Jack Tame: Land of the small white chud

Discarded gum is the white noise of a pedestrian's commute. Photo / Thinkstock

Opinion

My brother — bless — is an idiot.

He once only narrowly avoided a trip to hospital after trying to make a pair of sunglasses from a glob of used chewing gum.

Yes, you read that right: my brother chewed a diarrhoea-inducing quantity of peppermint gum then stretched it over his face and got it all tangled in his lashes until his eyes were swollen and weepy.

It gives one great faith in this country's standards of tertiary education.

Still, better a self-destructive buffoon like him than the societally destructive parasite I caught spitting chewing gum into Lake Wakatipu a few weeks back. Seriously? Lake Wakatipu! You couldn't hold on to it for five minutes longer? You couldn't just swallow, for once?

The state of spitting is little better in our cities. Discarded gum is the white noise of a pedestrian's commute. Walk enough in the CBD and most of us get to the point where we don't even notice those little grey splats any more.

In the United Kingdom, inner-city chud-spatter is now so prolific Jamie Oliver has taken a stand.

He has suggested a Singapore-style ban on everything Wrigleys and otherwise.

Can you imagine a black market where drug dealers diversify into selling cartons of Airwaves instead? I suppose anyone lunching at Jamie's Italian will just have to hope they provide a bowl of mints by the till.

As a chewer from way back, I'd place a chewing gum ban only slightly behind the flag debate on the list of current political priorities. It's a scourge, sure, but it's hardly Ebola.

So, instead of a ban I'm suggesting an advertising campaign based on the little-known philosophy of a former minty-fresh girlfriend who, shortly after spitting her gum out a window, had to cut a glob of discarded Hubba Bubba from her hair.

Beware chewing gum karma: "If you don't bin it, you'll soon sit in it."

Or, in extreme cases of selfish spitting, for those hawking into Lake Wakatipu, we'll craft you a pair of my brother's famous sunglasses to change your view.

• Jack Tame is on Newstalk ZB, Saturdays, 9am-midday.