Echidnas at Twenty Paces

I contacted my tech support in a positive frenzy of excitement.


"Guys, guys.  Great news!"


They responded with a negative frenzy of indifference.



"What, did somebody read your blog?  Or have you visited another damn light rail station?"


"No, well yes, to both actually.  But this is better!  I've got another correspondent!"


"How did you get another correspondent?  That means you have almost as many correspondents as you have readers."


How did I get another correspondent?  Ah well that is a long and complicated story.  Actually its short and quite simple but I have a blog to promote.


As you may know I am employed by a top rank law firm in my home country.  The term "employed" is a mutually agreed upon fiction to provide a justification for the fact that they pay me.  I have worked for them for several decades (the term "worked" is a mutually agreed upon fiction etc etc).  Until recently my immediate manager has been a tall New Zealander who used to play semi professional soccer but still refused to turn out for our corporate team.


Recently this gentleman approached his superiors and spake thusly unto them.

"My heart yearns for my homeland.  For too long I have been distant from my native shores.  I have sojourned far and learnt much and now I must return home to impart the wisdom I have gained and where my father in law has a business doing something slightly dubious to baby cows."


His superiors laughed and said,

"Go then turncoat and never darken our door again for this day has been prepared for.  Behold your replacement!  She is ready and eager to fill your shoes."


And my manager gazed upon her and said,

"You do know she's about eight months pregnant right?"


And his superiors responded,

"Oh crap!  What are you doing in a few months time?  Can you cover for her?"


Eventually agreement was reached that he would indeed cover for her if he could do so by remote control from a cattle pestering facility somewhere in New Zealand.  So my Once and Future Boss is currently buried in rural New Zealand.  Well he's in Wellington actually but I've been there and it is at least semi-rural.  In between raising his child and warding off the authorities trying to investigate exactly what his father in law is doing to those calves he will be managing us while our current manager is on maternity leave. 


To ease the mind crushing boredom of living in New Zealand he has been sending me and my Tasmanian correspondent photos of various parts of New Zealand complete with the remnants of now collapsed buildings.  Whether he's touting for their tourism industry or highlighting a lack of affordable social housing is uncertain but there was one definite result.


Stung by the appearance of a rival apparently challenging for her position my Tasmanian correspondent leapt into action.  Plunging into the bush she dragged an echidna out of its hole and forced it to pose for an increasingly humiliating series of photos and sent the results to me as proof she was doing her job.  I'd like to post the photos but legal advice has warned me that some of them are illegal and at least one is physically impossible.


My new Eastern Territories correspondent responded immediately trumping her with a tumbledown farmhouse and tales of deer wandering past which made her echidna look small, spiky and insignificant.  She stomped off threatening revenge.  I'm hoping to manipulate this latent rivalry into a white hot hatred and mine the ensuing conflict for blog material.  So far it seems to be working, echidnas and deer are being hurled back and forth across the Tasman and the last I saw my correspondents they were engaged in building various forms of siege artillery.


I will bring you further news of the incipient war between New Zealand and Tasmania as it comes to hand.