ON THE TRAIL OF A NEWLY IDENTIFIED PACHYDERM

In breaking news last night (I presume it will have been fixed by the time you read this), TV3 newsreader Hilary Barry informed us that a woman had been killed by an alaphant.

This is clearly a hitherto unknown sub-species of pachyderm and readers of this blog can rest assured I will leave no stone unturned in my efforts to unearth further information.

My first thought was that it was perhaps closely related to the alleyphant, which I have previously heard mentioned by New Zealand television journalists. The alleyphant is a sub-species specially bred for ease of manoeuvring in the narrow lanes one finds in many Indian and Southeast-Asian cities.