I saw this country would become a finer place if we appoint a Commissioner for Public Stupidity.
This Tsar's brief would be to stick in the spurs and ride roughshod over institutional idiocy. To boot ridiculous rules into the grandstand, and set about restoring Common Sense, which you'll recall died in about 1977.
The first qualification for this high office must be zero public service experience. An inability to write a sentence of more than nine words would also help job applicants. And if you can picture a cross between a Hanging Judge and Mussolini, you have the sort of chap we need.
The bathroom whence this brainwave leapt was furnished with a sound wooden toilet seat, and shining copper pipes which made encouraging gurgles. I sat, looking back into a bedroom which was furnished sparsely but pleasantly, as an old pub bedroom should be.
A solid door closed off the world outside. It had no key, because a locked door insults the other guests. All seemed perfect, but for a large, garish sign that was screwed officiously on to the door.
It was canary yellow, tasteless, and immense. Its purpose was the portentous listing of all conceivable threats and remedies should there be fire, earthquake, flood, or an upturned pot of tea. If you read to the bottom, you'd doubtless find an 0800 number to call if you wake up with your pyjamas inside out.
Somewhere in New Zealand sits a government committee or working party, which created this monstrosity - and then dictated it as universal hotel room decor. They think we plebs will read verbose signs if printed in alarming colours.
But signs like these are as valuable as a Guide Dogs Only notice. Our Stupidity Commissioner would be instantly sacked if he failed to either rip this one up or stick its info where it logically belongs - on the back of the room's breakfast menu.
We know we're domiciled in a nanny state. What's odd is that it has flowered during a neoliberal ‘‘free market'' era. Our culture of plastic outrage, political correctness and blame-avoidance means there's much more for the interferers to regulate.
We can point the finger at the European Union too. (Seriously). It began as a vast, new ‘‘country'', which needed an enormous rulebook. This regulators' dream was gifted to an army of public servants from the PC generation.
Aggressively naive public services saw the EU rules as a framework for their New Jerusalems. We would be regulated into goodness. Cartloads of grave new sins were invented - especially for business. I began flying from Sydney to Canberra for battles with government departments who'd imposed asinine new regulations because they were ‘‘The European Standard''.
It mattered little that many of these new ‘‘rules'' weren't enacted law. The unelected Caesars were immune.
The Wit's End theory is that hucksters in the regulation trade swap information like racecourse tipsters. Their tips push their own agendas, and create imagined new problems. We often end up believing in rules that don't actually exist.
But fear not. Our government is acting on silly regulations in the way that only a government would. It has created a Rules Reduction Taskforce (the ‘‘RRT''), which has held widespread meetings, and called for public submissions. If you think this means all is lost, you are a very naughty cynic.
Still, we must give credit where it's due. The RRT has already exploded several health and safety myths. It tells us we are not required to erect scaffolding before mounting a three-step ladder.
Nor have lolly scrambles been banned because children are threatened by the G-force of the falling Mintie.
What most appals and entertains, is that the RRT saw the air should be cleared on the ladder and lolly scramble farces. Myself, I'd still back a Stupidity Commissioner against any Taskforce. I wonder what John Cleese is up to these days?
● John Lapsley is an Arrowtown writer.
