Droppin’ Names Like Galileo Dropped The Orange

A bit of bonus content for paid subscribers. Remembering back to nearly 12 years ago now, and the behind the scenes of my Kim Hill interview…

Back in 2012, I wrote a book about classic Kiwi songs — including many of my favourites. The book was called On Song. It’s still called that. If you can find it. I found one recently in a second hand bookstore, well, my mum pointed it out even. And the guy behind the counter recognised me or more likely heard my mum, and asked me to sign it. I opened it, and guess what…

Lol. Oh well. It was over a decade ago. At least it wasn’t personally signed to someone who had decided to ditch it. It was just a generic signature-copy for the shops.

The night we launched the book was wonderful. Big crowd in at Slow Boat. And then a bunch of us went out for a bite to eat after, around the corner at the Southern Cross. Paddy Gower was part of that gang, I went through university with him. He’s one of the busiest people you might ever meet now — and the whole country is pretty sure it knows PG. If I want to see him these days, I pretty much have to check in on my TV screen like anyone else. But he’s there when you need him to be. He turns up for the things. He answers the call if you need him. And he was there at my book launch. And was holding court around the corner after.

I was going to be on Kim Hill’s radio show that next morning — and I feel I can talk about this now, since she no longer hosts the show, right? Anyway, Paddy was winding me up, going on about how I needed to watch what I had to drink that night, needed my wits about me. One memorable line from him: “What if she just goes fucking at it with you? Decides that you are the meat for that day’s meal…” There was huge laughter from most at the table, and an even bigger roar from Gower.