Brian Rudman: An idea that isn't over the hill

We've all been there. Deadline looming and the cupboard bare. On Monday it was the turn of Paul Holmes, sweating away in his new studio in Albania with nothing to launch his new show but a canned interview with Jonah Lomu so ancient it could have qualified for National Super.

So off he drove in the tracks of previous attention seekers - a talkback radio host among them - and planted yet another replacement tree on One Tree Hill.

It was all so disorganised that no one even bothered to take a watering can. Marie Antoinette-like, Mr Holmes gestured to the skies and said in effect, "Let it eat rain".

Not that it was to need a last meal. By dawn next morning when council workers arrived to remove it, the stunt tree had mysteriously disappeared. But its work had been done. Over breakfast we were talking about that bloody tree - and Mr Holmes - once more.

To me, the clamour to replace the fallen pine brings to mind the sad and deluded who think they can revive the past by cloning their dearly departed moggies. Truth is, the icon's gone. How sad, but after four years, let's move on.

Even if a new tree manages to survive on this exposed site - a long shot, at best - it'll take 50 or more years to reach icon size, and by then, I for one, will be beyond caring.

Still, the Holmes stunt did spark an idea for the site.

Why not establish a grotto of Celebrity Trees?

One Tree Hill could become our very own Sid Grauman's Chinese Theatre, that visitor magnet in Hollywood, where the movie stars leave their marks on the concrete pavement outside. Up One Tree Hill, the truly notable - local and international - could be invited to plant a tree for free. The wannabes could pay for the privilege.

With a likely survival rate of, say, 10 per cent, it's not as though we'll run out of space.

By charging for the privilege, at least it saves you and me, the poor old ratepayers, from funding the enterprise. Holmes and his rival hosts could include a trek to Celebrity Hill, live with their guests, complete with shovel and tree.

The mayor could be there to extract the fee and offer a hongi and hug.

Mercenary? Well, looking after trees on One Tree Hill is not cheap.

First aid for the old tree between the first chainsaw attack in October 1994 and its eventual removal, eight years later, was at least $564,000.

Maintenance, security and monitoring of a replacement is going to cost ratepayers a further $40,000 a year. At least with sponsored trees up there, some of these costs could be recovered.

Perhaps it might even leave money over to install an automatic tui feeder or two as well.

A tui feeder?

It's said that a camel is a horse designed by a committee. An Auckland City Council committee, I wager, having perused its new Vulcan Lane Upgrade brochure.

The centre piece of the redesign is a high-tech "fully automated" and "self-flushing" tui feeder.

Now you and me, if we wanted to attract tui into our gardens, would stupidly plant a kowhai, or a flowering cherry and/or a flax bush or two and patiently wait.

But not city council landscape architect Leo Jew. He wants to speed up and automate the process with metallic pole-mounted devices that release a continuous flow of sweet syrup.

Further down the feeder support pole, "drinking fountains for human visitors" would be installed.

Bending over to drink water at street level when you know tui are perched above you, gorging on a continuous flow of syrup, makes me nervous about what might plop on to the back of one's neck.

One wonders too, whether attracting more birds into what is now a giant outdoor human dining hall, is the smartest move, healthwise. Sparrows are pain enough.

Daft as it sounds, the idea sort of warms on you after a glass or two.

But a sceptical retailer, with a coating of pigeon droppings on his window sill, is less enthusiastic. "What will they think of next? Hanging bowls of mice from the light fittings to attract morepork?"