More epic fails . . .
Kiwis are very forthcoming in sharing their favourite failures.
Acouple of weeks ago, I wrote about my favourite flops, fizzers, and cockups, and pondered what these things might tell us about our shortcomings as a species. I also encouraged readers to send in a few favourite failures of their own, which you duly did.
There was, inevitably, a deluge of bile regarding the flag debate, and a smattering of sniping regarding other National Party initiatives.
Christchurch man Derek Palmer wrote eloquently of his frustration regarding the Nats’ recent ‘‘spectacularly inadequate’’ water quality document, which ‘‘seems to take as its benchmark waterways where we might wade in our togs while only sustaining minor chemical burns to our legs’’. Well put, sir.
But politics was not what I was after. I needed more weirdness and ‘‘what were they thinking?’’ moments, and Penny Skyrme delivered. Penny recalled living in Britain during the 80s when a newspaper ad caught her eye regarding ‘‘some smart men’s underpants’’ one could buy via mail order.
‘‘The advertisement described them in all their glory and extolled their wonders, then gave you the choice of materials and styles. There were three options, the third of which was ‘wet-look’. Funny, but I don’t think wet-look underpants ever caught on in a big way.’’
No. I prefer my own jocks to appear dry at all times, and I imagine I’m not alone. And while we’re on the subject of dubious inventions, here’s another.
‘‘One that really made me laugh is The Millennium Clock that was put in the Liffey River in Dublin to commemorate the turn of the century,’’ wrote Maureen Cope of Wellington’s Island Bay.
Ah, yes. As a former resident of that fair city, I remember this, too. A dirty great digital readout was submerged underwater beside one of Dublin’s main bridges, at huge expense. Pedestrians could peer over into the murky depths and see exactly how many minutes remained until what some believed was likely to be the end of the world.
It was locally known as ‘‘the Clock on the Dock’’, recalled Maureen. ‘‘The Irish like to name their landmarks, like the statue of Molly Malone is the Tart with the Cart, and the mermaid in the fountain is the Floozy in the Jacuzzi. Anyway, with the first decent high tide up the river, the clock was washed out to sea, never to be seen again.’’
Actually, no. That was the rumour at the time, but it transpires the council had it lifted out in the dead of night after just three days because the damn thing kept breaking down and displaying random numbers.
It seems swiftly running water and giant electrical clocks are a poor combination. Who knew?
Even during the brief period it was working, the murkiness of the river made the numbers impossible to read, leading to the clock’s other nickname: ‘‘The Time in the Slime’’.
Proving that the international readership of this column continues to grow by leaps and bounds, an email arrived from Australia, concerning a leaping bounder. ‘‘Honourable mention must go to the boffins who introduced the lovely cane toad to our local cane fields in the 1930s,’’ wrote Paul Durham of Maleny in Queensland. Said boffins believed they were solving a problem, wrote Durham, rather than creating one.
‘‘Of course! They will eat all the cane beetles and be good toad citizens afterwards. Now the warty poisonous freeloaders are approaching Sydney and Perth . . . ’’.
Our Australian correspondent has stumbled upon the richest seam of failure in the recent mailbag, because we’ve had an even more impressive run of historical eco-blunders here.
Figuring the place was big enough to absorb whatever we might throw at it, early Pakeha settlers unleashed a host of introduced species that immediately ran rampant.
To brighten up the place with its splendid yellow flowers, we planted gorse as a hedging plant, and now it’s a thorny menace. Early farmers then brought in goats to help control gorse and blackberry, but they went bush.
In Riverton in 1951, we slung a brace of amorous ocker possums into a stand of trees so that we might get a bit of a fur trade off the ground. There are now 50 million of the buggers.
Captain Cook carried pigs over on his ships as a handy porky larder on the hoof, but they too legged it into the trees without a backward glance.
Beset by visions of delicious rabbit casserole, we threw a handful of those into the mix as well, and now there are so many rabbit holes, vast tracts of South Island farmland look like Swiss cheese.
Stoats, ferrets, cats, and weasels were imported in the late 1800s to help control introduced rats and rabbits, and instead gorged on native birds and their eggs.
Introduced in 1851 to give hunters something to chase, deer began buggering the bush without delay. Soon after, hedgehogs were brought over to remind homesick colonists of the gentle hedgerows of Europe, and now prey on native animals when they’re not unsuccessfully trying to cross busy highways.
But the most environmentally disastrous creature who ever lived is undoubtedly the human being, the only species that persistently and knowingly destroys its own nest. If it’s an epic fail you’re looking for, look no further.