Here is some Wellington weather, coming up-country now, bump, bump, bump, on the back bay, behind our merry Airport. It is, as far as we know, only one way of getting Pooh on our southern shore, but sometimes it feels that there really is another way, if only the Moa Point could stop pumping for a moment and think of it. And then the pooh feels that perhaps there isn’t. Anyhow, here he is at the bottom of the sea, and ready to be introduced to you. Windy-the-Pooh. What a big stinky pile of pooh!

When I first heard that the Pooh had escaped, I said, just as you are going to say, “But I thought we had a Sludge Screen?”

“So did I,” said Mayor Andy. “But I can smell that something is off.”

“Then you can’t call him Windy?”

“I don’t.”

“But you said——”

“He’s Windy-ther-Pooh. Don’t you know what ‘ther‘ means?”

“Ah, yes, now I do,” I said quickly; and I hope you do too, because it is all the explanation you are going to get.

Sometimes Windy-the-Pooh likes a game of some sort when he comes into town, and sometimes he likes to sit quietly in front of the fire and listen to a story. This evening——

“What about a story?” said Windy.

“What about a story?” I said.

“Could you very sweetly tell Windy-the-Pooh one?”

“I suppose I could,” I said. “What sort of stories does he like?”

“About himself. Because he’s that sort of Pooh.”

“Oh, I see.”

“So could you very sweetly?”

“I’ll try,” I said.

So I tried.

Once upon a time, a very long time ago now, about last Friday, Windy-the-Pooh lived at the beach all by himself under the name of Moa Point.

(“What does ‘under the name’ mean?” asked Princess Veolia, frantically looking for an escape clause to escape this awful mess they had got themselves into.

“It means he had the name over the door in gold letters, and lived under it.“

“Windy-the-Pooh wasn’t quite sure,” said Princess Veolia, hoping that by calling themselves Wellington Water, and then selling their asses to the Luxurious Government, they could escape from having to do any maintenance at all.

“Now I am,” said a growly voice.

“Then I will go on,” said I.)

One day when he was out walking, he came to a cliff face on the edge of the airport, right next to a lovely beach, and tucked away right at the back of this place was a large sewerage plant. From the bottom of the sewerage plant, there came a loud buzzing and banging-noise, along with a terrible smell.

Windy-the-Pooh sat down at the foot of the plant, put his head between his paws and began to think.

First of all he said to himself: “That buzzing and banging-noise means something. You don’t get a buzzing and banging-noise like that, just buzzing and banging, without its meaning something. If there’s a buzzing-noise, somebody’s making a buzzing-noise, and the only reason for making a buzzing-noise that I know of is because you’re a broken discharge pipe that’s about to blow.”

Then he thought another long time, and said: “And the only reason for being a discharge pie that I know of is for discharging Pooh.”

And then he got up, and said: “And the only reason for discharging Pooh is so as I don’t have to smell it.” So he began to investigate the sewerage plant.

He climbed and he climbed and he climbed, and as he climbed he sang a little song to himself. It went like this:

Isn’t it funny

How a corporate likes money?

Buzz! Buzz! Buzz!

I wonder why they does?

Then Pooh climbed a little further … and a little further … and then just a little further. By that time he had thought of another song.

It’s a very funny thought that, if Corporations were Considerate,

They’d build their sewer plants far away from the people and the fishes.

And that being so (if Corporations were Considerate),

We shouldn’t have to swim up through all this pooh.

He was getting rather tired by this time, so that is why he sang a Complaining Song. He was nearly there now, and if he just stood on that branch …

Crack!

“Oh, help!” said Pooh, as he dropped ten feet on the beach below him.

“If only I hadn’t——” he said, as he bounced twenty feet on to the next beach.

“You see, what I meant to do,” he explained, as he turned head-over-heels, and crashed on to another beach thirty feet along, “what I meant to do——”

“Of course, it was rather——” he admitted, as he slithered very quickly through the next six coral branches.

“It all comes, I suppose,” he decided, as he said good-bye to the last branch, spun round three times, and flew gracefully into a gorse-bush, “it all comes of liking money so much. Oh, help!”

He crawled out of the gorse-bush, brushed the prickles from his nose, and began to think again. And the first person he thought of was Wellington Water.

(“Was that me?” said Wellington Water in an awed voice, hardly daring to believe it.

“Yes, that was you.“

Wellington Water said nothing, but their eyes got larger and larger, and their faces got pinker and pinker.)

“Gosh, damn and bother it all, we thought that we had got away with all that shit!”

So Andy the Mayor went round to his friend Christopher Luxon, who lived behind a green door in another part of the forest.

“Let’s wait and see who has to pay for this…”

Fish

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