3rd of May at the Grocery Grab Supermarket?’’

‘‘I’ll do my best but I apologise if I become a little emotional in having to recall the events of that horrible day.’’

‘‘Of course, Mr Gentle. I am sure the court will understand.’’

‘‘Well, I don’t usually go to supermarkets but on that particular day my neighbour, an elderly woman housebound by her legs, asked me to pick up a pumpkin for her when I was in town. I proceeded to the Grocery Grab Supermarket and purchased for $4.99 one large whole butternut pumpkin which came wrapped in several layers of plastic and carrying a label signifying it was New Zealandgrown. As I was about to leave the checkout, having replied to the assistant’s kind inquiry as to how my day was going so far, I was approached by a large gentleman wearing a badge indicating that he was a security consultant. He ushered me into a side room containing several banks of screens and told me the facial recognition machine had picked me out as a recidivist shop lifter, Walter Grimace, wellknown to the Grocery Grab organisation. I protested most strongly, showing my receipt and offering to produce my driver’s licence as proof client to the facts of this case. Not hearsay about others involved in the matter.’’

‘‘Of course, sir. I apologise. My client is under some stress, never having appeared in court before and having a young wife and four children to support.’’

‘‘Get on with it!’’

‘‘What happened next, Mr Gentle?’’ ‘‘I rose to leave but Mr Bluffery told me to wait just a moment and looked at some of the screens on the wall. He then grasped me painfully by the forearm and insisted that I was Carlos Mendoza, the prime suspect in the Barcelona bombings of some months ago. He insisted that his facial recognition system was quite precise in such matters. I protested most strongly and denied ever having been in Spain. In fact, I could prove that at the time of the bomb outrage I was undergoing treatment in Dunedin Hospital for my veins. I pointed out that if the hospital could find the records, my innocence would be proven. Mr Bluffery then examined several other screens, still gripping me tightly, and announced that Screen 115 showed that I was an ISIS agent recently involved in a knife attack on innocent bystanders in Paris and that he was about to call the police. I reminded him that the suspect in the Paris incident was a short, darkskinned man with a large moustache and a wooden leg. I, as the court can see, am tall, fairskinned, cleanshaven and the possessor of two natural legs. Mr Bluffery’s shoulders sagged a little and he finally told me I could go and take my pumpkin with me. However, as I approached the exit he rushed up to me and cried out that the facial recognition machine had identified me as Helmut von Gruber, the last of the Nazi war criminals wanted by Interpol for atrocities in Germany during World War 2. It was then that I hit him over the head with the pumpkin.’’

‘‘That, sir, is the case for the defendant.’’

‘‘Thank you, Mr Playfair. It seems to me that there may be a slight element of doubt in this case. All the same, your client resorted to violence with a vegetable and that is something I see far too much of in this court. However, given the level of provocation, I am prepared to pass a judgement of not guilty and your client may leave this court without a stain, apart from the pumpkin juice on his trousers. I must admit though, to some mystification in this matter. Why did the pumpkin cost $4.99? I see them for sale at a stall near my estate on the Taieri for just $1.’’

‘‘I’m afraid I can’t help you there, sir. It would seem to be a question answerable only by Grocery Grab, the Fair Trading Act or God.’’