by Paul Henry
Many distrust the filthy rich. This is damned unfortunate, as some of them hold the key to others emulating their wealth. Do not fear or distrust the filthy rich. Copy their work ethic and risk your own money in the hope that you may one day be among them. Incidentally, the term ‘filthy rich’ is not as derogatory as it sounds. It refers to the fact that, as individuals, many of them were indeed filthy. Some still are. You could track them down by following the shit trail they leave in their wake. They never have to consider cleaning up after themselves, or for that matter at all. Staff were, and are, there for that.
Remember: The rich run the world because they are the risktakers and investors that the world relies on to operate. The miserable poor rely on the rich for sustenance, although they show them little gratitude at times.
FURTHER BUSINESS
CARS:
It is hard for me to reconcile the amount of money I have lost in my desire to have a clutch of wonderful driving machines. I have haggled tirelessly to purchase a car, all the time knowing it was probably going to be a disaster to own. On two occasions I have convinced myself, despite devastating proof to the contrary, either that an elderly Rolls-Royce is not a licence to financial despair, or that the one I am currently in love with is the exception to the rule. Neither of them was! I find myself condemning those who purchase diabolically boring vehicles, and those awful hybrids that just pretend to be cars.
Why have I polluted my life with a love of cars? Why, at my very old age, am I looking to buy an extra, very expensive sports car that I know will cost a fortune to run? It is not just that I hate greenies and I know that it flies in the face of all they hold dear. I think it is mostly that I just can’t grow up. If only I could stop myself buying this next car … think how much more money I would have to spend on my boat!
MORE FURTHER BUSINESS
BUREAUCRACY:
Forms for the sake of forms. Questions for the sake of questions. It sucks the life blood out of you and doesn’t give a shit about the value of your time. Bureaucrats should be put in their place. They are servants of the public — read them the Riot Act. Now where did I file away the Riot Act?
DOG OWNERS:
You have to remember at all times that it is you who loves dogs, not me. Keep the fuck’n thing to yourself. I don’t want to see it or see any indication that it exists. I don’t want to hear it or smell it, and I certainly don’t want to be smelt up by it.
PEOPLE WHO JUST STOP:
What kind of moron are you? You are in a flow of pedestrians and you stop walking. You meander mindlessly into a stream of people at the mall and stop. At the top of the escalator, you stop. You are an arrogant fuckwit! I just want to stab you in the heart. Oh, your child needs checking — you just stop and lean over the pram and fiddle with the bloody infant. We are all waiting for you to sort your fuck’n self out so that we can get on with our lives. Who do you think you are? You dirty fuck’n stopper!
KIM DOTCOM:
Sorry, but where did this love affair we seem to have with Kim Dotcom come from? Why do people gravitate towards him? Is it that he is so big that he has his own atmosphere to which people are drawn into orbit? Why is his word considered worthy of reporting ad nauseam? Why is his account of events given any more credit than the accounts of others? What a peculiar bunch the feral brigade is!
FURTHER, FURTHER BUSINESS
EXTENDED WARRANTIES:
Just fuck’n ridiculous. You have spent $300 on a phone, and they have talked you into a $49 extended warranty. It is going to give you two further years of peace of mind! Really? I don’t think so. First, the Consumer Guarantees Act gives you that for free, and, secondly, did you ask about the exclusions? You will probably drop the bloody thing before you leave the store — warranty void. As soon as you get home, it will slip out of your clumsy hands into the sink — warranty void. On top of that, you will be well fed-up with the damn phone in a year, if you are lucky enough to still have it then, and will be desperate to get rid of it. In short: do not buy an extended warranty. If you must, just hand an extra $49 to the retailer for shits and giggles. It will be just as useful to you.
ROLF HARRIS:
It is an outrage how softly the media treated the Rolf Harris sex scandal story when it was breaking. Especially the English and Australian media. It wasn’t about pre-judging, it was about reporting the facts of the matter, and the media sat on newsworthy information for months and months. Why? Only the media knew — they were outside his home in England as he was being questioned by police. They basically kept it to themselves. Harris was described as ‘an elderly male entertainer’, when the use of his name was entirely appropriate, in fact essential! Was he seen as untouchable because his questionable hands had touched the Queen? Was it because he was a very old icon with a backdrop that formed the framework of our lives? Almost anyone else and the media would have had a field day. Just shows that we have not come that far since the great Jimmy Savile cover-up.
MANNERS:
If you want to sound dated and irrelevant, you bemoan the lack of manners in society. Seriously, though. Why are people so fuck’n rude and selfish and just shitty? Children — what’s with their attitude? They are often horrible to old people. Don’t they realise old people probably have bits of shit sliding down their legs? They should show some understanding. What’s with smart-fuck’n-phones sucking the heartbeats out of personal encounters? Can’t people see the folly in their ways? Fuck, who says ‘folly’? Maybe I have become dated and irrelevant …
LIBRARIES:
New Zealand needs only three libraries for books: one very big library and two smaller ones, renamed ‘book museums’. Books are (and this is odd coming from someone writing books and wanting to sell them) old-fashioned and losing relevance as a form of communication and entertainment. But, most importantly, as a reference tool a traditional library is hopeless compared to the library in every home. The internet — all of the books and other stuff are there. So we only need a few rooms with computers for the poor, not libraries. If you want to drop your children off to be entertained by some volunteer clown so you can top up your Botox in peace, there are umpteen other places to do it. Close down libraries and save ratepayers’ money.
FINAL FURTHER BUSINESS
RUGBY AND OTHER SPORT:
What is wrong with me? By my own admission I am almost two-thirds male, and yet I have an almost total disregard for sport! I see it as a healthy distraction for others. On so many occasions I have managed to bluff my way through conversations on the subject of rugby or quoits only to give up and say, ‘Fuck, can we just talk about something else?’ I once shared a domestic flight with Richie McCaw — nicest guy. He knew, and threw me a bone. We talked about gardening and furniture, but I sort of promised I wouldn’t talk about it! Fuck, just imagine if that plane had gone down? You would have had to turn the lights out on New Zealand: no Paul, no Richie … no point.
Note to Air New Zealand: The President and Vice President of New Zealand should never fly together.
CALL CENTRES:
Know this: your call is not important to anyone. There is no such thing as a priority queue, and, if there were, you wouldn’t be in it. Your opinions are not valuable, and, if they were, you wouldn’t be waiting in a system monitored by an automated voice. Businesses that don’t give a shit for the value of your time will squander it mercilessly. Treat them accordingly.
COLD-CALLING:
An invasion of your privacy. It’s dinner time, and you have so many better things to do than run to the phone and try to bat away a fuck’n cold-caller, who is working for someone who doesn’t give a shit about you or how important your private life is. It’s the job from hell for the caller, but you owe it to yourself not to say things like ‘Thanks for the call’ or ‘Call back later’, or ever use the word ‘sorry’. Don’t waste your precious time. Stop them in their tracks with a pleasant ‘Never call again. Goodbye!’
PRONUNCIATION:
Before
you worry about getting the Maori language right, concentrate on your pronunciation of English. Start with the correct pronunciation of the word ‘pronunciation’. Look at the spelling — there’s the clue!
Here’s another: it is ‘kilometre’, as in ‘centimetre’ or ‘millimetre’. I know it is not the end of the world, but it fucks me off a bit!
POLITICAL ZEALOTS OF ALL PERSUASION:
No one person or group is always right. (I am the exception that proves that rule.) Blind support is just that, and comes from ignorance.
FAUX COMPASSION:
You should almost never show compassion if you don’t feel compassion. It is almost always shameful.
SHIT THAT DOESN’T DO WHAT IT PURPORTS TO DO:
There is money to be made from it. Two phrases spring to mind: ‘buyer beware’ and ‘a fool and their money …’ If you have been genuinely duped, take it back and cause a hullabaloo.
PARKING FEES:
Perhaps the biggest rip-off we have to live with. Don’t complain about the cost of petrol or milk until the fuck’n councils stop ripping us off for parking in our cities! Our cities, not theirs. Local body politicians who are too incompetent to make it in the real world see parking as a cash-cow, when in fact it is the key to revitalising city centres. Rapid rail, my fuck’n arse.
FAUX MYSTIQUE:
They are just doctors, lawyers, professors, surgeons, judges, bank managers, politicians. They just hold down jobs like you probably do, and are due no more respect than you or anyone else. With the possible exception of lecturers, consultants and life coaches. They deserve slightly less respect.
CLIMATE DOOMS-DAYERS:
Look you fuck’n idiots: we’re still here. Oh, it’s a nice day. Oh, I didn’t need my flippers to go to the shops after all … Zodiac for sale!
GREENPEACE AND OTHER PIOUS INTERFERERS:
See above.
ANTI-WHALING BRIGADE:
One day, when we can all walk to Rarotonga on the backs of a distressed over-populated whale pod, stuffed in a once-vibrant Pacific, you will know it was just for scientific research. You can say sorry then.
TAXIS:
Does anyone know where we are? Can anyone speak English? And fuck, can you smell that?
WINE SERVED TOO COLD:
What aspect of the word ‘chilled’ do some purveyors of wine not understand? One of the best ways to render a wine flavourless is to freeze it, you fuck’n dickheads!
LYING:
Essential part of life. Without it we are fucked. Example: I am fully supportive of that investment in the wheelchair ramp. Or: That was fantastic — I am a big fan of interpretive dance.
GRANDEUR:
Why can’t people see how nice things could look if a bit more effort were made? God, there are so many examples. Here’s one: Asians do up their homes with extravagant chandeliers and staircases to Buddha-knows-where, and then stick a fuck’n satellite dish the size of a campervan on their lawn. Or they stick a shitty TV on the wall of their shitty waiting area in their takeaway shops, and drape a fuck’n cable the length of the store to power it. They are such hard workers, so why, for the sake of half an hour, don’t they pretty the place up? Question: Why can’t Asians see cables?
PERSONALITY:
There is just not enough focus on it. Instead, people focus on academic qualifications, often at the expense of a good personality. We should produce more seers — broad of vision, with questioning minds and the ability to dream big. There are far too many closed-minded people leaving education with all the answers, not full of questions and a hunger and wonder to live. You can always learn facts — once you have lost the magic of dreams, it is gone forever!
KNOWING I AM RIGHT:
Just surrender yourself to the fact that I am. In all things, the views of Paul Henry are accurate. It took me several years to realise that my firmly-held views were spectacularly correct and required no second-guessing. Avoid doubt: this book is the new Bible!
CONCLUSION
I’m sorry, but were you not reading this book? It is a fuck’n outrage that I am expected to reach my own conclusion and do all the work for you. For Christ’s sake, these are my fuck’n views. Come to your own conclusion! I already know that I am a wise sage with a core of genius, it’s now time for you to realise it. Bugger, that’s the conclusion. I have done it for you. Bugger.
This has not been cathartic at all, writing this damn book. I am as outraged as ever. Maybe more so. Fuck!
LAST PAGE
There is virtually no money in publishing in New Zealand for authors. Or, for that matter, for publishers, although they do tend to do better.
Most New Zealand authors struggle to pay for new biros! Having said that, most have greatly inflated opinions of their talents and are in fact crap!
I am a bestselling New Zealand author. Obviously. My first book, What Was I Thinking, in 2011, was a spectacular success, and yet it made me no more than a few tanks of gas for my boat. Mind you, it is a spectacularly big boat. I will be lucky to get even a thimble-full of diesel from the sale of this book you are holding now.
So why do it? My publisher said, ‘Think of the publicity.’ Well, try eating that!
COMPANION BOOK
Outraged is in a sense a companion book to What Was I Thinking by Paul Henry, published in 2011. As Outraged is a book of the opinions of Paul Henry, it is beneficial to the reader to get as much background on him as possible — the personal experiences and quirks that have shaped his views on life.
Obviously it is beneficial to Paul Henry that you purchase a copy of his other book. And you are encouraged here to do that as soon as you are able. If, like Paul, you have an obsessive-compulsive streak, you will not be able to live with an incomplete set! Regardless, to try to do so is foolhardy.
If you are one of the many who have already purchased a copy of Paul’s first book: firstly, thank you. Secondly, consider the benefits of having another, new, pristine copy. Just for a moment, consider it … Exactly!
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Copyright
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this book are those of the author and are not those of the publisher: the publisher has no reasonable cause to believe that the opinions set out in the book are not the genuine opinions of the author.
The author Paul Henry acknowledges that sections of this book have been edited and discarded for legal reasons.
A RANDOM HOUSE BOOK published by Random House New Zealand
18 Poland Road, Glenfield, Auckland, New Zealand
For more information about our titles go to www.randomhouse.co.nz
A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of New Zealand
Random House New Zealand is part of the Random House Group
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First published 2013
© 2013 Paul Henry
The moral rights of the author have been asserted
ISBN 978 1 77553 521 8
eISBN 978 1 77553 522 5
This book is copyright. Except for the purposes of fair reviewing no part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Literary assistant: Linzi Dryburgh
Design: Megan van Staden and Paul Henry
Front cover painting: Pricasso
Cover photographs and studio portrait images of Paul Henry: Jane Ussher
Image on page 51: Boris Ryzhkov/Photos.com
Printed in New Zealand by Printlink
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