I found myself with a bit of downtime last week after I’d finished vacuuming my car, the Newstalk ZB studio, my garage and the driveway for the third time that day so I sat down and watched Game of Thrones.
Now I’m not normally one for the fantasy genre unless it’s of a sexual nature and involves John Key, but I have to say that I found many of the characters similar to New Zealand broadcasters I’ve vanquished over the years. Tyrion Lannister, the plucky dwarf whose mouth gets him into trouble, reminds me a lot of my Newstalk ZB and 7pm current affairs predecessor Paul Holmes.
Meanwhile the human ratings poison Paul Henry, host of The Paul Henry Show, has a striking similarity both physically and mentally to the folically-challenged eunuch Lord Varys. It’s also easy to draw a link between the plight of Sansa Stark and that of embattled National Radio host John Campbell. Both play the victim, have a social conscience and were forced to leave their homeland against their will.
And whilst many people will liken me to Joffrey, the king who occupied the Iron Throne in season 3, I see myself more as a Denarius Tygarian, the Mother of Dragons. As we all know, the breath of the greatest dragon forged the Iron Throne, the swords of the vanquished, a thousand of them, melted together like so many candles.
But unlike King’s Landing with just one throne sitting in the Great Hall of the Red Keep, I rule from two thrones: one at Newstalk ZB on Graham Street and the other up the road at TVNZ.
Happy days. We’ll see you tomorrow.
Jeremy Wells' Mike Hosking Rants 