Robyn Edie

Tim Shadbolt.

How's about we become the proud owners of a hotel in France, Invercargill Mayor Tim Shadbolt says, brightly.

Full marks for fearlessness. And he's already motivated as anything, so in an attempt to meet him halfway, can we proffer the following, hesitant, reply.

Oh, ne vous croyez sanglante? C'est un idee horrible. Une grosse erreur.

The hesitancy, as you may have gathered, comes from the iffyness of our French. In that first bit, we were shooting for: Oh, do you bloody think so?

The fact that the base for this investment would be Le Quesnoy, famously liberated by New Zealanders in World War 1 does add sentimental appeal. Regrettably, sentiment isn't always a plus when it comes to clear-headed business decision making.

The mayor would be quick to correct us that he's proposing a rewarding investment opportunity. But straight away we can identify quelques petits problemes.

1. Not too many Invercargill citizens have been complaining that the problem with the city council is that its asset portfolio just isn't Gallic enough.

2. The property our mayor has in mind is not, yet, a hotel. It was the mayor's residence during the war. A snip at $2.1 million.

3. It's one thing for a small, cash-strapped northern France town to lack a backer with the largesse to develop such a project.  But this is an opportunity that has failed to engage the French themselves at independent business or governmental level.  As for the rest of New Zealand, nope, nobody here either, including Le Quesnoy's sister city in New Zealand, Cambridge, which has been well aware of the hotel proposal.

4. Shadbolt's vision potentially includes linking this hotel with a film project to help raise the profile of Southland. Initially he had the Chinese market in mind but now perhaps not so much. It's called adaptability, folks.  But the fact remains, film projects aren't famed as safe investments, even for industry experts, which our councillors ain't. And as for our Holdco guys — the wrong sort of directors.

5 This has the characteristics of one of those classic Tim Shadbolt (anagram: Mad Bolts Hit) passion projects, the rewards of which have tended, so far, to accrue outside the material world. Way outside.

6. The idea came to him while reflecting on a Listener article in an airline cabin. A pressurised cabin.  So can we necessarily rule out a cerebral version of deep-vein thrombosis?

 - The Southland Times