UNEASY DEATH WATCH

How is something "remaining unchanged" news?

Can I get you to do me a favour?

When I die, if my death turns out to be slow and drawn out due to my organs shutting down one by one, can you please take steps early on to avoid any kind of media circus? I can do without a crowd of reporters and photographers hovering outside my hospital room, desperately waiting for me to choke out my last wheezing breath.

To be honest, I'm not even that keen on having the light left on in the hallway, so I can imagine a global media scrum camped on my doorstep wouldn't exactly be conducive to a restful slumber.

Not sure why anyone would be particularly interested in my demise anyway, especially if I'd made it to almost 95 years old, but then, I'm not sure why ANYONE's death would attract that kind of attention at that age.

Now Jesus, he was interesting, but he WAS only 30, and it wasn't natural causes. Are they expecting Nelson to rise again, 3 days later? Is that what they're all waiting for? Fair enough I suppose. An ascension would definitely be front page news.

Sadly, yet again, the story itself has become the story.

The last time I wrote about this phenomenon was around the time of the prank call to the hospital when Princess Kate was under the weather early in her pregnancy. In that case, you may recall, the media blamed the media for causing the suicide of a nurse. I've just re-read that last sentence twice, and it still seems hard to believe that's what happened, even though that's exactly what happened.

This time, the media probably can't blame themselves for the death, if it ever actually happens, although I'm beginning to wonder if some of them might be looking to hurry things along a bit so they can all go home.

Please don't mistake me; I'm not trying to belittle Mandela's life and achievements in any way. I get that he'll go down in the history books as one of the more notable figures of our time and for good reason. Absolute legend. What I AM trying to belittle, is the poor man's death.

Everybody dies. Just as well, things are getting crowded enough as it is. What are they hoping for, these people camped outside the hospital in Pretoria? There are banners actually wishing the guy a speedy recovery, wanting him to "get well soon" for god's sake. Is it not time to let him go and move on? But then, I do wonder if that's what's been holding the Republic back for quite some time now.

I listened to Hosking talking about Mandela's legacy yesterday, and was astounded to discover not only is he not president anymore, they've had TWO since him. Who knew? It's a bit like Queen since Freddy died - Brian May desperately keeps trying to keep things going, but everyone knows it'll never be the same.

Let him go, give him some peace. That's what those banners should be saying. Thanks for all the amazing things you have done, we'll do our best to take it from here.

Instead, the longer the vigil lasts, the more unsettling the atmosphere becomes. Will there be unrest, maybe even violence as South Africa is finally forced to accept and deal with the vacuum his inevitable (yes, guys, it is actually inevitable) passing will create? Most of us sincerely hope not. Sadly, some kind of domestic chaos is probably exactly what many media outlets have been waiting for, and precisely why they've set up shop in Pretoria.

Which all brings us back to where we started; the story itself has become the story, and that's never journalism, that's creative writing. If anarchy ensues, violence, injuries, death - who will be to blame? Well, this time it won't be a couple of idiot Australian radio hosts, although they've probably sent someone to cover it. After all, everyone else has.

May as well have written "Bring Back Buck"

THE LOST WEEKEND FOUND

Don't bother trying to spot me in this photo. I took it

I don't think anyone has ever described me as "friendly". It's not that I don't like people, it's just general laziness on my part. I literally need to make more of an effort.

Work do's for example. It's easy not to go to them, it requires more energy to attend. However, there are often alcoholic beverages on offer, so even if you end up talking to an idiot, the effect of the two-drink buzz can still make this fun.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying my workmates are all idiots. Just one or two. 

The question then arises; would I actually travel with a whole group of them? 

Of course not. Anything could happen. I'm not crazy.

Except...

I missed the inaugural ZB road trip last year. Not because I chose not to go, but simply because I didn't get the email.

Funnily enough, if I had got the email, I probably would have chosen not to go, but because I didn't even know it was happening, I felt totally left out. If there's any logic to be applied here, I certainly can't find it - it's just the way it worked out.

The upshot was, I really regretted missing out on the sand dune surfing, Matt Brown's generous ice cream shout and the unconfirmed reports of one or two social drinks. I expressed my regrets loudly and longly to the proper authorities and my address was duly added to the list for the next road trip.

Months passed, and I forgot all about any of it... until the emails started up again. The time was drawing near. The 2013 ZB Road Trip was becoming a reality and I began to appreciate what I'd hastily signed up for.

The destination was Taupo. The reason for the destination wasn't entirely clear, other than it was in more or less the opposite direction to last year's destination. This kind of reasoning stirred vague feelings of apprehension as I began to contemplate my forthcoming odyssey.

These nervous flutters intensified somewhat as prospective stops were discussed, but only as rough concepts, not solid, confirmed points on a map.

In fact, the itinerary was equally amorphous; departing 9AM Saturday, returning 6PM Sunday. That was it. 33 hours of... of what? I just didn't know - although there was talk of a reservation at an Indian restaurant, so at least we wouldn't starve.

"Come on, glennzb," I admonished myself. "You can't back out now. Who knows, it might actually be fun."

I'm not going to detail every step of our journey, hour by hour for two reasons. 1: I can't remember all of them exactly and 2: a lot of it just makes no sense whatsoever.

Why did we go to Morrinsville before Candyland for example? Candyland is in Taupiri, Morrinsville is in Morrinsville. Come to think of it, why did we go to Morrinsville at all? And is 11 o'clock too early in the morning to be buying jugs of beer? Or placing bets on horses?

You see? Only 2 hours in and there were already more questions than answers.

Like why did our bus driver think motoring down a random farmers' dirt driveway would get us back to Taupiri? Or was he just having a little joke? He had already shut himself in the luggage compartment while loading our bags in the bus. What a kidder.

I know we had lunch in Tirau. We wrote on the wall there so you can see the evidence too. In spite of the graffiti, this was quite a civilised gathering. Less betting on horses, more about eating lunch.

Things changed gear somewhat, once we reached Taupo.

I can't be too explicit here because I don't want anything to be taken down and used in evidence.

Things that didn't happen included minigolf, bungy-jumping and the hole-in-one challenge. I could claim this was because of the inclement weather conditions, but on reflection, I'm not sure any of these things were ever going to happen.

What we did do was force the bus driver to take us to the supermarket / bottle store. It wasn't a hijacking or anything, but I think he realised it was in his best interests to cooperate.

A brief party ensued. It was one of those who's-got-the-biggest-room, let's-all-hang-out-there situations. There may have been some social drinking.

Things do start to lose focus a bit at this point, although I'm pretty sure another bloke and I made plans to take the world by storm with a new drink we invented called the BLP. We carried out quite a bit of market market research, mostly on ourselves, but the feedback was very promising.

Back on the bus, off to the much rumoured Indian restaurant. This turned out to be just around the corner, although the bus driver drove us straight past it and around a few other completely unnecessary blocks to get there. Like I say, what a kidder.

Inevitably, Peter Dunne was there. Imagine how delighted he was to catch up with 21 members of the news media while in the process of hiding out from the news media. Especially 21 journos who'd been researching the effects of the BLP. Good sport though, even posed for photos, presumably willingly.

I'm going to leave the rest of the evening up to your imagination. I'll just suggest the words "karaoke", "oversized handles of beer" and "cigars" and leave you to it. Oh, you might want to add "pole dancing" just for a bit of colour. And because there was a pole.

Unfortunately, mornings-after follow nights like those - more unfortuately for some than others. One guy appeared at breakfast looking like watercolour painting that'd been left out in the rain; his face had run. Another guy spent some considerable time looking at his breakfast but not eating it. The women all looked sensational. How do they do that?

The weather was even worse than the day before, but again, I don't really think that's why we continued to not minigolf, bungy or hole-in-one. We did search for a decent cup of coffee and posed for stupid photos in front of the superloo.

For some, it was a very long trip home. Not for me though. I had a great time nattering away with my colleagues, or as I'd come to think of them after the previous night's activities, my comrades in arms.

And that, I believe, is the ultimate value of the ZB Road Trip; those of us who lived to tell the tale have been brought closer together, like any plucky, ragtag bunch that survives a disaster. In fact, we've become so close, I can now tell the various members of the online team apart, even though all of their names start with "J."

Now I really am annoyed I missed last year's trip, and not just because of the free ice cream. Sadly, Matt Brown couldn't make it this year, we could have done with his credit card to cover the cost of our cones at the Huka Honey Hive.

Maybe I'll persuade him to come along next year. I'll send him an email.

Setting the standard on the karaoke floor.
Not a high standard, but a standard

CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE THROUGH CAR PARKING

So due to somebody else's vandalism, I have to pay an extra 50 cents
per park? That can't be legal, can it?

I am not a typical user of Auckland car parks. In fact, I am not a typical car parker fullstop. I don't necessarily mean this because I'm so useless at it, although I am, easily, the worst parallel parker since Al Pacino went driving in Scent of a Woman. His character was blind though, quite a good excuse. I'm just useless. Not as good an excuse.

Why there can't be more angle parks and less parallel parks is not my issue today, although I think it's a fair question. My issue today is the fascist regime running Auckland City car parking and my call to all of you to rise up against it.

Let me give you a bit of background, some history of the parking situation around our building if you will. The Radio Network does have some of its own car parks in the basement. Unfortunately, I've never achieved the status required to occupy one. Instead, they seem to be reserved for CEO's, Newstalk ZB hosts and the guy who tells the people who fix the computers to fix the computers.

Some people share their parks. Larry Williams parks his Vespa in Hosking's space for instance, given they work at opposite ends of the day. In spite of this double-bunking arrangement, it still leaves us about 150 parks short.

In the good old days, way back before I even worked at Newstalk ZB and was a humble copywriter in the Creative Department, nearby street parking was more plentiful and less diligently policed. I recall a time when you could park right across the road for free! Yes, FREE! Admittedly, it was theoretically 60 minutes only, but this just meant a fun game of cat and mouse triggered by the occasional appearance of a parking warden brandishing a piece of chalk. An announcement would immediately be broadcast over the building's intercom, "Parking Warden on Nelson Street."

We'd all give it a few minutes, then pop outside, drive our cars around the block and park them in more less the same place again - or, if we were pushed for time, we'd just wipe the chalk off our tyres and hope for the best. If you missed the PA announcement, you might have to suffer a $12 ticket, or $15 in the unlikely event the warden came back twice.

Helcyon Days indeed.

Even then though, I felt stirrings of unrest brewing in my breast. Why, I asked myself, should anyone ever be fined for exceeding a completely arbitrary parking time restriction when there are still plenty of spaces available? It's not like you're depriving anyone else of the park. That would be like Hosking staying too late for Larry to get his moped in, and that just never happens. Jesus, just imagine the standoff if it did... Larry would start shouting at things, Mike might hit him with his handbag, it could be the end of Newstalk ZB as we know it.

Sadly, times sure have changed. Those free parks on Nelson Street no longer exist at all and now it's pay and display everywhere else. The going rate is $2 an hour, which isn't too bad if you're working day is only 2 hours long, like mine. However, if for some strange reason you have to work a bit longer, parking expenses can really stack up. And yet, the same underlying frustration is still there; there are still heaps of empty carparks so why are they charging so much?

One reason I have heard is they're discouraging people from driving into the city at all. That's fine, if I could just get everyone round to my house to broadcast the show. It's actually an idea I've been floating for some time, but for some reason, haven't managed to push it through yet.

Who are these people who become parking wardens anyway? What sort of person voluntarily spreads that kind of misery on such a mass scale? They're like those soldiers in Nazi Germany who manned concentration camps. They didn't have to, but oh no, they were "just following orders."

I've had my small victories over the years. There was the time I got back to my car just as lady-parking-nazi was printing me off a ticket. I snuck up behind her and said, "You're not seriously going to give me a ticket when there's no pay-and-display machine there are you?"

"What do you mean?" she demanded, turning to indicate the position of the nearest machine... which had obviously been crashed into the day before and was no longer there. Oh yeah, that was a delicious moment.

Other parking windfalls have included the times when the stupid ticket machine simply won't accept your coins. Everybody then just writes "Machine out of order" on a piece of paper and displays that instead. I'm not sure what the legal ramifications are when the council then goes to the trouble of producing a sticker like the one pictured above, but dammit, I'm chancing it. (I also don't quite understand the economic logic behind producing a sticker like the one pictured above instead of just fixing the dumb machine, but since when do councils ever follow any kind of sound, economic practice?)

So it's come to this. I'm calling for peaceful, but positive protest. Rise up citizens! Demand cheaper parking! Don't pay our oppressors! If none of us pay, they'll be forced to change. Car parkers of the city unite!

You first though. I don't want a ticket.

Hey council! Just because I haven't paid your exorbitant parking fees,
that's no reason to maliciously mow your grass onto my bumper!

SAVING THE FIRST TILL LAST

No, I have no idea what this is supposed to be either. Pretty neat though

Alright, alright. Here it is. Yes, I went to Disneyland. Yes, I kept saying I'd write about it and no, I haven't yet, even though it was pretty much our first stop.

So, does that mean Las Vegas, San Francisco and the American food left more of a lasting impression than the happiest place on earth? Quite the opposite - that's why I knew I could leave it till the end. Some memories fade faster than others, but the ones involving fountains, fireworks and sudden drops tend to linger.

As an adult, you have to wonder how Disneyland could ever live up to the hype. You know it's the original amusement park, the one that set the standard. A place you've fantasised about your entire childhood. But if you never got to go there as a kid... and Mum, I'm not blaming you for this, I realise it's a lot of money... I'm not bitter... Not at all... But if you never made it while still young, you tell yourself the reality could never match the myth.

How magical can one fun park be? Surely it'll be like any other; too many queues, too much litter, the vague odour of greasy fast-food and a hint of vomit wafting through the air... Well believe me when I tell you, Disneyland has still got it. (No, not the smell, the BIG it)

Obviously if you've been, I'm telling you everything you've already experienced for yourself, but I hope if you keep reading, I'll be helping you relive the wonder.

Even before you enter the park, it's almost as if a spell has been cast over you. Music is everywhere. Everything has been scrubbed clean. The security team checking your bags for bombs and guns do it with smiles on their faces - genuine smiles.

I don't need to detail every attraction for you, there are plenty of websites and apps for that, websites and apps I had been assigned to review before we even left the country. I didn't of course, I'm far too lazy and useless. This led to a certain amount of wondering what to do first. Luckily, Elder Monster is a natural-born genius when it comes to map-reading. We boarded the cleanest train I've ever seen and toured around the park to Mickey's Toon Town.

It's amazing how quickly you get used to living in surreality. Everything is round and crooked and brightly coloured. See, there's Goofy. Minnie's just over there. Oh look, that tree appears to be flowering candy.

I shoved Younger Monster on the first ride I saw, a very small rollercoaster. She was absolutely terrified and patently refused to go on anything else for the next 3 days. Didn't matter though, Disneyland is a complete feast for the senses, even if you just stand in one place till closing time.

Speaking of Younger Monster, she had one burning Disney ambition, to train as a Jedi in Tomorrowland. The expression of elation on her face when she was indeed selected to be a Jedi was worth the airfares alone.

Was there merchandising everywhere? Yes. Was it over-the top? THIS IS DISNEYLAND! What isn't? So what?

Domestic Manager, well aware I would fail dismally in preparing for our Disney excursion in any way, had thoroughly researched where and when to be to make the most of the various shows and parades on offer. And when I say shows and parades, I of course mean mind-bending visual extravaganzas where the laws of physics are cast aside so movies can be projected onto walls of water and Mickey Mouse actually blows up a giant dragon. On a boat. While a full-sized pirate ship sails past.

There are rock stars who've spent their whole careers perfecting just the right balance of hallucinogenic drugs who've never even come CLOSE to seeing the kind of things they make come to life at Disneyland. You may think I'm exaggerating. I was there and I thought my eyes and ears were exaggerating.

What about the queues? I can't deny there were queues. We went Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, and the difference in crowd size between Thursday and Friday was almost a sight to see in itself. I would never want to be there on the weekend. In saying that, my monsters turned out to be the best queuers ever, quite happy to shuffle in line for 45 minutes to take a Jungle Cruise which only lasts about one ninth of that time.

Like all amusement parks, some rides rock, some are lame, but the difference at Disney is the attention to detail. Cars Land is a trip directly into the movie. How they built an entire Grand Canyon there, I have no idea, but man it's cool. The fact there are rides to go on as well is just the icing on the cake.

I could go on, but I've gone on enough. You get the idea. I had expectations, childhood expectations, the expectations of youth tempered by the cynicism of adulthood. Whatever those expectations were, they were all exceeded. In fact, they were smashed.

If you've ever thought about taking the kids to Disneyland, stop thinking and do it. The hype isn't hype at all. Anything you've heard is an understatement. There really are no words, only crazy dreams come true.

I couldn't persuade anyone to come on this one with me,
hence the "single rider" (or Nigel No-Mates) carriage