Chicken fever hits parliament

The talk of Parliament today has not been Hone Harawira's future, John Key's boycott of the Dalai Lama, or Phil Goff ending the 20-year consensus on monetary policy.

What has the whole complex in a frenzy is a chicken on the loose - one I have just captured in image- but only my cellphone.

It is a Leghorn according to the chicken specialists in the Beehive in ministerial offices who have been emailing each other about it all day.

It was let loose a week ago with four other birds by some idiot protestor.

The others have been captured by the SPCA but the fourth one, nicknamed Tegel by the security guards, has eluded capture.

Appropriately, it is living in bushes just behind Parliament alongside the pathway to the Ministry of Social Development and the Ministry of Food cafe.

Apparently people have been running around the back lawn with nets trying to get it.

As luck would have it, just as I stepped the Press Gallery to see if it could be seen, it stepped out of the bushes to have a peck on the grassy mound that was once to have been the site of the parliamentary palace.

It is possibly its last public appearance.

Hopefully the SPCA will get over here and make a proper effort to capture it before it tries to cross Bowen St.

And the last thing the parliamentary complex needs is a whole string of crossing the road chicken jokes.

However I did come across a website

http://philosophy.eserver.org/chicken.txt

with a variation on the chicken joke - the answer depending on who is answering.

Such as

Why did the chicken cross the road?

Karl Marx It was a historical inevitability.

Timothy Leary: Because that's the only kind of trip the establishment would let it take.

Oliver North: National Security was at stake.

Buddha: If you ask this question, you deny your own chicken-nature nature.

Salvador Dali: The Fish.

Ronald Reagan: I forget.

Mark Twain: The news of its crossing has been greatly exaggerated.

Mrs Thatcher:This chicken's not for turning.

Hamlet: That is not the question.

I would add my own contributions from New Zealand.

John Key: I haven't had any advice on that but I'm pretty relaxed about it crossing the road.

Phil Goff: I too have chickens and I know what a difficult decision it can be for chickens when it comes to crossing roads. Labour was perhaps too strict on chickens and we are re-examining our chicken policy, though it should be remembered that it is every chicken's right to cross the road so long as it does not interfere in the rights of others.

Tariana Turia: In the spirit of manaakitanga, the Maori Party would like to offer a home to the chicken in our offices - after it crosses Bowen St - and its hapu.

Sue Kedgley: Leave it run free range on the mound and give the eggs to Bellamies.

Rodney Hide: Officials have estimated that 108.5 hours have been wasted by the public servants in Wellington gazing out of window onto Bowen St to see the chicken crossing the road. My colleague Heather Roy, the Minister of Consumer Affairs, will deal with it.