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Speaker 1: You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Team podcast

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Speaker 1: from Newstalk Z'B.

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Speaker 2: Quarter past nine on news Talks y'db. Jack Christmas cards

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Speaker 2: went out last century. For goodness sakes, is Angela, get

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Speaker 2: with the program, Get with the times, Angela. I can

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Speaker 2: assure you I am never with the program nor the Times.

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Speaker 2: Jack postcards. You can't forget to mention that when in Washington,

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Speaker 2: if you found a single postcard, that's one thing, But

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Speaker 2: try finding a stamp and then somewhere to post it.

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Speaker 2: It's even harder, says Jid. Yeah, that's true. Although you know,

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Speaker 2: I did go into New Zealand Post the other day

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Speaker 2: and it was absolutely humming, I think because they were

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Speaker 2: reaching the deadline for when you've got to send stuff overseas.

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Speaker 2: So I went in there was like a line of

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Speaker 2: five or six people. I was like, Oh my gosh,

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Speaker 2: it's like I've just gone back thirty years ninety two.

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Speaker 2: If you want to send this message Jacket Newstalks, HEIDB

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Speaker 2: dot Co dot m Z. Kevin Milner's with us this morning. Kevin,

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Speaker 2: you would still favor a handwritten note, wouldn't you?

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Speaker 3: Oh? I love the idea. In fact, you brought back

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Speaker 3: a whole lot of beautiful memory.

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Speaker 2: Love the idea, not the practice necessarily.

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Speaker 3: When you're talking about the stringing the cards up in

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Speaker 3: the setting room, I think we used to call it yep, yeah,

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Speaker 3: and you'd have yeah, thirty or forty. You'd count them

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Speaker 3: to see whether it exceeded last year's number of cards.

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Speaker 3: Well I did, My parents didn't, but I did, and

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Speaker 3: just to see how popular we were.

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Speaker 2: So when do you reckon on that night? Then when

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Speaker 2: do you reckon they peaked? When did we reach peak

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Speaker 2: Christmas card? Because I think they've probably been on the

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Speaker 2: slide for most of the century.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I would say even i'd go back to the sixties.

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Speaker 2: I think, oh wow, yeah, yeah. And the sixties would

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Speaker 2: have been a time as well when the Christmas Letter,

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Speaker 2: the annual Christmas letter was a real thing, Because I

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Speaker 2: reckon the Christmas Leader died out before postcards. But the

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Speaker 2: Christmas Leader existed in a time when it was really

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Speaker 2: expensive to call people and you couldn't just send them

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Speaker 2: an email. You couldn't just send them a text as

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Speaker 2: easily as we can today, which meant that often the

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Speaker 2: Christmas Leader was the only way you kind of kicked

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Speaker 2: up with people's lives when they lived overseas.

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Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, you're not referring to the ones that they

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Speaker 3: that some people would send out to all their friends

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Speaker 3: and been the same letter, but they just put your

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Speaker 3: name in the in the yeah.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and you'd say, oh, it's been a great

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Speaker 2: year in the Milne household. This year young ev has

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Speaker 2: passed her third gymnastics.

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Speaker 3: Oh. They were despicable.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: People would just rave on about their family success, very

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Speaker 3: little mention of what had gone wrong, about how Johnny

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Speaker 3: had been arrested and.

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Speaker 2: That there Ven, I could tell that's all right. Hey, anyway, Kevin,

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Speaker 2: you've been fascinated this year by the prospect of a

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Speaker 2: four year long cruise offered to Americans while Donald Trump

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Speaker 2: is in power.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I was reading during the week about this

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Speaker 3: cruise ship, the Odyssey, that's offering a four year cruise

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Speaker 3: at forty thousand dollars a year, traveling to one hundred

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Speaker 3: and forty countries and about five hundred ports. The media

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Speaker 3: suggested it might be a great way for Americans to

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Speaker 3: escape Trump, though the shipping company had actually released it's

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Speaker 3: plans for this cruise well before the elections, and a

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Speaker 3: couple of things spring to mind. Jack One, It wouldn't

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Speaker 3: be a bad way for someone my age to kind

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Speaker 3: of round off their life. Would it? Rent out the

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Speaker 3: house for four years, that's paid for most of your fare,

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Speaker 3: Your food's presumably paid for. And if you go to

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Speaker 3: sniff around this great world before you leave it, I

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Speaker 3: know lots of obvious concerns. Is there a hospital on

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Speaker 3: board with doctors and surgeons? If you take your wife

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Speaker 3: or husband, that's going to cost two lots of forty

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Speaker 3: thousand dollars if you leave them behind where they're going

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Speaker 3: to live. So a potential issue there. Four years on

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Speaker 3: the boat well better than four years in a bricks

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Speaker 3: and mortar retirement village. But imagine rounding off your life

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Speaker 3: by wandering in and out of one hundred and forty countries,

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Speaker 3: including apparently drifting past Antarctica. What do you reckon?

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Speaker 2: I reckon, Yeah, I reckon. It's very attractive in theory.

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Speaker 2: I just wonder if eighteen months and you're going to

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Speaker 2: be going, you know what, I'm ready just to have

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Speaker 2: a bit more space in my bedroom and maybe not

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Speaker 2: be rocking, and if the third neurovirus is sweeping through the.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, but think if you're in an old folks so

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Speaker 3: many ways, it's true.

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Speaker 2: It's true if you've moved.

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Speaker 3: To a retirement village.

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Speaker 1: You know.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, it's a good point. Yeah.

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Speaker 3: The second thought I have, if escaping the United States

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Speaker 3: while Trumps and powers such a selling point, why doesn't

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Speaker 3: New Zealand come up with four year temporary work visa

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Speaker 3: for Americans to come and work here till Trump retired.

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Speaker 3: Just could tie us over where. There are people shortages

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Speaker 3: here in so many areas. I suspect some high network

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Speaker 3: families might enjoy two years over here as well. I

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Speaker 3: suppose one thing to watch out for the visas that

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Speaker 3: have to be specifically state four years, not till the

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Speaker 3: next US elections, just in case Trump decides there's no

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Speaker 3: need for any more of it.

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Speaker 2: Look, I think if they were to do it, given that,

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Speaker 2: there would probably be and I say this seriously having

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Speaker 2: just come back from the US, it would probably be

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Speaker 2: just as much of a demand if Trump hadn't won

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Speaker 2: the election. Maybe not quite just as much. But you know,

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Speaker 2: if I reckon Offkama won the election, there will still

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Speaker 2: be playing Americans who say I want to get out

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Speaker 2: for the next four years.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, you're right, actually, yeah, you're right. It's not a

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Speaker 3: bad idea. Americans are good people, so they're well trained.

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Speaker 3: We could get them over here just for four years

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Speaker 3: and while we sort out our own employment situation.

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Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, So what do you reckon? What would stop

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Speaker 2: you from doing it? Kevin?

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Speaker 3: Anything go and going on the cruise. Yeah, I think

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Speaker 3: I've missed the kids. Yeah, and the grandchildren.

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Speaker 2: I reckon. That's a big one. That's a really big one.

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Speaker 2: And you know, and stuff happens in life, right sometimes

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Speaker 2: without you know, and all of a sudden you think, oh,

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Speaker 2: you know, I actually, as great as it is being

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Speaker 2: off the coast of Bermuda right now, it would be

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Speaker 2: quite nice to be home and be able to be

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Speaker 2: of slightly more assistance.

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Speaker 3: It is extraordinary. There would imagine traveling to one hundred

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Speaker 3: and forty countries, Yeah, just at the end of your

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Speaker 3: life kind of yeah, yeah, just to have it say

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Speaker 3: goodbye to the world.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. Kevin. Hey, I thank you for that. I

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Speaker 2: appreciate your time this morning, and thank you for all

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Speaker 2: of your messages. Turns out Kevin is not alone and

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Speaker 2: hating on the Christmas letter, Jack Christmas letter and your

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Speaker 2: Skype sheet. You mean I'm with Kevin, despicable designed to

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Speaker 2: make the recipient feel inadequate. Properly, Jack, video didn't kill

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Speaker 2: the radio star, but you are living proof computers did

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Speaker 2: kill the Christmas cards in every other handwritten form. Put

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Speaker 2: a piece of paper and pencil in front of young

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Speaker 2: folks without a keyboard and spellcheck, and they can't write.

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Speaker 2: As you said, there is a special feeling attached to

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Speaker 2: writing handwritten leads. Jack. As I'm sitting here to you

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Speaker 2: this morning, listening to you this morning, I'm actually writing

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Speaker 2: out a few Christmas cards. How about that? Ninety two

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Speaker 2: ninety two If you want to send us a message.

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Speaker 1: For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame, listen live

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Speaker 1: to News Talks B from nine am Saturday, or follow

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Speaker 1: the podcast on iHeartRadio