Ask Uncle Dave, Scan Scan, Scan
Diary of the last 8 hours
7.40am
On the radio to bFM chatting about
the benefit levels: is this government going to be timid or what
and Trump: is there going to be a coup or what
and the National party: is that a pretty mediocre shadow cabinet or what
8.40am
Taking a long walk to get my haircut, approx 90 seconds. If you haven’t lived in a village you should totally try it.
8.43am
Getting my haircut and we're chatting about Trump and is there going to be a coup or what and also was this a hell year or what and I ask: how many weeks were you closed altogether and Kim says three months and we say, hope that's the end of that.
8.55am
Our friend Michelle arrives for her appointment and she's fully loaded with coffee and banter and she's singing and it's still not 9.00am. There is banter to the tune of what’s the point when you have as little hair as that. If I didn’t live in a village I would not be having to put up with this shit.
9.15am
On my way out Michelle is full of compliments about my haircut and making ribald comments about its likely effect upon Karren and the evening ahead and, look, if you haven’t lived in a village you should probably keep it that way.
9.20am
Walking home, thinking about the large questions of the morning. Trump; the popup leader of the opposition; Wellington having some sort of identity crisis or at least a fatberg meltdown moment, and how these questions are not easy to answer and I remember: Uncle Dave.
Loyal readers of a column I once wrote for TheNewspaper That Is Dead to Me may recall I sometimes used an expert to jelly wrestle with questions when they got too difficult.
The essential Uncle Dave outlook is nothing in life is a problem as long as you have a can of CRC, a paper shredder and your old friend liquor. I was still drinking then.
Roll up your trousers, readers, here come answers.
9.23am. Question for Uncle Dave from reader David
Hi Dave. I run a niche political party that fetishises neoliberalism, dirty martinis, getting caught in the rain, and burner phones. I have a question about the Reserve Bank governor. If I said he was as loopy as Muldoon, would that be a good idea?
Hi David
It would get you on Morning Report sounding ballsier than the National Party, but it would also make you look a bit of a fool when the Reserve Bank Governor comes on and cuts your lunch.
Thanks Uncle Dave, I think. But he’s wrong isn’t he?
Hi David. No.
9.26am
Hi Uncle Dave, it’s David again. I’m just having a bit of trouble getting my head around what you and the Governor said, and I suppose my question is: how does money work?
David, it's just like a plane, really. You know how everyone has to sit there and concentrate really hard and believe they can fly, and how that big noise starts and you start going faster and faster and next thing you're way up in the air and looking down on the Wellywood sign? Well it's like that.
Everyone just pretends really hard that money is real and so it becomes real and if you believe, really believe, then you can print as much of it as you like and it still works because everyone wants the plane to stay up in the air. Even though all you’ve done is write down on a fancy document with your letterhead: Here is money. It can buy a house.
Thanks Uncle Dave. So do you mean, if I get a mortgage from ASB for a brick and tile in Mt Roskill, they don't actually go out the back to the safe and take out the 1.2 million dollars, they just dream it up and say “yo Barfoot and Thompson check it out we sent U money?”
More or less, David. Cool eh?
Wow. There must be more to it than that ?
Well yes, but mostly it's just like you and your ideas about the free market being good for everybody. If you concentrate very hard and pretend it’s real and say it again and again somehow magically everyone just believes it's true.
10.45am Question for Uncle Dave from reader Andy
Hi Dave, I’m the mayor of a big city and I don't want to worry anybody but I think we might be a bit rooted. All our pipes are exploding because of a fatberg. All of our houses cost an absolute fortune, like, crazy money for buildings that are perched on a fault line. And there is a nice place that used to be an airforce base that will be quite nice for development that's by the water and gets lots of sun and everyone is losing their absolute shit over it. Also the young people are losing their absolute shit over the way people won't make room for apartments and whatnot and I don't know what do you think, Dave, are we a bit stuffed?
Hi Andy, would that city happen to be Wellington?
It would, Dave.
Fair enough. Okay, first thing, to set your mind at ease: the fatberg is a simply a question of making better food choices. You people have to stop having fancy burger contests. What do you imagine is going to happen when all the aioli and gruyere cheese and duck fat hits the pipes? Learn a bit of self discipline. Poached eggs, mince on toast and tomato soup is enough for any city. Learn a bit of self discipline and your pipes will be sweet.
Now, the houses. That’s a tough one. Here’s what I used to do back in my drinking days whenever things got a bit too difficult and a bit too hard to process.
You mean like a hangover
I mean exactly like a hangover Andy. Anyway whenever I was feeling the wrath of grapes I always knew exactly what to do. I would go to your magnificent public library. I would get myself a coffee and a cheese scone and I would go and stretch right out on one of the comfortable widow seats and do some snoozing and some deep thinking and ask myself how the fuck did you end up like this again Dave and I would always get my hands on an answer or at least an excuse. So do that. Go down to the library and get yourself a cheese scone and a coffee.
Uncle Dave. The library’s closed. For good, probably.
Oh. Well that’s not good.
What are you saying Dave? Are you saying we’re fucked?
Maybe not Andy, maybe not. Wait for the next Good Day. It might make you feel better.
11.46am Question for Uncle Dave from reader Chris
Hi Dave. I’m from Matamata working in the White House and people think I’m all that but I’m here just bricking myself Dave. Can you tell me what to do, the management textbooks are useless.
Hi Chris, obviously the problem is that he knows he lost but he just cannot say the words. You need to find a way to coax him out, and give him a new toy to play with.
If he thinks he can go on having rallies and not look like a LOSER, that could give him the motivation to move down to Florida and set up his rebel confederacy there.There are plenty of people that buy his shit. He just has to figure out how to have endless rallies and get some other sucker to pay for them.
What you have to do is find someone he truly respects to lay this all out for him: Putin, Gary Player, Bob Charles, Bernie Madoff, a legend of porn: someone he really admires and will listen to. Once he's out, run and do not look back.
But will there be a war, Dave?
Chris, the way I see it there is a small chunk of America that swallows Trump’s bullshit, and a much bigger chunk that is racist, thuggish, selfish, and wrongheaded and thinks it's just a flu and refuses to wear a mask. But I think only the smallest chunk would go all the way for him.
Have a look around the White House, they’re all looking for new jobs, mate. They know it's over.
He’s still at 0-12 in court, and unless the courts have something to act on, all that inflammatory innuendo will be proven empty and the machinery of the elections and the legal and military machinery to enforce it all will keep rolling towards the fair and right conclusion. I hope.
If I’m wrong, thanks for nothing, pal.
12.15pm Question for Uncle Dave from reader Barbara
Hi Dave. Sorry to send you this message on a burner phone but I’m inside the caucus listening to Judith and I'm wondering what to do now. Have you seen the state of us?
Hi Barbara, check out this excellent confession from the Twitter account @fesshole where people anonymously share their terrible truths.
My brother split up with his girlfriend, and removed her from the family WhatsApp. But we all really like her, so we created a new group with her, but without him. This has now become the main family WhatsApp.
I daresay you can join the dots Barbara. You might all want to think about making a Whatsapp group for Simon without Judith. Maybe leave Woodhouse out too. He looks like a real piece of work.
1.07pm Question for Uncle Dave from an alarmed nation
Hi Dave OMG are you watching this press conference or what?
Kia ora Aotearoa, here, have a tweet.
Shared...as I like to do whenever allowed
Uncle Dave wise as always. Someone in the media ought to give you a weekly advice column toot sweet. Actually there’s so much going on it could be a daily job if you could hack it.