FLAT EARTH SCHISM RESOLVED

Amidst all of the coronavirus gloom it’s great to report some good news.

Showing the initiative his job entails, Parliament’s Speaker and noted flat earther Trevor Mallard, virtually single-handed, last Sunday resolved the schism that had split this necessary truth-seeking movement.

It will be recalled that the New Zealand Flat Earth Society presided over by Wellington QC Hugh Rennie, had become involved in a bitter showdown with well-known Lower Hutt lawyer David Butler, President of the rival Aotearoa Flat Earth Organisation.

Trevor took control and ordered a conference last Sunday to resolve the dispute, which despite its short notice pulled 135 flat-earthers from across the country into the capital.

He brought along Conservation Minister Eugene Sage who spoke movingly in a short opening address about her Department’s efforts to stamp out what she described as spherism.

Trevor then declared both organisations were now terminated and a new one, to be temporarily presided over by Police Minister Stuart Nash pending its first AGM elections, would incorporate the two. Stuart was an inspired choice as he’s very active in the Hawkes Bay flat earth movement.

Stuart then announced the new body would help promote Hugh’s soon to be published book proving the flat earth case, this it will be recalled lying at the root of the dispute.

But additionally, he declared, the new national body would publish Butler’s newly completed book, the result of a decade’s scholarship, proving the 1066 Norman invasion was a hoax and never actually occurred.

The happiness these developments induced was further enhanced when Hugh, wearing a cowboy hat and with his trusted guitar in hand, took the stage and movingly delivered two Patsy Clyne ballads. Encore demands saw him then break into a foot-stomping, snarling rendition of “Jailhouse Rock”

Not to be outdone, Butler emerged clad in skin-tight pink plastic armed with his ukulele and delicately prancing amid the assembly, delivered in a high falsetto, “Tiptoe through the tulips”. I’ve seen him render this before at his firm’s staff functions, but one never tires of it.

It certainly went down a treat with two Karangahape Road branch members named Sebastian and Damian, both rather heavy on the mascara. I left the three in deep conversation and seemingly getting on rather well as I had a dinner party to go to.

As I left the venue I could hear the dulcet tones of Hugh again, this time delivering “the Green, green grass of home” All in all, a happy outcome.