I even believed in this "Colin Craig" when he told Helensville constituents that John Key was "too gay" to be their MP. I believed when he shrilled that a visiting weirdo Danish MP was right to object to a welcome by what he called "a bare-bottomed native making threatening gestures". I failed to twig, too, when he bashed out a fire-and-brimstone tweet in response to the passage of the marriage equality law which read, in full: "The day of reckoning is still to come".
Well, the joke's on us.
"Colin Craig" is New Zealand's answer to Ali G. "Colin Craig" is a fictional character, a circus clown, a satirical device. When you think about it, it's as unmistakable as the sparkle in his eye. Would a real person say "at the end of the day" at the start of every second sentence?
The penny dropped this week when "Colin Craig" went one step too far, the cheeky monkey, issuing a legal threat via what appeared to be a reputable legal firm demanding that a little-known but obviously satirical website, The Civilian, retract an obviously satirical remark attributed to him.
See http://www.thecivilian.co.nz/chapman-tripp-legal-notice-23-april-2013/
An aspiring MP screaming defamation over an innocuous bit of obvious satire? I don't think so. A millionaire demanding a $500 contribution to legal costs from a 21-year-old just out of university? Inconceivable.
If "Colin Craig" were real, would he be so lacking in wit, confidence and courage as to issue stiff ultimatums to a tiny website run by a pipsqueak in his pyjamas, while letting stand for all time homoerotic imaginings - all "powerful thighs" and "firm buttocks" - attributed to him in a "secret diary" published by newspapers across the country? I don't think so.
And even if "Colin" did get puffed up like a peacock, sensible lawyers would gently talk him out of it. Wouldn't they?
There's more evidence that this man of many first names is a giant tease. The thundering legal letter observes that the article in question - headlined "Maurice Williamson looking pretty stupid after floods" - includes words that their client "never made". It splutters: "It is a fiction created by you to make him look ridiculous".
Snort! The letter continues: "The statement cannot be dismissed as satire in the circumstances, particularly when it is published alongside quotes from Maurice Williamson which we understand may largely be accurate."
Wonderful! As any half-awake intern could have told them, the quotes from Williamson are invented, too. As is the one attributed to John Key, calling Williamson "a big idiot".
In case that weren't enough, the lawyer's letter goes on to refer to "words which were not said by Mr Crag". As if a legal firm with such a proud history and so many bright minds would misspell its own client's name. Are they all in on this delicious charade? Bravo.
Who, then, is pulling the strings and our legs? Is "Colin Cra(i)g" conjured up by the same genius behind the long-running cabaret act John "Cabbage Boat" Banks? Is he a guerrilla-marketing stunt by enfant terrible Ben Uffindel - a kind of Pantomime Trojan Horse to attract attention to his fledgling comedy website?
Is he an automaton, controlled by Steven Joyce, deployed to distract attention from this week's bewildering Albanian-Stalinist-North-Korean-Polish shipyard metaphor incontinence?
Is he a Weta Workshop side project? Has he been 3D-printed by Maurice Williamson?
Disrobe, "Colin Craig", we cry. Let us stand in ovation before this comedy masterwork, this colossus of ridiculous fiction. I suggest a special gong at the next Chapman Tripp Theatre Awards. Remove the latex mask, "Colin". Enter our warm embrace
For you must be a character, a chimera, an invention. Mustn't you? The alternative is too bizarre to contemplate.
