The week started with Aucklanders back under Alert level 3 and Mike Hosking on Alert Level 6. “Mike’s Minute” on NewstalkZB on Monday, which as usual lasted significantly longer than a minute, described the latest government Covid update as a farce, accused Jacinda Ardern of giving a “sermon about death”, and declared that Ashley Bloomfield was asleep at the wheel.
He concluded, well into his second minute, that we have “a lazy, complacent government, whose major energy expenditure involves defending their ineptitude”.
As for the community at the centre of the current Covid investigation, they were “a bunch of no-hopers in South Auckland that clearly couldn’t give a monkey’s about the rest of us”.
To be kind to Mike, when it comes to the PM’s mantra of “be kind” Mike is somewhat kindness hesitant. He’s also hesitant about completing his metaphors, leaving us hanging as to what it is belonging to a monkey that couldn’t be given. There are various options to complete that phrase my preference being a “monkey’s geranium”. This refers to the fact that some species of monkey have brightly coloured posteriors resembling the brightly coloured flowers of the geranium.
Mike couldn’t give a monkey’s geranium about the no-hopers in South Auckland who apparently don’t give a monkey’s geranium about rest of us, and some of you won’t give a monkey’s geranium about Mike’s view of South Auckland. There may even be some of you who think that Mike’s Minute is itself the ranting of a monkey’s geranium.
To be fair to NewstalkZB, Mike’s wasn’t the only opinion on this South Auckland community aired on Monday morning. Kate Hawkesby also weighed in with the view that there is a “selfish group of people – as evidenced by this latest case in South Auckland – who couldn’t give a stuff”.
Of course Kate and Mike don’t just have the same opinions, they live under the same roof. And given that they’re on radio within minutes of each other in the morning I reckon it’s likely they have to compare notes the night before so that they don’t parrot each other the following day.
“Kate, I’ll say that the government is asleep at the wheel, so why don’t you say they have dropped the ball?”
“That’s great Mike, how about I say that we’ve fiddled while Rome burns and you say they need to pull their fingers out?”
“Excellent. Are there any other hackneyed clichés we can drop in?”
“How about I sign off with – “All we are left with when leaderships sit on their hands is knee jerk reactions, waiting until the horse bolts before trying to fix anything”?”
“That’s perfect.”
However, Mike was on his own in the entire New Zealand commentariat when he ventured that the PM would “leave no stone unturned to instill fear in the wider community susceptible to such mind control”.
Putting aside the question of how you can exert mind control by turning over stones, instilling fear by mind control is a pretty serious accusation. And that was just Monday.
By the end of the week Mike concluded that “a year into Covid, we’ve been reduced to angry, spiteful, side-taking, finger pointing, tittle-tattling busy bodies.”
Some of that spite, finger pointing and tittle-tattling was directed at a couple of people who know a thing or two about mind control, Apostle Bishop Brian Tamaki, aka Bishop Brian Tamaki the Apostle, aka Bishop Brian the Apostle Tamaki, and Hannah Tamaki of Destiny Church, who were criticised for leaving Auckland for Rotorua on Saturday night, ahead of the 6am Sunday Level 3 lockdown.
Brian defended what Hannah had described as “escaping Auckland”, pointing out that 9,000 other Aucklanders had also left before the lockdown. He said he needed to move around the country because “I’m in the people-changing business”, a self-described job description that certainly has a whiff of mind control about it. A more accurate description might be the business of taking change from the people given what the Tamakis asked their Sunday morning Rotorua congregation to do: “One-dollar coin, two-dollar coin, bring something into the house of the Lord. Bring what you can, over and above, because really it’s the offering where God commands the blessing”. In other words tithing plus GST.
Later in the week the Tamakis were seen in Te Anau, apparently headed for Invercargill where they’ll presumably make travel arrangements to head for the Chathams. It’s a significant journey southward that certainly has its own whiff of escaping Auckland notwithstanding Brian’s exhortation that: “God said that no plague will come near your house: ‘I will send angels to guard and look after those who are in the secret place with God’.”
Which is all well and good provided you can afford the cover charge to gain entry to that secret place. Personally, I couldn’t give a monkey’s geranium.
Have a relaxing weekend.
