Lord knows, I try to be upbeat. Effusive Elly, not Negative Nelly. That’s me. As a wannabe entrepreneur/ businessperson I want to disrupt myself, and be retooling, refinancing and rehoming. I just wanna get out there and smack it and create the road. Hell, it doesn’t matter I don’t have a clue about what any of that means, but if the Prime Minister is saying these things they must be important, mustn’t they? Despite my willingness to talk the talk and gibber the gibber, I am worried the PM will think I am a bit childish. You see, I was relying on the government to follow the advice of its petitions committee, the people with the responsibility of looking into the petitions seeking the banning of the private sale of fireworks. Committee members listened to the views of the petitioners, and others, and decided banning private sale was the way to go. But no, without any understandable reasoning, the government decided not to, preferring to keep the existing settings around fireworks in place. In a display of empty speak, perhaps inspired by the utterances of the PM, this was the statement about it: ``The government considers that retaining the status quo remains a proportionate response, balancing the need to manage harm with the importance of maintaining individual choice.’’ Those balance and choice buzzwords never fail to inspire me, usually to rage. Never mind the committee found public sentiment was shifting and it considered present generations were taking the effects of fireworks on animal welfare more seriously than previous generations may have. The committee considered information on the effects on animal welfare, including native wildlife, and the increasing fire danger from the use of fireworks by the public and the number of police and fire service callouts related to this. I can only speculate that dominating the thinking in Cabinet were fond childhood memories of happy times in the backyard setting off fireworks, oblivious to the fact pets and other animals were terrified or running amok and getting hurt. The adult thing might have been to have the courage and the sense to actually listen to advice from the committee and leave selective and ignorant childish memories behind. That might be selfish of me. I wanted the ban because it was going to provide the catalyst for my next big idea. For years I have told anyone willing to listen that I love the smell of gunpowder and would happily wear it as a perfume. At the turn of the century celebrations when everyone was oohing and aahing at the dazzling fireworks display over the harbour, I couldn’t have cared less about the spectacle, I was revelling in inhaling that spent gunpowder aroma. I figured if the ban went ahead there would be no opportunity for like-minded people, and I am sure there are many of them, to enjoy that smell in their own back yards. It would be a great time for me to go into the perfume business to fill that gap. When I shared this thought with some of the offspring, they were sceptical. ``It will be like Kramer who wanted to invent a fragrance of the smell of the beach on that programme, you know, the one where nothing ever happened.’’ ``Seinfeld,’’ they groaned. (I had conveniently forgotten Kramer’s pitch for this was mocked by the perfume company which then stole his idea and produced a fragrance called Ocean. When he complained about that he ended up making a fool of himself supposedly modelling for Ocean fragrance in his undies and socks and shoes. I am not sure the world is, or ever has been, ready for me to emulate that look, even behind a spray tan.) Soon the offspring were busy Googling to show me gunpowder fragrances are already out there. Disappointing, although the online reviews suggest the jury is still out on how accurately any of these attempts have captured the gunpowder essence. Some of the descriptions of these products rival Luxonspeak. One of them says it ``opens with a cool rush of marine air and violet, clean and slightly metallic, like ozone before a storm’’. By the end of the ``dry down’’, whatever that is, it leaves a ``trail that feels both restrained and magnetic’’. It’s not ``loud smoke or sharp fire. It’s tension. It’s contrast. It’s calm intensity with an edge.’’ That is so me. Even though private fireworks are continuing, childishly, I am hoping to persuade Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith the government must back me with research and development funding for my fragrance idea. Dousing ourselves in gunpowder smell will be just the intimidating factor we need when we are endangering ourselves executing citizen’s arrests any time of the day or night for any perceived misdemeanour. Bring it on. Dunedin writer Elspeth McLean writes the When Moths Collide column for the ODT.
