AWARDS SCHMAWARDS

You have to admit... that's quite a lot of awards...

It's that time of year... Golden Globes... Baftas... Brits... Grammys... Halbergs... Oscars... and most importantly of all; entries are due in for the New Zealand Radio Awards.

Come on, don't pretend you don't care about them. You're obsessed with the Radio Awards. You know you are. You can't wait to hear who won Best Community Access Programme, or who the Programmer of the Year is.

This is the stuff that has a direct, measurable impact on our everyday lives.

Yes, that IS me being sarcastic. I don't mean to sound like an ungracious winner, but I've always considered the New Zealand Radio Awards a monumental waste of everybody's time and resources. Every year, hosts, producers and managers spend hours trying to compress an entire year's worth of on-air performance into a 10 minute file and a few pages of skiting. This is all then judged by a panel of people who may or may not have heard the actual show being entered in its original context and the winners are eventually announced online.

Oh sure, there USED to be a glitzy awards ceremony with actual hosts and even dinner, but the Global Credit Crunch killed that sort of exorbitant carry-on - just ask the New Zealand television industry. (Admittedly, it's taken them until this year to realise nobody was watching their awards, but they got there in the end)

When I describe myself as a winner, I'm not of course. I've got my name on a few certificates, but only because you have to put something down in the box that says, "Technical Director." Paul Holmes won many times and Hosking has won every year since he's taken over the breakfast show. He should win again this year obviously but here's the thing that bugs me, he might not.

It should be a simple formula; audience + revenue = result. Sadly, in my experience there are far too many other factors in play. Year after year, Newstalk ZB pulls in a massive number of listeners and makes a veritable shitload of money by commanding a premium for its advertising space, yet almost NEVER wins Station of the Year. This makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever.

I've been to other awards nights in other industries and it's pretty much all about profit, improvement, turnover and customer service. I've hardly ever heard other companies giving out prizes because one of their shops ran a stupid competition or told a series of dirty jokes accompanied by inappropriate sound effects. Generally the people who make the money win the trophies.

I'm not entirely sure how it works with the Oscars but presumably the members of the Academy actually WATCH the whole movie when they judge it, not just a 10 minute highlights package. Even then, they usually get it wrong. Surely the best movie is the one that attracts the most viewers. Unfortunately when you're talking Academy Award winning movies, it often works the other way round - who went and saw Hurt Locker BEFORE it won at the Oscars? Honestly?

Back to radio. Sometimes the competitions and jokes can attract listeners and ultimately advertisers, but over the course of a whole year, a station develops a relationship with its audience that simply can't be edited into a 10 minute soundbite. Unfortunately squealing competition winners and jokes CAN, which means all too often the best ENTRY sways the judges instead of the best show. Maybe they should just change the name to the New Zealand Radio Award ENTRY Awards.

I don't want to take anything away from those in our industry who are into these things - good luck to you, I totally concede it's important to recognise success amongst your peers. My beef is how you measure that success. It shouldn't be about paying an outside agency to put together a really slick award entry that looks and sounds better than everyone else's.

Here's the kicker, for the last two years I've actually been a judge! So I have a little advice for the other judges out there. Make it easy on yourselves guys, use the formula; audience + revenue = result. End of story.

At least she HAD an awards ceremony to fall over at

DISCOVERING POTTER... SLOWLY

Not exactly a small child's fairytale. I wonder if he has snoring issues with no nose?

Have you heard of these books? It's a series of novels about a young wizard named Harry Potter. Oh, you have? Everybody has? What do you mean, EVERYBODY? Oh, you mean everybody in the whole world. Right. Them.

Alright, I admit it, I may have been a little late jumping aboard the Hogwarts Express - but only by about 15 years. Don't judge me, there are a few volumes by Dickens I haven't quite got round to yet either, and I understand they were published even earlier.

The point is, I'm finally working my way through the 7 Harry Potter books and you know what?... They're pretty good.

I suppose there may be the odd person out there who hasn't read them yet, people like me who just haven't had the time or the motivation. So this review is for you. All four of you.

Can I start by saying I'm not really a witches and wizards kind of a guy? I'm more of a robots, spaceships, car chases and explosions kind of a guy, which is one reason I've put off my J.K. Rowling experience for so long. Another reason is I thought they were kids' books. I don't know what you consider child-friendly, but reading about somebody hacking off their own hand and then boiling it up in a demonic ceremony to raise their evil master from the dead doesn't really qualify as happy-fluffy bedtime stories in my book.

Perhaps the major deterrent to me joining the massive host of Potter fans before now has been the simple fact these books are ENORMOUS. They go on forever. I'm used to Lee Child and Jack Reacher cleaning up an entire Mid-Western town in 250 pages. When you read a J.K. Rowling, you'd be lucky if Harry's even found his way out of his bedroom by page 250 - and I'm not even kidding.

However, I was wrong about everything. No change there.

These books aren't really about witches and wizards of course. That'd be like saying Stephenie Meyer writes about vampires and werewolves. Like all great stories, they're more about relationships - and the relationships Harry has get pretty complicated. He has cruel adopted parents because his real ones were killed by someone nasty. He has a friend who is a girl but isn't his girlfriend. He has a long-lost godfather who everybody thinks is a cold-blooded murderer. Some of his teachers love him and some hate him. He's bullied. He's reluctantly famous. He's got a questionable hairstyle. You see? Everyday problems any teenager has to deal with. (Except maybe the murdering stuff)

I genuinely believe this Rowling woman could be onto something here.

For the uninitiated, (yes, all four of you) these books read more like a good old-fashioned murder-mystery than a fairytale. We're introduced to a wide and varied cast of characters, many of whom may be suspects in a long list of nefarious activities, some of which we don't even know are going on until it's too late... for Harry.

Book after book, Rowling does an amazing job of building suspense - not just in relation to the plot of each instalment of the series, but there's an overall tension that grows exponentially with every volume. Sometimes you can pick the bad guys, but more often they turn out to be good guys after all and it's really the good guys you should have been looking out for.

For me the thing that really sets these books apart is the dialogue. Always so natural, you can literally hear the voices in your head. Even when they're talking about magic spells, curses, hexes and charms with silly names or potions with mysterious ingredients, the complaints, the insults and the snide remarks all seem so genuine.

This may be because I've made that fatal mistake of seeing the movie before the book. In truth, I've only seen a few of the movies and don't tell me how the last one ends because I haven't seen that one OR read it yet. On reflection, I think it's best to see the movie first then read the source material because, as we all know, the book's always better. However, it DOES mean Harry's only ever going to look like Daniel Radcliffe in my head.

The selection of the 8 movies I HAVE seen always seemed a little drawn-out to me (especially that penultimate one... what was with all the camping all over the place? That went on FOREVER) but now I've actually read the books I wouldn't have them any other way. That's why we're currently enjoying a multimedia Harry Potter retrospective at my house. It plays out like this; Dad reads a book, then we all sit down and watch the corresponding movie again. Good times. Pity I'm such a slow reader - at this point we've only watched three, but I'm nearly finished the Goblet of Fire so you'd better get that popcorn ready.

If you haven't read them, read them. They're not just books, they're proper stories. Everybody in the whole world can't be wrong.

Snape will always be Alan Rickman in my head. Or sometimes Tim Roth. I get them confused

LOSING MY RELIGION...

It's all about the fine print

I used to be a sports fan.

In fact, there was a time I even went to live cricket matches. I'm not talking international T-20's that only take half an hour to play. I'm talking provincial cricket nobody cares about played over 4 days. I was into it. I could even name all the Northern Districts players and half the opposition too.

I was there when the mighty Mooloo masses migrated north to end Auckland's record Ranfurly Shield run in 1993, cowbell in hand, face painted red, gold and black.

At one stage I was literally making up jobs to do around the house so I could justify listening to sports commentaries on the radio while I worked.

Admittedly, I can't claim I ever understood rugby's ruck and maul laws, but who does?

I'd get up in the middle of the night to watch the All Blacks' Northern Hemisphere matches live. (Even after I got MySky - I know, weird right?)

Sport was my religion, television and radio my places of worship.

But something's changed. It's all turned sour. I've lost my faith and I don't even WANT to get it back.

It didn't happen overnight, but slowly, insidiously, inevitably my interest in matters sporting has ebbed away completely. There are two reasons why.

Firstly, a lot of it was the All Blacks' fault. There are only so many World Cups you can crash out of without starting to seriously piss off your fans. I get that sometimes you can have a bad game and sometimes you get poisoned by waitresses, but to be ranked number one in the world year after year, to go into every tournament as overwhelming favourites and STILL keep naming Justin Marshall as your halfback even though he can't actually pass is unforgivable.

Hey, I'm just as stoked as anyone they finally, FINALLY regained the title in 2011, but I'm going to come right out and say it; they very nearly didn't. Chokers.

The other reason I'm just not that into sport anymore is the cheating, obviously. This latest farce of a fight featuring Sonny Bill Williams is the least of it - although a highly questionable result, a dispute over exactly how many rounds it was supposed to go and an old-aged opponent who may or may not have been all juiced up is all very impressive.

Boxing's always been like that though.

I think it was the cricket that turned me off first. Hansie Kronje is found guilty of accepting money from a bookmaker in 2000 and you think, "Oh yeah, one-off South African jerk, nothing to worry about." Then, not long after that, we start hearing weird stories about leaked weather information and pitch conditions, Aussies and kiwis doing the leaking. Let the murkiness begin.

Meanwhile, every Olympics uncovers another long list of dopers.

The cricket turns out to be fixed all over the place.

The baseballers are on the roids.

And cycling. Oh god, the cycling.

The more Lance Armstrong protested his innocence, the more guilty he looked. (To everybody except Mike Hosking, of course)

I wasn't even surprised when the news broke about match-fixing in European football - just sadly resigned.

I didn't actually care about Tiger Woods - off-course cheating doesn't bother me at all. But Vijay Singh's always been dodgy and now he's been revealed to be even worse than we thought, somehow bringing our own Sir Bob Charles down with him. I mean, GOLF for Christ's sake... is nothing sacred?

Like a virus, the murk has ultimately finagled its way through the ENTIRE Australian sporting world... swimming, AFL, cricket - for the time being everyone has been branded guilty until proven innocent. Trouble is, even if they do come out clean, either from drugs or the big fix, we'll never believe it now.

The results are now totally meaningless, and to be fair, they didn't really mean that much in the first place given it was only a game. It was the contest I always found compelling, sportspeople performing at their absolute peak to try and better their opponents. Extraordinary human beings achieving what we could only dream of, representing us on the field, court or track. Doing the things we'll never be strong enough or fast enough to do for ourselves.

Except, if they're doing it by cheating, I don't want them representing me, and if they're not representing me, then where does my interest lie?

Not with sport, not any longer. If I want to waste my viewing time wondering what's real and what's not, I'll catch the latest episode of Alcatraz. I'd feel a bit of a fraud giving the Black Caps shit for being useless if it turns out they've been doing it deliberately. 

I'm not going to be caught out that way, so I quit. I used to be a sports fan, but when you don't know who to trust, it's time to leave them to it and find something else to do.

Please tell me this was real

SIR PAUL...

God only knows what was so funny... My shirt probably

"Like" this? No I don't "Like" this.

That's what I thought as I posted my comment on Newstalk ZB's condolence page.

While I pushed that iconic blue thumbs-up button, I was listening to an endless stream of tributes being read out on air for another icon. Various announcers reminisced. Callers told stories of the times they met him. Archival audio of the man himself was replayed. News bulletins were swamped with more quotes and I was lost.

Lost in my own memories of the man who affected so, so many. A man who affected me personally, in ways I'm only just beginning to appreciate now, as I reflect on our time together.

Where to begin? I'll cheat by starting with a little piece I wrote for the Herald On Sunday, the weekend before he died...

"Paul World. That's how I've always described it to other people. When you're around him, you're visiting Paul World; a place where reality isn't nearly as important as having a good time.

I started working with Paul in August of 2001, around the time Christine Rankin lost her big case and I almost lost her big interview seconds before we were due to go to air.

I was panicking. Paul wasn't. He would have found something to say - he always does.

Then September happened and the attacks happened and we rushed in early to broadcast the fall of the Twin Towers to the nation. Steep learning curve ... for all of us.

For the next 8 years, it was my privilege to visit Paul World for three hours or so each morning, watching the master at work, learning from the man who turned New Zealand broadcasting on its head.

He never looked at things through the eyes of a journalist, or a presenter, or a celebrity. He only ever saw things as a human being. So he made human mistakes from time to time, but they were far outshone by the human emotions he shared with us every day.

If Sir Paul taught me one thing, it's to be silly whenever possible. If you thought the radio shows were entertaining, you should have seen our debrief meetings afterwards; daily laugh-fests featuring opinions, language, jokes and impersonations we could never have broadcast but I'll never forget."

 - Herald On Sunday Online, January 27, 2013

A few meagre lines that barely scratch the surface. In fact, even if I wrote all day and into the night, I wouldn't make much of a dent. In the days and weeks to come, there'll be so many tributes and memories - perhaps too many for some. Perhaps, like all really big stories, there'll be a burn-out factor and people will grow tired of hearing about it. Not me though, because as painful as these stories are for me to hear, every one is different. It seems like everyone knew a different side of Paul - and when I say everyone, it certainly seems like almost everyone had had something to do with him at some time or another.

That was one of Paul's big problems of course, he found it very hard to say no. If it was a good cause, if it was a favour for a friend, if he thought it would benefit his employers or his profile, he'd be there. I mean, he even hosted the Pie Awards for god's sake! For years. He didn't have to, but he was asked to and he did it, and in his usual style, helped transform a party for the country's best pies into a genuine red-carpet event.

Don't get me wrong, no-one values the importance of a good pie more than me, but the pie awards probably don't quite warrant the high level of media excitement it attracts every year. That's how life was once Paul was involved though; bigger, brighter and better than actual reality.

In fact, over the years I came to the conclusion Paul wasn't that interested in other people's realities, he'd just merrily make up his own. As realities go, Paul World wasn't a bad one. The little guys had a voice there. Politicians were forced to answer questions they really didn't want to. Sometimes you even uncovered the real truth and sometimes, actually, more often than just sometimes, Paul made a real difference in people's lives.

Occasionally it might be someone he knew, more often it was just a stranger - a stranger with a story to share and boy could Paul spin a story.

Not long before the end, Paul was quoted as saying people don't remember the cruel man, they only remember the kind man. That's why he will be so WIDELY remembered, so fondly by so many. Surely that's what it's all about isn't it? Affecting as many others as you can for the better? It's a pretty short stop we're given on this planet, and Sir Paul's was a lot shorter than most, but what other New Zealander made such a meaningful impact on so many other kiwis?

We fondly recount the achievements of the likes of Sir Edmund Hillary, David Lange and Sir Peter Blake - but they were never as omnipresent in our lives as Paul. Always on our TV's, raving out of our radios, all over our papers and right there, in person - meeting us, laughing and crying with us - mostly enjoying just being one of us.

He was quite insane, of course - I've never met anyone of genuine talent who isn't. That's why he needed people like Deborah around, to keep him from spinning off into space completely. Before Deborah of course there was the REAL love of his life, Grumpy.

To have worked with an entity like Paul Holmes for as long as I did was an absolute honour. To have shared most of that time with Phil Armstrong, (Paul's producer for 2 decades) was a once in a lifetime learning opportunity of inestimable value. It's been said Paul's great strength was knowing exactly what the common man was thinking. Perhaps Grumpy's great strength was knowing what the others were up to - the people who put themselves ABOVE the common man, those with agendas and schemes and secrets and lies.

Between them, Paul and Phil saw all, and between them, usually on their frequent fag breaks during the news, they were able to distil precious truth from the bubbling cauldron of hype, publicity and spin.

I was a late onto the scene, just a naive pretender really. The moment I'd get too carried away with myself Paul would immediately put me in my place with, "What would you know? You've only been here 5 minutes." Usually this would happen on air with the entire country listening. Even after 5 YEARS, he'd still say exactly the same thing. He was right of course, by then I'd STILL done nothing while he and Grumpy had seen it all.

I don't think he ever really considered himself a celebrity, he was too in awe of them to think he was one himself. Oh, he loved to play up to the role of celeb, but there was always an underlying humility that made his "lifestyles of the rich and famous" pretences a little TOO obvious. How he would have loved to have starred in a movie with Charlize Theron, or written thrillers like Jeffery Deaver's. He poured all those creative impulses into his psuedo-serial World City of course, a cult radio classic for the ages.

If you're wondering if there was a secret, private side to Paul, there wasn't. He didn't just wear his heart on his sleeve, he unashamedly displayed all the other bits there too. He'd invite me the Domestic Manager round to watch the rugby, just like anyone would. We were at his wedding - we didn't have to be famous, we just had to be his friends. I spent quite a while trying to teach him how to use his iPod. I failed, but he seemed impressed enough by my music collection to call on me whenever he needed the perfect playlist for something.

For some reason this involved a last minute dash across the city one night when he had to have just the right songs. I'm not sure Paul's the man you'd want driving you on a last minute dash - he drove like he was Paul Holmes or something.

Actually, that's how he did it everything; full speed around every corner, jump in or get the hell out of the way.

Now he's taken one bend too fast, landed upside on one too many deer fences, asked himself one final question he didn't really have the answer for... and I miss him. I feel a terrible sense of loss and the more tributes I hear, read and watch from more and more people, the more that sense of loss takes over.

So many stories. So many stories. Some I'd heard from Paul himself. Many I was hearing for the first time. The majority I'll never hear again.

I spent a long time with Paul and his stories - longer than most, but it wasn't enough. Death has cheated us all and as usual, it's not Paul we feel sorry for but ourselves because he won't be there for us any longer. 

Paul hasn't appeared after the 6am news for some time, but now I know he'll no longer be appearing anywhere, I miss him so much more.

The last day of the Paul Holmes Breakfast
(That's not Grumpy by the way, it's Producer Tolich)