Brian Rogers Rogers Rabbits www.sunlive.co.nz

Beautiful, crisp winter days in the wonderful city of Tauranga.

Cool, but sunny, perfect for a walk downtown, catch a coffee and a bite of lunch or a glass of something.

Don't be concerned about recent scaremongering from health professionals, that even small amounts of alcohol will give you cancer. You are more likely to die from an unlicensed Counties Manukau Maori driver, who has been let off with a warning.

A bizarre piece of apartheid that Maori haven't even asked for!

So enjoy the downtown fresh air, smiling faces and best of all – the free roadside entertainment.

What? I hear you exclaim, is there free roadside entertainment?

Well yes, I answer. It's The Strand Footpath Obstacle Course. It's our quaint local version of extreme parkour. Every time there are more than four people trying to walk along The Strand at any given time, the city puts on, for the viewing pleasure of spectators and diners, our unique Confidence Course. John Cleese would be proud to see our Silly Walks as we try to dodge furniture, fittings, foliage and other folk.

It has been created by the real footpath being invaded by the outdoor seating areas of The Strand restaurants and cafes. It means the surrogate footpath is actually the pavement outside of the verandah areas, ie the gaps between the trees, useless concrete seats, signboards, drunks and homeless vagrants, parked motorcycles, mobility scooters and the twisted carcasses of pedestrians who failed the Obstacle Course.

Quirky hazards

Pedestrians are put through a range of hazards. Some of our favourites are:

The Duck and Weave. The 'footpath”, if you can call it that, is punctuated with concrete seats that no-one ever sits on, sign boards and trees. When there's a couple walking in opposite directions on the 'footpath”, they always meet at the chicane bottleneck feature, requiring at least one member of each couple to drop back to single file to allow the other couple to pass (this feature is sponsored by local chiropractors).

The Eye Splice. This obstacle is a favourite of local eye surgeons, who thrive on the business of treating hapless pedestrians with eyeballs skewered by overhanging palm trees.

The Seat Hurdles. Some pedestrians find it necessary to climb over the useless concrete seats (sponsored by haemorrhoid surgeons), while others take a packed lunch to hike around the outside of them. No-one who values the integrity of their nether regions is ever going to sit on them, especially in this temperature.

Sandwich Board Gin Traps. Designed to snag your undercarriage and hosiery while you foxtrot around the blockades. This why I never wear my best stockings downtown. Old pantyhose, maybe.

Obstacle course

Here at RR we are not denying the businesses the right to use the pavement outside their premises. They've done a damned fine job of setting out their stuff, and made it groovy and inviting. Well, as best you can do with a converted footpath. But the downside is the loss for pedestrians of shelter from the rain, so as long as they're all happy not to expect many customers on wet days, everyone is fine.

Dining alfresco adds to the ambience and makes the dining experience vibrant and interesting. But the only alternative for pedestrians is to take obstacle course.

Ped X factor

Here at RR we have some suggestions to make the Strand obstacle course more interesting, possibly even a tourist attraction.

The Water Jump. A small lake outside The Crown & Badger would be fun.

Waiter races. Including hurdles over the Useless Concrete Seats.

Apes in the trees throwing rotten fruit down on passers-by.

Slip and Slide. Grease up some of the paving stones at random.

A town planner or engineer in stocks, for public ridicule. And to throw things at. Okay, maybe a bit of torture.

An abseiling section.

Comedy area. Some council staff and councillors rostered to stand at a soapbox to tell us there's nothing wrong with the footpath as it is.

A small orchestra playing appropriate slapstick tunes to match the pantomime antics on the sidewalk as ordinary people just try to walk along the street sensibly. But can't.

Any ideas you have for more obstacle course fun downtown, send to Rogers and we'll share with the many disgruntled pedestrians who walk our downtown streets.

Full throttle reverse gear

Meanwhile, back in apartheid South Auckland, the police PR machine was spinning tyres in full throttle reverse gear this week, feverishly trying to back out of the dead-end street, known as Racist Policing Lane.

It's one of those dark avenues that once you've gone down it, there's no way out.

TV news broke the story this week, with leaked documents spelling out that all Maori drivers caught without a licence or in breach of their conditions are to be referred for training and not given a ticket.

We've awarded the Counties Manukau cops one out of 10 for the handling of this case: the one point in their favour is at least they fronted up and tried to explain.

They've won no points, however, for the racist policy in the first place, nor any subsequently in trying to convince the public that 'let Maori off” really means 'consider letting everyone off”.

Something smells

The last straw came when beleaguered policeman John Tims, squirmed around the questions with a lot of PR gobbledegook and talk of 'partners” and 'compliance” before finally trying to blame a reporter for getting the story wrong.

Sorry John, but the public are not that stupid. If it looks like a turd and smells like a turd, it is a turd.

brian@thesun.co.nz