We go to the New Zealand legal archives today for some judicial wit involving a music festival and a duck pond…

In the case of Kinney v Police [1971] NZLR 924, “about three thousand people had been attending a daylight festival of amplified pop music in the Botanical Gardens at Napier.

The function was ending and the last of the bands was silent. But as the appellant made his way to the road, he found himself passing the pond […]. Normally it is occupied only by goldfish and a few wild ducks, but on this occasion they were joined for a few brief moments by the appellant. The ducks seemed unperturbed – they remained on the surface of the water with scarcely an increase in their rate of stroke. The attitude of the goldfish is unknown.”