HOW I FEEL ABOUT THE GCSB BILL

So hard to tell which direction the politics are coming from these days

Things would be very different if I was in charge. They'd be worse. WAY worse.

"glennzb, just where do your political loyalties lie?" you may be asking. Even if you are not asking, I'll still answer, otherwise this would be my shortest Glog ever.

The answer is, I have no political loyalties whatsoever. There was a time I probably agreed more with the left-hand side of things than the right, but only in a general way. These days, with those same allegedly left-wing people making racist noises about not letting foreigners buy houses, I confess to being a bit confused about what the left and right actually stand for.

If I'm being totally honest with you, I am perhaps a bit anti-government altogether. There's always been a rather anarchic side to me that wonders what would happen if there was no government whatsoever and we were all just left to our own devices.

Presumably a state of utter lawlessness would quickly ensue, immediately followed by total moral decay and a complete breakdown of society. Inevitably, gangs of motorcycle mounted cannibals would soon be roaming the land, feasting on the vital organs of those of us too meek or weak to defend ourselves.

Still, survival of the fittest and all that.

Like I say, just as well I'm not in charge. At heart, I'm probably a bit subversive. Always have been.

However, there's another part of me that thinks it's pretty important to have a few subversives running around out there, asking hard questions, shaking things up a bit. If the people in charge never have to justify their actions and policies, that means sooner or later they just start doing whatever they want and before you know it, gangs of motorcycle mounted maneaters are back in the picture ordering their kidney/liver/spleen combos at the nearest cannibal cuisine drive-thru.

I suppose this is all a very simplistic way of looking at things and there are far more complicated issues to take into account. Just little details, like protecting our shores from foreign invasion and maintaining a stable economy. If a few "subversives" have to be held in check to ensure those little details aren't threatened, that's just something we'll have to swallow for the greater good, right?

It's this belief that seems to be at the very heart of the GCSB debate.

Again, and again, and again, and again we hear people say, "If you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear." This, on the face of it, is absolutely correct. In fact, it's probably a truism.

Trouble is, where is the line between having "nothing to hide," and handing over every detail of your life to... well, to whom exactly? As things currently stand, I was under the impression, (perhaps mistakenly if recent allegations are borne out) I was under the impression I had a right to privacy.

Being private doesn't automatically make you a terrorist or a criminal. Being private might mean you feel free to share your honest opinions and beliefs with your friends, family and colleagues, WITHOUT sharing them with strangers. Maybe YOUR opinions and beliefs are diametrically opposed to the opinions and beliefs of those strangers. If those strangers happen to be the ones in charge, does that make you subversive?

All I know is, governments and lawmakers tend to be more popular when they are answerable to the people. That means the people having the freedom to ask their government and lawmakers hard questions. Very difficult to formulate those hard questions if you have to watch every word you speak, write or text in private.

I understand the benefit of a co-ordinated approach to gathering information on bad guys... it's gathering information on good guys that makes me nervous - especially if we're not sure who's deciding the difference between the two.

I'd like to think I have "nothing to hide," but I'm still not ready to give up my right to privacy just because somebody else does.

What happens when glennzb is left in charge

1000 EARTHQUAKES, SOME BROKEN BOATS AND A BABY

Never have so many people watched one hospital doorway,
so closely, for so long, for no apparent reason whatsoever

Can someone explain it to me? Please, I'm desperately trying to understand. As far as news stories go, a royal baby is possibly the thing I am interested in less than any other thing.

While Wellington didn't actually disappear into the ocean over the weekend, it certainly could have. Now THAT's a story.

Nobody anywhere has any idea how the America's Cup works, what's going to happen next, how you can break one of your sails, throw it into the ocean and sail even faster or even why you can never predict how many boats are going to turn up for any given race. Come on, that's a story.

Babies and princesses and princes just leave me absolutely stone cold.

Give me a reason to care, because try as I might, I can't find one anywhere.

Yesterday someone suggested it was good to have something to believe in, like Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. In fact, they went on to point out how future kings are even better because they're actually real. All I know is no member of the Royal Family has ever brought me presents or chocolate.

Or anything at all, for that matter.

I don't think I'd label myself a republican; I'm way to ambivalent towards the monarchy to actually do anything about them. Having them there doesn't seem to be hurting anyone - although I understand they do cost the Commonwealth a shitload of money for not much return. In saying that, if we got rid of all the stupid things that waste billions of public funds, surely we would have put all the local councils up against the wall years ago.

If some motley crew of inbred freaks, an obviously born-out-of wedlock crazy ginga and one supermodel commoner want to traipse all over the globe to put flowers on their heads, watch topless natives perform silly dance routines and play polo, that's their business. Yet unbelievably, all that farcical bollocks makes front page news every day of the year.

Is it because we really do want to believe we're living in some kind of fantasy fairyland, where international yacht racing has been outlawed altogether and the king has banished all earthquakes everywhere forever?

That's the royal bit. Don't even start me on babies. Aren't they gross?

Yes they are, and don't try and tell me otherwise. All babies do is spew, poo, sleep and shriek, which effectively means not only are they completely useless, they stink as well. A bit like husbands. Why would you bother?

Unfortunately, unlike archaic systems of government based solely upon which order you were born to which king or queen, you actually NEED babies, so I guess I'll just have to put up with them.

Even more unfortunately, as hard as I've tried, and god, how I've tried, this is one story I can't ignore. It's everywhere. Last night I even endured a probing interview with Cynthia Read. What do you mean, "Who's Cynthia Read?" She spun/wove/knitted the shawl, you philistines! The SHAWL! THE shawl! How could you have missed that?

I wish I had.

I think it's all the waiting that's finally turned me so utterly septic. Waiting for news of the birth, waiting for the happy family to appear, now we wait just as breathlessly to hear if they're going to give this poor, doomed wretch a name.

I'm picking they probably will.

It's all too much. Way, WAY too much. I feel like I've been force-fed a rich meal, including both dessert and cheeseboard, then been tempted by a few late night liqueurs as well. Except, I didn't get to eat anything.

Did I really need details on the Royal Car Seat? Like Mr. Creosote's after dinner mint, those details were only "wafer thin" but they were still enough to make my brain explode.

Can we please go back to talking about rich arseholes breaking their boats now? I've had enough of this baby. He ain't the king of me.

I may be a cynical old coot, but I can appreciate a hand-spun giant doily
as much as the next guy

MY FIRST EVER RESTAURANT REVIEW EVER

Please tell me I haven't turned into one those people who takes photos of their food

I can't decide if I'm too qualified or nowhere near qualified enough to do this.

On the one hand, nobody loves eating more than I do. I don't think of gluttony as a sin, more of a way of life.

On the other hand, it's not like I spend every night eating out. Sadly.

However, last week I had a dining experience that exceeded my expectations by such a margin, I really had to share it with you.

The Domestic Manager, the two monsters and I were off to see Slava's Snow Show and required a casual bite in the short window of opportunity afforded us between soccer training, piano lessons and the show itself.

Traditionally we'd pop in to Elliot Stables, which is a kind of casual collection of restaurants that all open out onto an indoor street. Like a food hall without the fast food chains and way cooler. Situated just around the corner from several Auckland theatres, it's been our go-to for some time.

Then a colleague brought the Food Truck Garage to my attention.

For background purposes, if you don't know already, there's a reality show on TV One called the Food Truck, on which chef Michael Van de Elzen tries to reinvent traditional fast food favourites with more healthy ingredients, attempting to sell them off at various public events from the window of his custom-built food truck.

For further background purposes, Monster Number 2 absolutely LOVES this show.

So when I found out there was an actual cafe selling Van de Elzen's wares, it seemed like the obvious choice for our pre-show dining this time round.

I didn't really know what to expect, other than a few crazy burgers, but I'd heard the actual truck might be parked there, so if nothing else, a nifty photo opportunity was in the offing.

What we DID find blew me away. Firstly, easy parking. In fact, a large percentage of the Food Truck Garage's Cityworks Depot location is pay and display parking.

Secondly, it's a proper, sit-down cafe. Yes, you can takeaway, but where I was presuming we'd be ordering at the till and taking a number, we were instead shown to our table and given menus.

And WHAT menus! I've never seen so many dishes I thought I knew, full of things I've never heard of. Burgers I've eaten aplenty, patties made of pumpkin and spinach, with a beetroot pickle and almond satay, not so much. Chips are chips, right? Maybe not when they're actually skin-on agria potatoes, swedes, and beets served with a lime emulsion. Oh, and do the words, "Prawn Tacos" mean anything to you? Nom, nom, nom, nom, nom...

If this all sounds like fancy schmancy flash people's dinners, it's actually completely the opposite. It's basic, raw, fresh and fun, and the most expensive item will set you back a mere 12 bucks. They even make their own lemonade, ginger beer and cola. What's more, everything comes served on enamel plates and in old jars and milk bottles. And there's beer.

Best of all, if I'm going to be perfectly honest, it's pretty cool eating the very dishes you've seen a bloke invent on telly. Oh, and yes, the real truck was really there.

Pity Monster Number 2 was having some kind of flu/headcold/stomach ache/panic attack/meltdown the whole time. Not easy being 9, you know.

But that's a measure of how excellent the Foodtruck Garage was. We hardly even noticed her incessant whimpering at all.

The Food Truck Garage
Shed 1, Cityworks Depot
90 Wellesley Street
Auckland

Open Tuesday-Sunday, 11:30 till late

Funny, she doesn't seem quite so monstrous in this picture. Maybe it's the truck

EATING, SLEEPING AND BREATHING THE NEWS

I get enough of this stuff at work, without taking it home with me

It's not easy working in current affairs.

By its very definition, news can happen any moment, day or night. This means as part of the country's most authoritative news radio production team, I basically have to have my finger on the pulse 24 hours a day.

Not one newspaper is printed without passing over my desk. My MySky has all the major news bulletins series linked - even Prime. I'm constantly trawling the interweb for the merest hint of an international story.

News is my obsession. It's the first thing I think about when I get up in the morning and I don't go to bed, because I don't want to miss any big stories. News junkies don't come any more tragic than me.

Not.

I lied, okay? When I applied for this job (about 12 years ago, but who's counting?) I assured my interviewers I knew news. I subscribed to a wide selection of magazines. The 6 o'clock bulletins were appointment viewing in my house and I had all the major dailies delivered to my door.

Okay, I didn't say that in so many words, but I definitely implied it. To be perfectly frank, by 8:30 each morning I've had about enough reality for one day. By the time I get to my car, I've tuned the rest of the world out and turned the play-list on my phone up. Anyone who knows me at all knows my sole goal in life is to get home as soon as possible so I can melt cheese on things, sit on the couch and watch B-grade movies.

Why immerse myself in the world of disaster, politics, finance, murder and mayhem when I can probably get all that in one episode of Game of Thrones? News, while constantly changing, is certainly interesting, but not usually much fun.

So I like to simply check out and let it go on without me for a while. You see, over the years what I've learned is, news will still happen whether I'm watching or not. In fact, these days my primary source of news is the Domestic Manager. Often she arrives home from work and asks me, "How about that crash/scandal/storm/murder/war/wedding/sports result?" 

(Actually, that's not quite true - the Domestic Manager would never express any interest in a sports result, I was just throwing that in for effect)

99 times out of 100, I don't know anything about the crash/scandal/storm/murder/war/wedding she's so excited by. The sports result I will have caught sometimes - I've tried to give up following sport, but it's a surprisingly hard habit to break.

Do I feel guilty I've often missed the biggest story of the day? Quite the opposite. I find the experience exhilarating. Take Sunday night, for example...

All weekend, I'd cocooned myself in my usual snuggly blanket of blissful ignorance, only to discover an airliner had landed at SFO minus a tail and a couple of its passengers, and a driverless train-load of crude oil had collided with an entire Canadian town, blowing most of it up.

I actually really like going from not knowing anything about stories like that, to being blasted with them from every angle. It's a bit like jumping into a freezing lake after sitting in a hot spa; as long as your heart keeps beating, it makes you feel incredibly alive.

Hopefully, my all or nothing approach to following the news doesn't make me any worse at my job, otherwise my next performance review might be a little rocky. If anything, perhaps I'm attacking each morning's show with a fresh point of view, so we can put a new twist on something our listeners may have first heard about the night before.

In the end it's about work/life balance - and when other people's lives are the focus of your work, I find the healthy option is to leave rest of the world at the office. I've got cheese to melt.

It's hard to ignore a story this big, but I managed

THE CAT MAN COMETH

Some people seem to like this sort of thing

It's been a big week, and it's only Wednesday.

Since Sunday, I've found love and lost it again and now I'm clinging to a desperate hope.

Talk about your emotional roller coasters.

And believe it or not, it's all because of a cat.

I don't know how these things happen. I don't know why Domestic Manager and Older Monster kept calling into the pet rescue place. I don't know why they kept coming home and telling me about the latest waifs and strays on offer. As I've made it perfectly clear in previous glogs, I'm no animal lover. 

What I DO know is, the pet place is on the way to a lot of other places, so I figured, what harm could it do? We'll drop in, they'll show me this pathetic feline they've been mooching over, I'll start sneezing, end of story.

Little did I know, that's where the story would actually begin, and it would be a tragic love story of Shakespearean proportions.

I met the cat they wanted me to meet. I'm not going to lie, it was a cute cat. It liked a cuddle, I like a cuddle, there was some common ground there. But then we were asked if we would like to meet Jedi as well. I didn't care, I was having cuddles. The newly introduced Jedi was handed to Domestic Manager and she tried to strike up a conversation. (a bit one-sided - mostly loud purring on his part) 

Then a crazy thing happened, something I wouldn't have believed if I hadn't been there myself. Jedi looked over at me and the cat I was holding, and lunged over, nuzzling his way into my arms and pushing the other cat, who I instantly forgot all about, out.

Call it destiny, call it kismet, call it temporary insanity, what can I say, we bonded.

Before I really knew what had happened, I was home, on my favourite armchair with a kitten called Jedi asleep on my head. His kitty litter, bed and food bowl set up in the downstairs bathroom, a newly purchased cat-tunnel askew in the middle of the dining-room floor. Jedi had moved in and I was (as Nicki Minaj would say) obsessed with him.

How could one 16 week-old kitten have melted my tired, old, sarcastic, cynical heart so instantly and so completely? Black magic? Voodoo? Some kind of virus, perhaps? All I know is suddenly I was trawling TradeMe for reasonably priced cat poles to keep Jedi from scratching the couch.

This was that thing soppy pet owners were always bleating on about, wasn't it? And now, overnight I'd become one of them. Who saw that coming? As far as I could tell, the feeling was mutual. Jedi would follow me around the house, always up for a cuddle, sneakily trying to eat my lunch when I wasn't looking, basically being as kitteny as he could.

The sloppy turds in the litter tray were a little offputting though. And those random blobs of blood were downright worrying.

Extensive uninformed interweb research threw up two opposing diagnoses; either it was perfectly normal cat shit, or Jedi was infested with some kind of parasite and possibly moments away from an early demise.

I rang the pet rescue place and described our sticky (not to mention stinky) situation. They suggested bringing him back in for a few days so they could keep an eye on him. Although I secretly believed they were just missing their share of his highly addictive cuddles, I reluctantly complied, leaving a very confused Jedi right back where we started.

Now it's a nervous waiting game. Will he just get better? Will he get worse? Is he thinking of me? When, oh when can I bring him home? McDonalds should sponsor a place for me to stay next door so I can be there if he needs me. 

What the hell's happened to me? I'm a mess. Maybe, just maybe, a cute little animal can teach big dumb man a lesson in humanity.

It's a bit of a worry, after all, I've got an image to maintain...

This picture got quite a few comments on Hosking's Facebook page...
some were even about the cat

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