Brian Rogers Rogers Rabbits www.sunlive.co.nz

It's the old monarch's birthday this weekend. Her faithful subjects are honoured with a day off to celebrate.

As usual, we'll be deep in deliberation of what to get for her birthday.

You can never be too careful. A few hundred years ago some of her loyal subjects decided to give the Queen a fair chunk of Aotearoa. What a disaster that turned out to be.

Centuries later, she's having to give a swag of it back, plus compensation, and apologise. Well actually the Queen isn't doing any of the giving or apologising, despite the Crown nabbing some prime real estate. She and the rest of the ‘Crown' have dodged that mess. Left it for unsuspecting descendants to sort out the squabbles.
The greasing is left for the poor old Government (equals: current taxpayers) to do the brown-nosing.

Hardly something to celebrate, eh? Those bloody colonials just helped themselves to this piece and that piece, never mind the owners of the time.

Although a few of the locals managed to pull some cunning swifties and sold some of it several times over. Fair enough too; that shows a sharp understanding of commerce.
Supply and demand. Supply it as many times as demand will allow.

So I'd be careful about dishing out any bits of land for any further queenie birthdays, if I were you.

Brazil once gave her a pair of sloths. The Duke is said to have been seen hanging out with them. Harry was keen to take them clubbing but grandma was concerned it might end up on Facebook.

Some unpatriotic people have suggested we give the Queen the flick. How rude.
How about some nice Kiwiana? Sounds great, except till you look on the label and find its made in China or Taiwan. No, that won't do.

Maybe Liz would like a nice cat from the SPCA or the ARRC. I see Hugo in this edition is looking for a home. Oh no, that wouldn't work. The corgis would go nuts. Besides, Hugo apparently doesn't like dogs.

The Cameroon government once gave her an elephant. We don't have any information on the state of the corgis after that. But the elephant packed his trunk and ended up in London zoo.

The Aussies were onto it, the year they gave Queen a bar of Tilley's Timid Joe dog soap. Said to instantly kill fleas and other vermin… I suspect Her Majesty would not be amused at the inference that the corgis carry vermin. She probably found another use for it. Maybe this explains what happened to Fergie.

Aussie really screwed up in 1947 however, when they sent her a wedding present of 500 cases of tinned pineapple. If we'd been alert, we could have sent her a can opener. Lost opportunity there.

We would suggest a luxurious la-z-boy from Barry Muir, but she already has the Duke.
How about her own political party? I hear anyone can start one up these days and get some attention, even if you're a talentless egotist with dubious leadership ability. Nah, it's been done already.

The Canadians once contributed a totem pole to the Windsor Castle grounds. Unconfirmed reports are the Duke asked if pole dancers came with it.

Fiji keeps giving her whale teeth. By 1977 she already had enough whale teeth to open a small sea mammals orthodontist practice.

We gave her a waka one year. Clearly it wasn't appreciated. She never paddled it, and eventually it ended up in the British Museum. She's already got a mere, from a previous visit. And a shark's tooth sword from Kiribati.

But this takes the cake. The most bizarre gift ever was from Ireland. Of course.
She was offered horse sperm. Christina Patino offered to host a royal mare, to get down to business with stallion Big Bad Bob. The Duke probably fainted.
Camilla, however, looked keen.


What have we done this year Phil, to insult the colonies?