After thousands of votes, I found the four pillars of Kiwi headdress. Photo/123rf

Radio host and pioneer columnist at Hauraki Radio

Kiwi Summer needs a lot of lotion and a hat. This is why the Matt and Jerry Breakfast Show of Radio Hauraki conducted a headwear poll last week.

We asked millions of listeners a simple question: If only four kinds of hats were allowed in New Zealand, what would they be?

After thousands of people vote, the four pillars of New Zealand headdress are considered: baseball cap, bucket hat, straw hat and cheese cutter. No beanies, no soft hats, hats, hard hats or novel sombreros-the latter is my favorite. No one will spend a good time in a novel sombrero.

New Zealanders like baseball caps. Even the police. New Zealand police confirmed last week that the budget for front-line employees’ baseball caps has exceeded $600,000.

When our summer sport is cricket, why is this weird pointed hood so popular? The answer lies in Old New York.

Baseball was invented around 1800, but the hat did not appear until 1860. The Brooklyn Dodgers (later the Los Angeles Dodgers) appeared at the beginning of that season, matching wool hats with leather spires.

Before that, baseball players wore various sunscreens. There are people wearing bowler hats, top hats, berets, Sherlock Holmes dear stalker hats, and Napoleon cocked hats. Some people wear three Musketeer numbers with a feather next to them. This is a visual nightmare.

The first baseball cap to wear a uniform was even worse. The players look like they are repeating the year before the beginning of the American Civil War.

Fortunately, New Era designed the "59Fifty" in 1954 and became the official baseball cap of Major League Baseball.

Forty-seven years later, it has also become the most popular headwear in New Zealand.

Despite this, few of the thousands of people you see realize they are supporting the Dodgers. I’m a big fan and I often have fun chatting with people in hats, such as "Do you think they will keep Kershaw? I know he has passed his best, but he is still an asset in any rotation. I just can't see him playing in any other team uniform." I looked blank.

In fact, most New Zealanders don’t like baseball caps because of the sport. We like the way they keep the sun out of our eyes.

The origin of the bucket hat is more difficult to trace. For at least 3000 years, humans have used barrel-like materials to cover their heads.

We do know that the towel bucket hat reached its peak in New Zealand in the mid-1980s. Look at any summer Eden shots of that era. Everyone was wearing a towel bucket hat, some dirty jockeys, and nothing else.

Nothing can represent New Zealand’s summer better than a novel straw hat from a hardware store. The most famous wearer is a shirtless British boy who shouted at a woman in Takapuna Beach in January 2019, "Speak smartly to my uncle again, and swear to God, your face. I will Knock your mind off".

His family left a pile of baby wipes and beer on Takapuna Beach. For a whole month, the biggest story in this country is the "unruly traveler family" and their lies. At that time we were a happier and purer country. No one can foresee the coming diseases, violence and disasters.

The cheese cutter is a round hat with a small hard edge on the front. In most parts of the world, they are flat-topped hats; the Welch people call it a hat, and the Scots call it a hat. For some reason, we call it a cheese cutter.

In recent years, Peaky Blinders has brought this outstanding lid to a climax.

New Zealanders who look great in cheese cutters include Karl Te Nana, Scotty J Stevenson, Craig McMillion and Jason Hoyte.

Baseball caps, bucket hats, straw hats, novelty sombrero, foam domes, toilet seats or cheese cutters-whatever you do this summer, there is something on your head. Slip, slip, slap.