Linda Herrick: Kicking against the pricks

As the year winds down in the televisual calendar, something delicious has returned. Unlike any other programme, it's impossible to put a label on Eating Media Lunch.

Part-satire, part-current affairs, part-media commentary, EML is so far beyond the frontiers of decency, politeness and good taste, it's a miracle it's on mainstream television.

With the debut of its new season coinciding with the foolery of Fashion Week, frontman News — formerly Newsboy, now all grown up — had his material on a platter, introducing in subtitled te reo an expose of "a shockingly judgmental jamboree of over-priced appalling apparel". Parallel to this utterly deadpan alliterative survey of the "pointless parade of parasitic puffery" and the fawning engagement of the media in FW was an appropriate challenge — "to jazz up the programme" because of falling ratings.

Thus Tim, a paraplegic, was sent to buy a good time in Christchurch's Cathedral Square. His test: to obtain some drugs, sex and a nutritionally dubious feed of fast food for no more than $100. More of Tim later. As News swanned around the fashionistas, who seemed unaware they might be walking into a trap, he struck a gem in the form of Jocelyn Sleigh, a knitwear designer who eventually confessed she wasn't very interested in fashion at all.

Ms Sleigh didn't take herself seriously, but others did. They seemed to take News' poser at face value: Would you sooner be deaf or fashionable? That one person responded by saying "pardon?" proved the point. They had chosen the path of fashion.

In an event "crawling with wankers", News had another conundrum which exposed a revealing insight into the thinking of certain designers: what about Brian Tamaki, the evangelist who loves his clothes rather too much for a man who campaigns against gay rights? Karen Walker's response: Tamaki has a big, fat greasy face. Jocelyn Sleigh: Ghastly man. Trelise Cooper: Oh, he's got great style.

Desperate, or bored, News even flirted with the possibility of a death at FW, which put it nicely in perspective. When people such as Matthew Ridge and Nicky Watson on the catwalk count as news, yes, we are a small country, with stuff-all (not exactly News' words) going on.

Proof indeed, as plucky Tim wheeled around a deserted Cathedral Square, eventually scoring some drugs. The sex stage of the triple challenge was slightly harder, so to speak. The "prossie" was too pricey for young Tim, who had to procure a discounted, less-intimate engagement.

With sex and drugs under his belt, Tim fell at the dubious nutrition hurdle, exceeding his budget by $2 and eschewing the lure of a holiday in the Gold Coast's tackland. Instead, he won hiking boots, for which he has no use at all.

Which is the point of Eating Media Lunch, really, at a time when the media has been obsessed with a) the aforementioned Fashion Week and b) the departure of Paul Holmes from TV One to the UHF channel Prime, much emphasis on the UHF.

As the self-styled great broadcaster left the building, clutching his own image and pontificating about "so many miles, so many years", he attempted irony with the words, "love you, love your work".

Some people can do irony, some can't. As Holmes wandered off, News solemnly played a swooning swansong by fingering a table full of wine glasses.

All up, a fitting farewell for a preening parade of pointless puffery.