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

DEFINING ART

What's Paul, the World Cup predicting octopus doing out his tank?
Maybe he has a Prime Minister's daughter to go and pose with

In the great tradition of pointing out why I'm woefully under-qualified to comment on what I'm about to comment on, let me begin by saying, I'm no artist.

I took art at school. Briefly. I think I decided it wasn't for me the day I tried to draw Brendan Malone. With all due respect to Brendan, I think we could safely predict he was never heading for a career as a fashion model. In saying that, he still didn't deserve my somewhat interpretive representation of him. How the hell do you get the eyes symmetrical anyway? I'm not a robot, dammit.

I finished the portrait, and stepped back to admire my work, but failed. There was no admiring to be done here. It was rubbish. Don't worry, I've had it destroyed to protect further generations.

Nope, no natural artistic ability whatsoever. I can't even win at Pictionary, although that could just be due to the unfair time pressure.

However, I know what I like.

While doing the art wasn't my thing, turned out I showed slightly more promise when it came to appreciating it. When they finally threw me out halfway through 7th form (year 13) the only teachers who showed any regret to see me go were my English teacher and my Art History teacher.

Not sure why my English teacher was so sentimental about things, especially since he once saw me pashing his daughter. On the other hand, there's a slim possibility I was actually not bad at Art History.

Of course, the real question here is, what the hell has all this got to do with anything?

Well, I've decided this is art appreciation week, and it's all thanks to the PM's daughter... with a vague nod to Miley Cyrus.

This week, the media has got hold of Steph Key's art portfolio and turned it into a news story. If you haven't seen them, there are a number of pictures featuring her posing partially nude, partially covered in sushi, holding a bright red hand gun and wearing an octopus on her vagina.

Depending on who you talk to, the pics have either caused moral outrage or they are kind of cool. I think they are kind of cool and here's why; we're talking about them.

My definition of art is this; something that elicits an emotional response. The Key photos undoubtedly have achieved this and they've achieved it on a global scale. Whether it's because they're clever photos or because she's the daughter of a Prime Minister makes no difference. The fact is, young Stephanie has caused a stir around the planet, therefore she is an artist.

I certainly have questions. For example, the pictures are described as self portraits, but how do you take a selfie when you're lying on the ground under a blanket of California rolls and sashimi? Does she have a self-timer function on her camera you can set for 5 seconds, 30 seconds or 1 hour 20? Where do you buy bright red hand guns and are they available in other fabulous colours? Was the octopus still alive? If so, presumably the suckers on its tentacles were still operational. Interesting. You see? If that isn't art, I don't know what is.

Just days later, we are blasted with repeated footage of a barely clad Miley Cyrus gyrating her way through this year's VMA's, doing rude things to a collection of giant teddy bears and an oversized foam rubber finger. Again we find ourselves asking, is this performance art or just an attempt to shock? I say, given that attempt succeeded, immediately and around the world, those to things are the same thing.

After all, it can't be easy to shock at the VMA's, formerly infamous for Madonna and Britney's lesbo pash and Kanye's slagging off of Taylor Swift. Even Rihanna seemed shocked by Ms. Cyrus' performance, and she's not averse to a bit of public prancing about in matching bra and big pants herself.

Artists have always shocked us, and may they always continue to. Remember, Mozart was almost run out of town for suggesting they stick some dancing in his operas. Rock'n'roll.

I would have gone with a foam octopus myself, but that's just me

LIKE SQUEEZING BLOG FROM A STONE

Just some of the garbage that spills out of my head

The other day I tried to explain what blogging was to a group of Hibiscus Coast widows.

I didn't just randomly wander around town looking for older ladies without husbands on the off-chance they might be interested in what I had to say. I'd been invited to speak to them at their 12th anniversary meeting. Whether they'd expected me to rave on about blogging once I got there is a question for debate, but that didn't stop me raving on anyway.

I asked how many of them knew what blogging was. Approximately 2 and a half people raised their hands. Of those 2 and a half, one was the guy who was there to play the guitar, one was probably wanting to ask me why I was talking about blogging instead of what it's like to work with Paul Holmes and Mike Hosking and the half was my mother in law, who I think was only there to cheer me on, so she doesn't really count.

Anyway, what I told them blogging was is this; "What happens when someone unloads the contents of their head directly onto the internet."

Unfortunately for you, today I literally have nothing to write about, so today I will do exactly what I told those widows bloggers generally do. Here's what's in my head...

Why is there a One Direction movie? Why is it called, "This Is Us"? For that matter, why is there One Direction? What kind of groundbreaking technology had to be developed to film 1-D in THREE-D?

Should we be worried Fukushima is still leaking?

Is Russia in denial? Seriously, the whole country seems to be so vehemently and outspokenly against the idea of homosexuality, I'm beginning to think they're all gay and just can't accept it. Don't fight it, Russia. Follow your hearts. It's cold. There's vodka. Love the one you're with.

How quickly I would have died if I'd been the missing skier on Treble Cone. Apparently he kept himself alive by doing exercises to stop falling asleep. Hate exercise. Love sleep. I would have been screwed.

Hey, all the people who keep telling everyone to stop booing Quade Cooper... stop telling everyone to stop booing Quade Cooper. You're having no effect whatsoever. You may even be making it worse. In fact, he got really, really booed again when he came on last Saturday night, and that was in Sydney. The Sydney in Australia. The Australia he actually plays for.

He is a bit of a dick though.

What lolly would I change my last name to if I could? If you haven't heard, Maria Sharapova wants to be called Maria SUGARpova for the U.S. Open to promote her sweet shops. Can't decide between glennzb M&Ms (all the letters sound funny when you say them all at once) or GlennGums. Just call me Party Mix for short.

Why isn't there any yachting today? They were supposed to do 2 yesterday because they were supposed to do 2 the day before and 2 the day before that but only did 1 on all those days and now they're still 1 behind. According to my schedule, they've got to do 2 tomorrow. Given they haven't managed to do 2 on any day yet, seems like 3 would be a big ask. To be honest, I find 1 race a day is too many, so I don't know what I'm complaining about.

Just checked with someone and she assures me that last paragraph did indeed make sense. Or at least as much sense as anything else that's going on on San Francisco Bay right now.

Lastly, is this week's glennzb Glog reading a little bit too much like glennzb's Silly Six-Pack? And if it is, will that mean I won't have anything to write about on Saturday? So many questions. Not enough answers. I'll try harder next week, I promise.

An artist's impression of the inside of my brain.
Not very accurate, there's much less in there

PLEASE DON'T ASK ME ABOUT THE WEATHER

I bet I could predict the weather more accurately than this floating box of tinfoil.
It's not rocket science

I'm begging you. Surely there are other things we could discuss. Things that matter. Things like pizza. Or bourbon perhaps. Why is it always the weather?

I'm not a political man. Oh sure, I've had my small crusades. Issues of genuine importance, like getting the Wellington Street on-ramp reopened or my call for a boycott of all pay and display parking, but in the main, things that get other interest groups riled up tend to wash over me like a summer breeze. No, make that a babbling brook, I'd prefer to keep any meteorological references out of it. For example, I was in favour of the anti-smacking bill because I hoped it would stop my kids hitting me. I was against gay marriage, but only because I'm not really into marriage. You see? When it comes to "big issues" I often seem to miss the point of them.

Maybe this is what has happened with this weather thing.

Why is everybody obsessed with it? Why? Why?

On the issue of weather, I'm making a stand. Ban it I say, ban it outright.

Oh, obviously the weather will carry on regardless, nothing we can do about that. But that is my whole point; why do we spend so much time worrying about something we have absolutely no control over whatsoever? It'd be different if we could predict it in some way, but all the evidence I have to hand shows we've made almost no tangible progress in this area at all.

Yet mystifyingly, we dedicate more and more resources, time and money to the weather every day.

How can the weather possibly justify 3 hits in one TV news bulletin? I get that they can actually measure what the weather was like that day, but who cares? It's already happened!

As for the forecasting thing, what an absolute crock. I'll tell you the weather segment I'd be genuinely interested in; the one where they play back the previous day's forecast and compare it to what really happened. Like they'd ever give me the satisfaction.

I reckon the amount and timing of any rainfall would be wrong about half the time. I'd say they'd get the wind wrong about 75 percent of the time and the predicted temperature would be wrong at least 6 days a week. Oh, and I don't remember them ever predicting a killer tornado.  That is to say, I HAVE heard weather forecasts mentioning the possibility of tornadoes,  but only ever in the days immediately after a killer tornado. And those ones never happen. EVER.

Why would we take any notice of that level of extreme bollocks? If meteorologists were financial commentators and they gave us advice that unreliable, we'd all be bankrupt by the end of the week. How is it these people all still have jobs when they get most of it completely wrong every single day?

It's obvious to me the weather is not science, it's magic, and as such, we mere mortals will never understand it. All we can do is marvel at its complexities, enjoy its sunsets, and say things like, "Boy, cold last night, wasn't it?" when we see each other at the gym.

Not the most specific forecast I've ever seen, and probably still wrong