Cavorting with nature…

and occasionally blowing it out of the sky

Welcome to the first real winter edition of RR, which this week is notable for its brutality. There's nothing particularly sharing and caring about this column.

This is because I have been far too busy annoying poms, enraging Maori activists and shooting vast amounts of deadly steel at innocent animals, cute little ducks and generally behaving as a good redneck should.
But, hey, that's why you like this column, right? I'd never considered myself a redneck until being bestowed the title last week by some left wing commie losers. And I have to say – that it's a proud moment to be finally given a qualification in life, apart from my infamous 25 yards freestyle swimming certificate.
I'm hoping to get a gun rack installed in the Sun I-Cars, just to prove the point. The Micra will look good with a set of steer horns bolted to the bonnet.
Of course my support of the arts and sponsorship of the Symphonia doesn't really fit the new image and threatens to undermine my Redneck status, so we'll just try to keep those things quiet.
The whole swan shoot saga changes up a gear this week, with our food columnist and self-confessed precision German game-flushing pointer, Ady, somehow getting herself embroiled in a hot debate between the bay's hunting fraternity and the nature-loving greenie pooh-stirrer brigade.
She's ruffled so many feathers this week that one of the swan huggers has even sent a death threat. Now, even my old ‘Diesel' Labrador in his day managed to wind up a few people, but I never recall him getting death mail. Weird, how people so focused on peace and love to all animals think that it's appropriate to threaten to kill a cute little puppy.
Strange, also, since Ady and her faithful bloke companion don't even shoot swans. Well not yet, anyway. But recent developments suggest they may be about to take it up! If only for the satisfaction of winding up the whingers.

'It's not a laughing matter,” according to some of the socks in sandals and cardie brigade.*

Well I have news for you – Everything here at the Sun is a laughing matter. That's what makes us so much more interesting than the rest. A paper with heart and soul, as long as it doesn't mean we have to be nice for the sake of it.
Don't feel singled out: We endeavour to make fun of everyone. Don't think you are so darned special that we won't take the mickey. There are no sacred cows in The Weekend Sun. And if there were, we'd probably shoot them too. Mmmm, beef…
Redneck roots
So getting back to the Redneck label. I guess young Brian (or 'Trigger” as his outrageous young colleagues called him) showed signs of redneckness at an early age. The first kill was a bucket of cockles off the coast of Te Puru on the Thames Coast at the family bach. That apparently fuelled the bloodlust and from there it was an easy step to brutally taking the lives of fish. Trigger skipped the stage of pulling the wings off flies, but did manage to fit in a little ant-frying with a magnifying glass.
From there it was a logical progression to home-made bows and arrows directed at unsuspecting rabbits, pukekos, eels and slow, white Judea children. When the arrows ran out, a handy lump of 4x2 was successfully used against a rabbit. It didn't hit the rabbit, but the shock of having a high velocity plank of pinus radiata landing nearby was enough to shock the animal to death.
Let it be known, that this was the first real death that should be attributed to planking; circa 1968. Trigger Rogers still has the skin. (True story).
No mercy
There followed a virtual serial massacre of living things; there was no end to the bloodletting of defenceless animals. Flounder were netted and speared. Even the orphans. Snapper were relentlessly reeled in, sometimes two at time – mass murder, we hear the greenies screaming.
Mussels were prised from their family groups, distraught and wantonly thrown into a fish bin and later callously steamed, their shells ripped off, after a quick sautee in cheap white wine. Okay, so some of the wine was not that cheap. But blame my wife for that.
Then came the spearfishing diving phase. A grotesque and brutal time of this redneck's life when no fish or shellfish species was spared the deathly shaft of cold steel. Paua wrenched from their rocky homes; crayfish dragged from seemingly safe crevices and John Dory's lives ended with a look of shock on their fishy faces.
Scallops were slaughtered by the dozen. Well actually, in their twenties. (Because although a rampant redneck by this stage, Trigger was careful and considerate for the sustainability of the fishery and holds great regard for the bag limits and regulations). Some were devoured fresh, still twitching, by a bloodthirsty hunter/gatherer, intent on turning any wildlife in his path into the next meal.
Lately, the spiralling redneck behaviour has stretched to not only redblooded animals; but to plants, formerly believed to be safe from the ravages of the hunter/gatherer. Sometimes even parsley was plucked and shredded, treated purely as a garnish, for the sheer thrill of the kill. Nothing was safe. Even mushrooms, living the quiet life in the darkness and being fed press releases from local authorities, were not immune to the unscrupulous slaughter.
The latest species to fall victim are the micro greens. We can hear them screaming now, as they are plucked and snipped unmercilessly from their pots.
Where will the slaughter end?
(Possibly to be continued, unless something more interesting pops up in the next week).
*We don't know for sure if they wear socks under their sandals and cardigans, but why ruin a perfectly good stereotype with facts?