ENJOYABLE IRRATIONALITY

Two days ago I mentioned an inane letter in last week’s Listener from a John Watkins of Greenlane.

Well bugger me, last evening, reading this week’s newly arrived Listener I found they’d led with another Watkins mad missive, hugely surpassing in irrationality his previous effort. I suspect the editor is taking the piss in publishing Watkins to cheer everyone up. Anyway, this latest letter revealed him as a printing tradesman, probably now retired.

The guts of it was to point up the evil consequences of the 1991 reform ending compulsory unionism. This John described as “a vicious attack on our rights as workers” (I’m not making this up). Claiming the freedom to do or not do something formerly forced on everybody, as a vicious attack… etc takes an extreme degree of irrationality.

As I mentioned last week, beyond doubt John would be a push-over to sell him the Auckland harbour bridge, perhaps on drip-feed of say $10 weekly.

He brings back amusing memories of the Social Credit Party’s heyday, its membership riddled with retired elderly mad men living alone in remote country towns, their wives having long since fled to the sanctuary of their married daughters’ distant homes. They wasted their remaining years pumping out letters to the editor and conspiracy-filled hare-brain pamphlets on mad monetary theories.

John should weigh up his options. There’s a whiff of the line-dancer about him and if indeed he fits the bill and the wife has indeed long fled, who knows, he could meet a new Mrs Watkins in pursuing this activity. Perhaps a round of Viagra to get things up and started and he could embrace the numerous opportunities life offers in pleasurable pursuits, rather than making a damn fool of himself writing nonsense.