Outraged Read online

  No one else came up with a convention centre plan that came close to that of SkyCity’s, but, because the company required financial incentive to realise it, the wowsers were out in force. The socialists, the greenies and the feral sector generally condemned the deal based on the fact that it was not perfect. After all, it is true that some stupid people who can’t regulate their own lives will be harmed by the introduction of more pokie machines. Just like some will eat themselves into The Guinness Book of World Records because of the advancement of McDonald’s evil plan! These are real problems and are being addressed by society and by SkyCity. Sadly, these moral crusaders, most of whom are sucking on the public tit, ‘queer the pitch’ by misrepresenting the negatives and completely overlooking the positives. One of the things they dislike most about SkyCity is its persistent desire to make a profit. Those bastards at SkyCity, who do they think they are? They should run on the same basis as the many, many charities they support. Donation.

  It is shameful how the naysayers — many of whom are politicians — misrepresent situations to further their own agendas. Sadly, many of these people know nothing about making money or even the need to make money. They know only how to spend other people’s money. The wowsers need to recognise that some must be permitted to profit in order to top up the coffers from which they spend.

  SUPPLEMENTARY:

  The luxury suites at the top of the SkyCity Hotel are designed for the very high-rollers from mostly Asia, and are a model of how the ideal small country would run. Let’s go offshore and import rich people for a few days to deposit large quantities of foreign currency in New Zealand, and in doing so employ New Zealanders. Let’s get these high-rollers to bring with them friends and family who will visit retail and tourist facilities, showering the land with their largesse.

  What did the wowsers say when SkyCity opened this top-end operation? They complained that these rich people from other lands might be given preferential treatment at the border! Yes, they would rather the high-rollers and their entourages did not come. Let’s face it, they would rather they did not exist at all. Well, if facilities like this were not here, the high-rollers would not come. They would still exist, but they would be depositing their wealth in other lands just as they did before this ‘rich wing’ was opened.

  The best thing, though, about this wonderland of opulence high above the mindless deliberations of the lefty ‘wreckers and haters’ (thank you, Helen!) is that, if you are ever lucky enough to get there, you can be sure of one thing — you will never bump into any of them!

  CELEBRITY ENDORSEMENTS

  There is nothing wrong with celebrity endorsements so long as you, as a celebrity, follow a few simple rules.

  First, would you or did you recommend this service or product to friends and family prior to your involvement, and were you using it, or would you have used it if you had been aware? Are you genuinely enthusiastic about it, trusting it and trusting in it?

  Secondly, have you done due diligence on it, if necessary? It is one thing to be cavalier with your own money, but you must not be cavalier with the money of others.

  Thirdly, you must be completely up-front about your endorsement. If you shy away from it at any time, it indicates you are not proud to be associated with the service or product, which just makes you a shabby opportunist who can’t be trusted. A shallow, money-grabbing little shit.

  A celebrity endorsement has to become part of the celebrity’s way of life, to an extent.

  You must also recognise what is and what is not a celebrity endorsement. Rachel Hunter was just advertising Trumpet, as I was just advertising Snickers. Now I would not be involved in an advertisement for anything I did not like and trust, and I have been involved with very few advertisements, but they are just ads, not endorsements. (Having said this, I do accept that in a sense any association is a partial endorsement, which is why celebrities are always in demand for adverts.) Rachel’s Pantene involvement, though, is a perfect example of a long, successful endorsement association, and one which has even become inter-generational with her daughter getting involved. The current Jennifer Aniston skin cream thing is another good example. She tried so many creams that let her down on the life journey she took to find this one. Just like Katy Perry, whose face must have been a nightmare to control until she found what’s-its-name!

  Richard Long’s advertising involvement with the investment company Hanover Finance turned into the ultimate nightmare. His association with the company definitely fell into the endorsement category, as it lasted so long and banked on his perceived trustworthiness as a news presenter. What a diabolical clusterfuck for Long. I think I felt sorry for him at the time the whole thing went arse-up. He was the perfect fit for them. Turns out they did not deserve him. All part of life’s rich tapestry.

  The celebrity endorsement that makes my blood boil is one that I personally became intertwined in as a victim. I was hunting down a reasonably priced can-opener in The Warehouse when I started to tingle at the sight of a range of helpful kitchen devices brandishing the image of a famous celebrity cook. It featured her smiling, trustworthy and — from a culinary perspective — expert image. You can just picture my level of shopper’s arousal when I saw that her excellent, personally endorsed range included a can-opener for only a few dollars. ‘I’ll have that!’ I eagerly exclaimed, and bought it without a second thought. After all, she had done the thinking for me. I rushed home where a can was waiting to be opened.

  What a useless price of crap. It opened half a can before I threw it in the bin. Price per use? About $2.75. Most expensive price-per-use can-opener I’ll ever buy. I thought, ‘How is it possible that her pudgy little fingers grasped that crappy object, held it to the rim of a can, and she thought, ‘How wonderful! I’ll have a piece of that!’ What a truly ghastly chapter in my life.

  I am not going to mention the Briscoes lady at all. She falls into a whole different category: people who are celebrities because of a long involvement with an organisation. They don’t need to follow any rules, and need only be concerned, like most people doing a job, with the pay cheque. Simple. There, not going to mention her at all then!

  PERSONAL ENDORSEMENTS:

  I am very proud to have a small association with two companies.

  They are both organisations that I was enthusiastic about prior to my involvement with them. Both SkyCity and Air New Zealand are excellent corporate assets to our country, providing world-class services.

  MUSIC ON NEW ZEALAND PUBLIC RADIO

  Some of the talk on National Radio is nothing short of unbridled wankery. Trumped-up quasi-academic discussions of no importance and no interest, which in the real world would not pass muster. But New Zealand public radio is not about the real world. And I get that. Unlike the complete waste of money spent on the Concert Programme — that is what it was called the last time I twisted my Bakelite knob too far left: shut it down now! — I concede there is reason to invest a comparatively small amount of our money in public radio. But the music they play is shit.

  Okay, so a bit of jazz … No, not even that! What was I thinking? Have the socialist academic glitterati never heard of the iPod? I don’t need to be subjected to ethnic flute-playing, moaning, chanting or tribal ankle-bells clinking on. And I certainly don’t need to be paying for it.

  In response to this, the probably lesbian and certainly Labour-voting programmer would say, ‘It’s an opportunity to hear things that would otherwise not be played.’ Yes, it is. And for very good reason: it’s crap!

  The tiny group who like it can buy it and listen to it all the time. They are not listening to National Radio anyway. They are at home with their myriad of children, fixing their taxi on the front lawn, and preparing a feast for some festival I have never heard of and never want to. And when they are at the festival, National Radio will probably be broadcasting it. The difference between National Radio and public access radio is paper-thin!

  NOTE:

  Do not be fooled. Ju
st because there are long pauses and thoughtful tones, it is not necessarily quality. Just like on the marae, the clearing of throats and coughing does not in itself denote wisdom. It could just be asthma.

  ANECDOTE:

  Some years ago I found myself driving through a forest with no signal to keep me company but that of National Radio. It was early afternoon, and a small clan of travelling minstrels were recounting their seemingly endless experiences and musing on their spiritual inspirations. For an hour. Jesus Christ, it was appalling radio. As a broadcaster I was transfixed by its diabolical production values and worthless content. For me it was spectacularly entertaining, but I knew that had I turned in a programme only twice as good when I was a cadet, years earlier, it would have been instantly rejected for the dross it was.

  INSTRUCTION TO GOVERNMENT:

  Immediately cut funding to the Concert Programme, or whatever it’s called, and divest the assets. Rid us of the expense and unbridled wankery, and save us from funding a job-creation scheme for élitist socialists. The audience of nine can easily download classical entertainment on their i-machines! Let them pay for that, as is their democratic right, and stop forcing the rest of us to pay for this lunacy.

  So what to do with the comparatively small number of millions of dollars you are now saving? Give it to the élitist wankers at the NZSO. They can start an NZISO with the extra funding. This New Zealand Inspirational Symphony Orchestra (working title only) will act as a feeder to the NZSO, and so build its capacity. Its main purpose is to continuously travel New Zealand, expanding the minds and broadening the vision of young New Zealanders through classical music, in every nook and cranny of paradise. A much better reach of this kind of culture than the Concert Programme could ever hope to achieve.

  PLASTIC SHOPPING BAGS

  Plastic shopping bags are a convenience product. They are the creation of a consumer society, not of the Devil. They are fantastic. Not just for the logistics of their prime design, but for their reuse potential. Rubbish bags, crocheted into hats, or simply ironed together to make original art or toilet-roll holders — plastic shopping bags are brilliant.

  Some will tell you that they are killing whales. Absolute shite! Show me one whale cadaver full of shopping bags. You can’t. I propose that not one whale in the history of the globe has been so much as inconvenienced by a plastic shopping bag. However, I have been inconvenienced many times by the lack of one. On the grounds that restricting the availability of these bags will save the planet, retailers charge for them. Bastards and cowards. What do these retailers do with all the 10 cents collected? Give it to the multinational organisation Greenpeace? Laugh all the way to the bank, more like it, as half their customers drop the multitude of objects they are trying to juggle in the car park, in an effort to avoid the tax.

  As for the environment — I can’t believe I am bothering with this line of argument! — let’s buy potentially-more-harmful bin-liners. God, let’s just buy them anyway and burn them on the lawn!

  Bunnings don’t charge for plastic bags. They just don’t have them. How much do they make selling bin-liners, I wonder? (‘Excuse me, sir, can I help you pick up all your bolts and washers?’ ‘No — but you can give me a fuck’n bag to put them in!’)

  The Warehouse — where everyone gets a bargain that they can fumble and drop next to their car — I have been told have considered backtracking on the policy like some others. (Was it some New World supermarkets who have gone back to providing a logistics service, and now once again give you a bag?) Probably because, as we all know, the threat to the planet has now passed! What a bunch of wowsers!

  In the Bay area of San Francisco all of the retailers have decided to band together and charge 10 cents for a bag. I have juggled yoghurt, chocolate, cans of drink, inexpensive Merlot and postcards several blocks from Walgreens to my hotel to avoid this evil and stupid tax. Brought about by damned greenies and a society too frightened to say, ‘Fuck off, you tiresome, good-for-nothing hippies. This is our planet, and we will do what we fuck’n well like with it.’

  SUPPLEMENTARY FACT:

  In the Bay area, Victoria’s Secret charge for a bag but will still wrap your girlfriend’s panties in enough complimentary tissue paper to smother a small child. They will then shroud it in ribbon. To be fair, it is the Bay area — they are probably your boyfriend’s panties!

  NOTE FOR RETAILERS:

  With the exception of Pak’nSave, who have established a quid pro quo with their customers, don’t bow to extremists. You are not saving the globe; you are only reticulating bits and bobs.

  The following is my (I mean you now!) list of businesses I will never patronise again because they bow to the nonsense of hippies rather than value their customers.

  TAKING SNAPS

  There was a time when we would all laugh at Japanese tourists. They never truly experienced anything first-hand. As soon as they got close to seeing something interesting, they would whip out their cameras and view it through a lens, then they would grab a relative and thrust them in the way of the interesting sight, just to prove later that they were also there not looking at whatever it was. We didn’t know why the Japanese did this, or if they ever actually sat around looking at their snaps. I dare say if a group of them ever did congregate to view snaps, someone would have taken a picture of it.

  Well, it turns out the only difference then between them and the rest of the planet was that they could afford the cost of developing! Now taking pictures is free, and everyone looks at the world through a lens or, worse, the bloody screen on an iPad. Bad enough that so much time is spent in front of television, but now, on the odd occasion you do put yourself in the position of actually living, you film it. Whoever looks back at these things anyway?

  Everything gets posted on the Facebook machine or tweeted or Pinterested or Instagrammed. Just fuck’n look at it. Be there for your own sake, not for the greater good of a group of people who are much more interested in themselves than you.

  TIP FOR LIVING:

  Don’t let dinner get cold as you position it in the best possible light to photograph it and post it. It’s food, for Christ’s sake — eat it.

  ANECDOTE:

  On Australia Day, I had positioned myself with many thousands of others in Sydney’s Darling Harbour to view the fireworks. (God, Australians love pyrotechnics.) At the first hint of a sparkle, up came the crowd’s hands — a sea of phones, cameras and tablets. Photographing and filming life as it slipped away. All these fools had gone to some trouble to get there, and now they were missing the wonder of being there. A stupid man in front of me put his son down from the vantage point on his shoulders so he could film the damn thing on his iPad. And until I told him to shift, I was actually watching the event on his screen. People are such twats.

  If you do this, if this is you, rethink your priorities. You won’t be given another chance to make up for wasting your life taking snaps.

  BAD TV

  You will have heard people say, and marketing tell you, things like ‘Life’s too short to drink cheap wine / eat bad burgers / drive shit cars …’ While this is true, it is idealistic and often, for many, unreasonable. It is also not the end of the world to drink inexpensive wine. Believe you me, many a good night has come off the back of cheap wine. A bad burger will still fill you up, and a shit car could easily deliver you in one piece to your destination.

  Bad TV, on the other hand, does not reward you. It requires a commitment from you of the same amount of time as good TV, but sometimes unknowingly robs you of the will to live. Like infomercials, it cunningly plays with your mind to hook you, hold you and force you to invest.

  It used to be people with desperately dull or boring lives who would sit in their huts watching richer lives. Broadening their vision with stories of adventure. Documentaries on far-flung places. Nature programmes. Programmes about pygmies (I have had a bit to do with pygmies over the years: get them drunk at your peril — very unpredictable little people in the wild
!) or even lifestyles of the rich and famous.

  Now people invest their precious time watching programmes on the lives of people more boring and uninteresting than themselves. Jesus Christ, how stupid. These programmes are designed to capture you and hold you for no reward at all.

  Derrick and June have outgrown their bedsit in Durham, and, with the birth of their next set of twins only two months away, need desperately to find a bigger home. But they have been looking for over a year and have found nothing they can agree on. This is a tough one, Kirsty.

  The truth is this: Derrick and June are about to suck the life blood out of you. Just as they have already sucked the life blood out of each other. They will never move. They can’t even agree on a reliable form of contraception, let alone a new house. At least Phil and Kirsty are being paid to deal with them. Turn the fuck’n shit off — and live.

  Can you believe you will actually sit there through interminable commercial breaks saying to yourself, ‘Will they buy it this time? They do seem to like it.’ ‘Oh, that’s perfect for them!’

  And then, all of a sudden after 10 or so of these programmes, Graham and Phenella actually purchase a house. You are elated. You have just watched people buy a house. That’s all. That’s it. Nothing more.