An Official Wizard in New Zealand Loses His Job

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An Official Wizard in New Zealand Loses His Job

The city of Christchurch has paid Ian Brackenbury Channell, 88, about $10,000 per year since 1998 for “acts of wizardry and other wizard-like services.” But he has been condemned recently for his jokes about women.

Oct. 18, 2021

No industry is safe from the realities of layoffs. Not even wizarding.

After more than two decades as the official wizard of Christchurch, Ian Brackenbury Channell, 88, saw his $10,000 annual contract go poof last week, according to Stuff, a news site in New Zealand.

No longer will the city payroll support “acts of wizardry and other wizard-like services,” as his contract had demanded since 1998. No longer will taxpayers pay for his rain dances, philosophizing and — perhaps more tangibly — his magnetism to tourists.

“They are a bunch of bureaucrats who have no imagination,” Mr. Channell, known most commonly as the Wizard, said of the Christchurch City Council, according to Stuff.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/18/w...nd-wizard.html

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...des-of-service