Happy Waitangi Day

[Cornfed]

It is the anniversary of the symbolic founding of the New Zealand nation. I could be attending the ceremonies right now, but I’m not because they are silly and boring. However, it does bring back interesting memories of when I attended them in the past.

When I was a young teenager there was a big to-do about the 150th year anniversary, so I was brought to the celebrations by my older brother. I remember walking across the Waitangi bridge through an open formation of riotpigs with an average height of 6’5”. Unlike on other occasions the government then were determined that no-one was going to rain on their parade, and when they want to stop trouble, believe me they can. We watched the goings on while drinking some beers in a waterfront pub, with my brother instructing me that if a cop came around I should gulp down my class, invert it and say what I was drinking was coke. Good times.

Then there was just a few years ago where I attended with a couple of friends and we stumbled though a security barrier and literally almost bumped into the Prime Minister. She had about 10 seemingly random cops wandering around with her. Asian tourists kept asking who she was. I didn’t have my phone, but my friend got a selfie with her. Only in NZ.