I'll need to explain this one a bit. This article is now six years out of date, but I always liked it and wanted it to go somewhere, anywhere.

Here on Waiheke Island, we used to have a (Sort of) monthly magazine called 'The Waihekean'. It was a strange publication to say the least. It ran stories that ranged from dippy Left wing to rabid Right wing.

When I met the editor for the first time, a small, rather bleary chap, I asked him what his editorial policy was. He peered at me and took a drag on his rollie. "Basically, I don't give a fuck." was his reply.

It certainly seemed that way. He certainly printed anything he got without seeming to even read it.His most unpleasant contributor was a dreadful man by the name of Arnold Kennedy. Every month this squalid person wrote great screeds full of hate and bile. He was one of those conspiracy theory types, convinced that Jews and Freemasons are running the world in secret. Well...I knew how to deal with his lame type. I began writing stuff on a fairly regular basis, pouring scorn and derision on his dreary nonsense.

Sadly, my finest attack on him was never to see the light of day. Kennedy had been working himself into a fine frenzy about Y2K etc and had clearly been neglecting whatever medication he was on. I wrote an article on the stupidity of the apocalyptic folks and submitted it just in time to see the Waihekian magazine go under. My article went unpublished.

So here it is.

APOCALYPSE NOT.



“It looks certain that we will find out soon enough about Y2K. What is more likely, is martial law and a chip implanted 666 fashion; these are said to be ready for implantation now”
Arnold Kennedy in The Waihekean, June 1998.

“....the passing of these dates, such as the artificial ‘Millennium’ we face in a month or two, always bring a feeling of relief as we climb sheepishly down from whatever mountain top we had chosen to sit out the apocalypse.”
Myself, in The Waihekean, late 1999.

Yes, I know. It’s not nice to brag about being right. Midnight rolled around on the 31st and the Millenialists, Hippies, Conspiracy theorists and other apocalyptic types suffered yet another in a long line of disappointments. United in their hatred of God and his creation and of Man and his achievements, they fouled the air with their embittered doomsaying until the last moment. Most are in hiding now and will stay that way for some time to come.

A forgiving nature tells us that most of these people have been punished enough already. But I take pride in the fact that I kicked them BEFORE they went down, and for old times sake I thought I’d take one more swipe with the old size elevens before moving on to happier subjects. Armed with a powerful truth serum and a baseball bat, I have roamed the land, extracting one or two apologies from people who would otherwise have mumbled some feeble excuse about the calendar being wrong.

My first stop was at the Coromandel based ‘Crystal Light Rainbow Breakfast Cereal Co-operative’ where I tracked down Ms Phoenix Moonchild Sensimillia, author of such texts as “Technology is a total Bummer’ and ‘Growing lentils in the Post Computer age’. Ms Sensimillia was in defiant mood when I arrived, “The Y2K bug will bring about the end of the Male dominated, Capitalist warmongering age!” She announced. “Society will revert overnight to a peaceful agrarian framework, with vegetarianism for all!”
I pointed out to her that the date was in fact January the second and that the new year had already begun. She sat up with a start, and glanced guiltily at the remains of a huge hand rolled “Nandor” in the pottery ashtray. “You mean I slept through it?” she shrieked, “To the fields everybody! Let’s get the New Age underway!”

I explained that the Y2K bug had failed to materialise and that nothing had changed. Besides, I added, the rest of the commune were last seen heading into town to enrol in college and salvage the rest of their lives. “Sell-outs! Fascists!” cried Ms Sensimillia, “Technology must give way to a better world! The.......Oh who am I trying to kid? It’s all been a waste hasn’t it? I should have done something with my life instead of sitting around fiddling with crystals and listening to Whale Music! It’s the macrobiotic diet that did this to me! All that food that tastes like sawdust! No wonder I’ve got no sense of humour! OK, the drugs didn’t help either. What have I done?!”My mission accomplished, I rose to leave, but Ms Sensimillia stopped me. “Before you go” she said, “Do you know where I could get a haircut and a job?”

My next stop was the church of St Prudes, headquarters of the Universal Intolerance Brotherhood. Their chief spokesman, the “Reverend” Barry Fraud was in bullish mood as we sat down to talk. “Yes I know the Apocalypse has been delayed” he insisted, “But this is a strategy of Satan to lure us into a sense of false security. He has pulled this trick before you know! My Great Grand Father, The “Reverend” Arbuthnot Fraud, prophesised the ending of the world in 1893 and gave away all his belongings before leading the faithful to the top of Mount Egmont to await the Rapture. He was proved absolutely right! Or at least he would have been if Satan had not intervened!” He paused and blinked as the truth drug I had slipped into his glass of water began to take effect.
“Oh all right” he said, “It’s all rubbish I admit. I just can’t be bothered to use the brains God gave me and assess the allegorical nature of the Scriptures in an intelligent way. It’s easier to just declare the whole thing to be literally true and yell and scream at anyone who disagrees.
What have I done with my life? I’m sorry, I’m just a bad tempered git, and the only reason I hate everybody having a good time is that I don’t have any fun myself”

My mission accomplished, I rose to leave but the “Reverend” stopped me.”Before you go” he said, “Do you know where I could get some of that ‘Viagra”?”

Finally, I arrived in the suburbs of Christchurch for a visit to the survivalist compound of Professor Murray Himmler, chairman of the Aryan Empire Loyalist Rate Payers Association. The compound seemed more dilapidated than on my last visit, and the carefully installed
Placemakers ‘Fuehrer Bunker’ in the garden seemed to have flooded during the rains of New Years Eve. I found the Professor trying to evict a family of frogs from the main living area. “This just goes to show the depths to which the Jewish Freemasons United Nations conspiracy will stoop,” he muttered, as he gingerly pulled a frog from his gumboot. “They even control the weather you know!”

We sat down in his study, lined with hundreds of unsold copies of the Professor’s books.
“Yes, I admit’” he said, “The enslavement of the world did not really pan out as I predicted. The secret plans of the Illuminati which I have dedicated my life to fearlessly exposing, turned out to be a front for the REAL conspiracy! I can now reveal that documents dating back to the middle ages and authenticated by no less an authority than my neighbour Mr St John Bad-Temper, show that the real power behind the scenes is none other than the Rotarians! Yes, you may laugh! But my researches have revealed that prominent Rotarians were orchestrating the Russian revolution, the Wall Street crash, both World Wars, the decline of New Zealand as a major World Power, AND were responsible for the sudden mysterious failure of the fan belt on my Morris Minor! I have photographic proof of that last one as well!

“You have evidence?” I said, “May I see?”
“No” replied the Professor, “The film is still at the chemist.”

I was keen to hear more, but the Professors eyes suddenly rolled back in his head, and with a low moan he began to beat his head on the desk. “The puzzles fit! It all adds up!” he babbled, “Leon Trotsky was known to have been a Rotarian! So was William Gladstone! They were all in it together! Those strange symbols on the back of the Albanian Bank Notes were Rotarian in origin! How could we have been so blind! YES! I see it all clearly now!”

He gave the desk a final crashing blow with his forehead and fell to the floor. I rose to leave but the Professor stopped me. “Before you go,” he said, “Do you know where I could find a good Psychiatrist?”