Dominic George: Entertain or enlighten is the question

The organic milk fiasco is dragging on, says Dominic George.

The will to live is being sucked out of me this week as I endeavour to find out more about organic milk. Following on from last week's column, in which I discussed my glaring ignorance on the matter after being mercilessly hauled over the coals by Larry Williams, I resolved to find out more on the topic.

As is often the case with good intentions, I find myself treading water and trying desperately to make it to shore where there await enjoyable things like TV, the new Irvine Welsh novel and going to the FIFA U-20 World Cup matches at Otago Stadium (seriously good live sport).

In fact, it was while I was at the football, checking emails while waiting an inordinately long time for a coffee that I found one from the Farming Show's online editor Katherine Lyttle, aka "Katherine the Great". The tone of her correspondence was very upbeat as she revealed that I'd made it onto something called Media Watch. I had no idea what this was so I tapped on the audio link, held it up to my ear and began listening while the wait for coffee dragged mercilessly on.

It started with a comically bland sounding voice talking about Sir Bob Jones, aeroplanes and the Rotorua Daily Post. The host described Sir Bob as a "cranky New Zealand Herald columnist", before a different voice came over the airwaves, pretending to be Sir Bob. He was slightly more animated than the other guy as he tried to convey Bob's "crankiness" while quoting from one of the property magnate's columns.

It was then back to the original voice who went on to talk about more New Zealand Herald columns - this time one written by a woman. The voice over person for her perceived media indiscretion was done by a bloke, yet there was a female voice used earlier in the piece. Maybe the Herald gossip columnist is actually a man? Or maybe the female voiceover artist was on her coffee break at the time? If the wait for her cuppa was anything like mine was then I can see why they cut a wee corner here.

At this point I was starting to wonder why Katherine the Great had sent me this audio in the first place. Was it to bore me to death? Was it the wrong link? Then I heard my name!

According to Mr Excitement I not only made a mess of a story (ha! I've been doing that for about 10 years!), but I'm now also one of the hosts of the Farming Show! You little beauty! The only thing I need now is a salary to reflect this newly acquired status!

He recounted the events of last week, beginning with my lack of expertise on organic milk on Larry Williams Drive, then my recounting of those events in this particular column. Once again there was a voice-over pretending to be me (they seem to do that a lot).

I had said no one really knows the difference between organic and normal milk, to which New Zealand's answer to John Oliver agreed, but opined I might try and find out a little bit more about it if I'm going to raise the issue in several newspapers or a live national radio interview or, furthermore, if I present an entire radio show about farming ... Fair point that.

So I've taken it upon myself to delve into the enthralling world of organic milk, hence the rapid evaporation of my will to live. You see, the thing that people like about the Farming Show, or so I'm continually told, is its insistence on not boring listeners into an early grave. There are other radio stations that have that market cornered. We talk farming, sport, politics, music and anything else we think our listeners might like to hear. We're far from perfect; there's far too much talk about golf. But the key for us is not taking ourselves too seriously.

There's nothing like serious pontificating to turn listeners away in their droves. So as resident greenie Katherine the Great hands me some turgid reading material on the benefits of organic products, I encourage her to post a story online about the possibility of the Hooters restaurant chain coming to New Zealand and the will to live slowly starts to return.