A Gap appears on Marine Parade

Ever on the scrounge for Fast Food, your snoopy Gull scribe was flying lazily down Marine Parade the other day. Normally, this strip (which has been heard to be described, shurely in a jocular manner, as 'the jewel in the Crown of Christchurch') gives good pickings. Because, you see, the old houses lined up here, especially south of the mall, have all been bought by developers and are awaiting.... well, development, I suppose.

Anyhoo. Where was I? Oh yes, these old houses can't be developed just yet, it seems, because the stupid Council hasn't got it's Plan into gear to allow it. So, how to turn a dime from those old, un-maintained houses, you wonder, as a developer watching the interest bills on the purchase price mount up and up?

Why, you rent them to, shall we say, the less discriminating sector of renters. That's not, by the way, what most actual ratepaying residents call this crew. We have learnt some choice new words, I can tell you!

But the inevitable has happened, as it always does. One of these old houses has gone up in smoke - the very smoke I saw when flying down the Parade. Bound to happen, eh? Rent a shack which everyone in the whole town knows the owner will never ever maintain, to the Great Gull Above knows who, for who knows what purpose, and then stand around gawping in wonder when the whole thing burns to the ground. And then the Stoopid Councillors come and stand around and blame the landlord for not maintaining the shack!

Talk about confusing Cause and Effect! The Council has just circulated a notice to ratepayers about a Planning Nimprovements Meeting, which was approved by the last Council, 'early last year'....That's 14 months ago. I've had another generation of Cute Gullz in that time! No wonder the developers are a bit down in the mouth. At this rate, they'll be able to fire up the Cat D9, oh, around 2015 or so.

That's 10 more years of rent-a-scum inflicted on the permanent residents of this Jewel in Christchurch's Crown! But (hee hee) look at it my way. 10 more years of Glorious Pickings from this same rent-a crew, who, surprise surprise, are none too particular about disposing of their rubbish.

But the final kicker is this: that house I saw burning down was my very Favourite pickings place. The best week-old chips, plenty of mice to harry, even the occasional rat on a good day. A little bit of fun has gone out of my Gullish life.