Then the lightning flashing (flashing crashing)Fireworks shooting up in her head

Lightning, according to Heraclitus, can never strike the same river twice. Unless I am thinking of Empedocles who provided empirical proof that you cannot step in the same crater of molten lava twice.

All you need to know about Empedocles is that he favoured a 'four elements' theory for the constitution of all phenomena. In his original recension the elements were Earth, Water, Fire and Air, but he later replaced the last of these with Wood, after Democritus pointed out that you can have Earthworks, Waterworks, Fireworks and Woodwork, but not Airwork.

Here at left, Heraclitus is sad because he cannot balance a spinning globe on his fingertip as well as Democritus, his fellow-philosopher and partner in crime-fighting.

Heraclitus also had some ideas about Enantiodromia and the 'coincidence of opposites' and dialectic between extremes. Thus it seems fair to blame him for the idea of making sweetened beverages out of whatever sour fruit life hands you. Sadly, all life has handed me lately is a shower of numpties and barmpots and irritating people, and it turns out to be illegal to put them in the juicer. Also too, experience proves that it is not a good idea to ask Evangeline van Holsterin (head barmaid at the Old Entomologist) if she was made out of barms; not unless you want to be served a free pint of cockade or colonnade or worse.

Anyway, this provides a convenient segue to the Wellington City Council's policy of sponsoring a series of wind-glorifying kinetic sculptures. Prominent among these being the Zephyrometer, a gimbaled Rube Goldberg Variation named after and modelled upon the speedometer of a Mark IV Ford Zephyr two-tone station-wagon (TRUFAX!). The idea is to turn the city's reputation for galefulness into a source of pride.

Typical breezy day in Wellington

This was all very well until a thunderstorm redlined the Zephyrometer into a Lightningmeter.

Every sow's ear has a silver lining, however, and the destruction of the artwork creates an excuse to link to a James Gleeson painting [left].

It is also an opportunity to remind the Council that here at Riddled Enterprises we have our own proposal for fostering pride in the city's negative attributes. Dummies will be spat and toys will be thrown if they are so purblind as to reject our "Giant Bore" kinetic sculpture,