Jim Hopkins: Deal with the giant red heifer then we'll stuff the Lions

Once upon a time there was a lovely little country that was really clean and green. Yes, it was. It was so clean and so green that lots of people called it the Garden of (Mt) Eden.

Some people called it a big flat boring paddock, but we won't listen to them, boys and girls.

They're just sillybillies and we should chop them into little pieces and feed them to the endangered species, shouldn't we?

Yes, of course we should.

Anyway, as we were saying, once upon a time there was a lovely little country that was really, really clean and green. The reason it was clean and green was so all the nice farmers could grow lots and lots of lovely little lambs and cows on their farms. Then kill them.

In a loving way, of course. The wee baa lambs and moo cows never felt a thing.

What was good about having all those dead animals was it meant the people in the lovely little country had lots of money to spend on lattes and TVs and motor cars and cellphones and yummy medicines that make you better (unless you're asthmatic), and sometimes even lavish, architecturally designed weekend baches and lifestyle vineyards on nice little islands in the gulf with reliable ferry services that were ideal for lawyers, accountants, life coaches, media trainers, PR consultants and similar invaluable folk.

The people had all those things because of export earnings, boys and girls, but we won't bother you with boring stuff like that. It would only upset you.

Although not as much as what happened next. Because what happened next was that a nasty, horrid, smelly, awful eco-terrorist told everyone: "I've just phoned one of Mr Hussein's horrid henchmen and said, 'While you're sneaking through our impeccably protected borders could you also smuggle in some nasty germs that will force us to kill all our animals?"' (But not in a loving way, boys and girls.)

Happily, after the sharemarket crashed and the dollar plunged and the mayor of Auckland flung himself into a muesli-blender because he thought they were talking about foot in mouth, the people discovered it was just a sillybilly hoax. And they all slept happily ever after.

The End.

Right, with that out the way, let's get cheerful. Those of you who've spent the last couple of days slaughtering your guinea pigs and budgies in the national interest might have forgotten that it's New Zealand Music Month. Not so the extinguished poet laureate, Mr Jam Hipkins.

Having been forced (through dire poverty) to accept employment (now terminated) in the Bangkok office of the Immigration Service, he's returned to his first love and is about to release a truly thrilling album of his own compositions.

Hailed by the critics as "stunningly mediocre" and "even more tedious than most local stuff", the laureate's album is entitled New Fiddles On Old Tunes - mainly because that's what it is.

There can be no better example than Mr Hipkins' haunting song about this week's foot and mouth scare, using the tune of that unforgettable number from Mary Poppins - Super-catastrophic-ious-exposeadocious.

Now we're facing foot and mouth
Which really is ferocious
But if it takes the public's mind
Off Cabinet deeds atrocious
What a super-super-licious-exposeadocious

Bravo, sir. Well done. And should you suspect, as the laureate does, that the whole Waiheke "alert" is a giant red heifer, he's also written a song about that other crisis - you know, the one involving the former commissioner and what he might have said on that fateful night five years ago.

Remember the old Dean Martin hit Amore? Then sing along:

When the cop at the top
Tells the young cop to stop
That's a sto-o-o-ry
When the Doone pantomime
Is a Sunday Star crime
He gets shoved
When Ms Clark comes along
And insists "You're not wrong"
That's a sto-o-o-ory
'Scuse-a me
Can't you see
Pete got knifed
Clev-er-ly
That's the sto-o-o-o-ry

Naturally, there's social comment as well (no album is complete without it) including this tortured eco-remake of the hugely popular Sound of Music smash:

Dough is stuff that we've all got
Until we lose it paying tax.
C is short for carbon which
Emerges out of chimney stacks,
So we've got to tax that, too,
To prove we're holier than thou
Which means another hit on you
And that brings us back to
Dough etc

Finally, a song predicted to be the laureate's first No1. Incensed by reports in Wednesday's Harold that the Balmy Army has produced a most disagreeable ballad which includes the outrageous suggestion that the All Blacks should "stick to shagging sheep", he's responded with scathing lyrics of his own.

The fact that the melody is Waltzing Matilda may surprise some but Mr Hipkins argues that no tune could better remind "them Pomgolian poofters what happened last time their mangy, flea-bitten circus rejects came south". We'll let you judge for yourself:

Once a whinging Pommy
Came on down to Godzoneland
To see if Sir Woodward
Would win a few.
And he sobbed as his Lions
Played like neutered pussy cats
"Get Tamihere to lose our lot, too"
We'll shag the Lions
We'll shag the Lions
We'll shag the Lions; the sheep need not fear
And we'll smile as we stuff your jumped-up little tuggers back
"We'll shag the Lions Downunder this year"