Paul Hickey is the host of The Hits Rotorua. Photo / File
Paul Hickey is the host of The Hits Rotorua. Photo / File
COMMENT:
Regular listeners of The Hits and readers of this column should be well aware that I have long been an advocate for Matariki celebrations to be more formally acknowledged in Aotearoa, and the proposal last week to create an official public holiday is along the lines of what I've been talking about.
But I'm just not sure about the timing of this announcement. It is what may be called a "nice to have, but not a need to have" in the current environment.
With ideas needed that help our economy recover, this is just another slap in the face to a majority of the business sector. And as for it being a positive for our tourism businesses I am pretty sure that one new public holiday will not be the silver bullet needed for a recovery.
Matariki is special and should be treated as such, but using it as a political football at this time is a little disrespectful.
Speaking of special things, Jono & Ben on The Hits have been searching for the ultimate Kiwi icon at the moment and there have been some surprising results in what they are calling the Kiwi Referendumb.
Kiwi onion dip beat Shortland Street, and Slice Of Heaven defeated Wattie's tomato sauce in some of the early rounds.
The knockout battles continued on the Breakfast show and on Jono & Ben's social media pages, with many of our locals getting involved to make sure the right Kiwi icon won the Referendumb.
In the end it was a worthy final between the mince & cheese pie and Kiwi onion dip! I spot a bit of a theme going there, and maybe that is saying something about us Kiwis?
Check out the boys' Facebook page to find out the winner.
***
Off the hook, Paul Hickey is getting rid of his home landline. Photo / File
There has been a pretty seismic shift in technology in our house over the past week. We have finally decided to get rid of the good old phone landline, so a number that has been in our lives longer than our university-aged daughter is no longer part of our lives.
In recent times there have really only been a couple of family members who would use the number anyway, with the most common caller being some guy allegedly from Windows telling us all about our computer problems, and then trying to help us out over the phone.
It's hard to believe that North Carolina State University actually conducted research into those pesky calls, and debunked a few myths.
For one, the researchers found that, contrary to what you might believe, they are NOT becoming more frequent.
The number of robocalls was "virtually identical from month to month" during their 11-month study, which ended early this year. They also found that answering robocalls or speaking with telemarketers won't make you likely to receive even more unsolicited phone calls.
However, they discovered it is true that there actually are unlucky people who get swamped by non-stop calls, leaving their phone unusable for several days.
