How old is the christchurch wizard

You may be interested in watching:. This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Related Topics. Christchurch New Zealand. Published 14 October.

But, as The Wizard tells it, there were plenty of people against him. The academics in Sydney didn't like what he was doing "academics don't like silly, fun things," he says so he headed to the University of Melbourne, where he claims he led his own cosmology department. The university, however, says that is an "aggrandizement" of what he was doing -- according to them, he was not employed by the university, although he was associated with the student union.

When he became a wizard, he said he lost all his friends and his wife left him -- he says he turned her throwing him out of the house into a ritual by inviting friends to come, too. She's still furious. So in , he moved to Christchurch, New Zealand. And it was there that his wizarding path really took off.

Mystical Christchurch. If there was ever a place to be a wizard, Christchurch is it. While many inner-city buildings are still in disrepair from the earthquake that devastated the city and killed people, some of its Gothic-revival architecture remains, and there's a distinctly British feel to the built environment.

When low-lying fog rolls through the city, clinging to the gray stone buildings and colonial-era statues, it has the effect of conjuring a scene out of a British crime series, or low-budget horror movie. In short: it's suitably mystical for a wizard. The Wizard after the Christchurch Square reopened to the public in following a deadly earthquake in When The Wizard arrived in Christchurch in the s, he saw the city as the "romantic dream," a beautiful place far from the rest of the world which was unlikely to become a hub for economic development.

Once there, he became a mainstay in Cathedral Square, where he stood on a ladder and dressed in a variety of outfits, including in a loin cloth as John the Baptist. He praised the British Empire and criticized what he calls "anti-male sexism.

At first, the council wasn't taken with him, according to The Wizard. They initially refused to appoint him the city's official wizard and wouldn't grant him the written permission he needed to speak in the square under Christchurch bylaws.

So The Wizard played "silly games with the council" -- he wore a gas mask and spoke in French, hoping to evade the rules. Main navigation What's On.

Open search form. Enter search query Clear Text. Saved Searches Advanced Search. Join About About, collapsed About. What's On. Phone battles During , The Wizard took on the "tasteless tyrants of Telecom" by repainting the new blue telephone boxes back to their traditional red colour.

Recognition In September , with the assistance from the Christchurch City Council, a week of activities took place celebrating 21 years of wizardry in Christchurch. Some of the activities and issues associated with The Wizard: Avoiding the filling out of census forms Rain dances Casting spells The formation of Alf's Imperial Army He proposed an alternative cosmology - the Upside-Down World, with Antarctica and South at the top of the map, and the Inside-Out Universe , which inverts all dimensions and measurements The Wizardmobile, constructed from the front halves of two Volkswagen Beetles His beliefs on the roles of men and women A battle with Telecom over the colour of phoneboxes.

We recommend: Resources about The Wizard Our online resources: The Wizard's official site The Wizard's site has information on his philosophies, beliefs and activities. In , the New Zealand Art Gallery Directors Association said he had become a living work of art, and then, in , the prime minister at the time, Mike Moore, asked that he consider becoming the Wizard of New Zealand.

But he has also encountered controversy with off-colour comments about women. The council said it had sent the Wizard a letter thanking him for his services to Christchurch over the past decades and informing him they were closing the book on his contract, a council spokesperson, Lynn McClelland, said.

He said he was a provocateur. The Wizard is a well-known face to Christchurch residents, but in recent years, his presence has diminished, and sightings have become rare.