KEY POINTS:
Firstly I would like to apologise for not filing a column last week. I appreciate that many of you only really buy the paper for my column, so it is understandable that in many cases you may have felt a little short-changed, especially those of you who get it delivered, as you wouldn't have had any way of knowing it wasn't going to be in there.
Of course, that is the risk you take when you subscribe as opposed to buying the Herald on Sunday on a paper-by-paper basis.
The downside of buying week by week is that it is probably more expensive, but as they say, it's a six-of-one, half-a-dozen-of-the-other kind of situation, or as I sometimes like to say, "neither here nor there".
For years now those in the know have been praising my columns for being perhaps the most exciting and original literary work ever to come out of New Zealand, certainly Balmoral where I drive to write a lot of it.
So it must have come as a quite a shock to many when I was stood down last week pending an investigation into plagiarism. I was hardly surprised at all as I had been plagiarising for many years. To be honest I don't think I have written a single column all by myself, with the exception perhaps of this one, but it's not over yet.
Since the advent of the cut-and-paste facility on computer programs, plagiarism has increased 350 per cent. The upside of this, of course, is that spelling has improved 450 per cent thanks to the spell check facility.
Specifically in my case, for many years I have been copying Noelle McCarthy's columns and using much of the lesser-quality work as my own. If I had used the better stuff it would've been too obvious, and as apparently some of that may have already been plagiarised, it could have meant I was plagiarising twice when I only really wanted to plagiarise the once. Noelle, to her credit, is a fine thinker and writer and probably doesn't need to plagiarise.
If it happens here or there so be it, and most journalists have done it. I, on the other hand, do it pathologically. The satisfaction I get from doing it is what drove me to be a writer in the first place.
This all came to a head last week when the plagiarism police came knocking.
They crashed through the front door of my home last Thursday morning at 4am. Obviously they were hoping to catch me unawares, but they got more than they bargained for as my wife and I were having sex beside our old traditional plastic Christmas tree, something that has become somewhat of a tradition in our home.
Brandishing a search warrant and beagles that can apparently sniff out unoriginal material, they proceeded to tear the house to bits searching for incriminating evidence.
They tipped all the books from my bookshelf on to the floor and went through each one searching for any passages, phrases or even words that might have been highlighted. A section entitled "Adventurous gravity-assisted love-making positions for around the Christmas tree" was one such highlighted passage they found in a Karma Sutra-type book, and anyone with a basic grasp of these kinds of sexual positions would have known that the passage highlighted was the very thing we were attempting by the Christmas tree when they burst in.
They then attacked my computer, going through it with a fine-tooth comb and then what could best be described as thick-bristled hair brush, searching, I suspect, for data that might further incriminate me.
From the start of the investigation I was willing to co-operate, giving them names of people I had plagiarised. I admitted that I had met Noelle personally on several occasions, and that at times I had bought her drinks with the sole intention of taking advantage of her. Failing that I was going to ask her if I could copy her work, as I was getting dangerously close to deadline and had very little to show for it.
The plagiarism police then got the AA around, attached jumper leads to my testicles and asked me questions about my political and religious beliefs and taste in music. On reflection this was more for their amusement than anything else. I would like to finish this column by plagiarising some quotes about plagiarism.
"Copy from one, it's plagiarism; copy from two, it's research."
And of course one that I may or may not have made up myself: "Creativity is great but plagiarism is faster."
