94 LISTENER OCTOBER 13 2018
THE GOOD LIFE
Conflicting reports are emerging over
what caused 10 schoolchildren to be
hospitalised in Wairarapa, as authorities
work to find the cause of the mysterious
substance that left about 30 kids sick. –
the “news”I
t was 2.30pm, September 21,
2018, and something was rotten
in the heart of Wairarapa. Weirdly,
it appeared to be a primary school
in Carterton, coincidentally a town
that bills itself as the “heart of the
Wairarapa”.
Spookier still was the unhappy
happenstance that meant we and our
friend Slow Train, after indulging in
a slap-up lunch in Greytown to mark
the dear boy’s birthday, were driving
through the very town at the very
moment the great “mysterious sub-
stance” brouhaha was brewing.
Heading home to Masterton, we
pootled through Carterton stuffed to
the gills with warmed olives, home-
made dumplings, fried calamari, bao
buns, Korean spiced chicken nibbles
and seafood chowder. Unsurprisingly,
we were burping a little, though
otherwise all seemed quiet. Save, of
course, for the usual ungodly rumble
of logging trucks – Carterton’s on
State Highway 2 – and, this day,
standing by the not-very-fetching
clock tower at the heart of the heart
of Wairarapa, two men who, to put
not too fine a point on it, were suspi-
cious looking characters. “Ban 1080”,
said their signs. “Get up, stand up”,
said their dreadlocks.Nothing stinks
worse than a media
beat-up.
On the pong track
GREG
DIXON
On we drove. We were home in time for a short
nap for Michele, and an early cocktail hour for Slow
Train and me, and then, the television “news”.
“Children are being taken to hospital and dozens
more are being decontaminated at their Carterton
school right now after a mystery substance made
them start vomiting,” began Newshub’s Melissa
Davies, wearing her bad-news face as she intro-
duced the shock-horror lead story.
Slow Train looked at me. I looked at Slow Train.
“Was it him?” we were both thinking. We instantly
dismissed our suspicions.
“It might’ve been those 1080 protesters,” I said.
But no, Mike McRoberts had the good/bad oil: “It’ssuspected the school may have accidentally been
sprayed with pesticide as an aircraft flew over ...”
Hell’s bells! Accidental, low-flying terrorism!
“I’m not sure if it dropped anything or not,” a
reputed “news” website reported Daniel, aged 12,
saying soon after. “But after a few seconds, every-
thing started to stink like poo.”
Here’s a thing: pesticides don’t smell like poo.
So, no surprise that by the following day, with the
children thankfully safe and well, the police said no
such thing had happened.
So what was it? My mind reeled. Had someonein Room 4 let off a stink bomb?
Had the stench of another bad
week for the coalition Government
drifted over the Remutakas? Or was
it simply a brazen attempt “to put
Carterton on the map” – this, after
all, is an unpredictable town; it’s had
both Georgina Beyer and Ron Mark
as mayor. But my real suspicion was
this: the stench was from the rotting
corpse of daily journalism after it
had finally, and deservedly, carked
it from overdosing on clickbait,
reporting speculation as news and
breathless beat-ups.‘P
olice have arrested a tiny pile
of mushroom compost after
it caused a poo stink, which
made children vomit,” said abso-
lutely no “news” source two days
later, though the culprit actually was
compost, a dissatisfying and banal rev-
elation, but also so bonkers it made
me hoot.
Compost can be dangerous stuff,
but to keep things in proportion,
not nearly as dangerous as, say,
garden hoses. According to acci-
dent figures, 254 people contracted
Legionnaires’ disease from compost
and potting mix in 2014, while
more than 2000 were injured by
pitiless hoses.
But neither compost nor hoses
seem to have anything on mass hys-
teria. As the compost deliverer said,
“I think a lot of people panicked. In
retrospect, it was a bit over the top,
really, for a little smell.”
You can’t blame the kids. Or
teachers. Or parents. But hey, big-
city media, before you make one of
your increasingly rare visits to “the
regions” in order to beat up wild
speculation as “news”, ask yourselfGREG DIXON this: does it pass the poo stink test? l
The writer prepares for a visit to Carterton.
“Ban 1080”,
said their signs.
“Get up, stand
up”, said their
dreadlocks.