What Was I Thinking: A Memoir (25 page)

Most days our job was to make shit shine. Television is different from radio for obvious reasons, but one of the biggest is that there are so many components that can bring it down — the sets, the lighting, your clothes. And with a big machine it’s hard to change direction at short notice. On radio we could decide to drop someone and replace them with someone more interesting at the last minute because they only had to be on the phone. There is a big difference between ringing someone up in the morning and saying, ‘Can we talk to you for five minutes?’ and ringing them up and saying, ‘Can we send a taxi around? Can you get dressed? We’ll have make-up for you at this time and put you on TV’.

I was allowed to travel occasionally for
Breakfast
if the story seemed to warrant it. Like a lot of people I was fascinated by the rise of Sarah Palin. I was in the US to cover the Obama election and thought it would be fun to go to Alaska and look at her house. I was treating her rather like I did Pol Pot — I wanted to see how close we could get before someone tried to shoot us. I had a cameraman and a producer with me, and we had rented a big black vehicle which looked to me like it could have belonged to the Secret Service. We drove up to her neighbour’s house, where I thought security would not be quite so tight.

‘I’ll go up and knock on the neighbour’s door,’ I told the cameraman. ‘You follow me with the camera, and we’ll be able to see over the fence.’ But it was a very high fence and we couldn’t see anything. We also learnt later that the Secret Service had rented the neighbour’s house.

I wasn’t satisfied. ‘Let’s drive up to Sarah Palin’s house and see how far we can get,’ I said. ‘If anyone stops us we’ll plead ignorance.’

We took the disc with what we had shot so far out of the
camera and put it away because we knew it would be confiscated when we got into trouble. I did a commentary as we drove up. There was a Trespassers Will Be Prosecuted sign, which was fine — once someone told us to leave, we would leave. There was thick bush on either side of the driveway and we suddenly felt very remote. I knew it wasn’t going to be easy to back out of here at any speed once the Secret Service started firing.

But suddenly the driveway opened out into a large area that was full of big black official police vehicles. And there was Sarah Palin’s house — quite an ordinary dwelling, festooned with US flags. We had got a lot further than I expected. Suddenly all the doors on the vehicles opened and armed troopers poured out. ‘What are you doing? Can I help you? You’ve got to go’, they variously barked. Talk about mixed messages.

‘Oh, we’ve just come to see if Sarah Palin is in. We’re from New Zealand,’ I said as our cameraman continued to shoot. ‘We’re from New Zealand’ is another way of saying ‘We are too stupid to kill’. For some reason the trooper in charge didn’t ask for our camera or footage.

‘We’ll go now, then,’ I said. And rather than back up I did a laborious 19-point turn in the driveway, during which the cameraman held his camera so it looked like he wasn’t shooting but moved it around so he got every angle possible. And as soon as we had finished the turn, we drove out and kept going. We fully expected someone to come after us, but they probably realised we were harmless. Also it didn’t look good for them that we had got that far. Why weren’t they at the other end of the driveway?

I also went to New York and spent a couple of days with Helen Clark, for a story. We have had some real humdingers over the years and this meeting was facilitated by Darren Hughes, who is a good friend to both of us. She gave me great access. We didn’t just sit in her office. We went to her local breakfast place and interviewed her while she ate, then we did
go to her office and I inspected her knick-knacks closely. She came out with me for the day and I took her to some New York sites that she hadn’t had time to see. We went to the Statue of Liberty and wore the funny hats.

She recommended a play to me. She knew I was interested in Africa and there was a play off Broadway called
Ruined
which was about Congolese prostitutes. She had seen it before but wanted to go again and organised tickets. I had to pay for mine; she’s still a socialist. Darren Hughes came too and it was a great play. We couldn’t get three seats together so she had me sit next to her — probably because she’s sat next to Darren lots of times. She has fantastic interval technique. Just before interval, which she must have remembered from last time, she said, ‘Just follow me, it’s almost intermission, we’ve got to go and get a drink.’ The moment the lights went up she charged out dragging me behind, and we were first at the bar. Then we went out and had a pizza and a Chianti. She was brilliant company and it was illuminating to see her world through her eyes.

I asked her which politician she considered to be the nastiest she had ever encountered. After some negotiation we agreed we would both write the name of the person we thought met that description on a piece of paper and then exchange them. Which we did and, indeed, we had both written the same name. We had a wonderful conversation about the way I had treated her and other politicians. There was one she felt I had always treated unfairly and she made me promise to have a wine with that person and bury the hatchet and I really must get around to that one day.

A very different, more personal highlight — in fact I’ve often wondered if I was the only person who was even slightly interested — was when Jeff Wayne came on the show. His album
War of the Worlds
, which came out in 1978, was huge.
I was surrounded at
Breakfast
by cultural illiterates — people under 40, in other words — who had never heard of Jeff Wayne or his masterpiece.

‘Oh God, this really is scraping the bottom of the barrel,’ one said when he heard Wayne was coming. ‘Who is Jeff Wayne?’

Occasionally I lectured them on the importance of people they had never heard of, who were coming on the show solely because I wanted to meet them. At those times I could read their minds. They were thinking: ‘Please, don’t let me ever get to be as old as him.’

I remember being invited to the Wellington planetarium when I worked for the old National Programme, many years earlier. The record company were launching something they said was truly magnificent; it turned out to be Jeff Wayne’s masterpiece. At the same event the record company introduced us to a young girl they said would be the next big thing in New Zealand. I think I fell in love with Sharon O’Neill that night, largely because she was wearing almost nothing at all. Anyway, here was an opportunity to have not only Jeff Wayne in the studio, but also Justin Hayward the singer of the number-one hit ‘Forever Autumn’ from the
War of the Worlds
album. In the end the interview was brilliant and Hayward sang the song live in the studio with a DVD background played on the green screen. It was television gold, as I used to say. Much in the same vein, I instantly said yes to an interview with Prunella Scales, not because of what she was doing in the country but because she was, and will always be, Sybil Fawlty to me.

The real achievements of the
Breakfast
years, though, were things like getting a letter from someone who said his wife had just passed away after a long illness and she had spent her last six months laughing at me.

Another high point was after I had a tirade on air about people stealing the magic from their children’s eyes too young. I haven’t
forgotten the magic from when I was young. My kids were among the last ones to realise that Santa Claus may possibly not be completely legit, because there’s still doubt in my mind. I kept the magic alive in my kids’ eyes as long as possible, and I still try to instil it in them now.

This morning, I talked about a dairy I had gone into where there was a little boy with his hands pressed against the glass looking in at the lollies. ‘Hurry up, hurry up,’ said his mother. ‘I haven’t got all day.’ The kid just wanted to choose. There was a 50-cent piece in his hand and it was the most money he could ever imagine. I wanted to take that mother out of that shop and read her the riot act. Instead, I read the riot act to her and to any other person watching on air.

‘Why do you have children if you can’t capitalise on the magic of a situation like that?’ I said. ‘Just remember what it’s like to be a kid.’

Later, I got a letter from a child, sent in by their mother. He or she — I can’t now remember which — had been in a dairy choosing lollies and for the first time they could remember Mum just stood there waiting patiently while the child ummed and ahhed over the best choice. Afterwards the kid asked about this out-of-character behaviour and the mother said she had heard my comments on
Breakfast
.

‘That’s what I do,’ she said, ‘I steal the magic from your eyes.’ The pair of them had written to thank me for putting her right. Those are the biggest achievements.

Breakfast
should have been enough work for any person but twice during my years there I did the drive-time show at Radio Live — the old Radio Pacific. Working at both ends of the day was a nightmare. Radio Live made it as easy as possible — all I had to do was roll in at the last minute and be myself for about two hours. It was talk, not talkback. The offer was hard to resist, not because of money, which had nothing to do with it, but
because I have always preferred radio and I missed it.

I love radio’s intimacy as a form of communication. In my mind there is always only one listener and I am talking directly to them. I had been taught that at the BBC — you have a listener, imagine what that listener looks like, imagine what they’re interested in and everything you say you’re just telling that one person, because people listen to radio individually. There is an intimacy you don’t have with any other medium, except perhaps a book you get thoroughly engrossed in. In a radio studio there are one or two other people, not multiple camera operators and a control room of crew looking after innumerable obscure technical details.

The difference is acknowledged in subtle ways. Usually when TV networks promote themselves, they play up the huge number of people involved in getting your show to air. When radio stations promote themselves they emphasise the individual
on-air
personalities.

When I started at the Radio New Zealand station in the Wairarapa, their branding line was ‘In touch with your community’. I thought that was the most out-of-touch thing they could say. Surely they should have been saying ‘In touch with our community’.

TVNZ were very good about me doing the drive show, even though Radio Live and their competitor TV3 had the same owner, CanWest. The first time I did it, Bill Ralston was head of news and current affairs, and he could see the value in the cross-pollination. However, it didn’t sit entirely comfortably that my programme ended when the simulcast of
3 News
began on Radio Live. ‘See you on
Breakfast
tomorrow morning at 6am,’ I said, and then the programme went to 3 News. In the end the arrangement fell foul of the commercial politics and TVNZ asked me to stop, which I did because they were my primary employer. Brent Impey wasn’t impressed and repeated his line about bread and butter and icing.

But things changed, and I went back for another year of
drive-time
radio later. On that occasion, the wheel had turned full circle and Bill Ralston was no longer head of news and current affairs at TVNZ but filled in for me on Radio Live occasionally. It was no easier and I was frequently reminded of how small the country is. I was also filling in on
Close Up
occasionally at that point, which meant some days I did breakfast TV, drive-time radio and prime-time TV. This reached its most absurd point when Richard E Grant was visiting the country and I interviewed him on all three shows. He felt as if he had come here just to see me. I made it a point of pride to have three different conversations and we managed because he is a fascinating character.

I take my hat off to Paul Holmes, who did breakfast radio and prime-time nightly TV for so long. You cannot do it unless you’re thinking all the time. You can’t miss a beat. You have to know what’s happening; you have to be on top of the planning of the programme. It was so hard. Ultimately the split shift and having to peak at least twice, occasionally three times, a day wore me down and I restricted myself to
Breakfast
and filling in on
Close Up
, which was the job I really wanted.

ONE OF THE OTHER
things that sowed the seed of my hosting
Breakfast
in Bill Ralston’s mind was my episode of
Intrepid Journeys
.

With the exposure I had got from doing
How’s Life
? on TV, producer Melanie Rakena rang me one day and asked if I would like to make one of her
Intrepid Journeys
, to Nepal and Tibet. I was keen because I had never been to either of those places and all New Zealanders are slightly interested in them because of their connection with Sir Edmund Hillary.

As is my practice, I ascertained first how little work I would need to do. I didn’t mind the two weeks overseas but I didn’t want to be shut in a studio back home doing voiceovers and looking
at edits. Once I established that wouldn’t be necessary, I agreed.

I played up the deprivation during filming, because it was at the low level compared with a lot of what I had seen. I didn’t want to spend the entire journey saying, ‘Well, I’ve been in countries like this before and quite frankly this is luxury.’

I was the perfect specimen for a study of oxygen deprivation because I was in appalling physical shape anyway. We stopped in Kathmandu to buy oxygen. ‘I should be listening to this,’ I said as the seller was explaining to me how to use the oxygen. Instead I glazed over. ‘Oh I see, yes, then you just do that. I think I’ve used one of these before,’ I said, just wanting him to shut up so I could get going. Little did I know that this was going to come back and bite me on the arse in a few days.

We went through Nepal into Tibet. You can’t go that close to Everest and not retrace at least some of Hillary’s famous footsteps. We went very quickly up to a high altitude and there I developed quite the headache. The next morning the headache had been joined by several more.

A few days into the journey, we planned to stay in a temple on the slopes of Everest but by then I was templed out. Everyone else was very excited because, of course, this was the best temple in Nepal, just like all the others we had seen, and we were going to climb up the steps and sleep on its floor. I am not a prima donna. I can put up with all kinds of deprivation. So if I don’t want to do something it’s because I don’t want to do it, not because I’m having a diva fit. And I did not want to sleep in, talk about or even look at this temple.

‘Do you not think it would be much better for us to go and spend the night at Everest base camp?’ I said. That would be exciting, especially as I was still wearing jandals.

‘You’ll have no indemnity,’ our local contact said. ‘Our people stay at the temple because this is a really important one to see and we can’t imagine why anyone wouldn’t want to see it. You’re
going to have to sign a waiver if you’re going to go up to base camp.’ I would’ve agreed to anything not to have to go inside another temple, so we signed the waiver.

Base camp was about eight kilometres away. You couldn’t drive but could hire a donkey and a cart. I had to be sensible and exchange my jandals for a pair of bright orange sneakers.

I still had my headache and didn’t think the sight of me in a donkey cart with a sore head would make for great television so decided to walk while the others rode. Eight kilometres is a long distance for me on the Auckland waterfront. Up a mountain in the Himalayas, ascending 250 metres over its length, it’s extremely challenging. You could do a whole documentary on that. It took hours. The others, with their fancy oxygen and their anti-altitude sickness medication and their generally high level of fitness could probably have run it but I struggled with every step. My brain played tricks on me. When I stood still I felt fine. Then I walked a few steps and started gasping for breath.

Eventually we reached base camp. It was late and cold and a very nasty wind was starting to blow. We stayed in a big tent that had a sign on it which read ‘Hotel California’. This was paid accommodation, a shelter put together out of lots of old canvas. Inside were a big pot belly stove and a lot of Sherpas sitting around telling amazing stories. There is nothing in New Zealand as high as this location and I fell rather than walked into the tent, but I was very proud of having made it. Just before I collapsed someone opened a flap in the tent and I saw the peak of Mount Everest. ‘That’s good,’ I thought. ‘I can die now.’

I started taking oxygen the next day. I sat with the ten moving parts necessary to make the equipment work and bitterly regretted not having paid more attention to the introductory lecture before I managed to get the oxygen flowing. My headache began to recede. I caught the donkey on the way back.

There is a strong feeling that China is responsible for a lot of damage to Tibet and the people’s way of life, but as far as I could see these lives were wretched not so much because of the Chinese but because of the Buddhist monks who oversaw preposterous religious practices that seriously impeded people’s ability to lead a decent life. Tibetans who should have been out working to feed their families were crawling on their bellies to carry a sliver of gold to a temple as an offering. I could not see what kind of God would be impressed by that. The Dalai Lama’s home is bigger than Buckingham Palace, in a country full of impoverished people.

The Chinese have done appalling things but I wasn’t convinced that theirs was the greater evil. Many of the monks have been imprisoned by the Chinese, but if that keeps them out of circulation so they can’t lord it over peasants that’s a good thing. And while I could sense animosity between the monks and the Chinese, I didn’t notice any between the Chinese and the secular population.

Back home, having been given the job of hosting
Breakfast
, the job I really wanted was
Close Up
, the current affairs show in the 7pm slot that had been Paul Holmes’ fiefdom for many, many years before he vacated it and moved to Prime. I was perfect for it. I was just what it needed. I made sure I would get it by telling every person I met that I wanted it.

When Paul left, rumours immediately began circulating that Bill Ralston had me lined up for the evening slot. The rumours were absolutely correct. He was on the phone the day Holmes went, discussing my involvement in the programme that would replace
Holmes
. Susan Wood had been the regular fill-in during Holmes’ absences and carried on with the renamed show. For a while management toyed with the idea of having two co-hosts. At one stage they were looking at three, with one host always out somewhere and the other two in the studio. In the end it was
decided I would be the official fill-in and Susan Wood would do the show. ‘Official fill-in for Susan Wood’ — it didn’t make a stunning business card.

I have never been interested in the politics of my jobs and there was quite a lot of politicking around this show. I don’t insist on things very often. If someone gives me the impression they don’t want me to do a job, my interest ends there. That’s fine. I certainly, to misquote Groucho Marx, wouldn’t want to belong to a club that didn’t want to have me as a member.

Suddenly, not only was Mark Sainsbury the permanent
fill-in
, but the role, which I had been juggling with five mornings of
Breakfast
a week, was a full-time one. Mark did another programme for a little while — a short series of chat shows where he talked to people who either weren’t interesting at all or were interesting when you heard the answer the first ten times but not the eleventh and subsequent times they had been introduced — but his job was really fill-in on
Close Up
. I was now the fill-in’s fill-in and my business card, while running out of space, was no more impressive. Then Susan resigned and there were only two people up for the job. It was
inconceivable
to me that Mark would get it ahead of me. And, naturally, Mark got the job.

The selection process included one informal lunch with Bill Ralston at his house and then an official meeting in his office. Present were Bill, the head of television, Jeff Latch, and someone from HR. I still don’t know why the HR person was there. Were they worried Bill and the head of television would try to molest me halfway through the interview?

‘What would you like to do with the programme?’ I was asked.

I had seen in the paper a couple days before a photograph of the Governor-General, Sir Anand Satyanand, welcoming someone into Government House. Everything was lovely in this photograph but on a table in front of the Governor-General 
and Lady Satyanand was a plate of hundreds and thousands biscuits. It struck me that, no matter how much you may enjoy them, you cannot claim that those are classy biscuits. No one wants to go to Government House and have an orange hundred and thousand stuck in their teeth, which is inevitable because they never all stay stuck to the pink icing.

‘The one thing Paul Holmes did very well,’ I said, ‘was that he made his programme more than just a series of disparate items with someone linking them. Holmes was the programme, and his comments on stories — the introductions to stories, the interviews — were crafted. And when Holmes was at his best they were crafted brilliantly. You need people to watch so that even when they’re not particularly interested in one element they will keep watching because they know it’s part of this rich tapestry which is half an hour of their life, five nights of the week.’

I then described the affair of the hundreds and thousands biscuits and pointed out that it was exactly the sort of thing that, while not news or even remotely newsworthy, got people talking and therefore helped make them loyal viewers of the programme. What biscuits should the Governor-General be serving?

The other thing you need with a show like
Close Up
is to tear someone to shreds once a week. It has to be justified but it has to be done. There will always be someone who should be held to account for some wrongdoing and that programme should be making people accountable. People will watch the show every night if they know there is a possibility they will see that.

‘It’s only the two of us,’ I said after more pointless chat. ‘It’s just a matter of choosing one, isn’t it? You know what we both can do.’ And knowing that, there was really only one choice for them to make, as far as I could see.

‘What do you imagine the job would pay?’ I was asked. Oh good, I thought, I’ve sold another roof.

‘It’s pretty well known what Susan Wood is getting now,’ I said, because it had been the subject of an employment dispute when TVNZ tried to reduce the amount. ‘And it’s pretty well known you don’t like paying it, so I imagine it would pay less than that. I am also of the opinion that if this job is done properly it is without doubt a $400,000 job. And surely properly is the only way you’d want it done.’ Susan was getting $450,000. They teetered on the brink of laughter. ‘Is this the point,’ I said, ‘where I’m supposed to say that I’ll do it for much less or I’ll do it for nothing or I’ll do it and I’ll clean your cars for you too?’ That didn’t go down well.

I left the interview with the clear impression I had the job. When I was informed that Mark had it, I was told I was a bit ‘off the wall’. I certainly hope I am. That is what audiences want. They want a bit of excitement, something unusual and different. But all was not lost. When Bill rang to give me the news, he asked if I would like to be a permanent fill-in. I am not a thrower out of toys from my cot, so I agreed. At least it kept me near the show should, God forbid, anything happen to Mark. It also gave me the opportunity to continually demonstrate to people how much better I was at it. The fill-in position, of course, now went back to being a part-time role.

This left a little time for other pursuits. While making my
Intrepid Journey
years earlier I discussed another idea with the director, Petra Brett-Kelly.

‘Isn’t it extraordinary how wherever you go in the world you bump into New Zealanders?’ I said. That led to the idea of tracking down and filming New Zealanders in the remotest parts of the planet. Again it looked like far too much work so we had to refine it to a point where my energy expenditure would be minimal. Petra went away and set it all up. It was really her
gig. We planned on four hour-long programmes, each about two countries, and ended up visiting seven — Afghanistan, Sudan, Uganda, the Arctic Circle, Kazakhstan, Cocos Islands and the Amazon.