Maori king gone by breakfast?

OPINION: Good afternoon and welcome to the latest edition of May Contain Facts. Every Saturday, we examine current events from a fresh angle, seek out newsmakers to explain their actions, and answer emails and letters sent in by readers who have only kept one eye on the news, and are forced to more or less ask: "Did I get that right? What actually happened?"

It's exactly what readers asked this past week as nationwide news stories left many bothered, bewildered, and in one sad case in Wellington, bewitched.

We start with reader Hamish McTavish, who writes that he was rushing to catch the 5pm commuter train from Hamilton to Auckland on Tuesday when he thought he saw a front-page headline in the Waikato Times which read: I WILL ABDICATE.

"I think it had something to do with the Maori king," he writes. "Did I get that right? What actually happened?"

It's a good question. According to that day's Waikato Times, King Tuheitia Paki told the Waikato-Tainui tribe's parliament, Te Kauhanganui, that he threatened to step down unless tribal members fell back into line.

By Wednesday morning, though, a spokesman for the king issued a flat denial: "King Tuheitia did not use those words, nor would he ever use such language."

May Contain Facts can exclusively reveal that we didn't get any further than hearing another flat denial.

We spoke with another spokesman, Jumbo "Hone" Trudgeon, who said that King Tuheitia's words had been twisted.

"What the king actually said was, `I will have eggs benedict'.

"I was in parliament that day. It started very early, about half past nine, and there'd been a lot of talk. Our stomachs were rumbling. Word went around, and the king decreed that we should all stop at 10am for brunch.

"I was looking at the menu, wondering whether to order ragout of celeriac and shallots finished with a quenelle of Kikorangi blue cheese and mascarpone, or a pie, when the king consulted his advisers and then selected the dish that he felt would most satisfy his royal appetite.

"There was nothing controversial about it. Eggs benedict is an ancient Tainui dish, which can be traced back for several years."

The next news event to bother correspondents was last Sunday's tsunami warning. May Contain Facts reader Nipper Lawrence of Inglewood, Taranaki, is outraged that he didn't learn until Thursday that New Zealand was at risk of a wave measuring 20 centimetres.

"There I was, going about my business, safe as houses, when all the time I could have lost my head, panicked, and run screaming through the streets," he writes.

Mr Lawrence blames Civil Defence for failing to make him feel hysterical.

The lack of a warning siren also angered Naomi Kingi, who told the Timaru Herald that she was forced to take matters into her own hands.

She went door to door at 7am last Sunday, waking residents to advise them of the incoming tsunami, which was triggered by the massive earthquake in nearby Chile.

"Everyone packed up and took their vehicles up to the top of the hill ... .We were nervous and on tenterhooks," she told the newspaper.

Finally, Iona Whipp, of Holloway Rd in Wellington's Aro Valley, has written to May Contain Facts to find more details about a story that appeared in The Nelson Mail.

"Marijuana ... A fire ... Smoke ... What actually happened?" she writes.

Ms Whipp is referring to Motueka residents who were unhappy with Nelson police for lighting a gigantic bonfire of thousands of cannabis plants.

The plants were seized by police as part of an annual drugs swoop in the area. After residents complained the smoke might damage their vineyards, police said they would change the site of the annual burn-off.

"For the good of my mental health and holistic wellbeing," writes Ms Whipp, a sickness beneficiary, "I really need to know where and when the cops will spark up next year. Can you find out, please?"

That's all we've got time for, and hope you'll join us next week.

- © Fairfax NZ News