Brian Rogers Rogers Rabbits www.sunlive.co.nz

It's that time of the year again when we again make effigies of some guy, tie him to a stake and set fire to him, while igniting vast amounts of gunpowder-fuelled fireworks.
And that's only the protests against sale of national assets. The real fun starts with Guy Fawkes' night. At least we've got shod of that dreadful Halloween nonsense for another year.
We're not really sure why we celebrate Halloween here, since it's essentially an American habit, but it's probably something to do with our ANZUS alliance and some agreement that when Americans do stuff that involves the security and peaceful co-existence of the Western world, such as carve scary faces in pumpkins and indulge in weird street-trading with confectionary, we also think it's a good idea. Although not all American traditions have been embraced with the same alacrity here. The whole concept of invading other countries hasn't grasped Kiwis with the same enthusiasm.
Aliens puzzled
Here at RR headquarters we worry that, should aliens visit the planet, they will not understand the reasons, or the differences, between Guy Fawkes, Halloween, Fathers' Day, Mothers' Day, Red Nose Day, Waitangi Day, Daniel Day-Lewis and Doris Day.
To visitors from another galaxy, it could appear as if we have a load of haphazard and pointless rituals, meaningless days for celebrating historically insignificant events that many people have little appreciation of, except when it scores them a day off. We all know that is not the case, and our treasured days of remembrance are all highly important and revered, except Election Day.
And contrary to popular belief, it's really Election Day, not Halloween, when the mindless zombies arise from the underworld and plot to take over the world and eat our brains.
How else do you explain John Banks?
Pyromaniacs attack
So we've taken up the responsibility to explain to our alien readership, who make up quite a few per cent of our online statistics, just how all of these celebratory days fit together.
First of all, we have Guy Fawkes' night, which celebrates something very close to our hearts: The joy of blowing the daylights out of letterboxes, frightening old cats, old ladies, and generally behaving like juvenile pyromaniac idiots for an evening. Some even manage to drag this behaviour out for several months of the year and find it necessary to let off their fireworks at other inappropriate times – such as whenever other people are soundly asleep in the sanctity of their own homes.
Parent nightmare, retail dream
Halloween is gaining momentum here, to the great delight of the importers of cheap Asian-manufactured fancy dress costumes and shareholders of The Warehouse, which for a week is transformed into ‘The Scarehouse'. (To The Warehouse marketing people: You can use that next year if you like).
To the outsider, Halloween might appear like a senseless and expensive ritual with no real meaning in the modern world. However, it makes some sense when you see how much enjoyment people can glean from being pretending to be scared by what they know is actually other people dressed up like frightening things.
I mean, you really haven't lived until you've survived the imagery of Len Brown bursting out of the Tangata Whenua room in a gimp suit, chasing a young woman and yelling 'trick or treat”.
Again, it's a day that defies logic. We try to hammer home the message to our children to never talk to strangers, don't eat gut-rot that will ruin your teeth, don't wander the streets at night, don't take candy from strangers and don't put anything your mouth if you don't know where it's been – then one night a year, we encourage them to do exactly that. If only Bevan Chuang's parents had explained this more carefully.
Spying epidemic
Here at RR headquarters we are still concerned about the spy controversy.
Now it appears it's not only a NZ issue, but a worldwide epidemic of spying outbreaks that has everyone running for cover, from the US intelligence agencies (a contradiction in terms?), to the lofty hierarchy of the German government. We were shocked to find all our communications with Angela Merkel for the last couple of decades have been intercepted and recorded by the dastardly American spies.
It's just not fair that lovely Angela should have her private phone and text conversations with us, eavesdropped by the conniving yanks.
World first: Leaked Merkel
phone conversation revealed!
In a world first, Rogers Rabbits has today successfully faked private conversations, intercepted from Angela Merkel's phone. Some of these exchanges are between the German chancellor and her hubby Herr Joachim Sauer, and unknown callers. Here's how one might have gone:

Her: 'Hello, darling, vot is for zee dinner?”
Herr: 'Hello my scrumptious little strudel cake. Vee are having zer schnitzel”.
Her: 'Vot? Zer schnitzel again? Vee had zat last night and zer night before. Vy can't you cook anyzing uzzer zan zer schnitzel?”
Herr: 'Calm down, my delicious plump dumpling.Who zed I voz cooking der schnitzel? I might have been referring to zer ozzer schnitzel…zer vun you like to play hide zer sausage viz! I can't vait to zee you in zat little Bavarian vench outfit and wrap your lips around zer succulent schnitzel, just like zer ozzer night! Zen vee have zer oompah, oompah”.
Her: 'I don't know vot you are talking about. Vee haven't played hide zer sausage since zat steamy night in zer nineties, after zer Berlin Vall vaz pulled down and you vent all feral after vatching zer zex tapes of Pamela Anderzen and Tommy Lee.”
Herr: 'Ah do you zink Pamela might like to pop over for a bit of ‘cream unt zer strudel' viz us zis nacht yah?”
Her: 'Err, zis converzation is getting a bit, howz you zay it, strange. Is zat you, Joachim?”
Herr: 'Nein, my sticky cherry tart, zis iz Len Brown, wiz zer terrible German accent. Izn't zat you, Bevan?”
Her: 'Vot? Are you crazzee? Nein.You haz zer vrong number, nincompoop”.
Herr: 'I zort vee ver playing the game vitch der randy Mayor meets zer buxom Bavarian wench?”
Her: 'Dumkopf!
'Luigi will hav zer field day viss zis”. 'Click.”

Parting shot
The Mayor of Auckland debacle has given a whole new slant on the title ‘Loosehead Len'.