The Day in Review Oct 11

- Rugby and energy were today's hot topics on the telly. 3 led with the obvious one - the Government's energy policy, with Sia Aston giving us a blow-by-blow account of what's good for us. They backed it up with a nice piece on Genesis Energy's ongoing battle with Greenpeace in the Court of Appeal over its Rodney plant that was to use fossil fuels (a no-no under the new strategy). When One got around to talking about it, Guyon Espiner gave us his third rendition of the strategy, letting Kris Faafoi run through how it was going to miprove the quality of NZ's substandard housing (something every student post-2030 will appreciate).
- One gave us Dougie first. His web-address (it didn't have much on Narm Hewitt); the $30k bar tab (explained away by numerous All Blacks); management's knowledge of the incident prior to landing and their umming and ahhing over what to do. 3 did the same really. You can't go wrong when an All Black does.
- The crackdown on motorists in South Auckland got a nice piece of coverage on both channels, with One asking the pointed question "is this a revenue gathering exercise?"
- 3 had a nice little piece on the Yellow Pages Group blocking internet access to the White Pages for some groups for fear they are using it for direct marketing. The AA was one of these groups, and our man Doug Wilson was none too pleased.
- 3 also had a good piece on a new study that found people will be willing to pay higher prices for their BZP when it's made illegal, forgoing the BZP-free party pills that will be readily available to the public... oh, they didn't take that into account. Hmmm. Well, there's going to be a black market for BZP, and these pills will probably be laced with things harder than sheep drench. So parents beware.
- One had a brief run on research finding that while police recruits did require some babysitting before graduation, once they were on the beat, they performed their jobs adequately. Maybe they had been listening to Mary Wilson grill the Minister, Annette King earlier in the day.
- The rest of our news was mainly international. Absolutely bizarre.
- The Wireless continued to go with the real estate agent furore, the police graduate research, and a little on A1 milk. Nandor had a good spot on Larry Williams branding John Howard as a racist over his stance against the Bali Bombers' pending execution. I'm sure he could have found a better example than that.
- Close Up went with a woman who was still waiting for breast reconstruction surgery after being bumped off the list three times; Campbell had a wonderful piece on budgeting that I caught the first 20 seconds of before flipping back.
- Insipid brilliance of the evening goes to Barry Soper, Political Editor Extraordinaire, who on Prime News interviewed (separately) the Prime Minister and the Leader of Opposition on their understanding of what the game of rugby means to New Zealanders. Inspired.
Good night.