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(dedicated to all people with a sense of humour...)
------------------------------------------The original story...A New Zealand farmer is resisting demands to take down hundreds of women's bras adorning a fence on his South Island property.
The idea was born five years ago when four women from the nearby town of Wanaka returning home from a night at the pub removed their bras and strung them up.
Since then, local sheep farmer John Lee has become the unofficial guardian of the site. Women passers-by have since added their own to the fence, gaining it worldwide publicity.
Now authorities in the Wanaka District are to spend thousands of dollars on road works to cater for the thousands of passing motorists who stop to photograph the "Bra Fence."
But Wanaka Community Board believes some locals are fed up with the unlikely tourist attraction. "It was probably a novelty for the first six months but I think it's passed and we need to move on," said chairman Bill Gordon. Another reason cited for taking down the fence is that it offends Asian and South African residents in the area.
(perhaps they could just be called UFO's... Unmentionable Feminine Objects if we're going to be so bloody politically correct about something that half the adult population doesn't think twice about... come on, let's be just a little bit sensible here...)John Lee defended the bra-adorned fence, saying 90 per cent of letters he receives about it are supportive.
I thought it were the bras that were supposed to be supportive...He said it was the most photographed attraction in the district.
----------------------------short update: snipped from somewhere on the internet, date uncertain...NEW ZEALAND - Bras are being used for a different kind of support by a farmer in New Zealand. John Lee started putting bras on the fence of his farm as a joke, but the 66-year-old says he is now receiving undergarments from all over the world.
Passing female motorists have even been known to get out of their cars, strip off their tops and adorn his famous fence with their bras. But thieves raided the bra fence three times in 10 days leaving him virtually bra-less.
He is now securing his bras to the fence using rabbit netting. He had 165 undergarments at the last count. "If these ladies keep sending me their bras I feel honor-bound to put them on the fence," Lee concluded.
Fence owner John Lees----------------------------Another update: snipped from the Otago Times.Cardrona: Brazen brassiere bandits have uplifted one of the Cardrona Valley's tourism icons.
More than 200 bras, right down to the last D cup, have been snipped off the bra fence, leaving just posts, wire and rabbit netting.
Waiorau Snow Farm owner John Lee was alerted to the undergarment theft just hours after it happened.
Yesterday, Mr Lee could only stand and stare at bare fence wires and ponder who might have done the dastardly deed.
He suspected the bras had been stolen between 8am and 10am yesterday, as snow farm staff had seen them there in the morning.
Whoever took the bras may have a short-lived freedom, as Mr Lee has posted a $500 reward for information leading to the culprits.
"I will donate $500 towards the Cure Kids cause," he said.
Earlier this year, the fence had been blessed by a visiting American minister.
Bras had been appearing on the fence from just after Christmas until February, when about 130 disappeared.
Mr Lee was unperturbed as more bras were hung on the fence, reaching about 280 bras, from functional sports models to enticing lace evening wear.
There had been the occasional theft, but nothing untoward.
Since the bras first appeared, Mr Lee estimated he had given more than 80 radio, television, newspaper and magazine interviews to media around the globe.
Most of the bras had been left by passing travellers but many had arrived in the mail from places like Napier and Timaru, Colorado, Germany, the United States and Israel.
"Never anything from the cities like Auckland or Wellington," he quipped. "I had a lovely green one there from Germany.
"Whoever did this has been pretty determined. They have pulled off the rabbit netting to get to them."
Not that the bras would be of much use, as the thieves had left behind at least one of the shoulder straps.
Wanaka police have been notified of the disappearance.
----------------------------Yet another update: February 13th 2006 snipped from www.stuff.co.nzA Cardrona Valley ratepayers and residents association survey had come out in unanimous support of the valley's iconic bra fence to stay as it is, chairman John Scurr said yesterday. A letter from the association asking that the bra fence be allowed to stay would be on Queenstown Lakes District Mayor Clive Geddes's desk today, Mr Scurr said.
"We've asked for it to stay as long as there is some caretaking of the fence. We don't want it getting higher, longer or suddenly being filled with boots and knickers as well. But it should stay because it's become part of the valley."
A row over whether the fence, with hundreds of bras tied along it, has been brewing for more than a year.
This was after lone objector, Andre Prassinos, an American who lives part of the year in Wanaka, started his solo campaign to get the council to remove the fence, saying it was a "potential traffic hazard" , Mr Scurr said.
Within a few months of his (Mr Prassinos') objection the council organised the building of two traffic lay-bys so that motorists who wanted to take pictures of the fence could pull off the road safely.
Fence owner John Lee said the two lay-bys were not funded by ratepayers.
"It cost $12,000 and $6000 was from a special Transit New Zealand safety fund and the other $6000 was paid by me," he said.
The lay-bys had now been in place for more than a year, he said.
But last week Mr Prassinos urged the council again to get rid of the bra fence, saying it was "a growing eyesore" , Mr Lee said.
Two weeks earlier, Mr Lee's Queenstown lawyer, Warwick Goldsmith, had told council the fence wasn't actually on Mr Lee's land; that it was 8cm inside public road reserve.
Mr Lee said he was now being asked by council to apply for a licence to have the fence on the road reserve.
But a year ago, when the row first blew up after the complaint, he had been asked by the council to apply for resource consent for the fence, he said.
"That's when they thought it was on my land," he said.
About three or four years ago Mr Prassinos, who owns property nearby, had asked him for free access to a road on his (Mr Lee's) property but he had declined, Mr Lee said.
"And I won't comment about it any further just now."
Mr Scurr said the bra fence had started in the new year of the new Millenium.
"Four Wanaka women who had been at the Cardrona hotel celebrating decided the millenium should be liberating for all women so took their bras off and hung them on the fence across the road," he said.
Since then hundreds more bras had been draped along the fence including some from a farmer in the Maniototo whose wife had died. He sent a parcel with four bras in it to John Lee to "be hung in memoriam to his wife" .
See also
Bra stories on the Waiorau Snow Farm site.
