She’s not the mother of my nation!

A cold yucky day in Aucklandtown, wind and rain batter my windows, the tree outside is still to sprout any decent leaves and oh how its been trying to for the past few weeks. It must be cold I'm wearing two pairs of shorts.

A dose of sunshine is sorely needed I think, and them leaves are vitally important for my Speedo wearing outside antics on the deck, due to the proximity of the road the tree is the general public’s only chance to be spared the sight of the late thirty something male’s nudist tendencies. I feel for them I really do, but when a mans gotta strut his stuff, well any form of modesty or simple good manners go out the window.

Stuck inside today, isn’t too bad I got stuff to do and the radio for company. This would be wonderful except for the hourly news bulletins that Judy Bailey is finally leaving her presenters roll at good ol TVNZ.

I’m not a One News watcher generally as I prefer the news on TV3, no idea why I do, especially since Campbell went onto his woman’s magazine disguised as current affairs muck that pushed my daily dose of the Simpsons outta the 7pm slot – for which I will no doubt be eternally bitter. I guess it’s a old sense of doing what the majority aren’t doing, that small boy sense of rebellion. As soon as 3 takes the ratings lead you watch me flick over to Prime, if they still do news that is.

Judy say’s she’s happy to go, so do the cabinet ministers who won’t be cabinet ministers in the now being formed government…. I don’t really believe the PR hype that she’s happy to leave, hell at around $800,000 a year salary I’d have super glued myself to the seat, in me speedos... with a paper bag on me head advising people I was there for ever.

No doubt she’ll have several offers already up her sleeves to feature in or produce something less time consuming, maybe something outside of her normal role of reading from a tele prompter, she could do some reality TV, maybe one of them shows that bastardise music or stick her on a deserted island with one worn pair of Speedos and a picture of the queen to keep her going.

Now I don’t begrudge her the huge salary she commands, nor make light of what actual talent it takes to be a very highly paid reader, basically. Hell I'd do it for half the salary, badly too I might add. Because as easy as it would be to belittle such a role, it’s not as simple as it sounds. Any high profile role comes with a lot of other factors that she will have been paid to carry - the onus of being such a public face for one and no doubt a lot of other things such as sitting in makeup for hours each week… I should stop that train of thought right there, or I’ll be playing with makeup again and I’m still trying to get the lipstick off me from last time.

I do take offence to the whole “Mother of the Nation” tagline given her, no doubt by some clever clogs in the marketing department. She’s not the mother of my nation, that’s for bloody sure. What a load of poppycock and worse how insulting to Judy and the rest of us kiwis. It’s bad enough this tagline was ever let loose into the public arena, worse yet is the way all the media I have sampled today has used it. Are their no journalists left? Can no-one write copy anymore without the need to throw in the generic sound bite and tagline…Please just one comment or bulletin without that line before I go to sleep tonight New Zealand media, please.

This is going to be the big news for a few days I can just feel it, she’s not even due to leave til the end of the year…. Come on there is actually real news out there people how about running some of that stuff pouring into your newsrooms from all them affiliates you all boast about so much, maybe from somewhere where the impeding departure of a news reader isn’t considered a potential national disaster.

Oh well I shouldn’t really complain, imagine if she’d been an All Black, no lets not…

Speaking of departures Ronnie Barker has shuffled off this mortal coil, one of the true comedy greats. RIP

Well hopefully tomorrow will bring some sunshine, I know I could do with some