Every day in the lead-up to Christmas, the Spinoff has been swinging open the squeaky hinges on calendar doors to reveal a short, sizzling commentary on a weighty subject. Our arbitrary and strictly enforced word limit: 365. Today, to mark the birth of Christ, 20 Spinoff writers have combined to create the most nuclear take of all. Each wrote a line, and all they had to go on was the line before. Merry Christmas!
From Cape Reinga to Bluff, New Zealanders today gather with the people they most love. And loathe. Once the gifts are unwrapped and the ham has been eaten, there’s only one thing left to do. We wallow, fat and complacent, drowning in our regrets. But do we promise to change? No chance.
Why would we? The world belongs to us, and there’s no reason to give that up. Or is there? At the rate we’re going, Earth may be uninhabitable within a few decades. There is a strong case to be made for an immediate nationwide descent into Dionysian orgy.
What better way to bring our nation together in a time of need. As I was recently saying to my good friend Jacinda Ardern, the time is now. Air NZ’s shameful behaviour means we must legislate for accurate labelling of real Kiwi meat immediately.
Why only last summer I was honoured at the Marton County Music for services to neo-traditional bluegrass. I was surprised, as I thought my genre was more dubstep than bluegrass, but I guess the fiddle really overwhelmed the track. The government must address the issue of dominant fiddles or face the consequences. And rethink the policy of euphemism, obfuscation, antidisestablishmentarianism and semantic Twister-spinning that typifies this “Labour-led” parlour game.
And so it is, with a heavy heart, that I come to this sad but inevitable conclusion. A conclusion that I, a right-minded and free-flowing organism who owes nought to any institution, have come to. Sometimes it’s not socially acceptable to drink at 9am. Today, though. Today I will drink from dawn till dusk. I will drink until the stars turn cold. I will drink until the Big Cow comes home.
Wake up, sheeple! Don’t you see? It’s time we make stand against the latte-sipping liberal elite. No less than our very way of life is under threat. Think of the children. The bloody children! Years from now our children’s children will ask us where did we stand? Did you really let us slide head first into a dystopian hellscape of suffering?
This article was written by Toby Manhire, Madeleine Chapman, Alex Braae, Simon Day, Don Rowe, Alice Neville, Mark Kelliher, Leonie Hayden, Duncan Greive, Jose Barbosa, Kerryanne Nelson, Maria Slade, Henry Oliver, Catherine McGregor, Sam Brooks, Tina Tiller, Alex Casey, Jihee Junn, Toby Morris and Emily Writes
Catch up on the Hot Take Advent Calendar in full here