Amid dodgy dog rescue claims, I dream of downing dreary, disruptive drones – Stuff.co.nz

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Dafei Wu/Niwa

Lake Matheson, one of New Zealand’s best-known scenic attractions. It was at a similarly scenic spot that Joe Bennett was irritated by the intrusion of a drone.

Joe Bennett is an award-winning Lyttelton-based columnist, playwright and author of more than 20 books.

OPINION: I climbed through a stretch of beech forest on the promise of a scenic lake. I tripped on roots, slid on moss and fell on rocks but arrived eventually torn and bleeding at a lake bedecked with cliché – snow-topped mountains reflected in the black mirror of the water and so on. But then there was a Spaniard with a drone. Up went the drone to ruin the scene it was photographing.

Well now, just as you would have done, I drew my imaginary 9mm Glock from its well-worn holster, took aim and sent the drone spinning down into the mirrored water. Silence surged back in, marred only by the angry protestations of the Spaniard. But when I explained to him the outrage he had committed against my peace and privacy he recognised his sin and flung himself at my feet and begged forgiveness. I touched him lightly on the shoulder and told him to dry his tears and go in peace. He’d been seduced by drone.

Ian Walton/AP

A drone hovering above the field saw the English Premier League soccer match between Brentford and Wolverhampton Wanderers halted for 20 minutes on Saturday.

Drones. There’s nothing to be said for them, nothing. Invasive, noisy, prying, pointless, they’re the jet skis of the air.

In the pub last week I met a man who told me with no sign of shame that he not only spends his evenings building racing drones but also spends his weekends – would you believe it? – racing them. They fly, he said, almost too fast to see. I said it seemed a splendid hobby so long as he practised it in prison where he belongs.

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All of which serves only as a preamble to a happy story in the news this week. Happy stories are currently in demand for obvious reasons. Gloom abounds. The virus lurks. Glaciers melt. Putin schemes. Trump’s still not behind bars. (Though Tamaki is, and we should celebrate where we can.) So we want happy stories to cheer us up, and this one’s a classic. It’s a pet rescue.

Somewhere in England a dog slipped its leash and wandered out onto mud flats. These were deemed too dangerous for people to venture onto in pursuit and the tide was coming in fast. So Fido, it seemed, was doomed.

Now, before we go any further, does anyone else smell a rat? Any dog finding a tide rising behind it would run ahead of it. In the unlikely event of the tide overtaking it the dog would swim. And in the even more unlikely event of the dog sinking into the mud and becoming cast – and this dog was a cross between a whippet and a Jack Russell, so it would weigh about as much as a bag of marshmallows – then the rising tide would lighten it and free it from the mud’s grip.

Stuff

Joe Bennett: “I said it seemed a splendid hobby so long as he practised it in prison where he belongs.”

Nevertheless, the story goes that someone suggested luring the dog off the mud with food. To this end they bought sausages from the local Aldi supermarket, fried them up (even while the lethal tide was coming in, and even though dogs are just as happy with raw) and attached them by string to a drone.

The drone was then flown out to the poor, doomed creature, which, rather than taking fright, beheld the sausages, leapt to seize them, found them twitching forever out of reach and duly followed them to safety in the manner of a donkey following carrots. And they all lived happily ever after.

And I don’t believe it for a moment. It’s propaganda for the loathsome drones. If it happened it was staged, a PR stunt. There is nothing to be said for drones, nothing. Hang on to your Glock.

Source: https://www.stuff.co.nz/opinion/127587837/amid-dodgy-dog-rescue-claims-i-dream-of-downing-dreary-disruptive-drones