I’m a little geographically confused. I regularly get my petrol from Z Kennedy Road in Napier. With a name like “Z Kennedy Road” you would think it would be located on, well, Kennedy Road, right?

Wrong!

Napier’s Kennedy Road starts at the lights where Wellesley Road bisects it, about 50 meters from the central city service station, which is physically located on the corner of Station Street and Tennyson Street (which ends at the same Wellesley Road corner).

But the confusion doesn’t end there – I was having a look at the till receipt from a recent petrol purchase and noticed it lists Z Kennedy Road’s address as “256 Dickens Street”. This would put it across Station Street and somewhere in the middle of Countdown supermarket’s car park!

And let’s not even go into why there are TWO Countdown Supermarkets in Napier opposite it!

With such geographic bamboozlement, uncertainty and inaccuracy, perhaps the people of Napier could claim Z Kennedy Road as a sovereign territory, surely the world’s smallest (look out Vatican City!)?

It could be a very affluent nation – I hear there’s a very good chance of finding rich petroleum reserves not too far underground (that’s if we decided to drill).

International relations, too, would be a strong feature of our new nation’s economy, with the neighbouring ‘Kingdom of Burger’ and plentiful food sources nearby in The Duchy of Pak n’ Save.

Backing onto the Napier – Gisborne rail line, the “Napier Peoples’ Republic of Z Kennedy Road” (a bit of a mouthful, admittedly) could conceivably claim that too, as recent New Zealand governments certainly didn’t seem to want to operate the nation’s rail lines, or look after the regions.

So if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to the United Nations to lay our claim.

All we need now is a flag and national anthem.

Any ideas?