I HATE THIS TIME OF YEAR

Have I got Christmas music for you?

Please don't get me wrong. (I ask that a little too often - I must say a lot of random stuff) It's not Christmas I hate. I love eating bad food. I love spending time with family and friends. I love being allowed to drink on week nights. 

I love, love, LOVE not getting up at 3 in the morning. God I love that. I love that so much.

What I don't love is the week before.

I would like to miss out the week before. If I could get the Grinch to steal the week before Christmas, I would. The week before makes me feel like Superman... after a long stay in a kryptonite cell.

I'm not looking for sympathy - I'm sure it's the same for everyone. The rushing around. The getting everything organised for whoever's standing in for you at work while you're away. The search for the present that was supposed to be so easy to find but has ended up being the last one in the country so the quest to locate it, purchase it and actually get it delivered on time has become an impossible mission even Ethan Hunt would think twice about accepting.

Who could be bothered feeling sorry for me anyway? You're exhausted too, right? Your back is killing you just as much as mine. Your kids have already started whining, "I'm bored. What can I do?" and they've only been off school 3 days. Basically what I'm doing here is moaning too. Just because I can.

I think the thing that makes this week so excruciating is the promise of relief. Never is your headache more intense than during the minutes you're waiting for the Nurofen to kick in. This week is no different - because the break is just days away makes those days the hardest you've had to endure all year.

Every Christmas song I play on the Mike Hosking Breakfast is a stinging reminder it isn't Christmas yet at all. Every Christmas special I hear advertised on air is like the ticking on the time-bomb that is my Christmas shopping crusade.

Too much to do, not enough time, it's the same every year and I hate it.

So here's what I'm going to do. I'm taking next December off, the whole month. And I'm REALLY taking it off. I'm going to find a helpful anaesthetist to put me in a voluntary coma. They can bring me round Christmas Eve and I'll be refreshed, relaxed and blissfully unaware. And bloody starving probably - perfectly placed to get the most out of the happiest time of the year.

The only thing that could possibly make that scenario any more dream-like would be if Santa brought me a new smart phone to play with... but which to choose? A Lumia 920 or a Galaxy SIII? Now there's a stressful decision to make. I think I could handle that one though.

Yum! They both look so delicious! How's a boy to choose?

THIS TIME, THE MEDIA REALLY ARE TO BLAME

I know - compelling reading, right?

I work at a radio station. I produce current affairs podcasts. I have a satirical online video show. I write these blogs. I guess I'm just going to have to accept it; I'm part of "The Media."

This is why I tend to squirm uncomfortably (is there any other way to squirm?) whenever I hear someone blame "The Media" for something. It's always something bad too. Nobody ever says, "Full credit to The Media. We couldn't have done it without them." Nope, it's always, "The Media have blown this out of all proportion," or, "The Media have taken this whole thing out of context."

Usually this is not true. If a politician blames the media, it's because they have lied. If a sports personality blames The Media, it's because they have lost. If a celebrity blames The Media, well, they're an idiot - without The Media, they wouldn't be a celebrity.

In the sad case of Jacintha Saldanha though, it's pretty hard to find someone else to hold accountable. From 2Day FM's idiot phone stunt, to the global reporting of that stunt, to the incessant hounding of the nurse involved, The Media's hands are covered in blood from start to finish.

The real problem here of course, is there was no story to begin with.

How is a woman becoming pregnant a story? Because she's a princess? Because she's beautiful? Because she's feeling a bit poorly and has sought medical advice? Give me a break. If a man had got himself pregnant, that'd be news. Severe morning sickness? Gross, but not interesting. Okay, I'll admit (I have to, I've admitted it before) I couldn't give a stuff about the Royals. In fact, I may have described them as a complete waste of everybody's time, money and attention. I may have even referred to them as a bunch of drunk and insane, unemployed inbreds. I may not have too. But I may.

I'll make you one concession; some people, and I have no idea why but I know they're out there, some people are actually interested in royal babies. The jump from there to camping outside the entrance to a hospital 24/7 is tenuous to say the least. To then jump again to thinking it's hilarious to pose as Liz and Chas, ring the hospital and ask how Kate's getting on is... well... what can you say? It doesn't even matter whether the prank call was appropriate or not, it should have been binned on the grounds in wasn't funny in any way.

Which is the other weird bit about this sorry saga; who the hell makes radio this way? Apparently the whole thing was recorded well in advance and someone somewhere actually decided to broadcast it. On our show, (the Mike Hosking Breakfast on Newstalk ZB) we generally make it up on the spot. What you hear is what we hear as we hear it. It's called... ah... that's right... NEWS. Sure we'll pre-record the odd interview due to time differences and guest availability but the concept of pre-recording a joke phone call you don't even think will work is kind of pathetic.

Trouble is, this all happened in December, and everybody knows no news happens in December, so when their lame-arse prank actually worked (technically, I mean, not as a successful bit of radio comedy) the British press jumped on it like the pack of slavering jackals they are. Really bad timing for 2Day FM - not only was it No-News Month, but due to the Leveson Inquiry, the U.K. papers in particular had been held in check for so long you could literally hear them baying for blood all the way down here in the Southern Hemisphere.

Once the awesome, terrifying and omnipotent machine that is the English Fourth Estate is set in motion, it won't be stopped. Not by a mere Sydney radio station, and certainly not by a 46 year-old nurse who had the misfortune of answering the phone that day. You can only imagine the pressure she would have felt once her identity was fed into the British press juggernaut.

Assuming suicide is confirmed as the official cause of death, obviously the only person to blame directly is Jacintha herself, but as I type those words, the keys feel hollow beneath my fingertips. Because I know this time The Media was in it up to its eye teeth, from the inception of the worthless radio stunt, to the incessant coverage of the fallout, even now after someone's paid the ultimate price. When The Media itself becomes so entwined in the story, instead of just observing it and reporting it, we're on dangerous ground. Now we're all tainted, all partially responsible, we, The Media.

If only more people along the way had posed themselves one crucial question, perhaps this whole stinking, squalid, shameful mess could have been avoided. It's a question so important, so obvious, all too often it's left unasked and this time the results were fatal.

That question: "Is this even a story?"

Beware the all-powerful press juggernaut

SCHOOL PRIZE-GIVINGS AREN'T SO BAD

The final barrier between school and summer. Dun dun dah...

It was always the storm before the calm. The final challenge. The ultimate test. The one thing standing between you and freedom - the sweet, sweet freedom of the summer holidays. If you could just survive that last 2 excruciating hours of torture, Christmas would be your REAL prize.

The end-of-year prize-giving. So cruel. So unusual. Why so many speeches? Why so many categories? Why so many items from the orchestra/choir/rock band/drama department? These are just some of the questions I would find myself considering every year of my scholastic career.

And I was IN the orchestra/choir/rock band/drama department. God only knows what was running through the minds of those poor sods who just had to sit there and take it.

But that's all changed now. Now, 30 years later, I love prize-givings. Prize-givings rock. Prize-givings are better than an ice cream after a trip to the beach. Because my daughter is Performer of the Year.

Let's not get ahead of ourselves though. One of the coolest things about being an adult is not having to go to school. No exams. No P.E. No detention. No Mr. Menzies. (Sorry, Mr. Menzies, but you WERE a jerk, and we all know it) Best of all, no assemblies and no prize-givings.

As the years roll on, school becomes a mere memory. A darker time you can put behind you. Sure, now there are bills to pay and jobs to go to, but at least you don't have to wear shorts with long socks anymore.

However, if parenthood strikes, (and for those adults out there reading this, I should warn you, parenthood can strike at any time, so be ever watchful) school will eventually pull you back in, a bit like the Death Star's tractor beam snagging the Millenium Falcon.

Two quick questions: 1) Do you think I use too many Star Wars analogies? 2) Is "Millenium" supposed to have 2 L's? It looks wrong.

ANYWAY...

You can't escape it. School will eventually reclaim you. It may take 5 years, or 10, but sooner or later you'll find yourself back at that end-of-year prize-giving, only this time the chances of you personally winning anything are effectively nil. (I did claim a hamper from the local pharmacy on behalf of the Domestic Manager once, but that was just a raffle that happened to be drawn the same day)

HOWEVER...

Should your kid's name be called out to step forward, trip up the steps, then accidentally grab their certificate before shaking hands with the principal like they were supposed to, your whole world will suddenly grind to a halt, heavenly choirs will start to sing and your heart will literally burst with pride, so you'd better have a defibrillator handy, just in case.

Should that child then go on to claim 2 MORE awards, even though you didn't quite hear what they were for because you weren't expecting her to win anything else, your pride levels will be so out of control, paramedics may have to be called in.

And if that child, that golden child, that gifted, anointed, MIRACLE child should go on to take out the grand prize for her year, yes, an actual CUP... well, you'll probably just die on the spot. Splat. Dead from a parental pride overdose. What a way to go.

That's how my loathing of prize-givings turned to love. Still no excuse for a flute choir though. That kind of torture is against the Geneva Convention.

Pretty good haul for someone with a gimpy hand

THE PROBLEM WITH NZGT

I blame the judges - not icecream

I can tell you straight off; it's the judges.

There, that was a short glog this week wasn't it?

Alright, I'll elaborate. Clearly, New Zealand does indeed have some talent, particularly in the areas of dance and singer-songwritery cafe rockers. There are also a few really wacky jugglers out there, but once you've been to Cirque du Soleil, wacky doesn't quite cut it anymore. When it comes to circus acts these days, unless you can actually stick your elbow up your own bum, while playing the accordian and setting yourself on fire, we've seen it all before.

So how did we end up with so many no-talent losers and misfits in the so-called grand final of New Zealand's Got Talent?

I blame the judges... and their litany of lies. Ali Campbell, Rachel Hunter and Jason Kerrison sat there in our tellies week after week and lied to our faces. On a Sunday too. Pretty naughty. We trust Rachel, we've trusted her for years. After all, she was so right about Trumpets. You really can't beat them. Watch Rachel's Old Ad to see a real, live supermodel actually eating icecream. If she says the entire country has fallen in love with 91 year-old Olivia Turner (even though she's been singing progressively worse and worse each week) maybe she heard something we didn't.

For almost 30 years, Ali Campbell's been giving us such good advice about consuming red wine in moderation. When he then goes on to predict Logan Walker's original song could be the country's next big single, obviously that's sound advice too. Kind of suspicious he's told that to at least two other acts as well - or could we be headed for an all NZGT top 5?

If Jason Kerrison, 20 year veteren of the kiwi music industry tells us 11 year-old Fletcher's going to be a big star, surely he's going to be, right? We wouldn't want to miss out on that action. Don't let the fact he can't find his own cat fool you, this tweenie's got the goods.

Sadly, it's lies. All lies. It's almost as if the judges were just saying these things to keep us interested in their programme. Sadly, for this viewer anyway, they completely missed the boat. I've watch many hours of this kind of bollocks TV over the years and in my view, the only singing shows that work are the ones where at least one of the judges is prepared to be brutally honest. Simon Cowell is the master of course, with Ian "Dicko" Dickson and the notorious Kyle Sandilands close behind.

All too often throughout this series, we've seen people singing terrible songs badly in horrendous outfits, only to be told they had genuine star potential and had connected with every member of the audience. I'm no Jason Kerrison, but I've sung and played a little over the years and I can hear when someone's off the note. "Big" Dane never got near the notes on Sunday, but I don't think that's what Rachel meant when she told him/her, "How unbelievable was that? Your voice is just so powerful!" I think she actually meant it as a compliment.

I don't want to put any of the contestants down (except maybe Zane and Degge - Dudes! Why would you try to juggle on unicycles when one of you can't seem to ride a unicycle?) because it's not the contestants' fault they were put through. In fact, some contestants seemed to make every effort to NOT be put through. Tawaroa Kawana for example - he starts out as a hip SBW look-alike serenading Rachel with his acoustic guitar, then the next time we see him he's crooning cruise-ship style in a shiny suit. I mean, what is that about?

It's the judges. It's the judges. It's all the judges. Sure we voted, but we voted the way the judges told us to and if we didn't, they put the 3rd-best act through anyway. What kind of idiot system is that? I'll tell what kind - it's a wrought. 99 cents a vote? Please. Oh, of course you can download the free app - but even then you have to buy voting credits. Someone's creaming it - and it ain't the contestants. (In spite of so many of them having "New Zealand's next hit single") Okay, one of them WILL take home $100k in their brand new ride - I just hope that it's Clara or Evan. JGeeks are great too - but they'll have to take turns driving.

Fire the judges and put somebody honest in there. They don't have to be mean, just don't be mean with the facts. At least they're right about one thing; Corollas ARE really cool cars.

Please ignore the abysmal parallel parking and appreciate the coolness of the car

THE GENERATION GAP GETS WIDER

Perhaps the most eagerly anticipated album of the year. Perhaps not.

This is not a CD review. For starters, who even buys CDs anymore? I could have used the word "album" but that means different things to different people these days too.

No, this is simply my reaction to my 11 year-old daughter's reaction to some music I was playing in my car on Monday.

It's a long way to piano lessons. The teacher moved 20 minutes further away which is pain in terms of fuel consumption, but a bonus when it comes to music appreciation. On Monday, we appreciated the latest offering from Led Zeppelin; Celebration Day - a double disc recording of their one-off O2 concert in 2007.

I say, WE appreciated it. That's not strictly accurate. I tried to appreciate it while daughter completely ignored it, chatted nonstop about her day and even (and this was pretty annoying actually) TURNED IT DOWN at one point.

I used to like her. Now I'm not so sure.

Admittedly, the 63 year-old Jimmy Page playing on this recording isn't quite the performer you hear on 2003's "How the West Was Won" - a compilation of live performances from 1972 - but come on! Jimmy Page! The original guitar hero! Am I starting to sound like a desperate old man here?

I can remember when I first discovered Led Zep like it was yesterday. I was a teenager and I'd heard of them, but I thought they were just some annoying metal band like Black Sabbath or Deep Purple. This wasn't based on anything I'd heard, it was based on what the greasy, long-haired guitar try-hards at had written all over their schoolbags.

Obviously everybody knows "Stairway To Heaven" - quite a good song. I had to wonder if there were more quite good songs to go with it. Almost as I was wondering this, "Remasters" was released and here's the disturbing part kids - I bought it on LP! You know, LPs? Records? To go on a turntable? You've got no idea what I'm talking about, have you? Anyway, on LP, it was a 3-disc set.

Here's a bit of nerdy Led Zep back-story. Basically, when CD's started catching on, someone at a record company somewhere dubbed all their albums off, and released them like that. No re-mixing. No involvement with the band. A pretty rough job. 1990 rolls around and Jimmy Page decides to fix it all up, digitally remastering everything and releasing all the best songs in one package.

I took "Remasters" home, went straight up to my room and listened to the whole thing, all 6 sides, back to back. I was spellbound. "Oh my god," I thought. "This is the greatest band in the history of rock." Of course, by 1990, I wasn't the first teenager to have had this epiphany. In fact, given the band formed in the late 60's, I was joining at least the 2nd, if not the 3rd generation of Led Zep groupies.

So it was with some excitement I pushed play on my Corolla's CD player the other day and waited for my daughter's reaction. She'd got in the car halfway through "No Quarter." This was going to be good.

But no. Nothing. Not even a flicker. Maybe there's something wrong with her. Can Zeppelin appreciation skip a generation? She's a really good musician - better than I ever was. How could she not be impressed by John Paul Jones' sweeping bass lines? By the sheer poetry of the lyrics? By Robert Plant's essential hairiness?

She's just too young, that's the problem. How's an 11 year-old supposed to interpret lyrics like, "Shake for me girl. I wanna be your back-door man." As for the Lemon Song, I'm not even sure I'M mature enough to handle that content. (Google the words. They're dirty, but funny) I'm sure she'll get it eventually. If I just keep playing it to her, she'll come round. Or at least she'll develop the good manners to feign interest, for her old dad's sake. Oh and next time, hands off the volume knob, kiddo.

Hey, that guy on the right doesn't look so old. Oh, he's the son. Of course.

THE BATTLE BETWEEN TECHNOLOGY AND GOOD MANNERS

What do you mean this isn't responsible parenting? It's Diet.

Of the many challenges parenting presents, perhaps the curliest is trying to stay cool. It's a flawed argument of course, your kids will never think you're cool and the older everyone gets - you, them - the more uncooler you'll become. That won't stop you trying of course, especially if you're a dad.

No dad wants to be the bad guy. We're the ones who say, "Yes."

As in, "Can I have Coke on my Weetbix this morning, dad?"

"What would your mother say?"

"I've never asked her."

"Well, I s'pose so then. But make sure you screw the lid back on properly."

See? Dads don't get any cooler than that, right?

Or how about this classic?... "Dad, look at these awesomely sharp sticks we found! Can we hit each other with them?"

"I s'pose there's no harm in that. As long as you don't draw blood. Try to avoid the eyes please."

This weekend though, I discovered I was even less cool than I thought. We'd been invited to a dinner party, and when I say "we" I mean me, the Domestic Manager and both monsters. The great fear of all kids in these situations is the threat of extreme boredom. Specifically, what if there are no other kids there? Will I have to listen to adults talking about boring shit all night? Will there be a TV there so I can watch whichever reality singing competition is playing tonight?

As it happens, there's been a recent development in the glennzb household my kids thought might combat the looming boredom threat; the mighty iPad. And when I call it mighty, obviously I mean, ALmighty. Somehow, and I really don't understand how, although it might have something to do with Orewa College's progressive policy towards one-to-one devices, we've gone from being a no iPad family to a 2-iPad family in the space of about 10 days. This now takes the number of mind-sucking, personal electronic devices in our house to around 20 or so. It's hard to nail down an exact figure.

The point is, the kids wanted to know if they could take their iPads out to dinner with them. No matter how cool a dad you're desperate to be, you've got to draw the line somewhere. I said no, and they took it well I thought, considering telling a kid they can't use their iPad is a bit like telling a crack addict he can't have his fix, or someone who works in breakfast radio the coffee machine's broken. (I've actually been faced with this last nightmare scenario a number of times and lived to tell the tale... somehow)

"You can't turn up at the door with your iPads under your arms," I explained. "It's one thing worrying you'll be bored, but if you B.Y.O. iPads, you're effectively picketing their house with placards that read, "YOU'RE BORING!"

(I'm sure there probably IS an app to actually turn your iPad into a placard. If not, remember who had the idea first, striking activists)

So we arrived brandishing 2 nibble platters, a bottle of wine and no iPads. The good news was, there were plenty of other kids there to keep mine occupied, not to mention a dog and some cats. The bad news was, they had all brought their iPads. Including the dog I think, although he could have been sharing one with the cats.

Boy did I feel like an old fuddy-duddy then. How Dickensian of me to keep my precious kiddies offline for a WHOLE EVENING. I was lucky I wasn't had up for child abuse, forcing them to suffer under such an oppressive, 3rd-world regime.

Really? Has it really come to this? Are we really going to let our progeny plug themselves into cyberspace and just leave them there indefinitely?

Don't get me wrong, I loves me a gadget. In fact, I loves me gadgets more than just about anything. But geez they can be antisocial. I certainly can't claim any kind of innocence or immunity from their brain-numbing influence either; after all, there's no point in listing something on TradeMe if you can't check how many views you've had every 3 minutes via your smart phone.

Remember when YOUR parents would tell you to stop watching so much TV and that you should go out and do something useful? Oh, how times have changed. If only I could get my kids to pay attention to the telly - the X-Factor is on, but one of them's too busy Viber-ing her mates to notice, while her sister is creating her own personal fiefdom on Minecraft. As I've already admitted, Mum and Dad aren't exactly setting a sterling example, given I'm just clearing a few work emails on my awesome Nokia Lumia and the Domestic Manager has at least 2 separate Facebook accounts to maintain.

Are we just getting smarter, is that it? Have our brains become so much larger over the eons, we now require more stimulation to fill up our attention spans? Or is it an evil inter-planetary takeover plot, masterminded by body-snatching aliens using video games and the interweb to lull us into submission? It'd certainly save on starships and plasma bombs.

We need to get rid of these devices. All of them. The phones. The iPads. The laptops. The lot. Gone. Surely we can just replace them with a WiFi router hardwired directly into our brains. That'd make it a lot easier to pretend we're listening to the dinner conversation when we're ACTUALLY updating our profile pic.

I left some of our computers out of this photo so it wouldn't look too excessive

PERHAPS THE STRANGEST GIG IN HISTORY

Take note of the time. What could possibly go wrong?

As I write this, you're dealing with a desperate man.

Desperate for answers, for explanations. Desperate for clarity. Desperate for guidance. Possibly in need of a hug. Most definitely, and most desperately of all, badly in need of sleep.

If you're a regular reader of these humble glogs, you'll be well aware I spend much, if not most of my life in a state of confusion. But today I take the definition of confusion to new heights. Everest-like heights. Fearless Felix Baumgartner jumping-from-a-balloon-on-the-edge-of-space heights. I think you'll agree, those are pretty high heights.

The sheer altitude of my confusion stems from 2 things; a severe lack of sleep and the ultimate cause of that lack.

No need to be confused about the lack of sleep. 3 hours is not enough. For anyone. Not even for an old person. Nearly 39 isn't really old - although after just 3 hours kip, it FEELS very old indeed.

So that's straight-forward then; not enough sleep causes confusion (and possibly oldness) but the real question is the OTHER thing. Why? Why so little sleep? Here I have few answers.

I know it has something to do with Ben Harper though. 

It seemed like a simple proposition at the inception; An Acoustic Evening With Ben Harper, 7:30 Monday night, Aotea Centre - at least, that's what the ticket promised anyway. An acoustic evening, an early start... What could be more civilised? What could possibly go wrong?

Firstly, just because the ticket clearly says 7:30PM, there's no real way of knowing when Ben will take the stage. Oh, the doors opened shortly after 7:30, but obviously that would've been a crazy time for Mr. Harper to start playing. He's much more of an 8 o'clock guy, right? Nope. 8:30? Guess again. At 8:45 I'm starting to think this is one of the longest concerts I've never been to. Apparently, 75 minutes is pretty much the optimum time to make your audience sit around with nothing else to do before you finally take the stage.

Oh, did I say NOTHING else to do? Well that's wildly inaccurate because clearly you have 2 excellent alternatives while waiting for the lights to go down. 1: With the help of your smart-phone, you can ignore who you came with, hard out. Or 2: You can get steadily pissed.

The great thing about option 1: is, you can keep it up all night. Start off slow... maybe a few texts... one or two sneaky emails, the mandatory Facebook update. The important thing here is to avoid verbal communication with your date in any form whatsoever - in fact, if you can avoid eye-contact, even better. Obviously you can still Direct Message them, as long as you don't look like you arrived together, or that you even know each other. After the show actually begins, (IF it begins) you can really ramp things up. Keep texting, obviously. That's the best way to annoy that idiot to the other side of you who seems to be trying to actually ENJOY THE SHOW. What a loser. I bet he only "friends" people he knows. In person. Weirdo.

Oh, and don't forget to video EVERYTHING. How else are you supposed to remember what happened? Don't worry about those other nerds behind you who might find it a bit distracting having to view what's on stage through the screen of your phone, they're probably clicking off a quick "selfy" to prove they were actually there anyway. It doesn't matter that you'll never actually end up showing anyone your videos, at least you can post them on Youtube so someone on the other side of the world can criticise your camera skills in a foreign language. The important thing is to be using your phone in some way for at least 95% of the evening - make sure it's all charged before you leave the house.

Option 2: Drinking. Sadly, at most events I've been to at most theatres, you can only get stuck into the booze pre-show and at half-time. Luckily Ben Harper gives you a good hour and a half's drinking time to really take the edge off. This may mean a few extra trips to the loo during the first half, but who cares, right? And when I say trips, I do mean physically tripping over everybody in your row, there and back.

But here's the totally awesome thing...

At An Acoustic Evening With Ben Harper, the bars stayed open THE WHOLE TIME BABY! This meant you could get genuinely munted, all night long. Although obviously you'd require many, MANY more "trips" ALL NIGHT LONG. But who cares, right?

I myself must have been out of my head because I could swear there were at least 12 different guitars on stage, not mention the beat-up piano and what appeared to be an actual vibraphone. Here's the really weird thing about being as drunk as I must have been (I was probably as drunk as the other audience members who kept shouting things like, "Love you, Ben!" and hooting, "CHER-HOO!" Samoan slap-dancing style) being that drunk caused me to believe Harper actually PLAYED most of those guitars, a lot of the time with them just sitting on his lap.

The piano definitely got beat up again, and as for the vibraphone, (or was it a marimba? No, I'm really hoping it was a vibraphone) in my delirium, Harper appeared to be playing the blues on it. While singing. No, that couldn't really have happened, could it?

Reality really just wafted away as the show continued, kind of the same way dozens of patrons WANDERED away - only to get more beers though. They mostly came back, usually clasping about 2 more plastic cups than a sober person would attempt, sloshing much of the contents over the rest of the people in the row. But who cares, right? 

What a night. A night to remember. (As long as you videoed it, of course) Sadly, it all came to an end too soon, a mere 2 hours and 45 minutes after it hadn't started.

Except, it didn't. Sure 10:15 rolled round and Ben waved everyone goodnight and left the stage - but this was just that massively out-of-it guy in the front row's cue to rark everyone into a frenzied demand for an encore, which he managed to sustain for an amazingly long time given how out of focus he was appearing to himself.

Yay! Eventually Ben was back, beating that poor, unsuspecting piano once more. Half an hour later he was still back and things began to feel more like a second half than an encore. But that couldn't be right - if the break had been a genuine interval, the lights would have come up so we could find our way to the... bar... ah, now the "We Never Close" policy REALLY started making sense. My suspicions of a surprise second half were confirmed around 11, when Ben gave those with babysitters permission to head home as we were only, "Just into the 3rd quarter."

What a legend. What a night. What the hell? I went home.

I've never left a concert before the end. As far as I know, he's still playing. As far as I know, the "CHER-HOO!"ers are still drinking. Not bad for a Monday night. You can see how a bloke could get confused though. So tired.

You can never have too many of these at the theatre. Right? RIGHT?