Dominic George: I'm gonna have a blast on Bonfire Night

If you don't want to buy fireworks and have a bit of fun then don't. Photo / Paul Taylor

Wowser influence sways John Key to consider banning fireworks

There are wowsers out there coming to get you and they seem to be multiplying at an alarming rate.

If you're not a wowser, beware -- if you are, crawl back into your hole and leave the rest of us alone.

It's no surprise really that the wowser population is growing but what is staggering is it's reached the upper echelons of this country's corridors of power. Yes, none other than the glorious leader himself has dipped his toe into the water of wow and floated the idea of banning Guy Fawkes. Straight out of the Helen Clark handbook, this is a real clanger right up there with the smoke and mirrors of the proposed flag change.

I'm not sure where this obsession with telling others what's good for them has come from or why there's been a deluge of it in recent times. Maybe I'm just noticing it more.

Here's a novel idea: if you don't want to buy fireworks and have a bit of fun then don't. Quite simple. But don't tell others they shouldn't either. If this was a Labour or Greens idea it would be dismissed with the old catch-cry "it's PC gone mad" and "stop telling us how to live our lives". But the Jamie Mackays of this world will dutifully submit to a higher power and agree unreservedly for no other reason than if John said so then it must be true.

Some people make it their business to tell others what to do and how to think. Pleasingly, you don't find a lot of these folk in rural New Zealand. Most of the people I've met from these parts of the country are too busy in the first instance to give a rat's backside what other people think about anything, let alone try to convince them otherwise. This is not to say the same people don't have the wherewithal to form their own opinions on worldly matters or are disengaged with life outside the farm gate. They simply understand that if I take care of my stuff and you take care of yours, then we should all be sweet. This is, of course, a sweeping generalisation but I think most of you will agree, except the ones who tell us we shouldn't be able to buy fireworks.

On a different note, the Farming Show Trade Union is receiving unprecedented support from some unlikely quarters. West Coast cow cocky and rabid blue-blood Andy Thompson wants to join so he can finally get some cash off the miserable Mackay and Hawke's Bay farmer Steve Wyn-Harris has also pledged his support as recompense for the years of abuse he's suffered as a Farming Show correspondent. Although he did once receive a Dixie Chicks CD with a broken case, so I'm not sure if he's got much of a leg to stand on.

By the time you've read this, I will have gone to the shop and bought a big box of fireworks, sunk a few beers and rained down merry hell on my backyard as my kids oooh and ahhh over the brilliance of the spectacle. I will lock the cats inside and contain the extravaganza to my own property. If you don't like it, then tough cos you're not invited although I'm sure some of the more miserable wowsers out there will sneak a peek through the curtains before writing a letter to the editor urging other people's fun to cease immediately.

• Dominic George hosts Farming First, 5am-6am weekdays on Radio Sport.