WELLINGTON WEATHER

Summer - isn’t that a Babylonian tribe? Duncan Graham

British radio raconteur and wit Frank Muir once said Edinburgh had its own private weather. He meant to say Wellington.

When TV forecasters gush about cloudless skies across the nation it takes only a swift glance from plasma screen to window waterfalls to prove the lie. Yet supporting the claims are isobars and cells massaging the troposphere, nurturing a high-pressure system that broods over our lovely land.

Though not Wellington.

For the past 241 years historians believed that when James Cook navigated the strait that now bears his name he missed the entrance to Wellington harbour. Thanks to WikiLeaks and some careless diplomatic cocktail chat we now have the truth: The master navigator knew the location but feared being either becalmed or wrecked.

The Roaring Forties, the Rimutaka-size swells and Barrett Reef’s razor rocks were manageable; the problem was the weather between Pipitea and Petone.

To live in the Capital it’s best to be a Christian, Muslim or follower of a faith that believes in the unproven. That makes it easier to accept something others say is true – such as there is a summer - though their statements can’t be tested.

Last century isolated tribes in Papua New Guinea cleared jungle airstrips and built wooden planes believing such displays would attract the airdrops that sustained the Allies fighting during the Second World War.

A similar cargo cult operates in Wellington. People put outdoor furniture on decks and barbecues in parks, foolishly believing these artefacts will attract the sun.

The Big Lie propaganda technique outlined by George Orwell, and refined by Senator Joseph McCarthy to sustain the Communist bogey, is still being employed in New Zealand.

Local government, the media and advertisers are in a cabal to convince Wellingtonians that there is a summer. Naysayers are outed as un-Kiwi.

The conspirators do this by staging bogus Outdoor Events that are always ‘fully booked’ so their veracity cannot be checked, by publishing pictures of folk we’ve never met splashing in the sea (clearly syndicated photos from the Gold Coast), and advertising flimsy ‘summer-weight’ clothing.

Also in the plot is Carter Observatory holding an exhibition called Here Comes the Sun and Circa Theatre staging The Motor Camp featuring fools in shorts and silly shirts.

The Central Library, which should know better because it stores facts, has an untouched display of books on fishing and golf arranged around a glass case of shells and cutouts of pohutukawa. This is labelled Summer Days. Readers are busy elsewhere consulting titles like Fix That Leak and 101 Indoor Games.

All this can lead to the Disbelief Syndrome, a serious medical condition triggered by an inability to recognise the border between fantasy and reality, similar to that experienced by addicted computer gamers. Attacks typically occur when disoriented shoppers rugged in oilskins and seeking an Irish stew stagger past windows displaying mannequins in bikinis and restaurants offering salads.

Wellington’s weather is so dangerously fickle the season between December and March should rightly be given name suppression.

Live elsewhere? No way. Better this than fires and floods.

(First published in The Wellingtonian 20 January 2011)

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