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Saturday, February 21, 2015

Coffee with Collie and Collie



"On a sunny day in February crop farmer Shane Collie, the fourth generation of his family to live in Waianiwa, wanders in for Coffee Club.

Without even looking around, he walks straight to Mrs Sippy, fills his cup, and sits with the group.

No greetings are shared.

They're not needed.

Wearing stubbies and a work-worn flannel shirt - let's not forget the woollen socks and work boots - Collie explains what he considers the virtues of the club.

"We're a cosmopolitan group," he says with a booming laugh.

"We even had a guest speaker once."

That guest speaker was Environment Southland councillor Robert Guyton.

Collie doesn't hold back on what he thought of Guyton's theories on farming but his opinion can't be directly quoted here."


I remember this coffee morning clearly. I'm not sure though, that Shane does. Still, it shows I made a lasting impression. My memory tells me we talked most passionately about Climate Change, oddly enough. Shane's from the Lord Monckton School of Climate Change Denial, and was as flexible as a fence-post when it came to considering my views. In fact, he became quite heated during the debate and his farming friends stepped in to settle him down. Shane and his old man, Stuart, ex-chairman of Environment Southland, are carved from the same rigid block of Conservative Pine and will be the last to concede that I am right about these things. I thought him a little churlish in his comments though I don't know what it was he said that couldn't be reported. Usually invited, guest speakers are granted a polite post-chat report, but there ya go, all bets are off when you go to Waianawa. 

7 comments:

Paranormal said...

So he's as flexible as you are in considering other points of view regarding Climate Change, Gorebull Warmneing or whatever it is called these days.

robertguyton said...

Are you Shane Collie, Paranormal?!
Your profiles certainly match closely :-)

DarkHorse said...

dumb and dumber?

robertguyton said...

Ha!
Wish I'd thought of that.

Armchair Critic said...

But, but, but...if JK doesn't send enough people overseas to shoot Iraqis at America's behest then the Chinese might not buy enough of the milk powder our farmers produce. That makes sense, right? I can't believe you can't see that clearly, Rob.

robertguyton said...

It must do, AC. JK wouldn't deceive us!
.

Armchair Critic said...

Huh. It makes no sense to me at all. It fails a very basic sniff test ("Does Tony Abbott think it's a good idea? If he does, it's a bad idea") and must be the stupidest decision our government has made. This is no mean feat when you consider all the other stupid things they've done.