Phillip Island Festival of Stories: Here, cop that John Cleese!

LOCAL councils aren’t all about ‘roads, rates and rubbish’! Don’t you believe it.

Former Bass Coast Shire Council Mayor, Cr Michael Whelan, was on ‘civvy street’ for his first unofficial outing as ex-mayor when he prompted a connection between himself and the Palmerston North rubbish tip on the north island of New Zealand.

Cr Whelan was attending the Phillip Island ‘Festival Of Stories’ on Saturday when his question to author Lorin Clarke, daughter of former ABC satirist John Clarke, a much-loved resident of Phillip Island, prompted a funny story that might not have ended up that way without the rapier wit of John Clarke.

Clarke, who was born in Palmerston North in 1948, received a desperate phone call in 2006 from a long-time friend, the Palmerston North Mayor Heather Tanguay, who was engaged in a war of words with English funny man, John Cleese, of Monty Python fame.

Cleese had complained, in a podcast about his 2005 tour visit to the New Zealand city, that he’d had “such a bloody miserable time” there, in a little hotel, with nasty weather, in a poor theatre and with a “very strange” audience that it left only one option.

“If you ever do want to kill yourself but lack the courage, I think a visit to Palmerston North will do the trick.”

Mayor Tanguay was at a loss about how to combat the potential, a serious potential, that Palmerston North might become the suicide capital of New Zealand.

“What can we do,” Lorin Clarke relayed from her father’s conversation with Cr Tanguay.

“What do you know about your powers with the local laws?” Mr Clarke is said to have inquired.

“Would you be able to rename the Palmerston North tip ‘The John Cleese Memorial Tip’?”

And so it transpired. The Palmerston North Tip was renamed ‘Mt Cleese Tip’ and a sign at the city rubbish facility carries an inspiration credit to a favourite son, John Clarke’s alter ego Fredrick Dagg Esq.

That’s the flavour of what participants received when they attended the Phillip Island Festival of Stories at the weekend.

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