TO THE BLOKE WHO LEFT THE NOTE

See the scratch? No, not that one, the other one. No, not THAT other one,
that's just mud. The OTHER other one

Car parking at the gym is an issue.

My gym is part of a swimming pool complex which means there seems to be a never ending series of swimming lessons, school swimming sports and generally a lot of dripping people wandering around wrapped in towels.

My gym also provides a full timetable of Les Mills exercise classes and if all that stuff happens at the same time, the car park, which is actually fairly large, ends up being not fairly large enough.

This inevitably leads to that style of avant-garde parking peculiar to busy mums in 4WDs. You know what I mean; if the marked spaces are all occupied, any other car-sized space becomes a park. Footpaths, traffic islands, entrance foyers... that's the whole point of owning an RV to begin with, right? Surely if it can drive anywhere, it can PARK anywhere.

I'm not a busy mum and I drive a Corolla, so I tend to shun the whole "improvisational" parking philosophy. If I can't locate an empty slot immediately on arrival, I prefer to just hover a few minutes between the 1st and 2nd rows (where the through traffic is a bit lighter) until someone wearing a towel comes out and makes their soggy exit.

This is certainly inconvenient and some days I can't be bothered waiting at which point I make an executive, America's Cup Race Director-style decision and just call the whole thing off for the day. Unlike the America's Cup competitors though, I never really wanted to go to the gym in the first place, so it's nice to have a tangible excuse to justify my extreme laziness.

The ironic thing here is, I only live just around the corner. In the time I waste searching for an elusive parking space, I could just as easily drive home and walk back. (If I can circumnavigate the collection of 4WDs parked on the footpath, obviously)

But occasionally all the planets align, an unoccupied park presents itself and I am left with no other option than to physically leave my vehicle, enter the gym itself and do some exercise. I hate it when that happens.

Last week, I spent 45 minutes hating it even more than usual, staggered out to my car, (I've heard about post-exercise endorphin rushes, but they don't seem to apply to me) flopped into my driver's seat and noticed a notice.

This is one of my most hated things in the whole world; flyers left under your windscreen wipers. You never see them till you're behind the wheel, then you fool yourself into thinking you can reach them by sticking your arm out the window, which you never can, which you really should have remembered before you tried and failed yet again, which just results in even more frustration, especially when the flyer turns out to be advertising an innovative new hair-removal technique. Not something I plan on having a great deal of use for. Ever.

Not this time though. This time it wasn't that kind of note. This note was hand-written and said, "We scracht your car a bit." There was a phone number as well. 

Mixed feelings at this point, obviously. Pretty pissed off about the big white swipe smeared down the side of my car. Bit of a legend for leaving some contact details though.

I rang him and he told me to get a quote and he'd flick me the dosh to cover it. Bit more of a legend. I went to get the quote and the panel beater came out with a rag and wiped the damage off. Quite embarrassing. The panel beater suggested he write up a quote anyway so I could have a nice dinner out on the guy who dinged my car.

That's not how I roll.

Would've served him right for spelling "scratched" wrong though.

Amazingly, I'm not that interested in this kind of advertising.
And no, that isn't me in the picture

OKAY, SO I WAS WRONG

Not a bad view to start my week. You'd have thought they could
have got the giant jersey round the right way though

This is turning into quite a big week.

Given it began with a night at the rugby in a catered corporate suite on the halfway line, you'd think I'd be hard-pushed to improve things from there. Thanks ASB, by the way. That's what I call succeeding on.

What could possibly be better than a convincing win for the All Blacks over South Africa? How about the Orewa College Music Department's 2013 Gala Concert? That's right baby; if you missed it, your loss. Monster Number One was in almost every band, choir and ensemble. What a show-off. Combine that with opening night of Monster Number Two's school production and you must be starting to wonder how much excitement one person can pack into just 5 days and live to tell the tale.

Well, then there's that whole America's Cup thing of course.

I'm not good at admitting I'm wrong. I would like to claim this is due to a lack of necessity but sadly, this would be a false claim. I am wrong all the time. Very wrong. So wrong. Just ask the Domestic Manager, she'll tell you. In fact, sometimes she'll tell you how wrong I am even if you haven't asked her.

I would also like to claim I'm not good at admitting I'm wrong due to my history as 3rd Speaker in my High School debating team. Again, probably not strictly correct. In fact, the reverse is far more likely; they probably put me at 3rd Speaker due to my reluctance to concede my side of the argument. That, and I was in high school a MILLION BILLION YEARS AGO. Something else the Domestic Manager seems to like to remind people of.

I guess I'm just a natural-born arguer. The devil's advocate, if you will. A royal pain in the arse if you won't.

However, this time I've been so wrong, I'm really going to have to fess up.

I haven't been the biggest supporter of the America's Cup. Understatement.

I may have been a bit disparaging about rich wankers and their toy boats. Understatement.

There may not be another New Zealander who's been so negative, both privately and publicly, about Team New Zealand's chances, the rules, the postponements, the cheating and anything else even slightly connected to the Auld Mug - including making quite a few snide remarks about the nickname, "The Auld Mug."

Yup, even all that is an understatement.

Which is why I'm now retracting the whole lot.

Now the entire country is grinding to a halt at 8:15 every morning, mesmerised by two teams of high performance athlete's pitting multi-million dollar racing machines from a science-ficiton novel against each other, nature and the laws of physics generally, I've got to admit, the entire country may have a point.

I can't remember ever hearing so many people asking each other the same question, almost in unison... "Did you see the race?"

The America's Cup has cast it's spell over the nation's collective imagination once more, and I can no longer deny it.

So I'm sorry. I was wrong. As usual.

This is that moment, just like when,towards the end of George Orwell's 1984, Winston realises if he thinks one thing and the rest of the world thinks the opposite, he's probably the idiot, not them.

Oh, I still think it's stupid, it's just that nobody else does.

What could be more entertaining than watching a bunch of show-offs
trying their hardest to send a nation's hopes, dreams and tax dollars
to the bottom of the ocean?

THE BEST THING ABOUT HOSKING BEING OUT OF THE COUNTRY

Behold the awesomeness of my ride... and some squished bugs

Have you seen the Newsroom?

Not OUR newsroom. I mean the TV show. It's my new favourite programme, but I'm careful about who I recommend it to. It's very in-house. If you're not directly involved with the media, or an obsessive news junkie, I'm really not sure if you'd get anything out of it.

Sure, the writing is switchblade-sharp and the cast performances are the best I've seen since Boston Legal, but if you're not into current affairs, I think the major plot lines would leave you cold.

To be really, really honest, I probably like it so much because it's about my job. If you HAVE seen it, I can confirm it is a very accurate recreation of a working newsroom.

For the uninitiated, you may find it hard to believe things could be quite so dramatic, high pressure and downright chaotic on such a regular basis. All I can tell you is there is a genuine adrenaline rush associated with the quest to be the first to report the next big story.

People often ask me how I can work in such a pressure-cooker situation, especially at 4 in the morning. Like anything, you just get used to functioning at that level. You keep reminding yourself it's only radio and it's not like you're running a country or operating on somebody's brain for a living.

In saying that, things get exponentially more challenging when my host is broadcasting the show from another hemisphere.

Just the mere fact I can't make eye-contact with him is a pain, and not because I particularly enjoy gazing into the Hosk's piercing baby blues. (Or whatever the hell colour they are) As Big Mike's chief button pusher, it's my responsibility to convey balanced skepticism when he bleats on about how wonderful everything is. I usually do this via a series of eyebrow raises, shoulder shrugs and forehead slaps I can no longer communicate when he's rabbiting on on the other side of the globe.

Oh, and it helps to know if Mike is actually in the studio or not. You know, when it's time to talk on the radio.

There are certain technical difficulties an international OB throws up as well. I don't know if you've ever tried to get hold of an author in London via her agent in Christchurch so we can pre-record an interview with my host in San Francisco, but it's not quite as easy as it sounds. (This is while trying to broadcast live commentary of an America's Cup race at the same time, of course)

I never feel like I can go to the toilet or make a coffee in case somebody needs me for something. Luckily, less coffee means less loo stops, so that sort of balances itself out.

And there's always the vague paranoia the line connecting us is about to fall over leaving me with no host whatsoever. Don't laugh. It's happened before.

No, it's not fun. Especially when I have to spend the entire show being told what an awesome time everyone's having where I'm not. By everyone, I mean everyone. Mike, Mrs. Staino (the producer) and even my boss. They're all there and I'm here. I never get to go, because someone has to stay and push the buttons. My other colleagues all sympathise. In fact, they keep coming into the studio to tell me how sorry they are for me. Not helping guys. Not helping at all.

But...

At least I get to use Hosko's car park. I now no longer care what the weather conditions are because I can drive directly from my house to the Radio Network garage. I can't express how awesome and wankerishly important that makes me feel. (Tempered only slightly by the knowledge that's the way Mike gets to feel every day. He's not driving a majestic Corolla like me though)

So, in spite of everything, it's not all bad. I stole Hosking's tickets to the rugby too. Boom.

It may not look like much, but it is much

TO GO IN, OR JUST GO ON

Just checking; Is Gotham City anywhere near the Middle East?

This is about Syria.

As I write, I still don't really know what I want the world to do.

To begin with, I'd have to say I'm not a big fan of war generally. I've never understood why people go to them. I wouldn't. I realise there have been times and places where the people in charge didn't give you much say in the matter, but I'm pretty sure I'd rather go to jail or even be killed myself than shoot at someone I don't know in the name of a cause I don't really understand.

Is this easy for me to say because I've never had my way of life directly threatened by a foreign power? Yes. Yes it is. It's still what I believe though.

I know it's naive, but surely if nobody ever fought on behalf of megalomaniac, despotic dictators, they'd just be left standing in the corner shouting at people with everyone laughing at them.

Sadly, it's not a perfect world.

For some reason, and I suppose it's the same reason action movie villains always seem to have an inexhaustible supply of evil henchmen, there are heaps of people prepared to do the bad guys' dirty work. You know the sort of thing; rigging elections, making opposition activists disappear, opening fire on peaceful protests, developing weapons and ultimately deploying them.

When those weapons are deployed in the direction of us or our allies, we go to war. That, sadly, is just the way of things. I may not like it, but I can understand it.

The curly question is, what to do when those weapons are deployed, but nowhere near us.

Apparently, rigged elections are okay from a distance. That whole oppressing the masses thing? Oh, we don't approve, but we're not sending in the troops to sort it out. Actual weapons though, that's where it gets tricky. Weapons of mass destruction are a no-no, especially the really bad ones.

Small point here; which are the bad ones exactly? I get you can't be gassing kids - very bad look. But a mortar shell landing on your head while you're walking to the dairy is a pretty bad look for you personally as well.

Curly, curly questions.

This is why people like Obama start going on about "red lines'. Unfortunately, the lines don't actually exist, they're only theoretical, just something politicians make up so potentially unpopular decisions can be more easily justified.

No idea why the line was drawn at chemical weapons, when al-Assad's been dropping other things on innocent people for years now, but as we've already established, I don't have an intimate understanding of how these things work.

In the real world, we don't break up the fights until we start seeing children foaming at the mouth on our 6 o'clock news. Talk about your ambulance at the bottom of the cliff. (And by ambulance, I mean tactical Tomahawk missile strike)

Pity we can't just round up the evil henchmen and drop them in a hole. Like Batman would.

Then al-Assad would be left standing in the corner shouting at people with everyone laughing at him. Just like every bully should be.

See? Even a weapon of MINIMAL destruction can still be bloody annoying