KEY POINTS:
A couple of weeks ago I banged on about how it was Auckland's time to make a run at hosting the Olympics, based purely on the idea that we'd bring the fun back into competitive international sport.
I realise now there was a serious flaw in my plan, in that I failed to mention undoubtedly the most important Olympic event of them all: the opening ceremony.
After watching the frankly mind-blowing opening ceremony from Beijing 2008, I realise now that if Auckland truly wants the Olympics here, then we must do a whole lot more, by way of welcome, than simply inviting a global television audience of hundreds of millions over for a cup of tea and some club sandwiches with the crusts cut off.
No, if Auckland is to enter the pantheon of great Olympic hosts, we must clearly turn on a welcoming party unlike anything the world has ever seen. Luckily I have some ideas how we might achieve this. Yes, it will bankrupt the country. Yes, there may be some loss of life. And yes, property values in certain Auckland suburbs will be wiped out for several thousand years. But this is the Olympics, so it has to be worth it.
What the Chinese did that was cool was using the opening ceremony to rub the rest of the world's noses in the fact that heaps of cool stuff was invented in China and that they were doing amazing things like sailing round the world back when the rest of the planet was figuring out how to hit each other with sticks. As blueprints for "what to do for an opening ceremony" goes, this is not a bad one to follow. So we will.
The first thing that will need to happen if we're to turn on a truly spectacular show is that for a year before the ceremony, everyone in New Zealand will stop work on what they're doing so they can start rehearsing their part of proceedings. We don't have the Chinese luxury of hundreds of millions of people to pull off this show, so it will be all hands to the pump and to hell with the economy.
And there will, literally, be pumping involved as our opening ceremony will begin with the entire stadium flooded so the punters in the front rows can actually dip their toes in clean, clear, New Zealand water.
Then the lights go out and the stirring music (written for the occasion by one or more members of the Finn family) starts and these giant waka-shaped jet boats start whizzing around the lake/arena. In this way we are celebrating not only our migratory history but the first of many great Kiwi inventions.
Then the waka suddenly rise up on giant wheels (another Kiwi first) and drive from the stadium as, overhead, a giant milking machine descends. With a hundred thousand people pumping like buggery outside the stadium, the milking machine sucks up all the water and sends it back to the hydro lake it came from.
While everyone is still gasping in awe at this massive display of New Zealand's dairying prowess, we hit them again as a giant tub of spreadable butter rises from the stadium floor. Another great Kiwi invention (or is it a discovery?) is celebrated on the world stage.
Then the lid flies off the giant spreadable butter tub and everyone gasps in amazement as hundreds of kids in Buzzy Bee outfits are launched into the air. They swarm around the arena, smiling and waving and singing along to a ripping song by Dave Dobbyn, before floating off into the night sky.
Meanwhile, back on the ground, thousands of different sized and different coloured balls are suddenly rolling round the stadium. Is this a celebration of the childhood schoolyard game of marbles? No, because when the balls start crashing into each other and breaking into half, giving off energy as they do, we realise it is a celebration of Sir Ernest Rutherford and splitting the atom!
Then, as Keith Quinn is breathless with excitement, we have the controversial part of the ceremony as a huge replica of Richard Pearse's first powered aeroplane circles the stadium. Yes, we're saying to the world, we invented powered flight too. The crowd roars as the giant Pearse plane splits into many top dressing planes which proceed to drop fertiliser over everyone.
I haven't quite worked out the finale - which will definitely involve bungy-jumping and all the volcanoes in Auckland erupting at once. And I also haven't worked out how to incorporate other great Kiwi gifts to the world like childproof lids on pill bottles, the tranquiliser dart gun and the stamp-vending machine, but I'm sure we can crowbar them in somehow, if we all pull together like only Kiwis can.
I am, officially, giddy with excitement.
