Bring In The Boat Pirates

Amongst all the shit and giggles that has been the rugby world cup there is the small matter of an environmental disaster happening off the coast of Tauranga.

You’ve probably heard about it. It has been the lead news story everywhere except that is for this weekend when the semi finals of said ‘world’ cup took precedence. Perhaps nothing washed ashore those days.

In a remarkable segue that somehow made the fact that no one was giving a shit about the oil spill today almost okay, both 6pm news programs had touching stories about how the cleanup workers from both NZ and Australia would down tools that evening and watch the rugby together, putting aside their common goal for just a bit. Good times.

I guess when you’re doing a job like that there has to be some escape from the drudgery of it all. I wouldn’t do a job like that because I am inherently lazy so I admire all those people who’ve put on the white overalls and mucked in. Especially seeing as we’re supposed to be holidaying there in the New Year...

Now I’m no seaman, my service was all on land, if you could call the giant rice paddy that was Vietnam ‘land’, so I don’t know a lot about boats and steering the fuckers but it does seem odd to me that amongst that entire ocean the Philippine Captain managed to find the one sandbar for miles.

And then I read that it was his birthday that particular day. What do sailors do on their birthdays if at sea, other than try and drop anchor in each others poo bay? Drink. Like the fish they’re surrounded by.

But being the ideas man that I am I have a solution to stop these things from happening again and it can be best encapsulated in word: Somali boat pirates.

We could get a bunch of them to run the gauntlet between sand bars and the like so that even the most pished of Captains stays away from the bloody things. What’s more, I know where to find some; in my old hood, Naenae.

I happened to visit them mean streets the other day whilst picking up something and with all the flags on vans proliferating the place I thought I was in downtown Mogadishu and hey I would know, I’ve seen Black Hawk Down like three times.

All jokes aside it was a bit sad to see the old haunt in such bad disarray. I can’t pretend that it was Beverly Hills back in the day but it was a neighborhood that by in large was filled with people who took pride in their properties and cars etc. As kids we never really understood just how much of a difference that made to the place.

Not that keeping up with The Joneses is what life is about, not by a long shot, but it says a lot about the community when people are motivated and comfortable with their environment to spend their weekends in the garden or washing the car.

It’s that same sense of community that gets those same people out on the beach cleaning up the oil spill that could have been prevented if we had Somali boat pirates patrolling the coastline.

I rest my case.

The Naenae Massive, ready to represent.