On this day after Christmas I have decided it is only right for me to be frank, incensed and more.
Sorry about that, but the pun is always on the horizon at this time of year and punning has to be more appealing than doing the dance of the seven aisles in a Boxing Day sale.
Frighteningly, I have resorted to dance this week; more like that of the seven tea towels as I ventured kitchen-ward to muster up some enthusiasm for festive cookery. (At the time of writing it is not known if the offspring were impressed by my breakfast-table centrepiece, a fruit novelty Christmas tree. Since they have ridiculed my usual trees - a bit of macrocarpa whacked off the overgrown hedge - a healthy, edible ''tree'' has to be a winner, even if my artistic ability may mean it will be mistaken for the leaning tower of Pisa or something vulgar.) The dancing revealed more alarmingly wobbly, jiggly, floppy bits (also known as fat) than there might have been a year ago. Depressing, but it didn't stop me carving off a slab or two of Christmas cake to keep the energy levels up.
At least the music was great. Bluesman Big Bill Broonzy belting out The Glory of Love from the $15 two-CD anthology - early Christmas present to myself.
As I tripped the light fat-astic, I reflected on the year which made me laugh a little, and cry a little, as the song demanded. I wanted to cry a lot.
I know that's not the done thing in this festive frenzy, but despite the dancing, the season had yet to work its magic on me. I thought of the recently bereaved, those hoping against hope they won't soon be bereaved, and the thousands who don't have work or as much work as we need to make a living. I thought of the madness of anyone believing an ugly hotel to accommodate Chinese tourists might be the answer to Dunedin's economic prayers. The late, great Sir Paul Callaghan knew the foolishness of pushing tourism as a means of increasing wealth, pointing out if we were to meet the goal of catching Australia, we'd need 60,000 people visiting Milford Sound each week.
Tourism jobs are not well paid and each job does not create a high amount of revenue annually.
''The more tourism, the poorer we get. Tourism is a great industry, but it cannot be a route to prosperity,'' he was quoted as saying last year.
Of course, the issue of planning consent for the Wharf St hotel will not depend on whether it is economically sensible.
Perhaps it was the dancing depriving my brain of oxygen, but suddenly I could see business opportunities associated with any new monstrous edifice.
A bit more dancing and I'd be fit enough to ferry our Chinese friends about in a rickshaw (adapting my trusty one-speed) for those precious moments when they were not goggling out of the windows at the goings-on in the harbour or throwing their money away at the casino.
I would take them to view the Forsyth Barr Stadium so they would not feel their hotel was the only eyesore in the city. En route I would impress by speaking in proverbs, perhaps beginning with ''Even if a monkey wears a golden ring, it is and remains an ugly thing''.
As well as this, I could offer myself as a specialist toilet-tissue consultant at the new hotel. Such an important role would attract payment much higher than the minimum wage.
In this job I would spend many hours choosing papers suitable for the five-star derriere.
I would also specialise in toilet-tissue origami and training staff to make my designs a reality.
This would be much more creative than following the ubiquitous practice of folding the end of the toilet roll into a point. So common. So yesterday.(Apparently that folding bizzo is not so you can easily locate the end of the roll after downing the mini-bar contents. According to Wikipedia, it is supposed to give you confidence the room has been cleaned. The entry didn't outline how you tell if the cleaner did the folding before or after toilet scrubbing, but perhaps issues of hygiene aren't that important when you are trying to inspire confidence in cleaning.)I'm thinking of developing several alternative designs, including a stadium to tie in with my rickshaw business, and an albatross (because guests will be too busy gambling to see a real one).
The only slight problem with this is my inability to successfully complete origami which involves more than two folds. Ah well, back to the singing and dancing.
''Cry a little, sigh a little, and let the clouds roll by a little ... ... ...''
Elspeth McLean is a Dunedin writer.
