New Zealand council ends contract with wizard after 23 years of service
Well, well, well! I knew Ian Channell at university in the late 1960s, he was a lecturer in sociology although I wasn&#x27;t studying the subject.<p>That was the time of the anti-Vietnam War demonstrations across the world and one of the consequences was heightened political action by students - the like of which has never been seen since, it was then that Channell started a students&#x27; movement called Alf - Action for Love and Freedom. Students met in one of the Students&#x27; Union buildings after lectures but that&#x27;s a separate story (and quite an interesting one at that).<p>I caught up with him again by sheer accident in the 1980s when on a skiing trip in New Zealand when I managed to catch sight of him doing his wizard performance in the square just outside Christchurch&#x27;s cathedral (since badly damaged in the 2011 earthquake). Afterwards, a skiing friend and I joined him for afternoon tea in a local coffee shop where we reminisced and chewed the cud for several hours.<p>&#x27;Tis a very small world.