Vote Saxon

We have had two celebrations here in Auckland recently. Firstly, it was the Auckland anniversary, which saw the harbour replete with seafood festivals, drinking, buskers, drinking and boating. There was three days worth of that, and I was quite impressed by how well the council did to set it all in motion. And had sufficient manpower to clean up the vomit from this deadly combination.

Secondly, there was Waitangi Day. I wasn't completely up to speed on the Waitangi Treaty but I've since read up and it seems that despite it being in existence for over 150 years, it has never been ratified, mainly as the Maoris got stiffed on the deal.

They're really quite relaxed about legal stuff, the Kiwis, but I'm sure they'll get round to it some time after watching the rugby.
Anyway, Waitangi Day fell on a weekend this year so despite that fact that everybody was upset that there was no day off, all were united in their hatred for the cafes and restaurants who were permitted to throw on a 15% holiday surcharge to add to the misery.
The two things that struck me about the day were the quality of the local festivities and the flag debate.

The local festivities for us took place down near the beach and (to paraphrase the missus) made the Craggy Island fair in Father Ted look like Cirque De Soleil. It was really, really awful. Mediocre grub, bad bands and thrilling rides that would be hard pushed to scare an Amish with a nervous heart flutter. The only good thing about it was the amount of Maori speech I heard. It's a remarkable language that when you hear it reminds you of a beautiful, lilting song. When you see it written down, though, it is something else entirely. It looks like the alphabet has just vomited.

The flag debate has been an interesting thing in that there has been pressure for the Tino Rangatiratanga (see what I mean?) flag to be displayed alongside (or sometmes instead of) the NZ flag. As an outsider, I don't know enough about it to make a decision, but if it was down to me I'd stick it to a public vote to either keep one of the existing flags or design a new flag incorporating both elements. While both exist in competition there is going to be grief. I doubt that will happen though as it is far too sensible.
There was also some fierce debate about who have the right to celebrate anyway. Some of the Maori rightly see the later settlers as immigrants. I can see their point as they only showed up a few hundred years ago with a bottle of Scotch, a firearm and promises of a great future together. A few years down the line and it all gets one sided and there are tears, bloodshed and a flurry of sexual diseases. Actually, this sounds like a few of my early relationships. I'll move swiftly along...
Being about as Anglo Saxon as it gets with my fair skin and lack of moles, I know that my lot have pretty much taken over every country at one time or another, mostly at three o'clock in the morning and using the "seduction" technique described above. We're naturally very good at nation theft and I can't visit Wales without wanting to cleanse half of the country with fire and enslave the remainder. I'm fairly sure everyone feels that way about the Welsh, though.
The Maori themselves aren't actually native to NZ either, having arrived here from Polynesia around 700-2000 years ago, so that has added fuel to the fire about who should be claiming the land. However, if we're going on that rule, then the Celts were in Britain before the Anglo Saxons built the place up, so by squatters rights we should let the dirt worshipping heathens from Cardiff run the place. What a nightmare that would be. It would be a like a chimp's tea party only with unibrows, leeks and severe genetic mutation.

Finally, these festivities have been able to quash the belief I held that, like the filthy Welsh, the people of New Zealand are a nation of sheep shaggers.
It's rubbish. From what I understand they rarely get to third base with their livestock.