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[Music] welcome oh thank you very much great setup here it's good to be here hey
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thank you very much this is probably um this is just in a spare room in my apartment but um I was thinking it's
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probably flashier than the radio New Zealand it was well flash we don't have ceiling fans for a start
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let alone mics that look like this yeah um now a lot of people will be like I've
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never heard of Guyana East spinner before there's a lot of people have to be listening that'll be like fizzing to
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get to see another side of you I'd imagine um but for anyone that doesn't know guy
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and he's been a like a journalism Legend in New Zealand worked for Sunday start
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times for a number of years q a breakfast 60 Minutes Radio New Zealand host of morning report for a number of
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years and a reputation has a tough interviewer oh there's a bit of that and I'm on the receiving end today though
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how do you I wanted to ask how do you how do you find that because I'm um you
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and I are very similar in in the respects of our age um our love of running and we both have
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a radio background a lot of very very different arms of radio I'm from music
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radio where it was basically a career built on fart jokes and you're from a more serious side where you were holding
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politicians to task but how do you I I hate being on the receiving end I feel incredibly uncomfortable and uh exposed
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and vulnerable yeah I um I don't mind being being interviewed um and you know we're talking about some
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of my favorite subjects today running and myself so you know I'm feeling pretty good mate
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no no no but I suppose like what I mean is um um like I suppose the the side of radio
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I came from um in order to make a connection with the audience it was important that you
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gave more of yourself away so they felt like they know you whereas yours is almost completely different to the point
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where you put a tweet out if you a tweet or a Facebook status update a few years
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ago talking about your type 1 diabetes diagnosis and it was it was very very um stoic it was sort of like I don't want
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to make a big deal about this and I just want to move on but I'm away because
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I've got diabetes it was almost felt like that was overshearing for you yeah
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that's an interesting thing I've forgotten about um putting that out back
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in the day it's been about four years since I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes
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um yeah I guess um at rnz there is a a tendency to be a bit more sort of austere about those things I used to
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sort of joke that you weren't allowed to give your opinion about whether you're a
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Vegemite or a Marmite fan and you can go over the top with the sort of objectivity stuff and I think that
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that's um that's loosening away I think in in the in the modern area there is
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just more and more that you you have to share people it's speak to and should
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get a sense of who you are and where you're coming from I think this idea that you are somehow above everything is
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you know is is old-fashioned and just wrong so yeah no I'm I'm I'm happy to
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talk about most most elements of my life yeah I I almost elements interesting yeah well any of them really I'll throw
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that throw that Gauntlet down I'm I'm pretty much happy to talk about everything although I did qualify that
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again didn't I I must have been talking to those politicians too long I always
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leaving myself a bit of a door open a little Outlaws so um the podcast is called Runners only with dom Harvey and
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um I know that you've got a relationship with running and it's been there you're
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a non-drinker now you gave up drinking a few years ago you've got a book about
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that called the drinking game which we'll get into um but running's always been a part of
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even when you were drinking was always part of your life oh yeah yeah that's
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right where did it start about 03 2003 I um in the early 30s yeah I've broken up
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from a long-term relationship I had been with this girl for like 12 years and my
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mother had just recently died and so I was living a line I had a lot of time on my hands Karen Dan who you might know
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from Morning Report on xtv NZ said oh why don't you run around the Bays um in
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in Wellington's about seven K's and I thought I could give this a shot and
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really enjoyed it and then I got into running half marathons and then four marathons Rotorua 05 I think was my
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first marathon and I did 19 full competitive marathons including some Ultras and stuff uh over the years and
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I'm still running half marathons today it's it's half the distance but um I I
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run five times a week just 10ks I shot you know so I run most days and um yeah got the Waterfront marathon coming up in
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April so oh amazing is it the half marathon yeah yeah right all flat and fast apparently are you are you like um
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goal fixated when it comes to times and things or not I've sort of reset the
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clock a bit after getting type 1 diabetes because it's a bit of a bit of a chemistry experiment every day with
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with this condition and running is both a really good means to help control it but also uh presents its own challenges
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so I'm sort of allowing myself a personal best post-diabetes time because I've reset the clock on what was what
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were your um I don't really like getting into times with people on this because I
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find it's intense and I never forget them I I manage 129 twice before um type one I did the Auckland half last
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year yeah it was last year wasn't it like October was it um in 145 which I was pretty happy with
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at uh 51. five minute k-pace yeah it's all right it's you know it's uh not
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gonna challenge the Olympic sports that's right um so the uh so the type 1 diabetes what does that mean exactly
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yeah so we're insulin dependent diabetics so you got two types of diabetes type two is the most common one
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and that's really it's really a disease of obesity right it's and we've got an
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epidemic of it New Zealand type one is an autoimmune disease and you wake up one day and you realize that your
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pancreas isn't producing any insulin so we need to inject insulin to stay alive
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we need to do that about five times a day and we need to keep our blood sugars within a certain sort of range otherwise
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you're going to get complications so look it's completely manageable in that
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you can do every other aspect of your life you're not allowed to fly commercially you're not allowed to dive
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you're not allowed to join the military none of which I want to do none of which
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I'll be any good at so it hasn't really interfered too much with my life if I
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still run I still enjoy enjoy my life and as I say if you manage it well um you can live a good life but it is a
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bit of a challenge yeah five times a day that's that's intense yeah yeah it is I
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suppose it's like you're in a you I mean you're a grown man when you got it so
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you're more like emotionally equipped to deal with it I guess I think that's a
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very good point I mean most commonly they used to call it juvenile onset diabetes and most common age of onset's
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about seven years old it is mainly um comes on and childhood for most people um and should that be hard you know
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because you want to eat melee pus and eat jelly beans and stuff and sugar high sugar diets pretty much out so I'm
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pretty much a keto diet guy now pretty much sugar-free um along with alcohol-free so there's a
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few things I've given up in recent years well actually I sent you a text just
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earlier saying do you want a coffee on arrival and um use your exact wording was something like um a long black is my
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poison which is a interesting phrasing because um you know poison alcohol is a poison and it's the same well yeah
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that's right and that's what you used to say it's not a what's your poison and um
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yeah it is a poison um but um yeah we've learned to process it over the years and I did get into
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some of that in in the book yeah so so your um decision to give up alcohol was there
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anything to do with like the sugar quantity and wine and the diabetes no I wasn't I kept drinking for about a year
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pretty pretty hard out after I had uh diagnosed with type 1 and um so it there's a weird connection though in
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that quite early when I got the type 1 diagnosis I decided to go down the sugar-free uh path which is effectively
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people know it as a keto diet but it means avoiding all sorts of breads um rice most processed foods right so I
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cut out sugar completely so when about a year later I wake up with another hangover on a Sunday morning and said to
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myself this is it I'm stopping drinking right now I felt I knew that I had the power to do
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that because I'd given up sugar which is no easy feat it's not just talking about
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sugar as we associate it and we're talking about all carbohydrates so it's
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quite doable but quite a big change and so knowing that I had the discipline to do that and to make a decision decision
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and stick to it I think helped me and I just did decide that Sunday morning to stop drinking and didn't go to any you
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know AAA or anything like that not that I'm um dissing those those things no I
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mean that's that's all cool and people have heaps of different types of issues
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with alcohol you know it's pretty rich tapestry in terms of um what issues people face but I did know in my head
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that I had the power and discipline to stop doing that and I think the adjustments to diet after diabetes were
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yeah it gave me the feeling that I had the strength to do it so what was um what was the moment like
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you said you wake up on a Sunday morning with a hangover and just decided that that was um that was enough
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um so there was there was no Rock Bottom moment there was no incident was it boredom no it was more the fact that I
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never had the off switch with alcohol and I never did from the age of about 14 or 15.
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um and I like a lot of kiwi guys you know so I was born in 1970 so the mid 80s we started drinking at 14 15 and we
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get drunk every weekend and I did that till my late 40s you know and every every weekend some people sort of grow
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out of it after University I um I'd always get drunk in the weekend that's what you did unless I had a
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marathon the next day they were the and you know so two times a year I wouldn't
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get drunk on a weekend you know and yeah the the the the price of the wine um went up over the years you know and
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you thought you were more sophisticated possibly but um the patterns that had been set and trained in those mid
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teenage years didn't change and and and when I say I woke up with a hangover
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probably a little more than that I woke up again having forgotten what happened the night before and man I did that so
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many times you know so I I never did anything crazy like oh you know I crashed a car or you know had that sort
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of movie style Rock Bottom moment I just had probably hundreds of times in my drinking career where I couldn't tell
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you what happened after nine o'clock at night and and it was and that Sunday
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morning was the same it was a dinner party a few people over um my wife at the time said that I
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didn't hadn't done anything too silly or said anything too bad but I was just
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like again I I had blackouts which sounds scary but a lot of people have them a lot of drinkers you talk to go oh
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no I don't have blackouts but they they don't remember what they told you the
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night before so they they have got parts of the parts of it missing and I just think I just thought man I I I I I've
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given up um excuses for myself and strategies to to mitigate it I went to all these oh look
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I'll just try drinking lower alcohol beer till nine o'clock and then I'll go
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on the beers or I'll cut out red wine because that's none of these strategies
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worked for 35 years and so I just had had to realize that I'm someone who alcohol doesn't suit me you know and I
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had [Music] um and I had some great times with and this is the thing in the book this is
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not a preachy book about not about don't drink alcohol and the evils of alcohol
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that's why it's hard because it's so great too right I had some amazing
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moments with alcohol it's so entrenched and ingrained in just about everything
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we do this is why I wanted to have a look at it because it's so woven into the fabric of Our Lives of course it's
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not if it was just evil you know if it had the reputation of pee it'd be very
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different be black and white but it's not it doesn't have that stigma it
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doesn't and that's why I thought and people do think oh look I can keep going
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all my mates do it oh I walk outside and I see the ad for it oh it's time it's
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wine o'clock now do you want to catch up for a beer hey nice to meet you mate um
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it's all in that culture so you kind of feel [ __ ] I'm an outlier I'm I'm weird
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if I don't drink and you do get made to feel like that when you don't drink and
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this is why I wanted to have a look at it not because it's evil in fact almost
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the opposite because it's so entrenched in our lives that I thought it's really
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worth put you you almost do need to pull back and that's what you do when you
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don't drink you realize [ __ ] this is this is really full of yeah this is a
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big part of our Lives yeah actually it's it's a really good book so you intertwine some of your personal stories
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and experiences along with um just laying out the facts and uh um the liquor industry it really does
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get an alarming free pass doesn't it oh it amazingly does you know I mean it's
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the only industry that doesn't have to tell you what's in the in their product
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apart from apart from the alcohol like there's no calorie warnings there's no
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well there are warnings coming in for for drinking while pregnant there's no
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cancer warning imagine the tobacco companies getting away with that I mean the evidence that's emerging now is that
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there is pretty strong links with different types of cancer not for not for small amounts of alcohol but there
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is a real link there and so the regulation on the Alcohol industry is they must be laughing all the way to the
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back your journey sounds um sounds very very similar to mine so I'm a few years
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um younger than you um I'm still drinking but I feel like I'm almost at that Crossroads in life where I'm you
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know I've been reading a lot about it listening to some Dr Andrew huberman and
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reading your book and some other literature and I'm almost ready to why don't I break up with it but I'm
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still experimenting with that thing that you talked about before that doesn't
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work like not drinking Monday to Thursday or not drinking when I'm home alone just when I'm with other people
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um but and also like you I'm a very very good Drinker like I don't turn obnoxious
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I don't make it make an absolute ass of myself I'm not violent so can I ask you
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a question yeah absolutely so why would you stop drinking then what worries you about I'm worried about
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the health effects yeah okay yeah yeah like I can easily get through like a bottle of wine like no trouble I'd never
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drive after it I'm still um I still yeah I I would yeah I just never drive or do anything foolish like
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that but I don't feel like drunk after it do you know what I mean I do yeah because you build up the tolerance over
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the years um you know I was going to say like if you enjoy if you enjoy it and you are
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able to moderate it I'd still be drinking if I could do that I would be um and I don't certainly make any
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judgments about people who do continue to do so I will say I I wanted to know people to know though that you can live
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a good life without alcohol because it seems such a major thing to do in in this country
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um but I think we are changing to some to some degree but I don't know like to
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we are similar ages I mean if you go back to your high school sort of years I mean
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pretty weird for someone not to drink hey oh completely weird and and could you even have made it through I I don't
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think so I think it's easy actually I had David Seymour on the podcast a couple of weeks ago and he had a couple
00:14:22
of years of um sobriety just before the recent election and so this is like four
00:14:27
or five years ago whatever and he said he'd go to a bar and ask for a non-alcoholic drink and they said the
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bartender would look at you like he's got a penis like growing out of his ear
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the same thing happens to me at times you know the way it's a bit better now
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but sometimes you can go into a place and uh roll their eyes when you ask for a diet cake
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um which is really really weird or I have friends who say yeah I've had that
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and and I'm just like well you're wasting your time why are you in a bar
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see I love going to bars still I love pubs I've worked in pubs I love pubs and
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and and some people say oh do you still go out what do you mean you know what am
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I supposed to stay at home now that I don't drink alcohol you wouldn't stay
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out as late would you I go out to gigs I love it I love going to music and going
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out to gigs yeah yeah you don't you don't do the 4 a.m nights no you don't
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but but easily nothing good happens after no no that's the thing um and so yeah I mean I I'm really enjoying going
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out and and I love socializing um and the idea that you you have to have alcohol to do that just isn't true
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um and and that's a big part of where the advertising and the culture of it comes into it
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um which is so ingrained and and I get into that stuff too yeah it's it's hard
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for um I think men are actually just people our age because we were swimming in the same sort of waters in the 1990s
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and that's when it was a badge of honor if someone could hold their purse absolutely and it's amazing the free the
00:15:45
free pass and what what people would would just write off to alcohol hey I mean I I I never talk about other
00:15:51
people's drinking because I think that's their story but Jesus you should have
00:15:55
seen some of the some of the nights at Parliament some of those parties some of the peoples that you would know well the
00:15:59
the states that they ended up in and the things that people said I mean just unbelievable you get away with it
00:16:05
because it's just oh well you know it's it's you know it happens on tour stays
00:16:09
on to us sort of stuff I mean it's quite amazing you say you never talk about any
00:16:13
one of those parliamentary circles but you're working the same time as Petra
00:16:16
Gower I guess who's um now alcohol free surely you can share stories about him
00:16:20
yeah um I mean being petty we're in the gallery together I've probably got to
00:16:24
know Patty a bit better over the over the years after the gallery and it was more me and Duncan Garner who was his
00:16:29
boss at the time and that we we do I do tell a story about drinking with John Key Duncan and I are going out for a
00:16:35
night with John Key just before he became prime minister and having a big night with him and and I'll get into
00:16:41
that in the book because a lot of the socializing a lot of the content building a lot of the relationships were
00:16:46
built around alcohol we we had 3.2 which was the third floor of the Beehive that
00:16:50
was the the pub um and yeah you'd go in there it'd be you know Winston to be at the bar you
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know people would be smoking cigars and drinking lots of alcohol and those were how relationships were formed that's how
00:17:03
how business was done and it would have been we were talking just before about could you have made it through high
00:17:09
school and I don't reckon you could have been a popular kid um not in my day no way you know
00:17:14
basically there were two excuses for not drinking one was being pregnant um I can't remember what the other one
00:17:18
was but but um you know it's certainly none of them applied to me um and it would have been seriously held
00:17:25
back um in terms of relationship building when I was at Parliament without the drinking so yeah you've had
00:17:30
nights on the bus with Winston Winston's notorious right loves it loves it what
00:17:34
does he drink is his Scotch whiskey yeah everything what yeah he doesn't drink
00:17:39
beer not a beer man no he doesn't drink beer wine and whiskey yeah wine and whiskey does he still smoke uh he's been
00:17:47
photographed with the odd diary every now and again um the last campaign eh um so but he's one of those guys who
00:17:55
just seems to keep rolling I don't know I think I think your 50s is sort of like
00:17:58
sniper Ali-A where stuff can go wrong if you get out the other side of that and he'd be 75 now I mean I I wouldn't be
00:18:05
surprised to see him and triple figures he'll run a few more times here I don't
00:18:11
think you'll get him to I don't think you'll get him to read my book we've had
00:18:15
our moments me and Winston and I don't think you'll get them to um to give up
00:18:19
drinking but it seems like everyone's had their everyone that works and that
00:18:23
sort of environment has had their moments with Winston Peters so there's no love loss between you oh look you
00:18:28
know it's one of those um I think they call it symbiosis and biology don't they it's one of those
00:18:32
relationships for him and the media he pretends he hates the media but loves it and couldn't live without it and the
00:18:38
media pretends they hate Winston and couldn't live without him right but he's
00:18:41
quite a likable guy generally oh yeah I mean his Smiles pretty pretty unparalleled doesn't it like he can give
00:18:46
you a full blast and then then give you that a little wink at the end yeah that's right and uh he's a master
00:18:52
politician let's let's face it so you you did morning radio for five years
00:18:56
yeah so you how did you how did you manage that and you're drinking were you
00:19:01
were you not drinking the night before almost all the time yes I wasn't drinking the night before I call myself
00:19:06
in the book of disciplined alcoholic and it's quite funny because you kind of can
00:19:09
do that and you were talking a bit about your drinking pens even in my biggest drinking days in the gallery Sunday
00:19:15
Monday Tuesday night would be alcohol-free nights Wednesday morning uh Wednesday not Wednesday morning never in
00:19:23
the morning uh Wednesday after work you'd be into it you know it'd be a six
00:19:27
pints half a bottle of wine sort of night and then it would escalate there Thursday Friday Saturday and then you
00:19:32
start the thing again so yeah it's interesting the signals um and mindset around this because
00:19:38
there's a perception that oh look I'm not addicted to alcohol I just went
00:19:42
three days without it well I I went three days every week just about every week of my drinking career without
00:19:49
without it but to do a week without it or a Friday night and Saturday night and I would never do that so but yeah I mean
00:19:57
with with morning radio I yeah almost always we're off the grill but that would just mean that on the weekends
00:20:02
we're we're bigger and bigger yeah so you yeah so you did a show called um Morning Report on um Radio New
00:20:09
Zealand which is uh it's not the government so you play no way it's the government
00:20:13
station right yeah it's publicly it's publicly I I I do bristle a little bit
00:20:17
the government station but um I know what you mean yeah but you're right in the sense that it's yeah it's owned by
00:20:22
The public's own by by you and I and and we and we paid the Texas side but yeah
00:20:26
but it's uh um yes commercial free you know fairly sort of Fairly sort of serious
00:20:32
um sort of show and um yeah when there's not a lot of fart jokes on it although some of the responses from
00:20:38
politicians sound a little similar yeah right so you replaced a guy called Jeff Robinson had been doing that role for 39
00:20:44
years yeah that's right so what year was that that you started 2014. okay so
00:20:48
social media was the thing it wasn't what it is now but it was still a thing
00:20:51
how was that you must have been um oh you get smashed on Twitter yeah yeah every time you
00:20:57
every time you attack someone especially from the left because I'm pretty equal
00:21:00
opportunities Basher you know I'd bash the right best left you know I'm pretty
00:21:05
you know I don't have any any qualms either way but um did find that if you got stuck into a politician from the
00:21:11
left side of the train tracks and Twitter would come down on you like a like a ton of bricks uh because it's it
00:21:16
is pretty slanted in that sense um it was pretty much sworn off Twitter nowadays I don't know about you but the
00:21:21
social very negative yeah social media says so negative yeah yeah Instagram's a
00:21:25
bit more positive but it's um it's mainly sort of women telling other women
00:21:30
how beautiful they are so it doesn't really help a lot of appeal many of whom
00:21:35
are but um yeah I've sort of sworn off the um sworn off the social media so was
00:21:41
that hard for you like replacing the sky that was doing the job for 39 years well
00:21:46
we were you um you know able to sort of see it for what it is and laugh it off yeah I mean
00:21:52
I think when in there trying to shake things up a bit um and I think we did do that
00:21:57
um yeah he had a um a massive Legacy and following so they were big shoes to fill
00:22:02
in that respect but everyone takes their own thing into a new job um and you know the media landscape was
00:22:09
changing quickly then it's changing quickly now but um you know I know and said needs needs to move and and has has
00:22:14
moved um but um yeah that was quite strange coming in after someone had been there
00:22:21
so long yeah absolutely so also the um that merger thing with iron seven tvnz is that off the table that's gone now
00:22:27
yeah that's gone what were your thoughts I was quite Keen to get up my admits on
00:22:31
their kit you know like I'm on my doco maker too I've made uh what what brings
00:22:35
us here today really is a documentary called proof that I made a couple of years ago which was about the the
00:22:42
drinking story in the liquor industry and then after that screen on tvnz in November 2021 Ellen and Unwin rang up
00:22:49
and said hey would you do a book on this and and so here we are now um so I've made a couple of
00:22:55
documentaries that have screen on tvnz but we've made them on very limited resources and Ireland so I was I was
00:23:00
pretty Keen to to migrate across the road and into uh and and more pleasant surroundings and get my mitts on there
00:23:08
um on their kit so that's a bit disappointing in terms of um you know the opportunities it it presents but um
00:23:14
yeah it's off the table for now yeah so you you would have got the chance to
00:23:17
make documentaries with cameras rather than just shooting on your phone that's
00:23:20
right yeah that's to throw out the old iPhone 6 hey by the way that's a great
00:23:24
documentary and it's still available on YouTube if anyone wants to watch it um so and you also you sort of
00:23:29
introduced our Maori to Radio New Zealand well that's probably it's it's
00:23:33
funny you say that because um I I kind of um and you touched on it before about how yeah I kind of considered myself
00:23:40
this heavy-hitting political interviewer and stuff and I thought when I went in to do morning I thought that that's what
00:23:45
I'd be remembered for and I'm gonna give this death for five years and then see
00:23:47
how we go and the only thing that people not the only thing but one of the major
00:23:52
thing that people talk to me about is Maori on on the radio and it had it had a big impact it's kind of weird looking
00:23:58
back on it now because it was 2017 and um I married a Maori woman we've got our
00:24:04
daughters Martin she's at a full Rumaki school so she speaks Maori at school and
00:24:09
I've decided wanted to give her her language so I better learn it and then take it from there and as I was learning
00:24:13
I thought well I'll fling this out on the radio too you know it's an official
00:24:17
language of New Zealand it's a beautiful language I'm learning it let's flick it
00:24:20
around and it was all kind of there wasn't a program like people think oh as
00:24:25
rnz social engineering or something it wasn't that at all it's just me flinging
00:24:29
around others were doing it I took it a bit further and thought Oh this is cool I'm going to run with this
00:24:35
um so you're just doing like a couple of extra words here and there which is um
00:24:38
which just which is everywhere initially yeah and then we went um as I learned more and more by the time I'd finished
00:24:45
we did you know full interviews in Maori but we'd translate the same time so
00:24:49
you'd flung a line out and then you'd translate it um and use both the languages so yeah as I got beta at it
00:24:55
and I'm still no expert by any means some intermediate sort of speaker but um
00:25:00
as I got better I'd try and share what I was what I was learning but listening
00:25:04
now yeah it's um it's everywhere which is really cool yeah it's a six o'clock
00:25:08
news at the beginning of the sports well at home yeah I suppose you you um not that you're going to give yourself a pat
00:25:14
on the back but um you deserve some of the credit for that I guess being a Trailblazer in a way we did we were
00:25:19
early Runners on it I think this had to deny that yeah so no one in management tried to stop you you just said there
00:25:26
was a few um I think there was a few uh knee wobbling moments when because you got you got a lot of feedback piling and
00:25:34
at one point Don Brash got really upset about it as he does I respect on on the economy I don't respect his views a lot
00:25:41
on Maori issues but you know that's his thing um and and he's entitled to his opinion
00:25:46
I'm a big believer in in free speech he he smashed into me um and people were starting to put
00:25:52
police releases out and there were lots of op-eds and stuff people there was quite a reaction you know and it wasn't
00:25:57
overwhelmingly positive it's only you know only 2017 but it's not long ago but
00:26:02
there was a lot of um a lot of negative reaction too and I think there were some um who were
00:26:09
starting to waver a little bit but they never said they never said look stop doing it or anything like that and then
00:26:14
after a while um they started to to encourage it and nowadays we've got you know training
00:26:20
there's training sessions there's all that sort of stuff all behind it now and
00:26:24
there's a bit more of an organized program whereas I was just sort of kind of flinging it around quite a lot it's
00:26:28
not a bad Legacy though is it no it's not and I'm actually quite proud of it you know I am yeah that's cool
00:26:35
um you mentioned before something about your mum you lost your mum at a relatively early age I guess like 30-ish
00:26:40
yeah that's right early 30s um she died at 68 um of cancer effectively she had a bad
00:26:46
cancer and then she had had heart issues as well and so she died in 2001 so yeah
00:26:52
more than 30 years ago now well how was that how was that at that age and stage of Life yeah pretty still quite still
00:26:58
quite even though you're a man it's still quite a young age to lose your
00:27:01
mother it's a good point and I think that's right and um that's where the
00:27:04
running started in man yeah and I'd be running I remember you know you and it's
00:27:09
a funny thing with running I don't know whether you get this I mean but like you
00:27:13
know sometimes I'd run you know 40ks plus and I'd be CR I'd just start crying
00:27:18
after in in the 30s mid-30s case and it's just like you just start crying and
00:27:23
and it's like where did it come from it must be something chemical in your brain
00:27:27
which starts to release stuff like that and it's not because you thinking of
00:27:31
anything in particular it's just like here it was just um break your walls down yeah and um it's great thinking
00:27:37
time and and I got quite seen like about running in that still wire run a run for
00:27:42
um I ran for my head rather than my hat you know and um still do that and I find
00:27:47
it's my um I find I work through a lot of problems you know even like um you know barriers to a story I'm
00:27:55
writing or like oh I could do it this way um and you know and emotional stuff so
00:28:00
you know um yeah I think it's a really good thing for mental health but that was yeah that
00:28:04
was um it was a big part of why I started running long distance big part of it yeah so she missed most of your
00:28:11
career like yeah you never saw me on telly yeah which Mum would have loved you know yeah I was still a newspaper
00:28:17
guy when she died and she would have yeah she would have been um pretty stoked about that because I I joined uh
00:28:22
tvnz in 2003 late A3 so she never saw that she never saw that your dad's still
00:28:27
around my dad is he's 89 this year and he's still working and he's still
00:28:32
tramping and he's still cycling uh I think he's finally sort of given up
00:28:36
drinking he does a little bit of drinking he's always been a been a um you know a guy of real discipline um
00:28:42
over the years but hey yeah he's still going strong so I had to hopefully get
00:28:45
some of those jeans yeah absolutely um now I don't know if you want to talk about this
00:28:51
um but there's something uh when I Googled you yesterday there was like a story online about you being on bumble
00:28:56
yeah and I'm happy happy to talk about happy to talk about it what happened have you recently gone through a
00:29:00
relationship yeah that's right yeah no um I did I separated with my wife in October of of last year so October of
00:29:08
2020 uh sorry 2022. I had a couple of years how did you not end up um how did you get through that without um falling
00:29:15
back on alcohol I think I think that's is a lot about well I think that's a
00:29:18
that's a really good question we were married 10 years and we were together 12
00:29:21
years so it was a big relationship I've got um a daughter together and on the
00:29:26
critical afternoon um which I which will never forget I was just about to go out for a run and then
00:29:32
you know we we'd finally sort of decided and the first thought was I'm gonna go
00:29:38
to the pub and smoke Diaries as well because I used to I used to be I used to I used to the cigarettes used to come
00:29:44
out after about the fifth or sixth point I don't know what you're like but I've
00:29:47
like a non-smoker until the fifth social social smoke are they call it yeah social smoker the thing is if you only
00:29:53
do that when you're drinking and you drink a lot the ineffective and um that was just a first thought
00:29:58
that went through my head because that was always that the Escape 2 place I always thought I'll be all right as long
00:30:03
as I can go to the pub um and then about 10 minutes later I laced up my running shoes and went for a
00:30:11
10k run instead and um and then I I knew that I would I would never go back there
00:30:17
I always thought when I gave up drinking gee if a big crisis happens and I'd put
00:30:22
divorce is a big crisis absolutely it's one of the biggest life crisis that you
00:30:25
can go through yeah and it's uh still you know I feel like fairly relatively
00:30:28
raw here today uh because it's only been a few months um but I haven't and I
00:30:34
haven't needed to and haven't felt like doing that um apart from that first flash of gee I
00:30:41
know where this my brain's gonna go it's going to go to the bottle but it did it
00:30:44
didn't and um I feel that's a pretty good stress test and uh something to be
00:30:49
proud of and I don't miss it it's not an option it's you don't miss it I I love being around
00:30:55
people drinking I buy wine for people I always have wine in the house and and beer in the fridge for mates when they
00:31:01
come around um so it's not like um yeah that's good that's good and I don't want to like
00:31:07
Mark anyone but I think that'll be the worst of non-drinkets like oh guyan's
00:31:10
coming over we better hide all the alcohol no one else can drink because he's not it's funny you say that because
00:31:15
that's the hardest thing mate the hardest thing about giving up drinking in my experience is not the fact that
00:31:21
you can't have it at five o'clock in the afternoon or whatever your ritual is
00:31:24
it's the expectations of other people is the hardest thing because they care so
00:31:30
much about what you're doing it's kind of weird you think well why don't you
00:31:33
just do your thing and I'm just doing my thing but no it's this hey there's a
00:31:38
kind of science around what we're doing and especially when I first gave up It
00:31:43
really used to bug me like um people would get really quite affronted and then when you told them that you would
00:31:49
had not only not drinking tonight that you were never drinking again you could see the fear in your eyes
00:31:54
because they were like what does it say about me am I gonna have to give up too so it's quite interesting
00:32:00
um the social expectations stuff um that people carry with them about your drinking yeah and I I that's one of
00:32:09
the main reasons for the book and I think it's great that people like Patty Gower who's got a massive reach and is
00:32:14
basically a pop culture hero in New Zealand at way above what I've I mean we
00:32:18
did similar jobs but he he's got this massive reach and appeal I think it's
00:32:22
really cool that someone like that has come out and gone oh I'm off the booze
00:32:26
mate because I I what we need is a license to say hey it's okay you know I can get to you guys you know three of us
00:32:33
are drinking I'm not drinking who cares what's in your glass and what's in your
00:32:37
glass it's the it's the conversation it's it's what we're doing it's not
00:32:41
about what you're drinking so I think it's really cool that if we can give
00:32:45
people a license to think hey it's okay you don't have to drink to be normal and
00:32:49
to have a good time and to have a good life in New Zealand yeah no absolutely absolutely I wonder if part of it is
00:32:54
some fear from I don't know if he's the right word but the your friends that are still drinking
00:33:00
it's like oh my God he's doing so much better than me and I'm stuck here on
00:33:04
this um hamster wheel still drinking and you wonder if um you know you you have this fear that you can't necessarily do
00:33:11
it yourself yeah I think it is there and I think it's also um sort of equate it with a moral thing
00:33:17
and it isn't a moral thing I'm not judging you by saying I don't drink I'm
00:33:22
a better person than you I don't feel like that at all it's not a sanctimonial
00:33:25
no it's not and I'm not I'm not anti-alcohol or anti-any other drugs I'm
00:33:29
not um that's it's not a moral thing it's this isn't the temperance Union you know
00:33:35
it's not that's not the early 20th century in the temperance movement which
00:33:38
we do talk about because the history of alcohol in New Zealand is amazing and the morality thing has played a big part
00:33:43
but this isn't about morality it's it's about me saying alcohol didn't work
00:33:48
didn't work for me and I didn't want to do it anymore and you don't need it to
00:33:54
um to have fun and you don't need it to have a good life it's not but it's not
00:33:58
saying well I don't do this it makes me a better person than you in fact I want
00:34:01
to take that out of the equation at all and say don't judge people on that at
00:34:05
all right you had some um so we're bouncing all over the place here but yeah there's some great Yarns in the
00:34:11
book which I just remembered now like the um Antarctica story 2009 which sounds like the big at the beginning of
00:34:16
a joke you know uh Edmund Hillary and Helen Clark walk into a bar do you want to tell the story yeah they said and I'm
00:34:23
cringing now talking to you about it it was unbelievable yeah I mean we went down with it Hillary it was uh
00:34:30
2006 so it's the 50th anniversary of Scott bass credible to go down they went
00:34:35
down there on the staff starlifter or something ahead of Ed Hillary it was um horizontal for most of the flight
00:34:40
because he's on oxygen he's 86. um me and the tvnz cameraman hop off the
00:34:46
the style after first to get the shots of Ed coming back to the ice you know his eyebrows at sort of three feet thick
00:34:52
you know he's he's a legend and he's amazing his eyes light up when he sees
00:34:56
the ice it's great we smashed out the work for sort of three or four nights at
00:35:00
live crosses from Antarctica it was just a big deal in those days it does it satellite out and all that stuff and
00:35:05
really hit it and then hit the bar um on the last night at uh Scott base really hard and in my defense it was
00:35:13
January so it was 24 hours light and sort of Hit the booze really hard and then um sort of ended up my last steps were
00:35:28
like um in this common living area where it had an utter skin fill and I was still holding a glass of sort of red
00:35:33
wine and so and when I came it out and the next morning in walks Helen Clark Ed Hillary Jerry matapurai you know the
00:35:42
good and great New Zealand chief of Defense Force alleged and the prime minister to see this guy comb it out
00:35:48
um you know absolutely wreaking of alcohol um you know and I can laugh about it now
00:35:53
but um yeah yeah I got closest to losing my job well they were Subterranean efforts and emails and reputation
00:36:02
managers flying around and there's a little bit of heat that never got there
00:36:06
was a kind of force field around shield around me never really got to that um I think you would nowadays
00:36:14
myself I don't think you'd survive at night no you didn't survive now but you
00:36:18
see yeah now you know um and people do it um people did and far worse things um you know MPS as well and that's what
00:36:27
we're talking about before the license that you're given I don't know that that
00:36:30
extends to that now but but interesting what was my reaction to that it wasn't
00:36:34
like [ __ ] I've nearly lost my job as political edit I was like 35 this was my
00:36:38
career like just coming you know taking off really massive job one of the biggest jobs in New Zealand journalism
00:36:44
you know still is a big job um I didn't go [ __ ] you know um I better knocked us on the head I just kept going
00:36:51
just kept doing it and tried to blame someone else yeah I blamed a guy who took a photo of
00:36:57
me and put it on the gallery why'd you do that you know you know um or there was an excuse there's always
00:37:02
an excuse as a drinker you know and I'm a relatively smart person I had 35 years
00:37:08
of excuses oh it's the spear I won't drink coffee it's the Kebab at there on the way home
00:37:16
that did you um yeah um what um what what sort of uh physical changes have you noticed I'm guessing it
00:37:26
wasn't long before you started noticing a bit of sleep sleep habits that's that's step one you cannot I
00:37:33
challenge anyone who's a drinker to say they have good sleeps more than two drinks and I'd be always waking up so
00:37:38
sleep is is the art of first one one of the only other massive ones is weight it
00:37:43
just um I felt you lose quite a lot of weight and you find it easy heaps easier to keep off
00:37:50
and when you're not drinking because not only because of all the calories in the
00:37:53
alcohol but also it changes the way you eat quite a lot did with me and not only
00:37:58
at the time I don't always eat more oh it'll be quite nice with this glass of
00:38:01
wine oh I try this with this beer you know and but then the next day your body would well I would think it would crave
00:38:08
the fat and you would like go after those sorts of um meals when you when you were head drunk the night before
00:38:15
um but the immune system too um I've found myself getting far less um without drinking absolutely and
00:38:24
actually you know and I researched this in in the book and it's not just my theory you know Mayo Clinic and others
00:38:29
uh we Source all that stuff in the book that that alcohol has serious impact on the immune system and I found that
00:38:36
from getting ice get sick quite a bit you know like once a month get a bad cold or you know
00:38:41
um you get the flu or something and it's almost never happened to me in in these
00:38:47
years now yeah look some of that will be the covert lockdowns and all that stuff
00:38:51
um but massive impact on on my immune system and and felt and just not getting sick nearly as much oh yeah the
00:38:59
lockdowns weren't you bored everyone drank more on the lockdown yeah they they did they did
00:39:05
um but now again again that was like I think I might have had a flash of a moment where I thought would this be the
00:39:12
trigger but again it hasn't been and so having gone through a pandemic and a
00:39:16
divorce and a cyclone um but I'm kind of thinking yeah nah I'm clear of this now and I was thinking
00:39:25
it's interesting because you have these little things in your head don't you
00:39:27
what what say someone gave you a year to live or a week to live would you get drunk and I wouldn't it's gone mate it's
00:39:34
wasting some good hours it's just gone it's just gone as a Temptation and it's
00:39:37
funny the way the brain works how long did they take immediately that's the weird thing I
00:39:43
just I just knew that morning's just gone so which sounds impressive to you think
00:39:48
[ __ ] you overdrank for 35 years what a [ __ ] so you know it depends which way you
00:39:53
want to take it hey um but it's amazing how something that has been such a massive part of your life
00:40:03
you know um can disappear so quickly and um you can just move on how are you how are you
00:40:10
coping now with the um relatively recent relationship breakup I I've been through
00:40:13
like a break me and my wife we broke up about five years is that right we're
00:40:16
still we're still particularly close now but um I still have um like moments when
00:40:20
I'm running where I um you know I feel like regret or guilt and shame that you
00:40:25
know I took it for granted or I prioritize my work over here and uh you know I I look back and I think
00:40:32
you know I could have worked harder and made that relationship work and it still
00:40:35
plays on my mind but you do you you think are you are you with relationships like hell with alcohol where are you
00:40:40
good at like drawing a Line in the Sand saying that's it and moving on I don't
00:40:44
think you can from something like that eh um and you know there's no there's no uh
00:40:49
there's no poison or toxic stuff there um you know we've got a good relationship too but uh just run its
00:40:56
course it'll run its course um but I'd be lying if I'd said that I was completely uh fine with it um it's
00:41:04
it's really it's really tough and it makes you feel quite vulnerable and you
00:41:07
you know it's a massive ShakeOut man um and Yeah you sort of have to rebuild
00:41:13
your life and I'm still as we're talking now you know in in late February I'm
00:41:19
still bit shell-shocked by it like thinking should how do I how do I rebuild and how
00:41:24
how's this going to look like because I never thought that it would happen to me and I thought that that's how I
00:41:30
was going to live out my life with a family like I I was quite simple in those terms I had my job and my family
00:41:36
that was pretty much it that was what I kind of felt that's how I you know that
00:41:40
was how I was going to play out my job my family in a Netflix account you know that's kind of what I that's kind of
00:41:45
that's kind of you're a happy man yeah yeah yeah and and now look there are
00:41:50
exciting bits about that too like in the in that there's there's unknown stuff
00:41:54
out there and there's Adventure out there but it's hard too isn't it getting
00:41:57
off to off the couch and out of that comfort zone so it's a little bit frightening to be honest with you yeah
00:42:02
thanks for sharing that was it was it did it come as like a shock to you or was it sort of building
00:42:06
it's one of those things that in retrospect you you piece it all together and you know if you piece it all
00:42:12
together for someone they'll be like yeah bro this is you know what which why
00:42:17
can't you understand this but I don't know I suppose you you well I do you
00:42:21
keep thinking well it's gonna get it's going to get better here or it's going
00:42:24
to get stronger here or this is just a rough patch and we had had um you know tough times that we'd both had careers
00:42:30
that we were putting a hell of a lot into and then we had the pandemic and everything so you kind of go
00:42:35
you do I think you look for excuses or not even excuses just reasons why things aren't firing at the moment and that
00:42:42
it'll be okay um so yeah there was a there was an element where it was a bit of a rupture
00:42:47
for me it's had the right because yeah people people change like people are changing all the time and I think that's
00:42:51
a good thing um but it's hard to change as an individual and then sort of stay
00:42:56
together in the same direction as a couple I think that's bloody tough I think that's right and when you when you
00:43:01
look back on it you know when when you look back and and in history for example like let's say you know Jane marries
00:43:08
John in 1943 he goes off to war if he survives there and I married a rugby club and they've got kids and and he
00:43:14
dies at 46 or something you know that that's back in the day right nowadays you might live to a hundred you've got
00:43:20
four different careers you know she's got six different careers and has changed her personality utterly you know
00:43:26
three times it's just and the pressure on people to be everything to each other
00:43:32
is massive you know you've got to be a soul mate you you know a a great co-parent uh have you know be entwined
00:43:42
in someone else's career and all of that pressure um I think a lot of a lot of times it it
00:43:47
falls over so yeah and your point about um personal change I think while it's
00:43:53
really cool that we all have not all of us but a lot of us have have great opportunities to change and grow in our
00:43:59
careers and as people that that puts its own pressure on eh yeah I reckon absolutely it's funny the
00:44:04
the couple you uh the fictional couple that you described before it does sound a lot like my parents were they it was
00:44:09
basically an arranged marriage they're from the same church congregation and
00:44:12
live in so this was in the 1960s where you know you basically lived in your your town and that was that was your lot
00:44:17
in life and now the world's like a one big Global community so yeah and there's
00:44:21
so much so many more options and you expect you you were happy with that right well it wasn't really an
00:44:27
opportunity outside those walls now we're told to pursue everything for ourselves right and um yeah that that
00:44:35
can Splinter stuff apart yeah see so you went on Bumble last year I read about this in the paper was that mortifying
00:44:40
yeah it was it was humiliating yeah it was humiliating so I mean I mean so so you know single guy joins dating app is
00:44:48
not a story that's the way people meet nowadays in the 2020s yeah you had no
00:44:53
part in that it was in um no no pardon their story no you seem like you've been
00:44:58
very open with me today and I really appreciate it but I mean you're a real private guide it's not about not a lot
00:45:02
about you online and I read this Bumble story and no I felt for you it was humiliating
00:45:07
um I mean there is nothing to me no he's not and I'm happy to to to to to talk to
00:45:14
you about it and there's nothing wrong at all with being on a dating app and
00:45:19
I've I've found that um in my experience people have using them had a lot of integrity and it did
00:45:25
you know for people who are still scornful about it do you think was better what we did which was you go to a
00:45:30
pub get pissed and pass someone in the car park that that was the that's how
00:45:34
you met people in New Zealand I mean actually it isn't meeting people for coffee dates
00:45:41
um which is uh I don't know how you conduct yourself I ain't got too far
00:45:45
into that but um but yeah no certainly I'm certainly not ashamed of that but when someone
00:45:50
points it out it's in the newspaper it takes on a different Hue doesn't it and
00:45:55
it's like oh this guy's in the news and then of course a headlining a Looking
00:45:58
For Love or something and it's just like as you say I'm mean I've never done the
00:46:02
woman's weekly stories and all that not that there's anything wrong with it but
00:46:04
that's just my thing I haven't done that I've conducted myself in a certain way
00:46:08
and I'm not a hypocrite I've not done stories about other people's relationships or personal stuff I
00:46:15
haven't I've never conducted myself in that way you know I've done something
00:46:18
once you dip your toes in those Waters you sort of open yourself right or wrong to that sort of screen and look at look
00:46:23
at look at my career you know politics q a you went through some of them uh Morning Report you know I'm not I
00:46:29
haven't gone after people's personal lives and so I would you know it was a
00:46:34
bit confronting for me to to to to to to have that but you know it is what it is
00:46:39
they are it's you know it is what it is bro yeah when my marriage broke up I I
00:46:45
was on um Tinder for I think about 30 minutes and um I deleted my account because first of all it felt like a very
00:46:51
shallow existence I'm flipping through photos judging people based on a like a
00:46:56
two second glance and then it occurred to me that they're doing exactly the same thing which is awful but then
00:47:01
another thing that occurred to me is if someone gets a screen cap of this and it
00:47:04
ends up being a story on stuff I'll be mortified so I deleted the account for
00:47:08
that reason which is probably like a it's a it's a it's a terrible way to
00:47:12
live your life you should have messaged me earlier hey bro get it get off this yeah
00:47:21
um are you um are you dating now are you still on any of the apps how do you find
00:47:26
dating as a sober man well that's interesting isn't it because um again you know from a very young age
00:47:32
alcohol was a massive part of meeting anyone and um it is harder socially harder
00:47:39
um in just about all of those circumstances um you get better at it as as you go on
00:47:46
but um in an in a society which structures a lot of social time around alcohol it is harder as a non-drinker
00:47:56
and again you know and I've said it a few times in this interview um that's a big reason why I wanted to
00:48:01
write this book to look at why we link those two things so so closely and what it's like to live and socialize without
00:48:10
alcohol but I tell you what it's pretty real man without it you know all the
00:48:15
feelings are yours you know you think about so oh Dutch courage you talk about that and you're
00:48:20
talking about having a few drinks and all that well so it's interesting isn't
00:48:24
it also what are you running away from and what what is what are the negative bits about your feelings yeah so you get
00:48:30
a bit more fear and a bit more anxiety but they're your feelings and so there's
00:48:34
a bit of courage in there and um you know the relationships you do Forge are pretty real and the feelings you have
00:48:41
are real and they're not you know they're not brought to you by Brewery yeah I can imagine um it's terrifying in
00:48:46
a lot of ways it's like um you know you go out with someone for the first time
00:48:50
you have three wines and you're probably more likely to think yeah now's the
00:48:53
moment to go in for a kiss yeah um because you've got their Dutch courage with without any of that it's like
00:48:58
you're making a sound decision based on what you've experienced and what's in
00:49:03
front of you yeah I think that's that's right um and yeah socially especially when you
00:49:09
first stop drinking you it's the when you go into say a party it's the first
00:49:14
10 or 15 minutes that's really really difficult because people really want you
00:49:20
to drink you know and the host always that out of a good place right they want to be a good host and so you get that
00:49:27
real pressure and if you're standing around a small group of people say for example in a Social Circle and I've got
00:49:32
everyone else to drink what are you gonna have and you go oh you know if you've got some sparkling water you know
00:49:38
and it's and it's hard so you've got to come up you you work it out in the end you work out
00:49:43
what your lines are you know some some some non-drinkers that I know um get into the uh the no lows you know
00:49:50
the no and low alcohol drinks or they'll have basically a disguise disguised
00:49:56
drink I haven't really gone down that line but you do need to sort your story
00:50:00
out so that you've got a bit of a bit of a comeback because it's pretty full-on
00:50:05
that I mean the first the first gig and it's in the book was the 2019 radio awards now do you mean the ray Awards
00:50:11
man I mean yeah and you know and everyone comes up from regions and everyone's right out
00:50:17
for it and you know that night was beer and wine were the only choices of drinks
00:50:23
that stinking heart you're sweating like a pig um and that was my first night without
00:50:28
drinking and everyone was just telling War Stories in my face and it was I thought man this is gonna be these are
00:50:34
going to be long years but you get better at it you get better at it I suppose with each challenge like you're
00:50:39
a New Year's Eve baby as well so New Year's Eve is probably always a big
00:50:42
night night for you so I suppose you get through these little milestones and you
00:50:45
survive them and yeah I suppose the most recent one for you has been you know you
00:50:49
let your relationship breakdown and you get through that and uh they I suppose they just build that resilience and
00:50:54
that's absolutely right you do you go okay well so here's a Christmas without
00:50:57
this part of the family or here's a Christmas without alcohol and um you learn you build and you adapt now
00:51:05
how's your mental health been over the years has it has it been good it has been you've been through some challenges
00:51:09
though you've been through a lot of stuff yeah I have yeah I have um and look you know to Circle it back to
00:51:16
running um it's a big part of it and I run most I try to have two days off a week
00:51:22
um just to preserve the you know yeah um but a big part of my mental health I put down to my running yeah big part of
00:51:31
it but also alcohol you know it they call it anxiety now because it's a it's a it's a jewel thing of the of the
00:51:39
chemistry and I don't understand enough about the the chemistry to go into it
00:51:42
but basically you know there is a chemical reason it increases the anxiety and then you hook that up with the what
00:51:48
exactly did I say last night and you get that feeling of anxiety and I I used to
00:51:54
have that a lot oh I used to have that a lot you know the greatest thing about not drinking
00:51:59
is the likeness of being you never have that shame like we talked before about years but harder you're on
00:52:06
a day till you you know hang out with mates and it's a bit harder because you
00:52:09
don't have that you know um that freeing up of the alcohol but the reward is you never feel ashamed I
00:52:17
hate shame it's a it's a massive burden that was that's that's the biggest thing
00:52:22
it's just that likeness of being like never going you know I might have stuffed up at work
00:52:27
or I might have said the wrong thing but I own it now like it's neither someone
00:52:31
else's fault or I never like that Gray Zone what exactly did happen there you
00:52:36
know and I used to get that I don't know about you I used to get that all the
00:52:39
time just that um just that big weight of of Shame and the lightness of being from not drinking is just bloody great
00:52:46
right it's funny you should say that because um I I get that as well and it's never a
00:52:50
um like fear of anything I've said or done because I'll go through my phone in
00:52:54
the morning and all my interactions on social media when I've been drank are
00:52:58
all positive and nice um but I'll just wake up at three or four in the morning after a big night
00:53:02
and lie awake for a couple of hours with I don't know if it's a sugar Spike or
00:53:05
what it is what the Sciences behind it but although they're awake and I'll just
00:53:08
be ashamed of myself yeah I know it was exactly the same well yeah maybe it was letting myself down yeah in that yeah
00:53:14
there were no you know stories about oh and then you know and then he smashed a window and did something crazy again
00:53:21
yeah um although in the teenage years it might have been a bit of that but but um
00:53:26
oh yeah we can touch upon that if you want you spend a night in jail I did yeah you read the book closely I did
00:53:30
yeah I did yeah I did I was banned for life from Warner's Pub and uh I don't I
00:53:36
don't think it's still standing after the earthquakes but um yeah it truly was a lifetime Bear
00:53:40
yeah yeah that's right and I woke up in the police cells um so yeah I Had My
00:53:44
Moments um especially in my late teens and early 20s but but most of it was like you
00:53:50
um hadn't actually done anything really wrong but just that yeah you have let
00:53:54
myself down I didn't think she thought about it like that I think that's what
00:53:58
it probably maybe a lot of it was but yeah it's it's an awful feeling eh yeah
00:54:02
it is it is it's just yeah yeah I suppose you have higher standards or revision of your life and it feels like
00:54:09
you're letting yourself down a little bit but anyway I'm I'm speaking
00:54:12
as this from a perspective of where I am now which is still as a drinker um so it seems like we've got some work
00:54:18
to do but your book has definitely made me think about things that's cool it
00:54:21
really is that's cool I really enjoy it so um it's called the drinking game who
00:54:25
would it give us the elevator patch who would it appeal to I think it appealed to just about everyone
00:54:32
um in that just about everyone drinks and has relationships with people who do and it's such a massive part of our life
00:54:40
and you know this isn't a book about how to stop drinking alcohol it isn't a book
00:54:45
about the evils of alcohol it's a book about the place of alcohol in our lives and
00:54:52
how we got to where we are now and I hope that people do think about what is my relationship with alcohol and why do
00:55:01
I do what I do and if you're good with it keep going but if it's something that
00:55:07
you want to revisit after reading it then that's cool too so I've just wanted
00:55:13
to take a good look at something that is so woven really deeply into our lives and go how did we get here
00:55:21
are you proud of it I am I'm really proud of it actually I'm really proud of
00:55:25
it it's um you know you were showing me a copy before and it'll still take fried
00:55:29
a bit because it's something and I know that you know you've had two or three
00:55:32
boxes three or three books but again the books um with a lot of fat jokes and basically
00:55:37
not going to change the fabric of society like your book no I don't know that it'll do that either but um but
00:55:42
it's kind of weird isn't it because it exists in your head and then in your
00:55:44
computer files for quite a while and then you're like oh my God I'm gonna
00:55:47
read it what are you doing with that copy of my book yeah um so but it's exciting as well so yeah
00:55:52
I'm proud of it and I'm proud to see it out in the world yeah so how's the
00:55:55
future looking for you well what's what's the next five years ten years like career look wise personal life
00:55:59
you're hoping to marry again it's one day or too early to say I I yeah it's um yeah probably you know
00:56:06
I mean you're romantic I am actually I am actually your first relationship that
00:56:12
you talked about the 10 years 11 years ago you didn't marry no we didn't yeah
00:56:16
yeah so you've only been married once yes that's right yeah yeah and yeah I'm
00:56:21
someone who I'm I'm pretty good on my own but um yeah I think it's nice to
00:56:26
share stuff with people so yeah yeah and journalism-wise I've made a decision a
00:56:31
number of years ago that I would never go down the management track that I'm a
00:56:34
Storyteller and a content provider and so I'll be telling stories for whoever
00:56:39
whoever has me you know whether it's merging with tvnz and that stuff um or or whatever
00:56:45
um and whether it's writing or broadcasting doing radio like I like the setup actually mate I might have a
00:56:51
chatty after we get off here and see it see how you set this up I've been going
00:56:55
a year and at this day just about as lucrative as writing a book don't quit your day job just yet but um
00:57:02
but I like it I like it after after having a uh very long and very successful career in music radio we're
00:57:07
um it was very restrictive who I could speak to um mainly just like pop singers to being
00:57:11
able to speak to whoever I want and have long form conversations with them I'm
00:57:14
thoroughly enjoying it's very cool and I like your branding too it's very cool
00:57:18
thanks very much hey um wonderful to meet you you too man you've enjoyed it it's been a good uh yeah I appreciate
00:57:24
you being so um honest and open as well and oh one last thing who's gonna win
00:57:27
the election this year it's gonna be a really really close call I mean I would have thought it was
00:57:38
Nationals to lose before this uh Cyclone before the the leadership transition which has handled pretty well you'd have
00:57:44
to you you'd say that the odds are with labor probably at the moment but I would
00:57:48
say it's going to be a a knife edge 05 style election where it's really really
00:57:52
close and you might get a third party deciding uh who who's going to govern so
00:57:56
yeah look it's 50 50 mate it's too close to cool because I don't really follow
00:58:00
politics closely enough to have an informed opinion on it but people I speak to say luxons um like a bit
00:58:05
underwhelming is that right he's flailing a bit but I think you have to realize he was only 18 months in
00:58:11
Parliament before he took over as leader you know and there is not much of a an apprenticeship at all and you know he
00:58:18
he's doing a lot better than Collins did and um you know that and they had Muller
00:58:23
and in between that um and so they've been a real schmuzzle for a while so he stabilized it but yeah
00:58:30
he he he's plateaued a bit hey I mean it was an Air New Zealand plane he's he's
00:58:35
sort of plateaued at 30 30 000 feet for a while did you use um share who you vote for or
00:58:45
do you keep that firmly to your chest I I'll say this much um I'll say a few
00:58:50
things because we have been very open in ours today um I didn't vote at all when I was in
00:58:54
the Press Gallery because I thought that when I did 14 15 years in the Press Gallery because I thought that was the
00:58:58
easiest way to handle it I'll just you know but I have since then and I'll say
00:59:02
I've voted both sides of the track left and right uh in the in those days you're
00:59:07
a swinger yeah don't Circle back to the Daily don't Circle back to the dating X mate we're
00:59:15
done with it all right hey guy and he's been a wonderful to meet you and um best
00:59:19
of luck with your new book the drinking game and best look for the future as well thanks very much
00:59:23
[Music] thank you [Music]