Christchurch fires "official city wizard," leaving itself dangerously open to dragon attacks
The New Zealand city has paid the wizard a salary since 1998
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Christchurch, New Zealand has just made a terrible mistake. It has fired its official city wizard, a man named Ian Brackenbury Channell, and now finds itself undefended against attacks by mystical armies of dragons, goblins, and, most dangerous of all, outraged bands of rogue magicians led by Brackenbury Channell himself.
This story was relayed to Stuff, presumably by a raven who perched on a writer’s windowsill to speak the news from its very beak. “The Master has been fired!” we imagine it squawked. “After 23 years! The Master has been fired!”
All the fae creatures of Christchurch are surely abuzz with the news, which has seen Brackenbury Channell’s post terminated and, along with it, the $16,000 NZD he’s received from the city each year “to provide acts of wizardy and other wizard-like services .. as part of promotional work for the city of Christchurch.”
Brackenbury Channell has held his position since 1998 but has been fired by the city council in order to usher in “new and different promotional programs that will increasingly reflect our diverse communities and showcase a vibrant, diverse, modern city ….”
The Wizard has responded to this by saying that he doesn’t “like being canceled” and saying the council are “a bunch of bureaucrats who have no imagination” who will make people think Christchurch is filled with suits “drinking lattes on the boulevard.”
“They are not making use of my worldwide fame,” he said. “Their image of Christchurch is nothing to do with the authentic heritage of the city. I am the original image of Christchurch.”
Brackenbury Channell, who moved to New Zealand from Australia in 1974, has said that the council’s decision “makes no difference” to him anyway. “I will keep going,” he said. “They will have to kill me to stop me.”
We don’t know how anyone could hear these wizardly words as anything but a threat to bring down the fragile balance of power between the worlds of spirit and human. The Wizard’s vanity must be satisfied by an immediate reinstatement, lest Christchurch fall prey to the mischief of elves, the fury of dwarves, and, god forbid, Brackenbury Channell directing thunderbolts down on the city streets while ranting about cancel culture and waving a wand around from the back of his winged steed.
[via Boing Boing]
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