Te Radar: Throat-cutting is tame stuff beside self-mutilation

I have no idea whether any of those who saluted Hone Harawira's maiden speech in Parliament with a haka from the public gallery drew their thumbs across their throats while eyeballing other members of Parliament.

Certainly, there are those who would have found the whole display little more than a demonstration of barbaric savagery that has no place in the hallowed halls of Parliament. Of course, Winston Peters may say the same thing about press conferences.

Nevertheless, the haka, and the trilling waiata that followed the oratory, made for superb listening on the wireless.

It is at moments like this that one wonders why Parliament isn't broadcast to the nation through a series of speakers in the streets of this island paradise. No doubt it would inspire the public, but possibly only to petition to have the speakers removed to escape the banality of what usually emanates from the House.

Many folk in the Northern Hemisphere, it seems, have similar feelings about the All Blacks' haka, and are calling not only for the evocative throat-slitting finale of the new haka to be banned, but any haka before games as well.

These cultural naysayers believe the haka is overly aggressive and gives the All Blacks a psychological advantage. In reality, it is merely a simple ritual that says, "Hello, put the kettle on, we are here for business".

We shouldn't underestimate the passion of Northern Hemisphere fans.

Readers may recall that several months ago Geoffrey Huish, a Welsh rugby supporter, made an off-hand comment to his chum that he would sever his "Clarksons" if Wales beat England. They did, and so he did. With blunt wire-cutters.

This gave Geoffrey and the game a moment of brief notoriety, before fading into rugby folklore. Now the saga is back in the news, as Geoffrey has finally commented on why he performed this self-emasculation.

This question is perhaps the second most troubling one of the year, next to why Winston thought becoming Foreign Minister would lead to stable Government.

Geoffrey states: "I think about what happened every day and still haven't come up with a good reason why. I'd had a lot going on and felt a bit down."

More disturbing is his description of the process. "The cutters were blunt," he declared, "so I had to keep snipping."

Having performed the procedure, he carried the offending orbs to his local social club, where shocked friends placed them in a pint glass with some ice, and rushed them, and Geoffrey, to hospital.

Unfortunately his testicles couldn't be reattached. I have no idea what became of them, but given the behaviour of some of our parliamentarians in recent days, they could have been put to good use here.