Are sheep funny? They must be. Last week’s news that this country’s people-to-sheep ratio has fallen to its lowest level since the 1850s, to one to five, in fact, was reported by various media with the sort of jocularity usually saved for apparently hilarious stories about Chris Hipkins and sausage rolls.
On TVNZ’s , the story was introduced with the beaming smiles presenters deploy to signal to thick viewers that the next, a Hawke’s Bay farmer was asked by an interviewer pretending to have a sense of humour whether he knew any good sheep jokes. Across the Tasman, a TV presenter on the ABC’s breakfast show even dissolved into a fit of giggles over the side-splitting news that New Zealand now has only 25.3 million sheep, down by 400,000 in just a year.
