The city council issued a decision that paid little heed to J.R.R. Tolkien’s most essential dictum: “Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger.”
The council members cut from the public payrolls Ian Brackenbury Channell, 88, the man who former prime minister Mike Moore dubbed “the Wizard of New Zealand, Antarctica and relevant offshore areas.” He had accrued more than $350,000 in earnings over two decades as an unlikely figurehead, the Guardian reported.
Long before the Lord of the Rings film franchise made wizards and hobbits part of New Zealand’s international image and tourism industry, there was Channell.Starting out as a public performer in the late 1970s, he was met with both interest and protest. The New Zealand Art Gallery Directors Association dubbed him a “living work of art.