New Zealand Lays Off Official City Wizard After 23 Years... Citing "Wizards aren't cool anymore"

By ;Jerryhattric - Flickr: wizard's wishes,
CC BY-SA 2.0, Link

Firstly, kudos to UK born, Ian Brackenbury, who some how managed to be paid USD$11,300 annually to be Christchurch's official Wizard for the last 23 years. Probably one of the most unconventional local government jobs out there but it gives everyone hope that dream jobs can become a reality.

I mean, if you asked anyone pre 1998 that Christchurch City Council would employ an official Wizard for even a year, you'd probably get told you were dreaming.

Interestingly enough 1998 is pre New Zealand becoming 'Middle Earth' in Peter Jackson's highly acclaimed movies based on Tolkien's books, The Lord of the Rings. Though I'm sure they did a lot to keep Ian on the payroll for so many years as a living tourist attraction of the city (yeah, if you thought he worked in the engineering department or something you were way off).

The city council has decided to let their wizard go as part of 'modernizing the city' saying to The Guardian that

it wasn’t anything personal—it was just that, well, wizards weren’t that cool anymore, and weren’t a part of the “vibrant, diverse, modern city” image that Christchurch wanted to promote to tourists and residents.

Which begs the question, is there an opportunity for someone to swoop in and offer to be the city's official Batman, Spiderman, or Zombie (all of which are very cool at the moment?).

Maybe there's some other character they could employ... perhaps an official Boba Fett? Why not? That character is played by a New Zealander, and he's got a Disney+ series coming up in December.

If you have any ideas for Christchurch's next 'official' fictional character leave it in the comments below.

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