by Paul Henry
But wait … As the credits roll, two months later, as they were about to finalise, Phenella had second thoughts. The clothes line was too close to the piggery after all. They like what they have seen, though, and are planning another trip to Spain to look again at the converted barn. Fuck me.
These programmes constantly recap what you have seen to grab new viewers and promote an exciting development that may be yet to come. May. No guarantees.
Like Seven Sharp. You will be watching mindless shit as they hook you with a long-winded promise of something possibly fantastic that may change the way you live forever. The fact is, these programmes are just stopping you from living now!
Coming up… Has Mavis from Panmure discovered a cure for diabetes in her back garden? Let’s face it, if she has, the first you hear of it will not be on Seven Sharp! At least with programmes like Seven Sharp it’s probably fresh dross every night.
Why not just take the shit car for a drive, eat a bad burger and swill it down with a cheap wine? Now that’s real reward.
ANECDOTE:
I was recently transfixed by an English programme called something like Storage Hoarders. It featured two separate couples who each had a storage unit filled with items. These people were perfectly ordinary people. They were not obsessive; they just had a storage unit. The host, also very ordinary, and, dressed in an ill-fitting gown best-suited to storage, described how desperate their situation was. Not desperate at all, so far as I could tell. Anyway, the show opened up their units with the intention of ridding them of their past and transforming their lives by adding cash to their bank accounts.
For your benefit I will now turn this marathon into a sprint.
Couple one: father and son. Sold one set of drums for £550. Rosewood table, failed to get a bid perhaps due to a missing leg. Stamp collections valuation proved that collecting stamps had been a disastrous endeavour; no sale. Storage unit, almost intact.
Couple two: husband and wife. Sold nothing. None of their shit attracted a bid at all. Did throw some crap out. Storage unit, almost intact.
The host, looking like a wall-flower at a community dance in the 1970s, exclaimed how their lives had been turned around and that they were that much closer to their dream holidays.
Indeed, the only gem to come from this episode (and I am sure the whole series) of Storage Hoarders was a revelation to me. A standard storage unit can cost almost £3,000 a year. That was 40-minutes-going-on-a-lifetime well spent!
You can’t watch this stuff. You just can’t. It’s worse than The Hobbit.
SUPPLEMENTARY ANECDOTE:
Many years after I left the hideous council flat I lived in with my mother on an estate in Bristol, I returned to remind myself of my life’s journey. I met the couple who were living in the flat and had lived there for the past 21 years. It was small and truly awful. A tiny, tiny view of this amazing world. I went inside to find that they had installed a huge flat-screen TV. It was almost bigger than the wall it was hung on. They had been sitting there watching Avatar. The tree-clad world at war, populated with giant naked blue creatures, was the perfect escape from their lives. Perfect.
I wonder if they had a storage unit.
CLEANLINESS IN FAST-FOOD OUTLETS
Let’s get one thing straight: this is still New Zealand. Just because you can buy a poppadum or shish kebab on the corner of every street, it shouldn’t mean you can get botulism as easily.
I remember when a trip to a restaurant or takeaway in our country could mean one of only three things: steak and chips, fish and chips, or egg and bacon. Very nice, but it was time for some experimentation that didn’t come from the Edmonds Cookery Book. So the introduction of different cultures and their food is fantastic, but it should be done to our standards. Our standards. The old ones of cleanliness, I am talking about here. You can get brilliant Indian food cooked in beautiful kitchens in the smart parts of Mumbai, so why do we have outlets that look like they are straight out of the Dakar slums?
The councils have much to answer for here. Listen up. If your health certificate is not an A it could be a B, meaning you were an A but something slipped up and you are on a warning to shape up or be closed down. The B should have to be prominently displayed and worn on your establishment as a badge of shame. There! Easy. I have invented a perfect system. Essentially, if you can’t run an A establishment, you can’t run a food establishment at all in this country. So fuck off!
‘Oh, but what about our mother and our brother’s wife and children? How will they survive if we have to close down? Not to mention our own children …’ owners might say through an interpreter. Tough! You can’t sell prescription medicine in New Zealand without being either a chemist or a member of Black Power, so why should you be able to peddle food in filth?
Who in their right minds would go into any establishment with anything less than a B? Why do we have Cs, Ds and beyond? Close them down. The council officers know who these filthy people are, and seem to try endlessly to coax them towards hygiene. If they don’t understand the need for it, don’t coax them — close them! It’s our health we are talking about. Maybe the health inspectors are getting an extra fillet or scoop? They should lose their jobs if they are not doing them properly. Shit, this is getting me worked up. How is it possible that some of these shit-holes are passed as anything above a Z?
It is not just the small foreign-food establishments, either. As you must know, filthy standards are creeping in and taking hold in many areas of the food industry. Our standards are slipping in general. Yours are, too. It’s conditioning. You might still be relatively clean, but your tolerance for filth is growing as society gets dirtier.
So, let’s mention some of the big names in catering. And here’s a tip: if you would love to backpack through Third World countries but are unable to, due to budget constraints, worry no more. The Third World experience is right here on your doorstep.
Pop a bag of wet-wipes in your rucksack and call into McDonald’s out by Auckland Airport. Not in the airport, but that newish area around it. I don’t go there anymore, and maybe you will be disappointed, perhaps they have cleaned it up. The last time I was there, I was disgusted. Yes, they were busy, but that’s their game. There was food and crap all over the floor and, worse, on the tables and seats. As I stood in awe of the filth, a female (I think!) staff member in a dirty smock walked with blinkers past umpteen filthy tables to one table, and, brandishing a dirty, wet cloth, rearranged the crumbs with a trusting moist swing of her fat arm, pushed a chair more or less straight, and marched back behind the food preparation area. What a shit-hole. No excuse, McDonald’s. I witnessed it and, even if that was a one-off, you should be ashamed.
Let’s even things up and bring in Mr Sanders’ outfit! KFC in Cambridge. OMG, KFC. WTF?! I went in on a Sunday night on the way down to Napier. The floor was covered in wrappers, dirty tissues and containers, plus — naturally enough — food. Some uneaten, but partially chewed. The tables and chairs were covered in food bits, and you could see in the corners of booths where rubbish had been kicked in an attempt to cover up complete inadequacy. Standing, centre-stage in the seating area, was a dirty dustpan and brush. Why, I don’t know. Perhaps KFC are trialing a self-clean idea in Cambridge. If so, not so good! The toilets were worse, but only because the waste was more offensive. Totally unacceptable, and, like the other example, even if this was a one-off, you should be ashamed.
ANECDOTE:
My father came home excited one evening from work when I was about nine years old. He said to my mother, ‘Get dressed — we’re going out.’ He told me that we were going to get something to eat from an amazing and wondrous place, the likes of which I had never seen. It had just opened that day, and the food was so special that the recipe was kept secret from even the people who worked there. I was so excited, and my excitement grew as we came close to what was I think the first Kentucky Fried Chicken in New Zealand. Surrounded by New Zealanders in awe, we eventually got inside this food
palace and I tasted the best food I had ever eaten. Enduring memories!
ANECDOTE 1A:
My father announced one evening that we were going out for dinner, and, even though I had my pyjamas on, we could still go because we did not have to leave the car. And, he said, we were not taking the food with us. It was blowing my young mind: if we were not taking food, but were eating food and were not getting out of the car … How would that ever work? How do we get the food into the car? What the jizicers was going on!
I could see the big Georgie Pie sign, but we drove in a different way. Next thing, my father asked me what I wanted, and we were actually talking from the car to a person who then passed the food, the actual food, through the open window into our car. Drinks and all! I say again: jizicers!
Turns out it was New Zealand’s first drive-through. My dad loved firsts!
ANECDOTE 2:
I was once in Kabul. Taliban rule was a very fresh memory, and new freedoms were being explored with unease but enthusiasm everywhere, under the watchful, and at times inept, eyes of the United Nations, foreign military and do-gooders from everywhere.
Someone — maybe taking the piss, or perhaps just a clever opportunist — opened at some expense … Afghan Fried Chicken. AFC. Their by-line was ‘Clean and Tasty!’ It was in every way a take-off of KFC: the building, place mats, menus, food and design. I went in and was confronted by the AFC definition of ‘clean’. The place had been open only about a month, but was already covered in dirt that would take years to be so ingrained in our country. The uniforms had never been cleaned, and right on the counter was a wet mop. On the counter where you order, in front of the gentleman asking me what I wanted from their illuminated menu, a dirty, wet mop was oozing dark grey liquid that trickled down the counter. I ate heartily. I had allowed my strict hygiene standards to slip.
Two surprises were in store. One, it tasted fantastic. Two, it stayed down. I know: no problems, even though everything about the meal shouted Campylobacter.
POSSIBLE FACT:
I was told AFC was destroyed by a bomb a month or so after I ate there. Not surprising. A step too far too fast, perhaps.
ADJACENT FACT:
Public toilets are more of a disgrace now than they have ever been in New Zealand. What the fuck do these animals live like in the burrows they call home?
COOKBOOKS
Walk into almost any bookshop, any book section of any department store. Basically go anywhere books are stored, and there will be shelf upon shelf of new cookbooks. They are the most beautiful and expensive of books on the market. As the book industry reduces costs to try and stay viable in these changing times, cookbooks are becoming more lavish and costly to produce and buy. But why does anyone need another cookbook? (Stupid question. No one needs another cookbook.) No one to the best of my knowledge is inventing new ingredients, just subtle new ways of juggling them around. And that’s if you are lucky … Mostly it is just the same thing on different china!
If you have cookbooks at your place, you must already have more than you need. What are you doing with them? Do you sit around all day looking at glossy pictures of food? If so, why? What the hell is wrong with you? You can starve to death looking at food!
Some of my favourite acquaintances are wonderful chefs. Sean Connolly, Peter Gordon, Al Brown, Annabelle White. They have all published umpteen cookbooks, and I am sure are currently working on yet more. Stop now, guys! Enough already. Back to the kitchen!
As for Jamie Oliver, Nigella what’s-her-name, and any winner or runner-up from MasterChef, either they have produced too many books already, or have nothing to add, or both. If from this moment in time no new cookbooks were released, the world would not be the poorer.
Bonus! If you can’t beat them, join them! I present to you yet another picture of food you will never be able to recreate in your kitchen, thus making this book as useful a cookbook as any other you have purchased lately.
Here’s a tip: save your cookbook money and spend it in wonderful restaurants, actually eating amazing food. Then, if you must, take a damn picture of it when it arrives on the plate to look at later.
EXCEPTION:
If you are just a wanker and purchase cookbooks (or, for that matter, any books) just to pretty up the place and exude the aura of literacy about your glorious estate, good for you. Perception is often more important than reality.
ANECDOTE:
I said to my publisher, ‘Look, is that another fuck’n cookbook? How many of these have you sold?’
‘Don’t ask,’ she replied.
‘Exactly,’ I said. ‘Too many fuck’n cookbooks!’
To be fair, I was quietly hoping she would give me a copy …
COSMETIC SURGERY
Apart from occasionally finding the results of cosmetic surgery outrageously entertaining, nothing much outrages me about it. So long as I am not going to be out of pocket as a result of your choices, go for it! It can look good, although the tendency some people have to become addicted and overdo it can negate the initial beauty benefits. If you want to disfigure yourself to the point Cirque du Soleil come calling, fantastic. Again, it’s all part of the rich tapestry of life.
What I don’t want to do, and let me stress this, is pick up the tab as a taxpayer for the stupid choices of others. If it turns to shit, pick up the tab yourself.
ANECDOTE:
Some years ago I would have coffee once or twice a week in a particular coffee shop. One day I walked in to find that one of the regular servers had turned into the Joker from Batman. She had always looked quite nice, I thought, and now she was a true freak. She seemed happy enough. She seemed not to notice the stares she was getting from genuinely astounded patrons. I hope she was okay with it. I loved it. It would be appalling if we all lived the same lives in the same bodies. She had given us all a gift of entertainment. She was less ordinary. More scary. I went in slightly more often for a while. So she sold more coffee.
FLYING
I remember the days of romance. The world was a much, much bigger place. And all its nooks and crannies were so very different, and were largely unspoiled from infiltration by each other. Travel was always exciting, and seemed to all those who didn’t do it to be always risky. The old guard of global transport was moving aside. The mighty and majestic ocean liners were at the end of their heyday. The new vanguards of long-distance human reticulation had wings. The world belonged to Boeing. And everyone wanted a ride.
I know. Very fuck’n dramatic! But that was air travel. Shit, just a trip to the airport to wave someone off was an occasion to dress up for.
Things have sadly changed, and, just like the decline in good manners and the rise in the use of fuck-words, air travel has become the preserve of the underclass. As was entirely predictable, the underclass has rendered the experience of air travel to that of a bus trip through Pretoria. Even at my most economically depraved, I loved the remnants of the class system that survived the great revolution. It was to me aspirational. However, to most around me in the council flats and slums of industrial Bristol, success and wealth were seen as hopelessly unachievable and so something to resent. Sorry … where the fuck am I going with this?
Anyway, here’s the thing: don’t fly on shit, low-budget airlines. I have spent decades flying the globe and have become an expert on the best ways to passenger through the sky. As an international correspondent I travelled almost exclusively at the back of the plane. In more recent times, almost exclusively at the front. But regardless of economy or posh, the better the airline, the better, or more tolerable, the experience. Some of the very small airlines can produce exciting surprises, but the small airlines usually fly where choice is low or non-existent, so you will find what you find. It is the large airlines that differ so much in quality, and it is the large airlines that have plenty of competition. So why would you risk making an expensive, diabolically poor choice?
Here is my tip for a reliably well-above-average flight. Three words. Air. New
. Zealand. There, the secret is out. It’s ours, and it’s pretty much the best. Air New Zealand have the best people and almost the best planes. They are amongst the cleanest and best maintained, and so are their aircraft. Yes, they can be more expensive, but usually not much more, and almost always much, much better and more reliable by a country mile. And they are ours. They are New Zealand in foreign lands, and it makes me proud to see them on far away runways. On one arrival at LAX in 2012, as my plane was pulling into its gate and I was all set to unclip the belt and project myself out of my seat so that I could be the person who has to stand waiting the longest, I saw the Air New Zealand plane with The Hobbit livery. God knows how many aircraft arrive there every day — maybe 5 million — but the ground staff were taking pictures of The Hobbit plane and pictures of each other in front of it. That’s our airline. Excellence with attitude! (It was also the best part of the film.) Supporting our airline is like supporting ourselves. And supporting our promotion and future. But most of all it is about having the best flight you can get.
The very worst thing about Air New Zealand is also the best thing about United: they are in the same alliance. Air New Zealand should choose its bedfellows more wisely. Be very careful that lying with dogs doesn’t see you rise with fleas!