Official City Wizard fired from New Zealand City after over 20 years of public service

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Originally published at: Official City Wizard fired from New Zealand City after over 20 years of public service | Boing Boing

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“The city of Christchurch was on fire, and this time it was my fault.”

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Can he apply for unemployment insurance? Asking for a wizard…

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image

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the council had decided to stop paying him because he did not fit with the modern image of the city

I look forward to seeing what kind of wizard does fit with the modern image of the city

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TIL that Christchurch NZ had an official city wizard. I’m pretty much the target demo for that sort of silliness. If the intent was to promote the city abroad, it wasn’t working.

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They paid $11000 a year to this guy to go around and be kind of a goofball political force for good. Reading what he’s done, protested for and against, and how he’s benefited Christchurch, it’s probably honestly the best $200k+ any city has spent on any project.

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I saw the original Christchurch Wizard 42 years ago, before it was an official position. He perched on a small stepladder, and proclaimed that New Zealand should pitch the entire democracy thing and appoint the Queen as absolute monarch.

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image

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By tradition shouldn’t she at least have to pull the sword from the stone to prove her worthiness before getting the official Wizard endorsement?

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Yeah, but then people would want to put the one who got the sword in the stone in power…

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image

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UKians might be more familiar with this than other readers (and they’ll know why).

But one thing’s for sure - a New Zealand wizard cannot be the Wizard of Oz

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Ah, but he moved to New Zealand in the early 70s from…AUSTRALIA!

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Just so long as we can all agree that strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.

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Be careful who you make angry, no telling what kind of spell he could cast over your fine city.

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I guess now he can join the Wellington Police Paranormal Division

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A Google image search found that GIF under the label “Harry Dresden Dresden Files” but that’s not Paul Blackthorne from the Syfy TV show. Is that from a fan film or a captioned and augmented picture of someone’s Halloween costume or cosplay? If it’s a fan film I’d like to see more of it.

Given that it’s New Zealand, I’d say “accounting” as in someone who can make piles of gross profits disappear from a net profit balance sheet and reappear in the movie exec’s bank account.

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