(a) I was reminded why we do not have TV - there is little worth watching.
(b) Bigots like Hosking, blathering from the highly-paid throne of privilege, are doing narcissism not journalism.
He rambled on in barely coherent fashion with the pained expression of a man who had just sucked a large lemon.
He did not do any actual investigative journalism, he was not as funny as he thought he was and struggled to say anything meaningful.
It was hard to tell why he was on the screen at all.
Perhaps he has been infected by the same affliction that features on some FM radio stations.
I hear a lot of FM - not by choice but because it plays in a workplace where I spend part of my week. The sheer inanity of morning and drive time shows is enough to shrink wrap your IQ and numb the senses. The hosts - and there are always two, sometimes three - twitter away like kookaburras on helium, making idiotic jokey banter and laughing in a desperately forced manner.
I feel sorry for them. It must be embarrassing having to act like idiots to make a living. To save them further humiliation, I now close the door to my office which reduces their clamour.
Things are made worse by the fact that these radio stations only seem to have six songs.
They play the same six repeatedly until the one you actually thought was quite catchy becomes poison to the ears, bringing on an attack of Refrain Rage.
This could be a seething rumble as a particular chorus comes round for the umpteenth time or a burst of shouting at the radio to "play something else".
This aural invasion is reinforced by the fact that none of the six songs are New Zealand music, meaning every play is another dollar lost to the local music industry.
The six songs come from a narrow band of styles. We have immensely talented musicians here but, for some reason, the plaintive bleatings of males from the United States or Britain are preferred by commercial radio. Often the lyrics are banal, the tunes derivative and the tone nauseating - but I guess that fits the rest of the format.
The flag selection process seems to be having the same effect on the general public. We have a short list of designs that say nothing about who we are other than that we are a nation of ditherers who lack the will to assert our own identity.
The whole exercise has been a political stunt and, as a number of people have pointed out, the millions could have better spend on taking in more refugees.
It's what we do as a nation that counts, not some marketing gimmick on a pole.-Terry Sarten is a proud member of the Satirista (coffee-drinking satirists), a writer, musician and social worker - feedback welcome: tgs@inspire.net.nz
