Jim Hopkins writes that aping the Hollywood sign for Wellington sends the message that we're followers, not industry leaders.
With smooth precision, the botoxed fingers opened the gilded envelope. Collagen lips parted. Silicon chests heaved. A thousand lifted faces stared intently at the stage.
"And the winner for Best Performance in a Copy Cat Role is ..."
The drums rolled, the orchestra thundered, the tension mounted and rode away.
"... WELLYWOOD!!!!!"
Pandemonium erupted. Chaos rained. Antipodean journalists shrieked with delight. "We've won!" they squealed. "We've won!!!!"
Thus ended another glittering night at the Tosscars.
Since then it's been a heady round of photos and interviews. The Hurt Locker (aka my bank account) may have won Best Picture but it's WELLYWOOD that's become the sign of the times. The capital's capital effort to go from tin horse to tinsel town has the blogosphere agog.
Everyone has a view - possibly because everyone will have a view when the sign goes up. So debate rages unabated on the merits of the erection.
The capital's gorgeous Mayor, Ms Welly Prendergast, thinks the sign is frightfully waggish and wonderfully ironic. She believes it will put Wellington on the map (until the next earthquake) and promote our fabulously marvellous film industry - otherwise known as Sir Peter Jackson and Richard Taylor.
Mind you, if the intention is to promote our film industry rather than merely mimic someone else's location, then the sign should be WETAWOOD.
They're the ones who won the Oscar, after all, so they should be the ones on the hill as well.
Equally, there could be no better homage to Sir Peter than a sign acknowledging his latest project. Imagine how exciting it would be when Sir Steven Spielberg flew in for meetings with Sir Peter Jackson and there, as the SpielJet circled, below him on the hillside, in big white letters, the proud local brand shimmering resplendent - Tintin TINSEL TOWN.
That's indigenous! That's ironic. That does help our film industry. As does WETAWOOD as well. Both signs tell the world, "We're here, not there. We're leaders, not followers. Ours is a southern star sign, unique to Outer Roa."
There is, moreover, one other, rather more delicate matter which advocates of the WELLYWOOD sign do need to consider.
Wellington isn't just a glittering, go-go, star-studded, stud-starred cinema centre. There's more to the city than celluloid.
There's politics, too. And where there is politics, there are politicians. And politicians don't like irony. Importance, yes, irony, no; politicians don't enjoy all that post-modern self-deprecation stuff.
If they did, they'd have erected their own sign, SMELLYWOOD, after revelations of fishy transactions going on the ministerial credit card.
The Wild At Heart dudes running Wellington airport should remember who provides most of their business and income. It ain't Sean Penn and friends, it's politicians. They're the comers and goers, the movers and shakers, the hitherers thither and yon who benefit the airport's bottom line.
So, chaps, if you're erecting a sign, erect one for the politicians. They don't want to see a cheesy joke when they arrive for serious meetings. Put POLLYWOOD on the hillside, to honour the Beehive. Or something really indigenous, like HONEWOOD - though whether Mr Harawira would like his sign being white is a moot point. Perhaps you could spray him beige.
There's plenty of options, Wild At Heart. If you want something ironic, indigenous and ballsy, borrow the term John Key used this week to describe claims an insider had knicked Don Brash's emails.
Stick BOLLOCKSWOOD on the hillside. That pretty much captures how most of us feel about Wellington.
LOLLYWOOD would be a good tribute to the IRD. Or FOLLYWOOD if you'd rather recognise an education system so dangerously flawed that 442 teachers were assaulted by pupils in 2008/09.
Choose any of those, but not WELLYWOOD. WELLYWOOD could spark an international incident. Imagine an Uzbekistani delegation winging in for urgent talks about saving the whales - or Sir Geoffrey Palmer or both. They see the sign and instantly declare war because, unbeknown to us, WELLYWOOD is Uzbek for, "Your mother's ugly, whale killer!"
You may be wild at heart, Wild At Heart, but WELLYWOOD won't work. WALLYWOOD would, but WELLYWOOD won't.
Consider this. Wellington is home to a world-renowned, Oscar-winning movie maker. It's also home to a world-renowned, Oscar-winning SFX company. And to an airport regularly and repeatedly closed by fog - a problem the bumbling Poms solved 50 years ago!!!
Even Royal visits are affected, Wild At Heart. Yes, the Air Force got the Prince in, but everyone else was grounded and missed the posh nosh.
Odd then that an airport closed so often seeks to stick up a sign that no one will see thanks to the 10/10 fog that's forced the airport that stuck up the sign to close again.
But if WALLYWOOD's unacceptable, here's another suggestion. Next time some megabucks movie mogul jets in, eager to put more business Weta's way but can't since they're diverted to the Chathams or wherever, the sign on the hill they won't damn well see through the mist as they disappear should really say THE B****Y AIRPORT'S CLOSED AGAIN BECAUSE OF FOGWOOD. If you want post-modern irony, Wild At Heart, that's it!
