Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talks. It be
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Speaker 1: It's time for all the attitude, all the opinion, all
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Speaker 2: Of the stop now.
Speaker 1: The lighton Smith podcast powered by News Talks.
Speaker 2: It be Welcome to Podcasts two hundred and sixty nine
Speaker 2: for December eleventh, twenty twenty four. Tony Astell is a
Speaker 2: chef for forty nine years. Well, let's say Nion fifty years.
Speaker 2: That's Nie on half a century. Antwine's restaurant in Parnell
Speaker 2: in Auckland was his no more. In the interview the
Speaker 2: discussion to follow, those who experienced Antwine's even once will
Speaker 2: appreciate and reminisce. Those who never did or weren't even
Speaker 2: aware of Antwan's or its owner might regret its passing,
Speaker 2: but will enjoy what follows. I set Tony up for
Speaker 2: the last podcast of twenty twenty four because I wanted
Speaker 2: to finish on a different note to usual, But with
Speaker 2: so much happening, I can't avoid including some matters, things
Speaker 2: important enough to encourage some holiday attention. Over the next
Speaker 2: seven weeks, will be replaying What's called the best of
Speaker 2: every year, I receive a comment from folk who either
Speaker 2: missed an interview on release or have picked up detail
Speaker 2: that they missed on the first round. Over the next
Speaker 2: seven weeks, you'll hear from people like David Bell, Jim Bovard,
Speaker 2: Aaron Day, Rummish, the Ker, Nick Cater, Paul Merrick, Doctor
Speaker 2: Paul Merrick, Anthony Willie, Jim Allen, there's Anthony O'Brien and
Speaker 2: Jody Bruning. These are people who have contributed willingly or
Speaker 2: unwillingly to the Latenessmith podcast over the last twelve months
Speaker 2: and it has been a pleasure having each and every one.
Speaker 2: That's only scratching the surface, I might add, but I
Speaker 2: ran through the list and basically they're the ones that
Speaker 2: I'm choosing from. So we shall return. Just marget in
Speaker 2: your diary. Well, don't worry if you've got if you
Speaker 2: get the email, because you'll find out at the time.
Speaker 2: February seven is our return date. And for those who
Speaker 2: aren't on the email list, let me encourage you to
Speaker 2: do so. It's very simple. Go to news Talks MB's website,
Speaker 2: click on the podcast section, go to my podcast, spoil
Speaker 2: it down and figure out the form below. All they
Speaker 2: want is basics, like your name, your email, and where
Speaker 2: you live. Basically I don't mean your actual address. I'm
Speaker 2: in the area like Auckland, Wellington, crist wherever you might be.
Speaker 2: And then you get the email every Wednesday when the
Speaker 2: podcast is released, and it'll tell you who's on and
Speaker 2: you can decide whether you want to bother yourself or not.
Speaker 2: But I encourage you to sign up now. Just before
Speaker 2: we get to Tony Gastall, I think it's fair to
Speaker 2: say that there is a potential crisis brewing in New Zealand,
Speaker 2: that is, if it's not already a crisis, and many,
Speaker 2: if not most, are unaware of it. That said, there
Speaker 2: is a growing collective of the informed who are contributing
Speaker 2: their best to change that knowledge wise. I mean, now,
Speaker 2: let's begin with doctor Muriel Newman, because she is responsible
Speaker 2: for one of the best websites in the country, NZCPR
Speaker 2: dot com New Zealand Center for Political Research dot com.
Speaker 2: At NZCPR dot com, she has written in the latest edition,
Speaker 2: which only came out I think it was yesterday, late yesterday,
Speaker 2: Supreme Court activism and she leads with a quote I
Speaker 2: cannot contemplate without uneasiness the evil consequences that might ensue
Speaker 2: from judicially declaring that the soil of the foreshore of
Speaker 2: the colony will be vested absolutely in the natives if
Speaker 2: they can prove certain acts of ownership. Who do you
Speaker 2: think said that? It wasn't anybody who's alive today, Chief
Speaker 2: Judge Fenton in eighteen seventy. And if ever you wanted
Speaker 2: an example of how things don't change, then this is it.
Speaker 2: I cannot contemplate without uneasiness the evil consequences which might
Speaker 2: ensue from judicially declaring, judicially declaring that the soil of
Speaker 2: the foreshore of the colony will be vested absolutely in
Speaker 2: the natives. If they can prove certain acts of ownership,
Speaker 2: then murial rights. As Kiwi's head to the beaches this summer,
Speaker 2: they should give a sort to the battle that's raging
Speaker 2: behind the scenes for the ownership and control of their
Speaker 2: favorite patch of coastline. Hundreds of tribal groups across the
Speaker 2: country are spending millions of dollars of taxpayers money on
Speaker 2: high powered legal teams arguing before compliant judges that they
Speaker 2: should be awarded customary marine title so they can own
Speaker 2: the foreshore and seabed extending out twelve nautical miles. Customary
Speaker 2: title is a significant prize. It comes with all the
Speaker 2: benefits of ownership except the right of resale. In other word, words,
Speaker 2: tribal owners would control the coast. They would have the
Speaker 2: right to deny public access to areas they claim are
Speaker 2: culturally sensitive, appointing wardens to police wahi tapu areas and
Speaker 2: issue trespass fines of up to five thousand dollars. I'm
Speaker 2: going to leave it there because it runs five pages.
Speaker 2: I just want to introduce you to it, then follow
Speaker 2: that up with the next article in this current edition,
Speaker 2: from Anthony Willie, retired judge and friend of the podcast
Speaker 2: Sovereignty in New Zealand. The notion of sovereignty describes the
Speaker 2: person or entity or which has the last say in
Speaker 2: all matters affecting the affairs of state. It's as old
Speaker 2: as mankind. From the earliest times, when wandering tribalism was
Speaker 2: replaced by recognized territorial boundaries and a homogeneous population, a
Speaker 2: leader accepted by the populace, either by fear or consent,
Speaker 2: became a necessity. This for the simple reason that if
Speaker 2: a state is to survive, it must have some person
Speaker 2: or institution which has the final say in making the
Speaker 2: laws by which it and its institutions are governed. History
Speaker 2: is replete with examples, and it gave us the emperor's
Speaker 2: kings and queens and despots who became household names. That
Speaker 2: is when history was still taught in schools. Nice Touch Pony,
Speaker 2: and then goes on and lists some and then a
Speaker 2: little of the contribution from Gary Judd KC, whom we
Speaker 2: had on the podcast earlier in the year. This morning
Speaker 2: the Law Association's Law News. This morning, The Law Association's
Speaker 2: Law News published my criticisms of the Supreme Court's purported
Speaker 2: judgment in the Edwards case under the title the Edwards
Speaker 2: Judgment a nullity designed to preempt Parliament Question Mark. I
Speaker 2: explained that what the Court called a judgment is not
Speaker 2: a judgment at all, but a pronouncement the court had
Speaker 2: no jurisdiction to make. I conclude by asking what should
Speaker 2: the government do? I suggest the government response should include
Speaker 2: an amendment to the mac A Amending Bill currently before
Speaker 2: the House, declaring the Supreme Court's judgment twenty twenty four
Speaker 2: n z SC one six y four a nullity My
Speaker 2: reason for suggesting Parliament should speak is lack of certainty
Speaker 2: about whether a purported decision made without jurisdiction is automatically
Speaker 2: void or whether it stands until declared to be so.
Speaker 2: When the purported decision is of the highest Court, only
Speaker 2: the highest Court itself or Parliament can make that declaration.
Speaker 2: So there are three examples of concerned individuals attempting to
Speaker 2: do their best, in fact, doing their best to make
Speaker 2: this detail known to people like well for people who
Speaker 2: don't know, and it's to be encouraged. And that's one
Speaker 2: of the major things that the present administration, the present
Speaker 2: government needs to pay attention to, and they're not doing
Speaker 2: it well enough. Sadly. Now at the back end, after
Speaker 2: the mail room, I've got further additions to contribute, but
Speaker 2: in a moment. Tony Astell Leverrix is an antihistamine made
Speaker 2: in Switzerland to the highest quality. Leverix relieves hay fever
Speaker 2: and skin allergies or itchy skin. It's a dual action
Speaker 2: antihistamine and has a unique nasal decongestent action. It's fast
Speaker 2: acting for fast relief and it works in under an
Speaker 2: hour and lasts for over twenty four hours. Leverrix is
Speaker 2: a tiny tablet that unblocks the nose, deals with itchy eyes,
Speaker 2: and stops sneezing. Leverrix is an antihistamine made in Switzerland
Speaker 2: to the highest quality. So next time you're in need
Speaker 2: of an effective antihistamine, call into the pharmacy and ask
Speaker 2: for Leverix l e v Rix Leverix and always read
Speaker 2: the label. Take as directed, and if symptoms persist, see
Speaker 2: your health professional. Farmer broker, Auckland, Laighton, Smith, Crooks, lawyers,
Speaker 2: car dealers, stockbrokers, show offs, corporate cowboys, lovely couples, warring couples,
Speaker 2: the richerati. We saw them all and more at Ntwin's
Speaker 2: comment on the back of the book by Tony Astell,
Speaker 2: the establisher, the owner and the chef and everything else
Speaker 2: almost at Antoine's for Nyon fifty years The story of
Speaker 2: Antoin's by Tony Astell called let them meet Tripe, which
Speaker 2: is one thing I wouldn't touch to me, but for
Speaker 2: some reason he's got a fixation with it. Tony Astell
Speaker 2: has been on my radio program on a few occasions
Speaker 2: a number of occasions over the years. He's a friend,
Speaker 2: but he's a friend of everybody's almost and he's somebody
Speaker 2: who deserves the admiration of anybody involved with food, anybody
Speaker 2: involved with free speech, independence and speaking your mind and
Speaker 2: not being cow towed by well, not towing the line
Speaker 2: is a good way to put it. And I get
Speaker 2: that from another book that arrived recently, How Not to
Speaker 2: Toe the Line. But we'll get onto that probably next year.
Speaker 2: Tony is honored with being in studio, sitting in front
Speaker 2: of my handsome new bookcase, and he is the first
Speaker 2: person to do face to face. Okay, it's all done
Speaker 2: on the phone. It was very hard to do face
Speaker 2: to face when you're talking to somebody in America. So
Speaker 2: we've got consistency. But I was determined that you were
Speaker 2: going to come over and we do it like this
Speaker 2: because I think doing it on the phone with you
Speaker 2: would be more difficult for me because I need to
Speaker 2: communicate with you directly. I can tell when you're not
Speaker 2: being truthful, I can tell, I can tell when you're exaggerating,
Speaker 2: but it's not so easy on the phone. So welcome
Speaker 2: to the podcast, number two hundred and sixty eight. It
Speaker 2: is a great pleasure to have you here. I'm going
Speaker 2: to start actually with an apology. No I won't. I'm
Speaker 2: going to get you to explain something, and we will
Speaker 2: move around this in no particular order. Okay, that's the
Speaker 2: way that we work. So after Entrans closed, you went
Speaker 2: off to the Middle East and all sorts of places
Speaker 2: and did a trip. Yep, right, tell us briefly the
Speaker 2: story about the booking that you made at a restaurant
Speaker 2: and never made it.
Speaker 3: Casablanca was a bit dubious about going to these sort
Speaker 3: of places anyway, but anyway, I thought we would go,
Speaker 3: and the grief of us was by my travel companions,
Speaker 3: and also his family was joining us.
Speaker 2: So off we went.
Speaker 3: But it was actually the World Cup and they had
Speaker 3: actually won and I think semifinals, wasn't that they were
Speaker 3: in the finals. So anyway, so we had booked and
Speaker 3: what I didn't realize because all these places are dry
Speaker 3: no alcohol. That's not a very good start for me anyway,
Speaker 3: but you could get it in certain places after certain times.
Speaker 3: But where we stayed at the I've forgotten what the
Speaker 3: place was, but we stayed there and they did not
Speaker 3: have alcohol, so we had to leave to get it.
Speaker 3: And so anyway, we had booked into a restaurant well
Speaker 3: an advance home about six months, which it was a
Speaker 3: Michelin Star one.
Speaker 2: So off we went.
Speaker 3: And so then all of a sudden we decided we
Speaker 3: could walk from the hotel to this restaurant. But there
Speaker 3: were hundreds of thousands of people in the street that
Speaker 3: the place had gone absolutely mad, you know, people on motorbikes,
Speaker 3: people on cars, everywhere. Because you have to remember that
Speaker 3: the teenagers don't drink, so of course they were just high,
Speaker 3: you know, and it was unbelievable and just and it
Speaker 3: got a bit dangerous. So we all were about eight
Speaker 3: of us, so we started walking, but we sort of
Speaker 3: got split up and people started panicking a bit because
Speaker 3: they didn't quite half of us didn't know where.
Speaker 2: We were going.
Speaker 3: So we kept walking, and then all of a sudden
Speaker 3: we all got got on our phones and we met
Speaker 3: at a certain place, you know, so we all did.
Speaker 3: Then we decided we just can't go any further. We
Speaker 3: have to go back because we just wouldn't have got there.
Speaker 3: The crowd was so thick it was, I mean, you think,
Speaker 3: you know when you get the Tonguin's coming over here
Speaker 3: to play rugby, fifty times more than that.
Speaker 2: It was unbelievable.
Speaker 3: Actually, in fact, was probably about thousand times more than
Speaker 3: the he KOI we've just had to put up with.
Speaker 3: But it was, it was you felt as though it
Speaker 3: was dangerous. So we decided not to do it. Anyway,
Speaker 3: that was fine, and we so we went back and
Speaker 3: had dreadful food and no alcohol in the hotel. However,
Speaker 3: we got charged for it because we didn't turn up.
Speaker 3: But it didn't turn Yeah, well it was probably more
Speaker 3: than that, but I mean it was it came off well,
Speaker 3: it came off our credit.
Speaker 2: Cardry I've got the advantage of you of only just
Speaker 2: having read that this morning.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, yeah, good on anyway, it was absolutely amazing,
Speaker 3: but and I look, I love the whole place. It
Speaker 3: was just fantastic. But it was just a bit. I mean,
Speaker 3: we've been What we did on that tour was we
Speaker 3: tried to go to as many Michelin star restaurants as
Speaker 3: you can. I think in the last in the eighteen
Speaker 3: months we did forty eight starred restaurants and this one
Speaker 3: here had a huge reputation, but you know, we never
Speaker 3: got to it and they discharged us. Anyway, Well, I've
Speaker 3: got a sequel to that. When you launched the book
Speaker 3: a few weeks ago. That's of course, yes, we know.
Speaker 2: It was by invitation, of course, and it was at
Speaker 2: aut aut and you had about three hundred people there.
Speaker 2: I guess did Yeah. Now, I say I gather because
Speaker 2: while we got invited. Here's what happened. It was between
Speaker 2: six and nine pm and we arrived in town in
Speaker 2: the car at six ' ten. I took note of
Speaker 2: the time and we headed straight up for Willie. We
Speaker 2: intended to head straight up to Princess Street, which is
Speaker 2: a good place to park because of school holidays, and
Speaker 2: of course there wouldn't be anybody around and be plenty
Speaker 2: of parking. Forget it. Just getting to Princess Street took ages.
Speaker 2: Everywhere you looked there was a stall, traffic that was
Speaker 2: hardly moving, stationary for long periods of time, and then
Speaker 2: then there'd be a bit of movement, etc. And so
Speaker 2: I drove up Princess Street all the way to the
Speaker 2: other end. I was getting further and further to walk,
Speaker 2: and then came back again. There were cars that were
Speaker 2: parked this is angle parking on both sides, and there
Speaker 2: were cars parked parallel behind those cars, waiting for someone
Speaker 2: nearby to get in their car and go, and there
Speaker 2: are other cars that were cruising, and so we'd see
Speaker 2: a spot up ahead come vacant, and then about three
Speaker 2: cars had fight over it. After one hour, at ten
Speaker 2: past seven, I said, we're going home. God there was
Speaker 2: nowhere to park. I mean we had driven around slowly
Speaker 2: or every got trapped in Queen Street and had to
Speaker 2: go the wrong way, and all sorts of crap because
Speaker 2: of the stupidity of the people who run the run
Speaker 2: the well organ Transport mainly, but it was it was impossible.
Speaker 2: So we drove home, got a takeaway and never made it.
Speaker 3: You're probably quite lucky because there's an awful lot of
Speaker 3: awful served And I know you're such an awful lover.
Speaker 2: Offul is awful.
Speaker 3: You wouldn't have even known it was that I didn't
Speaker 3: tell anyone, is awful.
Speaker 2: Well. That leads to another another part of the of
Speaker 2: the of the whole story. When you were at Normandy Goodness,
Speaker 2: Oh yes it did. Yeah, well, someone someone ate something
Speaker 2: they weren't supposed to want me to tell them what
Speaker 2: they were Fresh meat is the name of the chapter,
Speaker 2: fresh Meat with a trigger warning. Yeah, funny that well,
Speaker 2: that was I was only fifteen at the time, funnily enough,
Speaker 2: and I was in charge of mincing all the food
Speaker 2: that came back from the restaurant. Now, the restaurant was very,
Speaker 2: very famous. Every politician, any film star that came, they
Speaker 2: all went, even Alfred Hitchcock, all those sort of people.
Speaker 2: Well I went, I was getting to the most famous one.
Speaker 2: But anyway, you've actually preempted it, so that's fine. But
Speaker 2: it was a very very popular restaurant and it was
Speaker 2: in nineteen sixty five that I went there. So anyway,
Speaker 2: my job was to when you dined there, if you
Speaker 2: had anything left on your plate, didn't matter what it was.
Speaker 2: It was as you walked into the kitchen with the plate.
Speaker 2: So there was one side for wine and one side
Speaker 2: for food, and the food you just scrape it all
Speaker 2: into this bucket, no matter what it was, and then
Speaker 2: you pour the wine from the glasses, from the bottles,
Speaker 2: whatever into the big flag and that was on the
Speaker 2: other side because that was used for sauces. But the
Speaker 2: food was turned into meat loads and all sorts of
Speaker 2: things for the coffee bar which was next door to
Speaker 2: the restaurant, and they served that at lunch time.
Speaker 3: So my job was to mince all that together might
Speaker 3: have been spaghetti, It might have been so and so,
Speaker 3: but that was my job. But anyway, I didn't think
Speaker 3: that was quite right, coming from a family that you
Speaker 3: you know, you don't you don't eat off other people's plates,
Speaker 3: you doodles, these sorts of stuff. We were sort of proper,
Speaker 3: even though we were different. Anyway, I thought, oh, I
Speaker 3: know what I'll do. I'll just put some tea bones
Speaker 3: down to so as the bones came through, I put
Speaker 3: this shoved it down the big It was a huge
Speaker 3: mixer and I had a big tray on the top,
Speaker 3: but it had guards anyway, So anyway, I kep shoving
Speaker 3: down they were going through. And then the next thing,
Speaker 3: I found this big sort of lamb, sort of legged,
Speaker 3: and I shoved that down. Then all of a sudden
Speaker 3: the machine stopped. Now I know if they get things
Speaker 3: wrong with arms that Madame Luise was quite a tyrant,
Speaker 3: and she would you know that she'd give you a
Speaker 3: good smack, you know, like you're supposed to do when
Speaker 3: people do things wrong. And machine stopped, so, not thinking
Speaker 3: about it, I didn't turn it off the wall, but
Speaker 3: I also lifted the guard off the top and then
Speaker 3: just put my hand down to get the bone out.
Speaker 3: Whoops a daisy, and the bone moved and so did
Speaker 3: my arm. It went flying into the aperture. Anyway, luckily
Speaker 3: it got up to about but that got to the
Speaker 3: elbow and the hand was a big, long bit to
Speaker 3: get down, but so I didn't know how much had gone.
Speaker 3: But then of course I'm leaning across to turn it off,
Speaker 3: and of course all the blood's coming into my face,
Speaker 3: and the chef sending there just collapsed on the floor
Speaker 3: beside me, And anyway, I managed to turn it off myself,
Speaker 3: but that by that stage everyone knew there was something wrong.
Speaker 3: Now we're talking at quarter to eight on a Saturday night,
Speaker 3: which is the busiest note of the week, and I
Speaker 3: think as a fifteen year I didn't swear much, but
Speaker 3: my god, I started swearing at that stage. So Madame
Speaker 3: Luise gave me a good shot of brandy, which apparently
Speaker 3: the worst thing you can do for people in shock. Anyway,
Speaker 3: But anyway, they rang the ambulance. The ambulance couldn't get
Speaker 3: up the alleyway with their gurney or whatever it was,
Speaker 3: so they came through the front door of the restaurant
Speaker 3: through the restaurant into the kitchen and as then, of
Speaker 3: course I'm screaming and yelling, and they decided they didn't
Speaker 3: want to take my hand out of that part of
Speaker 3: the machine because they didn't know how much had been damaged. Wow,
Speaker 3: So they two of them held the machine with how
Speaker 3: the two put me on the stretcher and took me
Speaker 3: through through in front of all the customers, me screaming.
Speaker 3: Can you imagine all that sort of stuff? And I
Speaker 3: was taking to hospital and that was it. Well, then
Speaker 3: they did what they have to do to the things.
Speaker 3: But I didn't know for another couple of months it
Speaker 3: had been taken off because I just wouldn't look. And
Speaker 3: I was all bandished up, so you didn't have to.
Speaker 3: So and every time I had it change, I wouldn't
Speaker 3: go and look because I didn't want to know, because
Speaker 3: I could feel them. I think they're called phantom fingers.
Speaker 3: It was quite funny because many many years later I
Speaker 3: got a letter from someone and said that I was
Speaker 3: dining at that restaurant, that you lost your fingers, and
Speaker 3: so I sent a letter back, so you probably ate
Speaker 3: them anyway. He didn't think that was very funny, but
Speaker 3: it was. It took a lot I didn't know, and
Speaker 3: of course you might even notice today. I never ever
Speaker 3: had their hand open. It's the thing that it's psychologically
Speaker 3: it is they shut it when I was because I
Speaker 3: was only young and aged and like people saying you
Speaker 3: had digits missing?
Speaker 2: So can I tell you something I'd never seen it before?
Speaker 2: Oh really?
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, Well they're actually quite the interest that they did.
Speaker 3: Quite a good job. That can still be in one
Speaker 3: console band and the other can't. But I must have
Speaker 3: been a it's quite good for when you're chopping now,
Speaker 3: so you're not going to chop your finger off. You
Speaker 3: can just go down the NNE jobs done so prior.
Speaker 2: To to getting to Antwes. And it's not necessarily a
Speaker 2: well known story. It's all in the book. And I well,
Speaker 2: i'll get I'll get to the to the book a
Speaker 2: little later. But what was the most exciting thing that
Speaker 2: happened to you in your life up to the point
Speaker 2: that Antwines came on the scene. Well up until then probably.
Speaker 3: I think probably going to the Coachman restaurant as a
Speaker 3: young ap print. Well it wasn't apprentice because they didn't
Speaker 3: have schools like that in those days. And Dez Britain
Speaker 3: had been working at Normandy and he was sacked for
Speaker 3: refusing to save rotten food. So I then went to
Speaker 3: see because he opened a restaurant, and then I went
Speaker 3: to see him and he who wanted to come here?
Speaker 3: And of course suddenly it was young people and there
Speaker 3: were Don Hewittson and people that were in the front
Speaker 3: and that we were all green sort of people wanting
Speaker 3: to wed all read books, and des wasn't. He was
Speaker 3: trained by drago Kovak who had the copper room. And
Speaker 3: because Derez was a disc jockey, of course, you know
Speaker 3: they used he was the Coca Cola bottlers Club or
Speaker 3: what about all that sort of stuff. So he decided
Speaker 3: he was actually from a farming family. That reminded me
Speaker 3: of my family a little bit, because you know, all
Speaker 3: did here. A farmer's boy does not go and cook.
Speaker 3: It's not a good idea to put a skirt on
Speaker 3: or whatever they used to say. He opened the restaurant
Speaker 3: with Lorraine, and that's where I went to see them,
Speaker 3: and they were all just so much different from the normally.
Speaker 3: That was so stuffy, and I mean that was very
Speaker 3: old fashioned, but very guilty and silvery. But there's Lorrain
Speaker 3: opened this restaurant that was so modern and like beautiful
Speaker 3: plates from Germany and thin crockery. Instead of to Muka
Speaker 3: or Wi, it wasn't to Merca. I don't God knows
Speaker 3: what it was. But suddenly there was beautiful stainless steel
Speaker 3: from Europe, from Sweden, and it was just it was casual,
Speaker 3: but very formal. But everyone that worked there was young,
Speaker 3: and it was just a different atmosphere. And of course
Speaker 3: I was, you know, yeah, gooda, how are you all
Speaker 3: that sort of stuff, you know, of course, and I
Speaker 3: was very very labour support to buy that because I
Speaker 3: used to get that passion to me as a child.
Speaker 3: And of course everyone there was definitely not They were
Speaker 3: definitely I think it was Marshall. I can't remember who
Speaker 3: the prime Minister was. He wasn't the Prime minister. But
Speaker 3: they just had a different way of life. There was
Speaker 3: university students, which I had never been to university, so
Speaker 3: I was actually taken under their wing and it was
Speaker 3: just a new way of life, totally different from what
Speaker 3: I'd ever ever been involved with before, and I just
Speaker 3: couldn't help myself. I just loved every minute of it.
Speaker 2: You mentioned Don Hewittson, He was one of the first
Speaker 2: people I met when I came to Auckland in nineteen
Speaker 2: at the end of nineteen eighty five, he was doing
Speaker 2: a wine tasting because he was from London, of course,
Speaker 2: doing a wine tasting down at in the gully between
Speaker 2: Ponstanby and Newton Gully Gully and there was one of
Speaker 2: the big chains I had a big store there, and
Speaker 2: I went down there and got there early and he
Speaker 2: was just sort of like setting up, you know, and
Speaker 2: so we started talking and that led to a very
Speaker 2: a very strong friendship over a long period of time
Speaker 2: until in fact, last time I saw him as in
Speaker 2: fact was at your place at Antoines and he was
Speaker 2: not well. He was on a cruise, remember, and he
Speaker 2: was not well and he died shortly thereafter. Yeah, very sadly,
Speaker 2: but he got I mean, he was a man such
Speaker 2: a reputation in London for the Cork and Bottle in
Speaker 2: particular and the other restaurants he established, and that he
Speaker 2: was awarded all sorts of honors, knighthoods, even the French
Speaker 2: for his work on Champagne in particular. So he was
Speaker 2: a great guy. He kept inviting us to go and
Speaker 2: stay with him in the south of France, which we
Speaker 2: did a few times. Yeah, never made it.
Speaker 3: Actually you would have loved it because it was down
Speaker 3: in Centre Pe but up on the hills, absolutely amazing.
Speaker 3: He walked through the forest down to an amazing restaurant.
Speaker 3: But it was DearS and Lorraine and Bess and I
Speaker 3: went and stayed there and we just had the best time.
Speaker 3: You can imagine what the food was like there. We
Speaker 3: just went and went for it. But Don was a character,
Speaker 3: there was no doubt about it. And he worked at
Speaker 3: the Coachman for a long long time and that's how
Speaker 3: I was very involved with him and Gene. Of course
Speaker 3: he married Gene and she also worked at Orsinis, which
Speaker 3: was another restaurant around the corner in Wellington and Cooper Street.
Speaker 3: And so anyway they all got together and then I
Speaker 3: because I met my partners with the book, they were
Speaker 3: also working or one of them was working at the
Speaker 3: I think I was over and not out. I can't
Speaker 3: remember which one it was, but he.
Speaker 2: Was working there.
Speaker 3: Don wanted to open a restaurant in Auckland, but he
Speaker 3: just decided not to want to go to London instead,
Speaker 3: so we went up to Antoines from there, but I
Speaker 3: worked there. I got sacked a couple of times. I
Speaker 3: always say five times that I think it was only
Speaker 3: two from the coachman, because I thought I owned the
Speaker 3: place anyway, So I thought I was the head chief
Speaker 3: because there was actually a Way doing his TV show
Speaker 3: all the time, so I was doing a lot of
Speaker 3: the cooking, and because one funny story, but one one
Speaker 3: night that I was out there because he used to
Speaker 3: wear those huge hats, which are stupid, you know, silly chefs.
Speaker 3: That's the higher they are, the more important to us.
Speaker 3: I've been quite sure I could get a very very
Speaker 3: tall hat on. It wasn't a problem. So I was
Speaker 3: actually went out to the table and they were all
Speaker 3: the every person that was anyone in Wellington was dining there.
Speaker 3: And I walked around to as DearS used to do
Speaker 3: and say, just to see if everything was all right,
Speaker 3: and there's always he's never here, he's never here. Well,
Speaker 3: about half an hour later he came back, put his
Speaker 3: hat on and walked around and Lady Todd, I'll never forget,
Speaker 3: she said, Oh, but Desmond Tony does all the cooking here, dear,
Speaker 3: So I think I was sent home to christ at
Speaker 3: that stage.
Speaker 2: But you were a ponse little prick.
Speaker 3: Well, totally totally. Look I probably still am folks.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what do you claim towards the end of the
Speaker 2: book that nothing could change or something similar. Let me
Speaker 2: put it this way, and Twine's was a landmark, not
Speaker 2: just in New Zealand, but all over the world. It was.
Speaker 2: It was a place that took me quite a while
Speaker 2: to get there. Now, you welcomed all sorts of people, politicians,
Speaker 2: not necessarily so, depending on their politics. Oh, totally. And
Speaker 2: the reason that I'm mentioning this is because in the
Speaker 2: book you say that you banned Helen Clark.
Speaker 3: Why of ruining the moral fiber of my country? I
Speaker 3: think I told her, But anyway, I just decided that
Speaker 3: I don't really know. Look, it was also quite a
Speaker 3: good thing because I remember sitting in your radio stage
Speaker 3: in your one time and she walked and I said,
Speaker 3: oh my god, here's look, it's a right and she
Speaker 3: waved to us. All I was so embarrassed. But I mean,
Speaker 3: she knew even though she said she was never banned.
Speaker 3: All they say she said she was never banned. But
Speaker 3: the thing is she probably didn't want to come anymore anyway.
Speaker 3: But I just decided that I was sick and tired
Speaker 3: of all the crap that was going on, and I
Speaker 3: wanted new people anyway, So I did actually say that
Speaker 3: she was banned.
Speaker 2: Action I have with that is that the first time
Speaker 2: I ever came to Antoines was for lunch. There was
Speaker 2: a friend of mine who knew Helen and thought that
Speaker 2: I should meet her. This is leader of the opposition,
Speaker 2: and thought that I should meet her, and so he
Speaker 2: arranged the lunch at Antoines. And that obviously was before
Speaker 2: she was banned, But that formed a sort of foundation
Speaker 2: of acquaintanceship, shall we say. And I ended up getting
Speaker 2: invited to her fortieth birthday party in herne bay. I
Speaker 2: lived around the corner and it was and it was
Speaker 2: held in the backyard of this house. And I'm there
Speaker 2: and Dame cath Tizzard. I'm not sure she was a
Speaker 2: dam then, was she?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 2: No, she wasn't. She walked in into the yard. The
Speaker 2: first thing she did was stop and look at me,
Speaker 2: what are you doing here? That would be right too, exactly.
Speaker 2: But the other thing I was just say about Helen
Speaker 2: Clake is that she she was a person of her word.
Speaker 2: When I did the when I was doing the television
Speaker 2: program Weekly TV show on Sky. She promised that she
Speaker 2: would come and do an interview if she won the election.
Speaker 2: So she won the election on the Saturday. The program
Speaker 2: but out on Monday Live and she arrived in time.
Speaker 2: Wasn't there at the beginning, but she arrived in time.
Speaker 2: And I had admiration for her doing that, because she
Speaker 2: had every reason in the world to say, I'm sorry,
Speaker 2: ye I'm not going to drive down about Wellington blah,
Speaker 2: and she didn't. She lived up to her word. So
Speaker 2: I've always well, I've always utilized that to try and
Speaker 2: balance my opinion.
Speaker 3: Well, look, I quite like the idea that I banned
Speaker 3: her anyway, because it actually suits me. But she was
Speaker 3: a very big customer way before she was Prime Minister.
Speaker 3: And she's come on with Jeffrey Palmer whoever was Zara
Speaker 3: at the time, and they I used to get the
Speaker 3: boys to actually, can't listen to what they're talking about,
Speaker 3: just so I knew what was happening. And she it
Speaker 3: was a very good customer. But funnily enough, Dane caf
Speaker 3: became she was a very good customer. But the people
Speaker 3: that were close to Helen and I won't mention their names,
Speaker 3: but they got so angry that mister Tizzard used to
Speaker 3: bring all his girlfriends to Antoine's and so well, it's
Speaker 3: nothing to do with me. I don't care a damn
Speaker 3: who he brings. You know, it doesn't matter who was that,
Speaker 3: you know, the Dame's Dame Cass's husband Tis. He was
Speaker 3: a Labor MP anyway, But I think it was probably
Speaker 3: Judith that got angry that that I allowed him into Antoinees.
Speaker 3: I thought, well, at that time the Labor Party hadn't
Speaker 3: been into power for very because Norman Kirk was the
Speaker 3: Prime Minister when we took over and when they when
Speaker 3: they the Labor Party were in power. You've never seen
Speaker 3: more government cars outside Antoinees in your life. It was
Speaker 3: actually the lolly shop. I tell you, they knew how
Speaker 3: to spend money. But later when the National Party came,
Speaker 3: you never ever saw a government car outside because they
Speaker 3: would just be dropped off and gone because it wasn't
Speaker 3: a good look, you know. But who was the man
Speaker 3: who was a big man from down from down south
Speaker 3: out east west Henderson, Jonathan Hunt. He was one of
Speaker 3: the biggest and best customers Antoines ever saw.
Speaker 2: Minister and cheese. He was at lock.
Speaker 3: He was a neat person and we had a lot
Speaker 3: of fun with him.
Speaker 4: But and like so was God.
Speaker 3: I'm just trying to who's the other big prime minister?
Speaker 3: That key He's never a big he was a big
Speaker 3: PRIMI was not a large person.
Speaker 2: I was. I was thinking of a big in a
Speaker 2: different way. I'm I'm taking that.
Speaker 3: David Longer, he was a huge customer everywhere Antoine had
Speaker 3: as we Tommy Tuck and then he stopped eating, which
Speaker 3: was quite nice.
Speaker 2: But so the labor farty was huge. But it isn't
Speaker 2: interesting that that socialists know how to spend other people's money.
Speaker 2: Unbelievable because it all would have been on oh totally.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: In that car for Jonathan there was a government car
Speaker 3: and he lived miles away and they just sat out
Speaker 3: there all night. And because he would stay until two
Speaker 3: or three in the morning, after the licensing hours, I
Speaker 3: might say, so the way even the people have made
Speaker 3: the laws broke them. Who was the most interesting, the
Speaker 3: most interesting customer you ever had? I think probably Elton
Speaker 3: John but I became quite a good friend of his
Speaker 3: in there. But the other one was the other one
Speaker 3: was Rod Stewart. I mean those two were they were
Speaker 3: just bad boys really, But I think if probably Elton
Speaker 3: came now, he'd deny everything he ever did at Antoines,
Speaker 3: because you know, he's now happily married with children and
Speaker 3: things have changed slightly, and I think we should go
Speaker 3: into too much of.
Speaker 2: That everything he ever did.
Speaker 3: Okay, But also actually Prince Philip was a fantastic customer,
Speaker 3: you know, and he has a bit of a reputation.
Speaker 3: I never saw that side of him, but because Doug
Speaker 3: Myers was a huge customer of Antoines, and of course
Speaker 3: they had charities together, and so he was in New
Speaker 3: Zealand quite a lot without people even knowing it was here,
Speaker 3: and he either would come to Antoine' or I'd go
Speaker 3: to the Meyers house and cook what they were doing.
Speaker 2: Did Charles ever come in? No, he didn't actually be lucky.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think I probably am, but it's we had.
Speaker 3: I did cook for Prince Edward up the road, you know,
Speaker 3: from my house, just up the road he because I
Speaker 3: think he went to wang was it Wangani Collegiate or
Speaker 3: was he somewhere and people that he was with anyway,
Speaker 3: they had parties and I used to cook for him.
Speaker 3: But I was really upset that we didn't get the
Speaker 3: queen because she they had booked I mean that was
Speaker 3: six months in advance, and they'd never bought if their
Speaker 3: equerries and all the travel people with them to a restaurant,
Speaker 3: and so they booked into Antoines and you know, had
Speaker 3: signed declarations. He won't tell anyone. Well, the week before
Speaker 3: she came, you've never seen so many police on the
Speaker 3: roof of Antoin's. It was obviously, you know, I didn't
Speaker 3: have to break break the pack they were. They were
Speaker 3: there waiting to organize the restaurant. But she did she
Speaker 3: got food, poisoning it down at the one of the
Speaker 3: cocktail parties.
Speaker 2: So she never arrived.
Speaker 3: But Prince Philip brought the twelve other people in and
Speaker 3: they were all it was quite amazing because they all
Speaker 3: dressed up in there. It was just neat and it
Speaker 3: was you know, that was pretty special, I think. But
Speaker 3: if she had a come and say, it would have
Speaker 3: been much easier. I could have had the coat of
Speaker 3: arms on the door if she had done there. But
Speaker 3: she didn't go, so I didn't get the coat of arm.
Speaker 2: Well, one of the things that I first learned was
Speaker 2: keeping in mind that I'd arrived in Auckland in the
Speaker 2: in the mid eighties, was that the racing fraternity patronized Antoine's,
Speaker 2: particularly of course around sale time totally, so that we're
Speaker 2: talking January essentially earlier in the year. Did you put
Speaker 2: anything in the book about that? No, I did.
Speaker 3: I'm waiting for the next one. Some great stories for
Speaker 3: that one.
Speaker 2: I might follow up.
Speaker 3: Well, now that i've this one's going quite well, I
Speaker 3: thought I might. And I think i'll use everyone's names
Speaker 3: this time, because I look, I'm too old to be
Speaker 3: so now. And if I go to jail, I'll keep
Speaker 3: my free meal, and I'll get my get my shower,
Speaker 3: and I'll probably end up in the kitchen saving everyone
Speaker 3: bad food. Anyway, I think i'll get it published in China,
Speaker 3: because no one's going to go to China and see
Speaker 3: because they won't listen to you.
Speaker 2: Well, you've got to publish it in English. Maybe not
Speaker 2: a lot of my coustlers were Chinese. Now, I mentioned
Speaker 2: the racing fraternity because because I had fairly fairly strong
Speaker 2: connections with it in those Australian and racing fraternity in
Speaker 2: those days. And I'm looking at the book up there
Speaker 2: on next to mine on the left, so I'm looking
Speaker 2: at a book of a book on gay Waterhouse up there,
Speaker 2: which is a treasure of mine, because not that I
Speaker 2: got to mention in it, apart from one of the
Speaker 2: one of the two other Rowmers referring to a horse
Speaker 2: called Pharaoh. She brought us, she brought us fortune, and well,
Speaker 2: yeah fortune, it was in those days. And you know
Speaker 2: that race was worth a million dollars. The non Caster
Speaker 2: is now worth at least three last time I looked. Anyway,
Speaker 2: while we're on the subject of celebrities of different kinds
Speaker 2: movie actors, you have there's two other books right next
Speaker 2: to it, one from Charlton Heston. One Charlton Heston's book
Speaker 2: did him in ninety six, and next to it is
Speaker 2: Roger Moore and that that was around the same time,
Speaker 2: ninety six, because I used to get them to sign
Speaker 2: it and put a date on it, and Charlton Heston didn't.
Speaker 2: But Roger Moore, did you met him on a concord flight?
Speaker 2: I did, indeed, one of your many concord flights.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I don't know how I got on those. I don't
Speaker 3: know where. The tax department they were very kind. That
Speaker 3: was the problem. It was definitely business. That was not
Speaker 3: a problem. Well at least she went on the last one. No, Luckily,
Speaker 3: I think probably a lot of people would have whisht
Speaker 3: I was, but oh, I think we could outweigh them.
Speaker 3: So you tell the little story about meeting Roger Moore.
Speaker 3: Actually it was hilarious because Beth would never fly next
Speaker 3: to me in the plan. She was more and she so,
Speaker 3: I'm not sitting next to you because you drink too
Speaker 3: much and I'm just not going to put up with
Speaker 3: all that. So she had always sit one in front,
Speaker 3: or if it was two way too one a one
Speaker 3: b or as long as she didn't sit next to me,
Speaker 3: she was quite happy. But on the concord, of course,
Speaker 3: there were only two two two all the way up,
Speaker 3: so she got booked on the one in front of me,
Speaker 3: so there was a seat beside me and her. But anyway,
Speaker 3: I was just sitting there having whatever I was having,
Speaker 3: probably a glass of crew because I think it's what
Speaker 3: they poured at the time, and next person sits next
Speaker 3: to him and I sort of looked at him and
Speaker 3: he sort of said, oh, hello, and I said, oh,
Speaker 3: you're the saint, and he excuse me, how old are you? Anyway,
Speaker 3: So we were sitting there, we started chatting and he said, oh,
Speaker 3: what do you do? I said, I'm a cook in
Speaker 3: New Zealand and all that, so I didn't tell him
Speaker 3: too much. But anyway, the person that was traveling with
Speaker 3: him was sitting office and he said, who the hell
Speaker 3: are you talking to? He said, oh, some cook from
Speaker 3: New Zealand. And he said he must be a fucking
Speaker 3: good one if he could afford to be hod Would
Speaker 3: you like to rephrase that? Well, it's quite common with
Speaker 3: these days later and I'm sorry, okay, I'm just quoting
Speaker 3: and fair enough. Anyway, he did could come to the rithma.
Speaker 2: It wasn't that long after what well.
Speaker 3: I gave him my card and he said, oh, if
Speaker 3: I have companies as I'll come and see.
Speaker 2: I said like, yeah, right whatever.
Speaker 3: Anyway, one day the doorbell rang and I happened to
Speaker 3: go to the door and I answered he hadn't didn't
Speaker 3: have a book, and someone else did, but he was
Speaker 3: with them and I opened the door and I said,
Speaker 3: good god. He said, you are a cook. I had
Speaker 3: a cook. So he came in and had dinner. We
Speaker 3: had had a great time. It was fantastic.
Speaker 2: He knew which which restaurant you were at? Yeah, well
Speaker 2: he had my card. But of course there was something
Speaker 2: else that I read in the book with regard to
Speaker 2: people who sought highly of themselves but arrived but without
Speaker 2: without a booking and sort of expected or even demanded
Speaker 2: a seat when you were four. Was that was that
Speaker 2: antrance or was that somewhere else? Well, we had people
Speaker 2: that did knock on it at all, if ever feeling
Speaker 2: it might have been somewhere in Wellington, Well it could
Speaker 2: have been.
Speaker 3: But like we had a doorbell, so you couldn't just
Speaker 3: walk in, so you had to ring the doorbell. Beth
Speaker 3: was actually the worst. Once you're going to the door,
Speaker 3: and if you didn't have a booking and you weren't
Speaker 3: dressed properly, you just sort of look at your toes,
Speaker 3: looked at your heads as sorry, we're full, I mean,
Speaker 3: but we we you know, even though you know, dress
Speaker 3: standards are totally different in restaurants today, but in those days,
Speaker 3: most of our customers dressed up. But like when you
Speaker 3: used to get on plane, you dress up, but you
Speaker 3: don't arrive at a but younger people they were younger
Speaker 3: people would arrive in shorts and jandles, or the boys
Speaker 3: would and the girls were all dressed up, and best
Speaker 3: would just say sorry, you can't come in, because there
Speaker 3: were people that had been to opera or something that
Speaker 3: were sitting there in dinner suits. But you just don't
Speaker 3: bring someone in like a singlet or a T shirt
Speaker 3: or whatever, into a restaurant at nighttime.
Speaker 2: Sorry, you just don't do it. Well, I wouldn't let
Speaker 2: them in at any time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I mean I got a lot of restaurants now,
Speaker 3: and I'm quite shocked at how people do dress.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's not hard to put a shirt on.
Speaker 2: Is it really so much gender on planes?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Here he am pets on men.
Speaker 3: That's why you go first class?
Speaker 4: Lad?
Speaker 2: Who goes first class?
Speaker 3: I'm sure you do, don't you. I mean, why would
Speaker 3: you actually going the other way, save up longer and
Speaker 3: get a bit of trip.
Speaker 2: It's interesting because if he has gone through the roof
Speaker 2: and not having not having the same sort of income
Speaker 2: that I once did, it's it's a bit restrictive, it is.
Speaker 3: And look, I've even noticed I have been traveling a
Speaker 3: lot lately, but I've just noticed some when we like
Speaker 3: pre COVID, for instance, you know, you could get around
Speaker 3: the world well, from New Zealand to New Zealand through
Speaker 3: Europe for about seven thousand, five hundred business class. Now
Speaker 3: it's about twelve to fourteen or ten if.
Speaker 2: You I don't enough. I was looking yesterday for appropriate reasons.
Speaker 2: Emirates is twelve something. Yep, twelve and a half. You're
Speaker 2: pretty much on the button. I mean you can go on.
Speaker 3: I just recently got one which was quite amazing really,
Speaker 3: which was eight five and that was on Singapore Lines only,
Speaker 3: but that was a special and it was a late
Speaker 3: booking actually, and I managed to get on that, so
Speaker 3: that was good. That was the last trip it was. However,
Speaker 3: I tried to go with thinking of going to India
Speaker 3: and Old this year, and that's about a twelve or fourteen.
Speaker 3: I think, ah, no, I want it's getting a bit
Speaker 3: over the top.
Speaker 2: Have you been to Shri Lanka? No, I haven't. Actually
Speaker 2: lovely place.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it is well.
Speaker 3: And we went on a private sort of a private
Speaker 3: tour of India. And I was expecting because I'm not
Speaker 3: a great Indian food eater. But we went on one recently,
Speaker 3: just three of us and we did a private tour
Speaker 3: and tell you what, I just absolutely loved every minute
Speaker 3: of it. The people were amazingly well, there's a middle
Speaker 3: class now that you cannot believe. I mean, there's a
Speaker 3: lot of money there, but it's also poverty obviously, but
Speaker 3: it's I don't think it's as bad as it used
Speaker 3: to be, but it is quite quite amazing. But the
Speaker 3: people are just unbelievably fantastic. And I mean some of
Speaker 3: the food's a bit dodgy, I think, but if you're
Speaker 3: staying in the right places, you're not going to get
Speaker 3: sick anyway.
Speaker 2: Talk to me about food prep algorithms. Oh, this is
Speaker 2: my I don't know.
Speaker 3: I didn't know anything about algorithms.
Speaker 2: Well neither did I until I'm better than the book.
Speaker 3: So what we're trying to do, and it's a bit
Speaker 3: of it's a bit of a shame really because we
Speaker 3: callahan are a company in New Zealand that actually do
Speaker 3: start up for new things. And I had been well
Speaker 3: I hadn't been, but someone else had been reading about algorithms.
Speaker 3: But so it's like when you have your Toyota and
Speaker 3: they put a plug and they know exactly what's wrong
Speaker 3: with it. You can do that with food. It's not
Speaker 3: happening here, which I hope it's going to. If you
Speaker 3: have a like a class of students and you've got
Speaker 3: ten of them and you give them a recipe save
Speaker 3: for a volute sauce or something. Every one of those people,
Speaker 3: even though the recipe is written in front of them,
Speaker 3: every one of them will do something wrong, like it'll
Speaker 3: be grainyer or be salty or But if you do
Speaker 3: an algorithm, they think you would have a probe and
Speaker 3: you'd just poke it into there and that would tell
Speaker 3: you that you've got cooking the flower too long. Were
Speaker 3: you're doing this, it will actually do that. The aut
Speaker 3: got a bit nervous. I think they thought they were
Speaker 3: going to lose all their tutors everything. I thought they
Speaker 3: were going.
Speaker 2: To lose their jobs.
Speaker 3: But it doesn't work that way. I think, look, I'm
Speaker 3: Callahana wanting to do it, but it costs a lot
Speaker 3: of money to actually get it going. But look, I'd
Speaker 3: be so excited of that, Like I could do my
Speaker 3: orange sauce for instant. Every single time, you would know
Speaker 3: it was going to be done perfectly because it tells
Speaker 3: you the acidity taus you've done. I mean, it's all
Speaker 3: a bit above me, but apparently it's in Europe is happening,
Speaker 3: so why not let it happen here.
Speaker 2: You know, they're making such a big fuss at the
Speaker 2: moment about AI and this is a form of it.
Speaker 4: Yep.
Speaker 2: And I read again only this morning something along AI
Speaker 2: and was to do with the deprivation of brain development
Speaker 2: and thinking yep, because you don't have to anymore, because
Speaker 2: you can get it all done through AI. And so
Speaker 2: the you could say, you could argue that there is
Speaker 2: or should be concerned about the actual IQ of a
Speaker 2: country or a community or an individual dropping over a
Speaker 2: period of time because you don't have to critical thinking
Speaker 2: was what I think. It was anchored to critical thinking.
Speaker 2: And while it's while it's got lots of use obviously
Speaker 2: AI it concerns me about where where people will end up.
Speaker 3: Well, it's probably it's perfect for dumbing down, isn't it?
Speaker 3: Getting the masses through what you told?
Speaker 2: Well, so you've summarized it beautifully.
Speaker 3: I actually I got so excited about this that I
Speaker 3: you know, I'm Bud, the old cook. As people say,
Speaker 3: you're just an old cook. But when you start reading
Speaker 3: about things, and I mean at the moment at au
Speaker 3: t and I spend a lot of time there at
Speaker 3: the moment as a mentor, but you seek going to
Speaker 3: a class.
Speaker 2: Every one of those kids.
Speaker 3: Are on their phone dialing up a recipe, you know,
Speaker 3: to make sure they're doing it. So why not have
Speaker 3: a little probe that you could get in there and
Speaker 3: do it. That's it's not going to take any jobs.
Speaker 3: In fact, it's going to make the food even better
Speaker 3: because every you know, especially in a restaurant, you know,
Speaker 3: you have a chef that disappears if you're not the
Speaker 3: chef yourself, and suddenly he leaves and you get a
Speaker 3: new one, and so you go there and have the
Speaker 3: duck and orange and next time this isn't the one
Speaker 3: you normally have. It means you'll be able to do
Speaker 3: and always keep your standard up, which I think is
Speaker 3: a good thing.
Speaker 2: Okay, it might be good. What about looking at it
Speaker 2: this way? And twines was el suprimo in Auckland forever?
Speaker 2: Pretty much? Yep, depends what you talk to.
Speaker 4: Of course.
Speaker 2: Question is what happens when everyone's an end once? Well,
Speaker 2: that is a problem that we've had.
Speaker 3: I knew, I just knew you were going to say that,
Speaker 3: But then I suddenly thought, well, okay, well then I
Speaker 3: ask because so many restaurants are falling over the mode
Speaker 3: I own them all then, won't I But anyway, that's
Speaker 3: you are right, but it's still yeah, but there still
Speaker 3: has to be individuals people doing things. I mean, no
Speaker 3: one just wants to have blood the old Antoine's food
Speaker 3: in their restaurant. But I mean you could if you
Speaker 3: go to all the restaurants now, especially with all you know,
Speaker 3: they play around with things that whatever ever happened to
Speaker 3: the main the hero of the plate.
Speaker 2: Now you get did I order lamb?
Speaker 3: Oh? Yeah, there's a little bit over there. But then
Speaker 3: you've got all these little painting things, and you've got froths,
Speaker 3: and you've got god knows what else on. So you know,
Speaker 3: I mean, you go to it something and I won't
Speaker 3: mention the restaurant, but you go to about three top ones.
Speaker 3: You think they're all the same because they will obviously
Speaker 3: read the same books. But it's it's happening already. But
Speaker 3: you know, I'm now I'm now doing it with Kerry.
Speaker 3: I'm doing a every week where I ate last and
Speaker 3: it's interesting going to the restaurants to see what happens.
Speaker 3: So you become a reviewer, yes sort of mind you
Speaker 3: someone I saw somewhere on on whatever one of those platforms.
Speaker 3: What right do you have to go What right do
Speaker 3: you have to go and review a restaurant? I mean,
Speaker 3: I thought, well, I thought, sixty five years of cooking
Speaker 3: you might know a little bit about it. I could
Speaker 3: name a couple of reviewers that really should not be reviewing,
Speaker 3: because I know sweet bugg are all about food at all,
Speaker 3: and they talk about the partner there with more than
Speaker 3: you know, but they.
Speaker 2: Also get the food wrong.
Speaker 3: So I think, at least when I go in there,
Speaker 3: I'm not actually criticizing people. Well I sort of am,
Speaker 3: but I go in there and if the restaurant's really bad,
Speaker 3: I just don't bother. I don't do it at all,
Speaker 3: because I don't think it's fair to actually do that.
Speaker 3: But if there's a restaurant that things aren't quite right,
Speaker 3: I suggest how they could improve it. And so far,
Speaker 3: I've had a lot of very positive from restaurants I've
Speaker 3: been to because I'm trying to be as honest i
Speaker 3: can and I'm not going to be bought, and that's
Speaker 3: all why I don't need to be so it's not
Speaker 3: a problem. But there's some great there's some great new
Speaker 3: restaurants around at the moment, but they're really struggling, and
Speaker 3: some of them are closing down, Yeah, a lot of them.
Speaker 3: And where's the little new ones popping up every now
Speaker 3: and then? So that's good too.
Speaker 2: Well, some people look, it's a little it's actually a
Speaker 2: little like shops. And you'll know exactly what I mean.
Speaker 2: You'll see a shop coom up police and somebody takes
Speaker 2: it and within a very short space of time usually
Speaker 2: it's up for lease again. Yep, and it'll hap it
Speaker 2: a third time. So you know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 2: And it's because of a variety of things, but largely
Speaker 2: it has to do with the placement of the location
Speaker 2: where it is. And if it's another nail shop, yeah yeah,
Speaker 2: just down the road here, there's about forty nine of them,
Speaker 2: and someone's just spent a very large amount of money
Speaker 2: to set up another one, a big one, and we
Speaker 2: walk past it frequently. Is there for anybody in there?
Speaker 2: So how do they? They don't sport? It's a bit
Speaker 2: like restaurants. New restaurants, Well, restaurants on the whole.
Speaker 3: Only last eighteen months unless you're lucky enough to be
Speaker 3: because what happens. And I've got so many young kids
Speaker 3: ringing me at the moment to advise them because as
Speaker 3: they say, oh, look we need certain amount of money
Speaker 3: to break even, I said, well, why did you just
Speaker 3: buy a new car. Suddenly they've got business. They forget
Speaker 3: eighteen months down the track, we've got to pay four tax,
Speaker 3: a new tax. They don't put money away, but they're
Speaker 3: also not They just think it's easy to open a
Speaker 3: restaurant keep going, but normally it's only eighteen months.
Speaker 2: I mean we went.
Speaker 3: Through from nineteen seventy three to right up until fifty
Speaker 3: years on, we went through so many financial crisis. I mean,
Speaker 3: at one stage we went I had another restaurant down
Speaker 3: the city. I mean it was turning over huge amounts
Speaker 3: of money. But because I couldn't be in both places,
Speaker 3: things started happening. And then of course things started getting
Speaker 3: sticky again. And I mean we had to put that
Speaker 3: into acteavership, and that was totally through our own just went.
Speaker 3: We weren't running it properly. You had to be there by,
Speaker 3: you know, owner.
Speaker 2: How many downtown did you have at any given time.
Speaker 3: Well overall, well I had I had Tatler and spectators.
Speaker 3: So that was in one building. Where was that that
Speaker 3: was done? And it used to be the old cliche.
Speaker 3: It's now Mexico. I think that on the end of
Speaker 3: the britam up on the perimeter, old brick building, yes,
Speaker 3: which was a fantastic restaurant. It was way before its time.
Speaker 2: Never I don't think I ever went upstairs, but we
Speaker 2: went a few times downstowns downstairs, and I'll come back
Speaker 2: to that, do you finish.
Speaker 3: I mean we were turning over, I mean huge amounts
Speaker 3: of money there. But then it's then I think there
Speaker 3: came a I think around about nineteen ninety or something
Speaker 3: that was anyway, there was a financial crisis and things
Speaker 3: started going hey wire. But there were so many staff
Speaker 3: and so much stuff missing, and of course if you're
Speaker 3: not onto it like anyway, we went into liquidation there
Speaker 3: and poor old Antoines had to. They the people that
Speaker 3: we owed money to, did a big deal with me
Speaker 3: and gave me about four years to pay it, which
Speaker 3: Antoines did pay every creditor off, because otherwise I could
Speaker 3: have just walked away from it. But you just can't
Speaker 3: do that if you want to stand business. But we
Speaker 3: had been in business. You can't do that if your
Speaker 3: principles tell you you can't. But also at Antoine's you
Speaker 3: know in the eighty because in the mid eighties we
Speaker 3: were just creamy. You can imagine what was going on there.
Speaker 3: I mean people were sew up themselves. I had so
Speaker 3: much money. It wasn't their money, but we were recipients
Speaker 3: of quantities of cash, as you can imagine. But then
Speaker 3: that the big crash came and yeah, well we are
Speaker 3: funnily enough. I was sitting at Cypriani and Venice down
Speaker 3: at the having having breakfast, and this waiter came down
Speaker 3: and said, oh, mister Antoine, oh I think you might
Speaker 3: like because I hadn't even read a paper, you might
Speaker 3: like to read this English paper, said world Stock. And
Speaker 3: I said I should think. Oh, I don't think this
Speaker 3: is good. And best said, oh, that won't affect us,
Speaker 3: will it. I said, oh my god. So we got
Speaker 3: on a plane came straight home. You know, our turnover
Speaker 3: went from huge amounts down to about eight thousand a week.
Speaker 3: And we're talking huge amounts, a big drop. And that's
Speaker 3: when I first learned how to run into ones because
Speaker 3: we had to. We had about twelve staff. Suddenly we
Speaker 3: only had four. And we ran that for the next
Speaker 3: five years or whatever doing that, and we came out
Speaker 3: the other side. But the turnover was never like it
Speaker 3: was in the eighties. But I didn't know anyone any money,
Speaker 3: so it wasn't hard. But also I cooked. Beth was
Speaker 3: out the front, so you're saving yourself one hundred and
Speaker 3: something thousand a year. Anyway, that's how we did it,
Speaker 3: So you know, I just don't think I see these
Speaker 3: restaurants opening. They are opening quite a few of them.
Speaker 3: At the moment, I think, oh, I don't know, it's
Speaker 3: not going to but their investment restaurants. It's how to
Speaker 3: lose your money in two seconds, I reckon.
Speaker 2: But I remember going to Mark's squad for the first
Speaker 2: time and sitting down in the square and ordering coffee
Speaker 2: fifteen dollars.
Speaker 3: It's now about twenty five euro. You sit out there,
Speaker 3: you're on shows, so you've got to pay. You can
Speaker 3: go into a little coffee bar behind and get it
Speaker 3: for about five.
Speaker 2: So well, there's also there's also the orchestra and let's
Speaker 2: just get when you're out there. It's a feeling, though,
Speaker 2: isn't it.
Speaker 3: But it's I mean, I watched people and then I think, oh, dear,
Speaker 3: that was the people around the world don't care because
Speaker 3: it's always full isn't their money are soon?
Speaker 2: Part of it was in Benson Marks where it was flooded.
Speaker 2: We're walking around on planks. Oh dear, let's just talk
Speaker 2: politics for a moment. Oh dear, yep, because you and
Speaker 2: I both interested in politics. We're both interested in American politics.
Speaker 2: And a few people will have heard this story before,
Speaker 2: but it's going to get told again because it's a must.
Speaker 2: When Trump was first elected back in twenty fifteen, sixteen,
Speaker 2: I always get confused because you win, you win in
Speaker 2: the election one year and you take take office sixteen
Speaker 2: and then twenty yeah, yep, so which which I think
Speaker 2: it was sixteen, but sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen.
Speaker 3: Twenty, because then then he missed out on twenty, so
Speaker 3: there would have been twenty one when the new one
Speaker 3: took over, right, and then twenty three, twenty two, twenty three,
Speaker 3: twenty four, it's going to be twenty five, yeah, right, sixteen.
Speaker 2: Okay, So thank you for that. You were you were
Speaker 2: supporting Trump.
Speaker 3: I wear minde. I was also wearing his habitalus. Make
Speaker 3: it doom go away, So that wasn't the problem.
Speaker 2: Hang on say that again, Make a durn go away.
Speaker 2: In twenty sixteen, was it?
Speaker 3: I was in for the up to the twentieth. No, No,
Speaker 3: she wasn't there then, but I started wearing it before
Speaker 3: his neck when he missed out when you know, when
Speaker 3: his election was stolen in twenty right, So I started.
Speaker 3: I got the red hair and I had a T
Speaker 3: shirt and I'd walk up and down Parnell Road and
Speaker 3: the abuse with it. I loved it. I just loved
Speaker 3: getting the abuse.
Speaker 2: I've never known anybody who enjoys being abused so much.
Speaker 2: But go back to the twenty sixteen election and the night,
Speaker 2: the night the winner was announced, you were, you were working,
Speaker 2: you were open, and you had not a lot, I think,
Speaker 2: but a few about four tables. Yeah, yep. Story.
Speaker 3: It was hilarious because they were all I thought they
Speaker 3: would have been Trump supporters, but anyway, they were all
Speaker 3: very well off people, and you know, they were all
Speaker 3: talking politics, and they were all sort of National Party supporters.
Speaker 3: You know, we were National Party headquarters, so of course
Speaker 3: those sort of people were there. Then of course it
Speaker 3: started looking I started getting very excited.
Speaker 2: You could see.
Speaker 3: Trump was actually going to clean up, and so I
Speaker 3: started so I put the American National anthem on and
Speaker 3: started walking through and said, Viva Trump, Viva Trump. Well
Speaker 3: they all got one table, just got up. They said
Speaker 3: you are disgusting, and they got up and walked out.
Speaker 3: They took a while to come back where they have
Speaker 3: come back.
Speaker 2: Did they pay the bill before they lived?
Speaker 3: I didn't care. They got the bill center them. It
Speaker 3: wasn't a problem.
Speaker 2: Anyway.
Speaker 3: The people they they still there, are still and I
Speaker 3: know a couple of them still that are alive or
Speaker 3: still with us, and they are still not Trump supporters.
Speaker 3: They hate them, but they wanted and I had to
Speaker 3: call it by her right name, Kamala, I aw to
Speaker 3: call it that are you but they're still her. They
Speaker 3: wanted her there, and I thought, you know, you people
Speaker 3: and they these are people that actually are totally conservative people,
Speaker 3: and they put they you know, I just I just spare.
Speaker 2: Well, let's let's analyze that for a moment, because I
Speaker 2: know why it is. I know people in the States
Speaker 2: who have adjusted their thinking, okay, in the right in
Speaker 2: the right way. Uh And and in Australia, I know
Speaker 2: people in Australia too. It's a friend of mine in
Speaker 2: Australia sent me stuff by email mocking Trump and all
Speaker 2: sorts of things. And laughing at me because he's because
Speaker 2: he's going.
Speaker 3: To get I haven't heard from him since the other's
Speaker 3: funny that anyway.
Speaker 2: So people in America have changed their minds. People in
Speaker 2: Australia have changed their minds. Not everybody, but people here
Speaker 2: have been far less adjustable. And the reason is because
Speaker 2: of the media. There has been you think of your
Speaker 2: mainstream media, I don't need to list at all. They haven't.
Speaker 2: They haven't adjusted their attitude to Trump at all. They
Speaker 2: haven't realized that things have changed, that he has changed,
Speaker 2: that things are being done differently. They haven't realized the
Speaker 2: well I heard the breakfast hoast this morning making comment
Speaker 2: on Biden and he's a liar. This is over the sun.
Speaker 2: He's a liar. And everybody was walking around and say
Speaker 2: he's a liar. Biden's a liar. I told them that,
Speaker 2: how I could have I think you did years and
Speaker 2: years ago. The guy's a crook, always has been. I mean,
Speaker 2: he was best mates with Kennedy, you know, the chap,
Speaker 2: a critic and all of that, ah, and they were
Speaker 2: they were crooks together. But the media doesn't doesn't do
Speaker 2: its job. The media has been a failure let people
Speaker 2: down in this country and until we get the right
Speaker 2: competition in rupert where nothing, nothing much is going to
Speaker 2: change because you've got you've got the journos who've been
Speaker 2: trained in ways of the left. They've come out of
Speaker 2: they've come out of university or whatever they've done. They
Speaker 2: should be I had this discussion with somebody recently, might
Speaker 2: have been Nick catur actually who was on before you.
Speaker 2: He's on now actually, as we recall, you replace him
Speaker 2: next week, that an apprenticeship journalism course is the right
Speaker 2: way to do it. You're going to get a job
Speaker 2: as a copy boy or whatever it is. You start
Speaker 2: at the bottom and you work your way up and
Speaker 2: you study at night and whatever, or you get one
Speaker 2: or two days a week off to go to classes
Speaker 2: and things, and that way you learn far quicker the
Speaker 2: realities of life. But I don't think it's going to happen.
Speaker 3: Well talk about supposedly unbiased. I mean, really, it ain't happening.
Speaker 3: It doesn't happen anymore, does it. I mean, you know,
Speaker 3: you just have to look at I mean, I just
Speaker 3: I have a rubber brick and I like it. It's
Speaker 3: not a real one because I have it on a string.
Speaker 3: I just throw it at the TV screen everything. Every
Speaker 3: time they start all that stuff, they start to the
Speaker 3: Newsworth and everything, and then the ata rower and god
Speaker 3: knows what's coming next. And then you've got all the stuff.
Speaker 3: You don't even understand a word they're saying. And then
Speaker 3: suddenly it's all stuff that totally biased. I throw the brick,
Speaker 3: Throw the brick, and then I actually don't even turn
Speaker 3: news on anymore.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, you have a stake. You're going to
Speaker 2: tell me your big mistake, or you just answered it
Speaker 2: yourself turning it on in the first.
Speaker 3: Place, exactly. But you sort of think like I would
Speaker 3: never ever turn breakfast on in my whole life. I mean,
Speaker 3: that just frightens the hewll lo out of me. I
Speaker 3: look at these people and say, but how do you
Speaker 3: get this job? I mean, really, you can't. You can't
Speaker 3: have You're not allowed to think for yourself anyway. So
Speaker 3: that's all there is to it. And it's like play school.
Speaker 2: Well it's interesting because for a long time, pretty much
Speaker 2: as long as I've known you, I have I have
Speaker 2: seen you as a a lot more than just a chef.
Speaker 2: You have a brain, you use it, you think critically,
Speaker 2: you are critical and You're a blessing, and I've got
Speaker 2: no reason I'm not going to get any more free meals.
Speaker 2: That's all right. Look not that not that I did, Folks, you.
Speaker 3: Didn't, and I must meet your farewell. I actually apparently
Speaker 3: I was somewhere the other day and your farewell was
Speaker 3: at Antoine, you know, from the radio station to to
Speaker 3: your new transition. And someone came up to me the
Speaker 3: other day and said, we didn't realize you know that
Speaker 3: Jingis Khan was a lefty.
Speaker 2: Do we meet you?
Speaker 3: And I said, I'll give you a break.
Speaker 2: Until they met you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, till they Yeah, I'm not you. But anyway,
Speaker 3: I always thought you were. I thought you were Genis Khan,
Speaker 3: so I thought I could actually be one better. You know,
Speaker 3: I'd have everyone up, I'd have everyone armed, and i'd
Speaker 3: have every policeman armed, and that you know that you
Speaker 3: only get you wouldn't get a second chance, you get
Speaker 3: the first one, and then sorry, you're on your bike.
Speaker 2: Not too late for a political run, you know.
Speaker 3: No, that could well younger than mister Trump. And look
Speaker 3: at he took the whole country, the whole. Even though
Speaker 3: I hate the color, there's not many blue bits in
Speaker 3: America anymore.
Speaker 2: So what about politics in this country?
Speaker 3: Yeah, well that's you know, obviously, I was I was
Speaker 3: very elated when when the last election, because I think
Speaker 3: things were getting really so bad.
Speaker 2: But I think I think by saying they're getting so bad,
Speaker 2: you are under estimating to a criminal level.
Speaker 3: I mean it was disgusting, absolutely it is. It was
Speaker 3: criminal the way we were being run. I mean it
Speaker 3: was an open I mean that means they stole from
Speaker 3: every one of our bank accounts that last government. You know,
Speaker 3: now they're saying it it was some that was now
Speaker 3: the National Party's fault. I mean, how many billions are
Speaker 3: we in debt now? I mean it went up so
Speaker 3: much in three years, unbelievable. But I'm a bit worried
Speaker 3: because I actually was elite elated when they were all
Speaker 3: thrown out. And I must admit I've become a very
Speaker 3: happy person with the coalition. I think we're lucky. We
Speaker 3: actually do have the coalition and we have those you know,
Speaker 3: Darryl Winston, who I think I probably was going to
Speaker 3: ban from Antoine's anyway many years ago. But he to
Speaker 3: give him his credit in the early days, he was
Speaker 3: our hero when he first became a politician. He was
Speaker 3: at Antoine's every Friday night and everyone was in love
Speaker 3: with him. I would have voted for him in two
Speaker 3: seconds for Prime minister because he was the only one
Speaker 3: that made any sense and it was a new reth
Speaker 3: of fresh air. Anyway, still there and all sorts of
Speaker 3: things have happened, But without him and David Seymour at
Speaker 3: the moment, I think we would have a huge problem
Speaker 3: in this country. And I think everyone that rubbish that coalition,
Speaker 3: I think they're very lucky we have it quite frankly,
Speaker 3: because there are people that are actually keeping the government
Speaker 3: honest or to account, to account they're trying to. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but I mean it is moving in that direction. Will
Speaker 3: be interesting, I think with the next next election, because
Speaker 3: I'm very worried about how we're still sitting on the
Speaker 3: fence on all sorts of things when I think national
Speaker 3: parties should actually be saying a bit more than they
Speaker 3: instead of just agreeing or not agreeing with anyone. I
Speaker 3: think they should have policy that they were elected to do,
Speaker 3: and that worries me that they're not. And I don't
Speaker 3: think fence sitting is going to help because the next election,
Speaker 3: anything I see labor coming up in the polls again.
Speaker 3: Heaven help us if they actually get in with other parties.
Speaker 3: You know, that's the end of New Zealand. We're already
Speaker 3: almost there.
Speaker 2: Well, if they had one this lastly, that it would
Speaker 2: be the end, well exactly, and you can only extend
Speaker 2: it to the next one. The other aspect that contributes
Speaker 2: to that is the number of people who fled the
Speaker 2: country and continue to do so. Because I like to
Speaker 2: put it this way, the collective IQ of of the
Speaker 2: country is dropping. And there was a guest on the
Speaker 2: podcast a few weeks ago. I can't I can't remember
Speaker 2: who it was now who who I put a question
Speaker 2: to about the future of the country And the answer
Speaker 2: was that we might have been Professor McCullock actually that
Speaker 2: we could very easily be going down the road of
Speaker 2: other countries in our region where people go for a
Speaker 2: holiday for the sunshine and the scenery and what have you,
Speaker 2: and then they pack up and go home. That's where
Speaker 2: he thought this country would head unless dramatic changes were made.
Speaker 2: How do you think about MMP Then.
Speaker 3: Well, MP I did the catering at a very upmarket
Speaker 3: probably who no one thought it was going to work,
Speaker 3: So I can assure you there was caviat There was
Speaker 3: every damn thing you could possibly get on offer for
Speaker 3: that evening of MMP. You know what, when it was
Speaker 3: obvious that it was going to which way it was going,
Speaker 3: no one had any of the food. They just went home.
Speaker 3: And I'll tell you what. The country has not improved
Speaker 3: since then, has it?
Speaker 4: Really?
Speaker 2: MMP?
Speaker 3: I mean, how many people are on those back benches,
Speaker 3: probably even on the front benches that are not elected.
Speaker 3: And that's why the country's how it is. I mean
Speaker 3: we elect people and then you go right down that
Speaker 3: list and some of those people are just tron goos
Speaker 3: from hell. You know, they have not one ounce of
Speaker 3: intelligence and they get in there. Well, we just saw
Speaker 3: it when they attacked Parliament the other night the other day,
Speaker 3: when Jerry had to actually suspend it. I have never
Speaker 3: been so embarrassed and disgusted with that, And like Willie
Speaker 3: Jackson really should, he should be held account for a
Speaker 3: lot of things. And in that young woman, I don't
Speaker 3: even want to know a name who ripped up the
Speaker 3: piece of paper and started all that crap. I mean,
Speaker 3: it was just unacceptable. And that's supposed to be the
Speaker 3: hymnical of what we believe in, you know, and there
Speaker 3: it is just turning into total chaos. I mean, wearing
Speaker 3: hats and all that stuff there. I mean, look, you
Speaker 3: can't do this, you know it is it's higher. Well,
Speaker 3: it's the court of the country, isn't it.
Speaker 4: Really?
Speaker 2: Did you read the Herald editorial.
Speaker 3: On that, No, I didn't. I try not to read
Speaker 3: that anymore. I canceled my herald.
Speaker 2: The Herald editorial on it was was that it was
Speaker 2: done with class and style. I'm choosing the similar words
Speaker 2: class and style. And that's the way that she was
Speaker 2: brought up to exercise her anger or express herself. And
Speaker 2: I thought, the sacredness that we are expected to behave
Speaker 2: with when we walk into a Maria or other place,
Speaker 2: if we if we behaved in that manner in reverse,
Speaker 2: you get lynched.
Speaker 3: It might be in a Hongy, you know, go back,
Speaker 3: go back all those years.
Speaker 2: You know, they deny that happened to but never one.
Speaker 3: We shouldn't get onto.
Speaker 2: That space anyway. We were a good agreement on that
Speaker 2: as far as MMP is concerned, just a word of counterbalance.
Speaker 2: There is a problem with put it this way, namely,
Speaker 2: an Anglo speaking country anyone from the Commonwealth that does
Speaker 2: any country that doesn't have political issues at the moment
Speaker 2: along the same lines very hard. America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand,
Speaker 2: where else Britain and a person's even getting worse, all
Speaker 2: at odds with each other in most cases not a
Speaker 2: well except America now probably with hope balancing on the
Speaker 2: cliff edge, you know.
Speaker 3: I sometimes I think it's probably lucky we lived when
Speaker 3: we did, because I hate to think it's going to
Speaker 3: be like in twenty five or thirty years. Hopefully everyone will.
Speaker 3: I mean, look, Australia is going the same way. I mean,
Speaker 3: it's becoming a nightmare there now too, So I'm not
Speaker 3: quite sure what's going to happen. And I know people
Speaker 3: think that you're too old to even have an opinion
Speaker 3: and all that sort of stuff, but it really worries
Speaker 3: me about what's going to happen, especially for grandchildren.
Speaker 2: I mean, what are they going to be living in? Well,
Speaker 2: what are they going to be believing? Exactly? It's throwning.
Speaker 2: I think that America is on track already to reverse
Speaker 2: the trend wocism is under. The American universities are all
Speaker 2: going to be confronted with challenges with their wocism, etc.
Speaker 2: And it's going to filter right through and it's going
Speaker 2: to do it very quickly because everybody knows you've got
Speaker 2: to act act ursiently. Now if and this was in
Speaker 2: last week's podcast too, I think wacism came out of America.
Speaker 2: The pushback and the killing of it is now coming
Speaker 2: out of America. So is that trend go to follow
Speaker 2: the previous trend and deal with the issue here and
Speaker 2: there and everywhere, And we'll only know in time.
Speaker 3: I think the exciting thing was and I mean everyone
Speaker 3: loves rubbishing the tr family, but young Baron who is
Speaker 3: eighteen years old. I mean he took over if you
Speaker 3: believe everything that you know, the Trump machine, and will
Speaker 3: you see how many young people actually voted for Trump,
Speaker 3: which is quite amazing. But he turned it around where
Speaker 3: you know, Trump's what nearly eighty years old, his son
Speaker 3: actually got him onto the youngto I mean, I've never
Speaker 3: seen so much stuff on TikTok on my whole life,
Speaker 3: but young people actually supporting a geriatric person and loving
Speaker 3: what he's doing.
Speaker 2: So I think there is hope there.
Speaker 3: You know that young people want and they can't cope
Speaker 3: with what's happening in the universities other you know, but
Speaker 3: they haven't had a voice because they haven't been allowed
Speaker 3: to have a voice.
Speaker 2: And I think they are moving. I think will happen
Speaker 2: here too. I think so it's a matter of as
Speaker 2: a matter of time. There were incidents that took place,
Speaker 2: and there's one in particular in the book. Actually there's
Speaker 2: too that I want you to share with us. The
Speaker 2: first one, as in the order that I read them,
Speaker 2: was the story of what was the story about alcohol
Speaker 2: and drugs and in the restaurant?
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, And.
Speaker 2: I've shared that with a few people and that fascinated
Speaker 2: with it. The young apprentice chef. Just just tell us
Speaker 2: a story about that young chef. We had this amazing
Speaker 2: young young chef that was he was a trainee and
Speaker 2: I had huge hopes for him, and he was doing
Speaker 2: everything right. And then one day Beth came to work
Speaker 2: and well she always came very early in the morning,
Speaker 2: was six.
Speaker 3: Six o'clock in the morning, yet and she was walking
Speaker 3: because she came in the front door. I was never
Speaker 3: allowed in the front door. I had to always go
Speaker 3: on the backdoor because you know, I wasn't respectable enough
Speaker 3: to go in the front door, but she walked and
Speaker 3: just passed down to us because it was Dames and Dandies,
Speaker 3: which was an underwear shot, which is I think Suzanne
Speaker 3: Turley owned it at the time, and it was one
Speaker 3: side and they had beautiful underwear. I mean it wasn't
Speaker 3: you know, it wasn't a sex shop, but it was
Speaker 3: just very good underwear and they did very very good
Speaker 3: business from antoines because these people left, you know, she
Speaker 3: was very clever at dressing the window. Anyway, Beth arrived
Speaker 3: to work and there she was walking down Parnell Road
Speaker 3: into into the courtyard and there was underwear. There was
Speaker 3: fongs or bras, there were all sorts of camusoles just
Speaker 3: lying on the ground and so she picked them all
Speaker 3: up and noticed there was a big hole in Dames
Speaker 3: and Dandy's window, and so she took them all into
Speaker 3: the restaurant and rang the police. Well, the police arrived
Speaker 3: and they decided she had actually, you know, why did
Speaker 3: you break in and take all these under it? You
Speaker 3: don't you really you know it's not going to happen.
Speaker 3: It wasn't going to happen. But anyway, she was interrogated
Speaker 3: for a while, but then the police actually went outside
Speaker 3: and realized window window had been broken, but there was
Speaker 3: also blood on it. However, it was he had got
Speaker 3: in there somehow and taken all all these things out,
Speaker 3: and anyway it went, it went to court. It was
Speaker 3: Susan got them all back, obviously, but she wasn't going
Speaker 3: to It was a bit of a nuisance really because
Speaker 3: she had been insured and her shop had been broken
Speaker 3: into quite a lot. So he went to court and
Speaker 3: I got forgotten a man, very very smart QC to
Speaker 3: actually do it. He lives over here somewhere actually, and
Speaker 3: he took him to court or he was his defense
Speaker 3: he was a defender, or he was a defending person.
Speaker 3: And I said, look, I'll come along as a referee,
Speaker 3: and he said, no, no, we don't want you anywhere near
Speaker 3: the place. So he had an all woman, all women jury,
Speaker 3: and he did the case that I was worked him
Speaker 3: so hard and I'd done that and blah.
Speaker 2: Blah blah, you're a horrible monster. Yeah, a horrible monster.
Speaker 3: And anyway, he got off the hold and said no, no,
Speaker 3: it's just a sad situation. Anyway, that was Finn. Anyway,
Speaker 3: we found out, we didn't know it was him earlier on,
Speaker 3: but we did find it, we worked out how it was,
Speaker 3: but I didn't realized that you did have a little
Speaker 3: bit of a drug problem. But after that he was
Speaker 3: really totally off the rails. And then he as friends.
Speaker 3: They were in a car one night going home and
Speaker 3: they went down their street and crashed at the bottom
Speaker 3: and they were all killed. But there wasn't enough room
Speaker 3: in the car for him that the three of them
Speaker 3: were killed. Anyway, he just rent totally off the rails.
Speaker 3: In It was very, very sad because he was such
Speaker 3: a nice, neat person. His family were lovely, So all
Speaker 3: of a sudden one day someone rang and said, oh,
Speaker 3: this boy's dead. He had actually got in the car
Speaker 3: and repeated, what did it? Just because he wanted to
Speaker 3: be with his friends, And it was just so sad.
Speaker 3: But that was total drugs And we didn't know we
Speaker 3: had another had other boys that drugs were so readily available,
Speaker 3: you know, and it was I didn't, yeah, but even then,
Speaker 3: but he sort of didn't realize they were taking them.
Speaker 3: But then all of a sudden, you had actually picked
Speaker 3: once you knew what was happening, he picked up on,
Speaker 3: you know, their habits and the way certainly they're arriving
Speaker 3: at work, not clean enough, and you know, all that.
Speaker 2: Sort of stuff. So it was very sad.
Speaker 3: That's one of the saddest things I think ever ever had.
Speaker 2: I think it's a terrible story.
Speaker 3: Anyway, I actually went to the funeral and the parents
Speaker 3: asked me that I didn't warn me, but I had
Speaker 3: to stand up and say things. But then afterwards people
Speaker 3: blamed me for it, and I just felt so terrible
Speaker 3: about it because.
Speaker 2: You know, and I did.
Speaker 3: I did feel that quite guilty about because we didn't
Speaker 3: pick it up, and it was he was obviously obviously
Speaker 3: a very disturbed young man and was at home, yes,
Speaker 3: sort of off and on, but he was the most polite,
Speaker 3: wonderful person, and he was a sponge for knowledge. He
Speaker 3: was going to be a very very good chef, but
Speaker 3: he just got and also one with the wrong people.
Speaker 2: I think the other case was involving a briefcase. Oh
Speaker 2: I love that one. Yeah, go for it.
Speaker 3: I didn't at the moment at the time, but I was,
Speaker 3: you know, because we didn't take f post. We didn't
Speaker 3: never have an f poss machine till the day we
Speaker 3: closed the restaurant, so we just had a zips app
Speaker 3: or we had signing accounts, or you had cash. So anyway,
Speaker 3: at the end of the evening, I used to sit
Speaker 3: in and I didn't even think about it, just sit
Speaker 3: in the window and well, because we had a courtyard
Speaker 3: and you didn't see anybody. And I'd sit there and
Speaker 3: put the cash into one and put the credit cards
Speaker 3: into another for Beth to come and do in the morning,
Speaker 3: and then i'd put it in the cupboard into a
Speaker 3: safe that we had. Anyway, one night, it was quite
Speaker 3: late and I was just leaving and had I had
Speaker 3: a metal briefcase, which I loved anyway, so I had
Speaker 3: that and I was carrying it and I walk out
Speaker 3: and then suddenly these two big fellows they give us
Speaker 3: a briefcase. And I said, no, no. They said, we've just
Speaker 3: been watching. You've got a lot of cash there, mate,
Speaker 3: got a lot of cash there. I said, no, no,
Speaker 3: you're not having my cash, and they were tall of couse.
Speaker 3: Then you know, I'm just allay short us so and
Speaker 3: I thought no they so they said you're going to
Speaker 3: give it to us. I don't know what what kicked in,
Speaker 3: but I got the bloody briefcase and I just hit
Speaker 3: him right around the head, and he fell on the
Speaker 3: ground and fell on because you know, when our courtyard
Speaker 3: was were bricks and stones and rocks. We fell there
Speaker 3: and there's just blood pouring everywhere, and so I lifted
Speaker 3: it again to hit the other guy, and he just
Speaker 3: ran away. Anyway, I thought, oh god, and I looked
Speaker 3: like I've killed him, so I thought I've got it.
Speaker 3: So I just got it, got in my car and
Speaker 3: drove home as quickly as I could. And then I
Speaker 3: felt so guilty that I rang the police, so they
Speaker 3: came and got me and took me back to the restaurant.
Speaker 3: There was this huge pool of blood, but not him.
Speaker 3: He said, Oh, I think you're lucky this You're lucky
Speaker 3: this stone a lot of blood, but he's not dead.
Speaker 3: But if we find it it will be a manslaugh
Speaker 3: of judge.
Speaker 2: Wow. So you lived with that for how long?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 3: I actually was quite excited about it. I thought, oh, I'm
Speaker 3: stronger than I thought I was. But it was every
Speaker 3: day I left there I never ever took I didn't
Speaker 3: have the cash in the bag anyway, but we didn't
Speaker 3: take it home. But from then on I was made
Speaker 3: sure there was someone there, you know, not never by
Speaker 3: yourself on there because you know over you know, up
Speaker 3: the road and Parnell there was a motelity place that
Speaker 3: all the people that on the corner yeah yeah, which
Speaker 3: has not been nicely demolished this week. But that's where
Speaker 3: they put the people, you know that instead of motels,
Speaker 3: the homeless people. I don't know what they were, but
Speaker 3: they put them in there. And the minute those people arrived,
Speaker 3: that whole street every shop was robbed. And I had
Speaker 3: one one night and he was lurking around and had
Speaker 3: a crowbar, and I thought, I've got to do something
Speaker 3: about this. So I rang the police because I was
Speaker 3: worried that he because he had actually had broken into
Speaker 3: accent on wine yep. And so I rang the police
Speaker 3: and they said, you know, I knew they weren't going
Speaker 3: to cum and I said, I think you should. He's
Speaker 3: got a gun. They were there in two minutes. It
Speaker 3: wasn't a gun, it was just a piece of wood.
Speaker 3: But anyway, they did arrest them. But you know that
Speaker 3: was what are they building there?
Speaker 2: I well, it's a church.
Speaker 3: I have a feeling, you know, they're short of money.
Speaker 3: I have a feeling it's church land. Because if you've
Speaker 3: seen one since Steven's. They're building that apartment block which
Speaker 3: is nearly finished. I think they can do the same there. Well,
Speaker 3: this is all very local, but most people know that.
Speaker 3: Most people in New Zealand would be aware of the cathedral.
Speaker 3: And so that's that's the area that we're talking about.
Speaker 3: It's on the it's on the peak of the hill
Speaker 3: in the Parnell and the views from that what you're talking.
Speaker 2: About the number one magnificence. I'm just studying. And when
Speaker 2: they started buildings, I wouldn't want to live there, not
Speaker 2: on that corner. Busy as hell. It's appropriate being a
Speaker 2: church next door and you're just exposed. But it's actually
Speaker 2: turned out very nicely. It's a very beautiful building.
Speaker 4: It is.
Speaker 2: However, I wouldn't want to be on the ground floor.
Speaker 2: Have you driven past here?
Speaker 3: I mean you can look straight, but getting out of
Speaker 3: that property, it's right on the top of Brighton Road.
Speaker 3: In the morning, they're stacked down to shore roads. Unless
Speaker 3: you've got very and you know what, people will hate
Speaker 3: them because you know they've got a bit of money
Speaker 3: and they're not going to let them in.
Speaker 2: I would hate to be there. Well, you've added to
Speaker 2: my own thought. So the one on the other side,
Speaker 2: if that's what they're going to do, will be pretty
Speaker 2: much the same, and.
Speaker 3: They can only go a certain height because you've got
Speaker 3: the museums as they covenant over how far you can
Speaker 3: go to.
Speaker 2: It's an ew we think, right.
Speaker 3: I think so that motel is a big square area
Speaker 3: and it is lisol from the church, but there's no
Speaker 3: way because the one on Ones and Stevens, I think
Speaker 3: is all sold. So there is a market for and
Speaker 3: you've got up the road of the Old Blind and
Speaker 3: Stude that's packed as well.
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 2: It probably doesn't matter too much because most of the
Speaker 2: people who will live there will be retired and they're
Speaker 2: able to afford it. No, w aren't we going to
Speaker 2: work every day like we used to? Like you, it's
Speaker 2: a very short journey from the bedroom to the studio.
Speaker 2: There is one other matter that I have left till last.
Speaker 2: Let me do it this way. This is the dedication
Speaker 2: at the front.
Speaker 4: Of the book.
Speaker 2: This book is the story of two people who had
Speaker 2: a vision. One of them was Beth, who I was
Speaker 2: so blessed to find she managed to turn a dream
Speaker 2: to a magnificent reality with just a little help from me.
Speaker 2: Beth sits on my shoulder every single day, guiding me
Speaker 2: hopefully in the right direction. I love her, I miss her,
Speaker 2: and I thank her with all my heart. Now I'm
Speaker 2: an emotional type. I can't help it, so I know
Speaker 2: how you're feeling. But you were together a long time,
Speaker 2: you were dedicated. She was a wonderful woman. The two
Speaker 2: of you were a team, which is what most marriages
Speaker 2: should be, and you were denied access to her prematurely.
Speaker 2: How are you coping?
Speaker 3: Well, let's say, because I've now moved house, because we're
Speaker 3: in our house for forty two years, and Beth loved
Speaker 3: the garden. It was a huge garden, and I decided
Speaker 3: I have because I just couldn't cope with living there
Speaker 3: by myself without her because everything reminded me, every flower,
Speaker 3: because she planted them all or looked after them all,
Speaker 3: and I could not cope with it, really. But anyway,
Speaker 3: I stayed there for a really while, but then in
Speaker 3: the end I thought, I've just got to get out
Speaker 3: of here, because I've got to move on. You can't
Speaker 3: just sit and stagnate, and you know, you'd sit there
Speaker 3: and you get so emotional and probably you know you're
Speaker 3: by yourself and So anyway, so I did. I bought
Speaker 3: a new apartment, and I'm finding it very difficult to
Speaker 3: actually because no garden. Beautiful views, but no garden, and
Speaker 3: I do miss the garden. However, if you walk into
Speaker 3: my house, it's Beth anyway, because I've taken She's there.
Speaker 3: Everything I've got orchards, and I've got lovely Alma who's
Speaker 3: to have cartia floris. She knew how best loved having
Speaker 3: orchards in the house. She comes up every couple of
Speaker 3: weeks and just Redo does all the orchids, so that
Speaker 3: make sure it's all there. So however, I still have
Speaker 3: not got over it, and I don't think I ever will,
Speaker 3: because I mean we were together, what nearly fifty three years,
Speaker 3: and we did everything together.
Speaker 2: You know, we never.
Speaker 3: Really apart, so and that's quite unusual because in a
Speaker 3: restaurant situation that usually falls over. But she was a
Speaker 3: very strong person, I you know, and I was, as
Speaker 3: you probably read in the book. You know, I was
Speaker 3: you know, I'm a bad ass, but but I'm not
Speaker 3: really a bad ass. However, she was the steady hand
Speaker 3: that every time, like just for instance, like if I
Speaker 3: got it, you know, I used to get very upset
Speaker 3: with the stuff.
Speaker 2: And I don't hold back.
Speaker 3: I just you know, there's a tongue lashing or a
Speaker 3: good snake around the head, all that sort of thing.
Speaker 3: But she was the one that would go to them
Speaker 3: and say, boys, just come around the corner, just ignore him,
Speaker 3: you'll come down.
Speaker 2: It's nothing personal. And so she was.
Speaker 3: She looked after the whole front. I mean, she was
Speaker 3: everyone's mother anyway. So you know, people like Simon Wooley
Speaker 3: and they were they were was for ten years. He's
Speaker 3: some of these waiters. You know, they were our children
Speaker 3: really when you think about it. But she was such
Speaker 3: a good person and I probably didn't deserve her, but
Speaker 3: she was. She was with her weight in gold. And
Speaker 3: I mean even now, I mean you're sitting there and
Speaker 3: you're talking about and I'm getting a bit emotional about
Speaker 3: it too, But.
Speaker 2: She talks. I talk to her all the time.
Speaker 3: I just because especially if I get a little bit
Speaker 3: out of control, I say, oh, okay, okay. You know,
Speaker 3: I was sitting somewhere the other day and I said, okay,
Speaker 3: I'll stop, and they said, what do you try and say?
Speaker 3: A best just told me to shut up. You know,
Speaker 3: if I go and give a speech anywhere, you know,
Speaker 3: and you start rambling. I just I always see she's
Speaker 3: sitting in front of me, and like she would always,
Speaker 3: you know, if I started wrong, she'd just on the
Speaker 3: watch or sip it, you know, and then I know
Speaker 3: what's got to stop now, because you know, my father
Speaker 3: used to say, I was vaccinated with a gramophone needle.
Speaker 3: So I do get a bit carried away. And I
Speaker 3: don't care what anyone thinks. But see she did care
Speaker 3: about what people thought. And she she kept down twince going,
Speaker 3: and that's all there is to it. But when she went,
Speaker 3: it was Simon Woolley who came in because she got very,
Speaker 3: very very sick, and it was all very sudden, and
Speaker 3: Simon Woolley came and said, you've got to close this restaurant.
Speaker 3: You've just got to get out of here. You cannot
Speaker 3: stay here anymore. And that was mid COVID, or just
Speaker 3: to I know it just after COVID.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: It was the best thing I ever did in my life,
Speaker 3: was in two and I didn't tell anyone we were
Speaker 3: closing it. Two days that place stripped out and people
Speaker 3: thought we were redecorating, and it just never opened again.
Speaker 2: And I did go. After birth passed.
Speaker 3: I went went up to the restaurant when we're doing
Speaker 3: jewelry and I we're doing the book, and I went
Speaker 3: and sat in there and I just cried my eyes out.
Speaker 3: I just couldn't cove and I thought, did I actually
Speaker 3: spend fifty years of my life in this funny little hole,
Speaker 3: you know? And it was that was my exit and
Speaker 3: I suddenly realized, you know, there is another life and
Speaker 3: I've got to go and do it. And I have
Speaker 3: done it. I mean, I'm quite excited at the moment.
Speaker 3: I'm opening in a new company, and I'm doing a
Speaker 3: mentoring work at the aut and I'm doing a lot
Speaker 3: of charity work. So I just keep so busy, but
Speaker 3: I have to because of every now and then you're
Speaker 3: sitting at home for two days and you think, you know,
Speaker 3: it's just a horrible feeling.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you're handling it well. And the guidance
Speaker 2: that you're still getting and I know that's what you're
Speaker 2: getting because you know, well AI called AI. So let
Speaker 2: them meet. Try the Story of Antwines with Tony Astell
Speaker 2: and I moved to Auckland in nineteen eighty five and
Speaker 2: I booked Antwines for my fiftieth birthday. Do you remember that?
Speaker 3: Only a couple of years aga, of course I can remember.
Speaker 2: I booked a restaurant for my fiftieth birthday, the whole restaurant,
Speaker 2: because only takes about thirty.
Speaker 3: Yep, well fifty if you want to.
Speaker 2: But yeah, and then my father fell very ill and
Speaker 2: ended up dying, and I had to cancel the reservation
Speaker 2: because I knew that I couldn't be there and he
Speaker 2: was in Australia. So the sixtieth went by and I didn't,
Speaker 2: but I booked it for my seventieth, and then two
Speaker 2: years later we booked it for the fair Well function
Speaker 2: from news Talks Envy. I paid for the first one
Speaker 2: and the company paid for the second one, so we
Speaker 2: spent more. Anyway, it is filled with memories and I
Speaker 2: was I felt pangs and different other emotions as I
Speaker 2: read the book, from ranging from sadness to getting a
Speaker 2: cracking a smile at least. So thank you. It's been
Speaker 2: great doing this with you. This is the longest one
Speaker 2: I've ever done. Oh really, yeah, Oh I'm not And
Speaker 2: it's just just what I wanted it to be, a
Speaker 2: conversation with you and me and anybody who wants to
Speaker 2: eavesdrop is welcome. Good stuff. That's fantastic, Tony love you, thank.
Speaker 4: You, missus.
Speaker 2: Producer. Here we are for the final mail room for
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four, and let's make it short and sharp.
Speaker 5: Heall we leiden, I can't believe another year has gone by.
Speaker 5: It incredible. I know we're all saying it aren't.
Speaker 2: We're a title of six years now, believable anyway you launch.
Speaker 5: Leyden Brett says, isn't it interesting the world over that
Speaker 5: the same basic manipulations of people goes on today as
Speaker 5: it always has. Nothing new under the sun. These things
Speaker 5: are extremely well known and well studied, Yet we keep
Speaker 5: falling prey to manipulation as if we are unaware entirely,
Speaker 5: and humanity has learned nothing from its own history, which
Speaker 5: we keep repeating. It's like humanity can't or won't break
Speaker 5: free of our primitive hardwiring and bad habits, even though
Speaker 5: we have the potential within us to do so. In
Speaker 5: New Zealand, we suffer from long term poor governance, yet
Speaker 5: can't seem to find our way out of the cycle trap.
Speaker 5: The blind leading the blind, as it were, What will
Speaker 5: it take to shift us out of our malaise and
Speaker 5: fire a path firmly anchored in integrity, wisdom and highest good.
Speaker 5: Are we even brave enough to undertake such a journey?
Speaker 5: That's from Brett Bread for Brett.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, indeed, thank you Brett. Appreciate it very much.
Speaker 2: Now this is a bit lengthiness. Producer Helen writes, I'm
Speaker 2: a member of the Methane Science Accord. We're a group
Speaker 2: of farmers and scientists standing against the unscientific justification of
Speaker 2: ruminant methane calculation, mitigation and taxation. Please do check out
Speaker 2: our social media face page. Sadly, well, sadly in this occasion.
Speaker 2: I don't do Facebook, but maybe I can have a
Speaker 2: look at yours. Sure. Here's our press release regarding the
Speaker 2: Methane Review Panel's latest findings. Methane Review Panel dazed and confused.
Speaker 2: The Methane Review Panel have strayed from science and been
Speaker 2: swept up in politics to justify continuing the methane money train,
Speaker 2: states Jane Smith, chair of the Methane Scienceord, regarding today's
Speaker 2: announcement by a Crown appointed review panel to recommend continued
Speaker 2: methane reduction regulation targets for New Zealand. Ruminants quote. It
Speaker 2: is hugely disappointing that the panel process has been clearly
Speaker 2: nothing more than a desktop exercise. They have ignored their
Speaker 2: terms of reference, where they were asked to quantify the
Speaker 2: actual warming impact of methane, despite their early indication that
Speaker 2: any reduction target was nonsensical due to the downward trajectory
Speaker 2: of New Zealand's livestock methane emissions and the very simple
Speaker 2: science behind methane levels at steady state or below. They
Speaker 2: have instead chosen to take a more politically palatable, scientifically
Speaker 2: anemic path by endorsing generic methane reduction targets. This will
Speaker 2: unsuccessfully lump higher costs, expedite intensification, and interfere with the
Speaker 2: naturally rape status of red meat sector for nothing more
Speaker 2: than a quasi heroic headline. The review fails to account
Speaker 2: for the fact that ruminants are the only emitters that
Speaker 2: use up the ghs. The report fails to account for
Speaker 2: the fact that ruminants are the only admitters that use
Speaker 2: up a GHG to create one, and therefore should have
Speaker 2: a net figure computed, and it's mystifying to see outdated
Speaker 2: metrics CO two and GWP being used, which grossly overstate
Speaker 2: methane's contribution. The taxpayer needs to ask why the panel
Speaker 2: dodged their one and only role of assessing science and
Speaker 2: methane metrics. We live in a country that cardifford an
Speaker 2: adequate healthcare system, yet continues to burn circa one billion
Speaker 2: dollars chasing methane reductions. That's really about all we need
Speaker 2: to know, isn't it. We live in a country that
Speaker 2: cardifford an adequate healthcare system, yet continues to burn circa
Speaker 2: one billion dollars chasing methane reduction. Perhaps it was too
Speaker 2: embarrassing to admit that any global warming effect of New
Speaker 2: Zealand methane is virtually nonexistent and so inconsequential that it
Speaker 2: cannot be measured. There's a lot going on in the
Speaker 2: methane front, and most of its lives well for those
Speaker 2: who are treating it as a curse.
Speaker 5: Leyden Jin says in twenty twenty four, we learned three
Speaker 5: important lessons from history. Firstly, miracles do happen despite the
Speaker 5: constant defamation from mainstream media, the weaponization of law by
Speaker 5: the Democrats, and the two assassination attempts on his life.
Speaker 5: Donald Trump's return as the forty seventh President of the
Speaker 5: United States is nothing short of a miracle. Secondly, one
Speaker 5: person can make a difference. You mentioned Robbie Starbuck, a
Speaker 5: Hollywood music video editor who turned into a one man
Speaker 5: army against DEI. He and his team managed to pressure
Speaker 5: Walmart Harley, Davidson, Ford, and many others to have abandoned
Speaker 5: their DEI policy. Thirdly, boundaries are compulsory for human flourishing.
Speaker 5: We have to protect children from being castrated by trans ideology,
Speaker 5: protect the country's borders from unwanted immigrants, and protect free
Speaker 5: speech from being stifled, all necessary boundaries for a free world.
Speaker 5: In twenty twenty five, I look forward to three things. Firstly,
Speaker 5: that Pierre Polivere will depose that sick, twisted communist Dustin
Speaker 5: Trudeau from Canada. Secondly, that more woke companies go broke,
Speaker 5: starting with Jaguar with their stupid, idiotic non binary ad. Thirdly,
Speaker 5: that I get to listen to the Laytonsmith podcast number
Speaker 5: three hundred. I know it's been said many times by others,
Speaker 5: but it's worth repeating. Thank you for doing God's work
Speaker 5: and speaking truth to power in your podcast. Laton, you
Speaker 5: make every Wednesday a real joy, have a well deserved
Speaker 5: break and I'll hear from you next year. God bless
Speaker 5: Thank you so much, Jim, Thank thank you.
Speaker 2: Jim, Thank you you have worked over time.
Speaker 5: Thank you Jan Yes you have.
Speaker 2: Na from Gillian as a long time listener of your
Speaker 2: good self. I am commenting for the first time as
Speaker 2: a fit and healthy seventy three year old. Last year
Speaker 2: I discovered I had a tumor of the pancreas and
Speaker 2: with it, and within a month was admitted to North
Speaker 2: Shore Hospital for the Whipple surgery. All went well and
Speaker 2: I was released from hospital eleven days later. This was
Speaker 2: the first time I had used the hospital service since
Speaker 2: the cesarean birth of my son thirty nine years ago,
Speaker 2: and I cannot speak highly enough of my care and
Speaker 2: follow up chemo. To hear you read out the Act
Speaker 2: press release regarding Nursing Council pillars of competency stipulations for
Speaker 2: nurses in New Zealand. I had to laugh when you
Speaker 2: encountered a word that you could not pronounce, which came
Speaker 2: under the heading of communication. This really is a step
Speaker 2: too far, and I look forward to a bit of
Speaker 2: sen returning to our beautiful country. Just had a call
Speaker 2: from my son who is trying to enroll his five
Speaker 2: year old daughter in school, and one of the forms
Speaker 2: he had to fill in had a word that he
Speaker 2: had never heard of, he being a linguist and translator
Speaker 2: of Japanese to English. Best wish is for the festive
Speaker 2: season to you and yours from Jill, third generation Kiwi.
Speaker 2: Thank you, and that's the note on which we finish
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four. This is a producer. Thank you for
Speaker 2: all your input late, on which there has been much, no, not.
Speaker 5: Hardly any, to be honest with you, but I hope
Speaker 5: everybody has a wonderful Christmas and New Year, and we
Speaker 5: look forward to seeing your back again next year.
Speaker 2: Indeed, and to celebrate, I brought you a little drink.
Speaker 5: Oh, thank you so much. It's the smallest glass of
Speaker 5: water I have ever seen. And why do you persist
Speaker 5: with these glasses?
Speaker 2: It's like a bimble because I don't want to overdrink.
Speaker 2: You don't like drinking water. Do you see you next year?
Speaker 6: Now?
Speaker 2: Just an addendum to what I was quoting from Judge Willie.
Speaker 2: It's the last paragraph of that article that really matters.
Speaker 2: The whole article itself is very good, but when you
Speaker 2: get to that final paragraph, he pulls no punches. Let
Speaker 2: me put it that way now. In conclusion, I want
Speaker 2: to refer you to this particular piece, this article, The
Speaker 2: Rise and Fall of Western Science. You can access it
Speaker 2: via the Brownstone Institute, or you can access it through
Speaker 2: I think it's a real clear science written by Thomas First,
Speaker 2: who I had not been aware of until this actually peered.
Speaker 2: Thomas First teaches applied mathematics at Palaki University, Czech Republic.
Speaker 2: His background is in mathematic mathematical modeling and data science.
Speaker 2: He's the co founder of the Association of Microbiologists, Immunologists
Speaker 2: and Statisticians, which has been providing the Czech Republic with
Speaker 2: data based and honest information about the coronavirus epidemic. He's
Speaker 2: also co founder of Samisdat, a journal which focuses on
Speaker 2: uncovering scientific misconduct in Czech science. We are one of
Speaker 2: those here. I think probably the closest we would have
Speaker 2: would be Guy Hatchet. Anyway, The Rise and Fall of
Speaker 2: Western Science. I'm not going to read the whole thing,
Speaker 2: it's nine pages, but he runs through the history of
Speaker 2: Western science, the technological sprint in the late nineteenth century,
Speaker 2: collectivist ideologies of the twentieth century big state and big business.
Speaker 2: Then we get to going downhill. Actually, before I get
Speaker 2: to going downhill, the previous subhead is big state and
Speaker 2: big business. Since the beginning of the Cold War, the
Speaker 2: two superpowers disagreed on everything about from one thing, everything
Speaker 2: must be based on science. The East continued with nationalized
Speaker 2: science under this system. The areas of research that thrived
Speaker 2: in the Soviet Bloc were mainly those that were not
Speaker 2: asked to scientifically underpin communist ideology, but rather to catch
Speaker 2: up and overtake the capitalist bloc. And they're just taking
Speaker 2: some selected sentences out of some of these paragraphs. It
Speaker 2: really is just to entice you to read it yourself.
Speaker 2: The amount of public funding increased sharply, and more and
Speaker 2: more research areas started to appear where it was clear
Speaker 2: which results were politically desirable and which were not. Moves
Speaker 2: into areas of gender studies, etc. Then historically, the first
Speaker 2: post war victim of nationalized science was climatology, which today
Speaker 2: serves exclusively to legitimize the political goals of the de
Speaker 2: industrialization of the West. Next section is the West goes
Speaker 2: out of its mind, but the real catastrophe for Western
Speaker 2: science has come with the covid epidemic, when the West
Speaker 2: went completely out of its mind. At that moment, the
Speaker 2: two scientific curses of the twentieth century met in terrible synergy.
Speaker 2: Big business quickly understood that the epidemic represented an opportunity
Speaker 2: that may not be repeated. If opioids were worth a
Speaker 2: few lies, the possibility of selling billions of vaccines to
Speaker 2: panic to governments all over the world was worth many lies. Moreover,
Speaker 2: the American left has just experienced the enormous shock of
Speaker 2: Trump's election victory and readily jumped at every opportunity to
Speaker 2: derail his presidency. Goes into detail there, going downhill over
Speaker 2: the next page. More and more disasters followed in which
Speaker 2: rigged research overseen by corrupt regulators led to damage on
Speaker 2: a staggering scale. For example, pharmaceutical companies managed to convince
Speaker 2: American doctors that chronic pain is a problem that tens
Speaker 2: of millions of people suffer from. Through a combination of
Speaker 2: aggressive marketing and manipulated scientific studies, they created an addiction
Speaker 2: in millions of people to opioids sold under the names
Speaker 2: of OxyContin and fentanyl. A little further down this tragedy
Speaker 2: is based on science corrupted by the pharmaceutical business and
Speaker 2: dysfunctional drug market regulation. Then to the end of science.
Speaker 2: After three hundred years, the Enlightenment project of Western science
Speaker 2: has rea reach and important crossroads. At the end of
Speaker 2: the nineteenth century, science brought fascinating progress to mankind. During
Speaker 2: the twentieth century, science gained so much prestige that it
Speaker 2: replaced religion and became a central ideology, or the central
Speaker 2: ideology of the world. Gradually, however, like Christianity before Reformation,
Speaker 2: it became a victim of its own success. Instead of
Speaker 2: seeking the truth about how and why the world works,
Speaker 2: it began to abuse its prestige and serve the powerful
Speaker 2: and the rich. By the end of the twentieth century,
Speaker 2: science had already been damaged beyond repair by either big
Speaker 2: governments to legitimize their ideological goals or by big business
Speaker 2: to legitimize the distribution of their often toxic products. The
Speaker 2: rotten edifice of Western science finally collapsed in twenty twenty
Speaker 2: during the COVID crisis. We have to wait now before
Speaker 2: enough people realized that science, the central ideology of our civilization,
Speaker 2: is in ruins. Then we can start thinking about what
Speaker 2: to do. Christianity was saved by the strict separation of
Speaker 2: church and state. To save science and equally daring step
Speaker 2: will be needed, but that is a topic for further essays.
Speaker 2: Thomas First af Urest is the author and it's well
Speaker 2: worth your attention. So on that note. That concludes twenty
Speaker 2: twenty four, and I'll leave you with a song. It's
Speaker 2: a very special song written and recorded by Evan Silver,
Speaker 2: who's a good friend. He wrote it with the idea
Speaker 2: of me joining him, and I keep telling him I
Speaker 2: cannot hold a tune. He said, yes, you can. I
Speaker 2: say no, I can't, and in the end he did
Speaker 2: it on his own. It's a lovely song. Evan Silver.
Speaker 2: Take me to Christmas, and I wish you a merry
Speaker 2: Christmas and a very happy and safe New Year.
Speaker 7: Christmas is made up of omens that come once a
Speaker 7: year when we make up for lost time those foreign years.
Speaker 7: Weather in, sunshine, weather and rain will be there, dressed
Speaker 7: in the spirit of love.
Speaker 8: All then, good cheese.
Speaker 7: Take me to Christmas.
Speaker 4: I don't want to miss this.
Speaker 8: Take me to Christmas, an intuw year you tell me
Speaker 8: Christmas it's all about give them riceipt.
Speaker 6: Counting the gifts to be sure we've got all of me.
Speaker 6: You have some stories, I'll have a few of my sleep.
Speaker 9: So he is staying enough late this Christmas Eve, we
Speaker 9: better hit the road.
Speaker 7: Can't eat the family waiting.
Speaker 9: One thing with Christmas, it only comes around once a year.
Speaker 8: So take me to Christmas. I don't want to miss this.
Speaker 8: Take me to Christmas.
Speaker 2: And into New Year.
Speaker 7: Take me to Christmas and don't want to business.
Speaker 8: Take me to Christmas, Christmas and into New Year.
Speaker 7: Marry Christmas, Happy.
Speaker 4: Give you.
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