Jono, Ben & Megan - The Podcast - Ben Missed the Plane but Scored Olivia Dean Tickets | FULL SHOW

Episode Date: August 18, 2026

On today’s show:  (00:00) The family feud caused by an uncle’s painfully aggressive handshake... (03:15) Ben’s chaotic mission to secure Olivia Dean tickets while trying to catch a flight! (12:00) A listener discovers Jono’s official Hindu naming letters after consulting a family astrologer (15:45) The most ridiculous ways people have managed to injure themselves  (17:50) What ticket-buying bots are doing to concert queues (20:50) Ben’s battle to stop Amanda stretching the sleeves on his favourite jersey (21:00) The household item that completely changed your life (26:50) Another setback for Ben’s Masterton parade plans  (30:50) If you could throw out one thing your partner owns, what would it be?  (38:30) A café owner catches a burglar, plus listeners share their own dramatic encounters with intruders   Join the Itty Bitty Hitty Committee HERE!Instagram:  @THEHITSBREAKFASTFacebook: The Hits Breakfast with Jono, Ben & Megan See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The John O'Ben and Megan podcast, thanks to Dilma. Goodness really does taste great. Dilma, making the world a better tea. Morning, an Auckland woman had sadly suffered a cardiac arrest at the supermarket. Fortunately, she's okay, but she got taking an ambulance to hospital, came back to pick her car up, you know, when she got out and $80 parking ticket for parking too long. Surely that's a get-off situation. This is why I'm a pro-parking ticket campaigner, you know, incidents like this.

The grubby council and the parking enforcement services. Yeah, surely she gets off that. I'm so glad that she's okay, but at the same time you come back, you're like, oh, another kick in the guts. 100% should be getting off. 80 bucks, 80 bucks. You know, all that has given me, though, is a great excuse to now use with future infringements.

My friend I was talking to on the weekend, he's been married to his wife for seven years or so, but he's got beef with one of your family members. Do you get along with all of your wife's family? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, me too. Lucky. Hit the jackpot in that regard. And if I didn't, I wouldn't be saying it on radio.

You know, so? It was a really personal question to ask you. Yeah, you're right. Why would you admit on radio? You're like a man to his cousin's an absolute. But yeah, her uncle, who hosts a lot of the family functions in that side of the Fano. He refuses to go over to the uncle's house now.

He won't have anything to do with the uncle. I'm like, oh, what happened? Is there an argument, had a function or something? He said, no, he shakes hands too hard. Oh, so he, but when he goes in, he thinks it's an asserting dominance. Yeah, right.

He's like, which is fine, I don't mean, I'm in your, I'm in your territory, but he'll, like, hold hand, crush knuckles, and then just hold on for just those, those beats too, like, have you shaken a hand like that in the past? Yeah, yeah, well, not in the last little while, but I've had those before. You're like, well,

That was a power play. That was a real, like a... And so he refuses to be powerplayed anymore, and he's given it a crack. He's like, been there, he would say 10 times, but he's like, no more. The man, this must stop. He won't have him over to his house.

I don't think the uncle knows that he's shaking hands too hard. But when you meet a powerful handshaker, like they're closing a deal on a farm or something, you're just as a soft urban individual, it really does take its toll. Go to field day. You're lucky to have your arm

and fully functioning by the time you leave in the afternoon. Is that a, would it be a sort of like going for the hug? You know, could you just, like, like a handshake, you know,

I can bring it in, buddy, you know, bring it, you know, bring it one of those situations. I don't know if they're on a huggy. I know,

that would almost get into, you know, that, oh, so he goes over handshake, you're like, put your hand away. Yeah,

I can bring it in, buddy, you know, like one of those, you know, and the uncle would be thinking, oh, hug,

you know, You've out powerplayed them in a way. You could even take it one step further and give it the... Into his neck. How you like that? That's probably where I'll draw on the line. Yeah, you like that? Now go cook those sausages.

Okay, well, that's there, definitely. Definitely for each stereo-iron of that... John O'Benn and Megan. The podcast. The hits. Dean coming to New Zealand in October, Spark Arena was the original venue. It's now been moved to a bigger venue, Western Springs Bowl, and yesterday, the first of the pre-sales went up yesterday, and for many Kiwis, and it was just, oh, geez, they make it a full-on experience trying to buy tickets on pre-sale. They do.

It's a really high-stressed pressure cooker environment they've made there for everybody. We used sort of 65,000th in the queue. And you get put through to a waiting room yesterday because... Do you refresh all the time? No, they say they don't refresh. Don't refer. Don't refresh. All your instincts are saying refresh.

I know, I know. How did you resist refreshing? Well, yesterday, just to add a bit more, because I was, like, many Kiwis desperate to try and buy tickets to go along to the show. I've been talking about it for a while. I'm like, okay, I've got all the codes and all the things. I've signed up for every Olivia Dean, like, fan club and whatever. So I'm good to go.

You're getting to spammed Olivia Dean content? Yeah, lots of it. See, I can buy all the sorts of merch and stuff. The inbox is filled up. Anyway, so I was ready for that. But then at the same time, my daughter and I were going to try and catch a plane. We'd be booked on a plane for a little thing we had to do. So that was a 10 past 12 plane trip when the tickets would go on sale at 12.

So I'm like, oh, oh, this is going to be very tight. So the whole Uber ride out, I had the laptop and it was hotspiting. I'm like, 11 o'clock, I'm on, I'm waiting to get into the room. So how is 11 o'clock the time that you're allowed to jump at? 12 o'clock. And then at 12 o'clock, everyone will get let through. Oh, but you just sit there and leave. Yeah, counting down the minutes.

You're waiting outside the gates. And I'm like, Seattle, do not close the laptop. So we're at the airport and we're doing this. And then we get to the airport. Was the Uber driver invested in your... No, I don't know if he was. I was sort of, no. They spend a lot of time just talking to their mates on their Bluetooth AirPods, don't they?

That's fine. That's what they do. And then we get to the airport and then we found out that our plane had been... Some people get upgraded, if they're lucky. We got downgraded. I've never been downgraded on a plane. That's a treat. They've like, your plane's been downgraded from a big plane to a small plane.

I'm like, okay. and you're not on it. Surprise. It's just like at the tour. So we're like, oh, what does that mean? They're like, we can put you on a later flight. And they're like, well, it's not we're going to work for the work thing we were doing. They're like, we can go on standby.

And with other people just waiting to see if some people will. Other pissed off passengers standing around. So you're like, okay, we'll give that a go. So I'm bang on 12 o'clock. I'm there having conversations with people at the front of the thing to try and get on this plane as well. My daughter, Siena, is like trying to get on for the tickets. She's sort of saying stuff at the same time going... Is she a safe pair of hands buying tickets online?

Not bad. I mean, she probably knows technically, but at the same time, it's all, you know, she's going... We're through. We're through. Should you get these ones? I'm like, I don't know. I'm talking about the plane right now. So you're both trying to get tickets to two separate events at the same time.

Probably look like at the airport that she was trying to buy plane tickets for something else. She's like, yeah. There's not enough money in your account. I'm like, this is. Just do it again. You know, like... So?

Finally, we got through and we managed to... get tickets. To be honest, I don't know what section we originally bought for, but we got some tickets. But I think, and producer Troy was the same. It felt like a lot of Kiwis, though, it was frustrating because you don't know where you're going to end up in the queue as well, no matter how early. So it's 12 o'clock kicks over, you're just chucked

into a spot on the chair. It's like the lobby. You're like, you're in there. Do you prove that you're, to convince them you're not a robot before you're in that position? Yeah. Do you have that producer Troy? I had three things with shapes, and you had to pick the order of the shine. I did that one before. I was like, oh. Really? It does, it does make it does make your question.

Yeah. Doesn't it? You're like, oh, this shape, and then that shape. The traffic light one, the wavy traffic. Didn't have that one, but yeah, but I've had that one before, yeah. So three times you said, I am not a robot. And they're like, well, to reward you for that, we are going to put you 19,000 from the queue. So we got tickets for Libby, Dean, we did not get tickets for the plane. So in the end, we didn't get on that flight at all.

So we got back into the Uber and the guy was like, how was your trip? Well, we didn't go anywhere. Like, we literally did not go anywhere. But we could get to tickets. No, no, it was just one of those things. you're like, we should have just said fine. Yeah. He's like, oh, this doesn't affect me in anywhere.

We went to the airport and then we went. John O'Ben and Megan, the podcast. The Hats. Cots of Kiwis, like myself, trying to get Olivia Dean tickets yesterday and waiting in the queue for a long time to get tickets. And when you get through, it's a stressful time because they give you like, you click on it and they give you like 10 minutes and it counts down as well. And you're like, should I take these or should I go back?

You don't want to go back and lose them. Oh, you only got a 10 minute window to make your decision. Once you've, yeah. Once you're through the gates. Yeah. Yeah, I know. You got 10 minutes in here, buddy. Make him count.

Make him count. Well, sure, 10 minutes is pretty generous. Yeah, it is. You're right. But I imagine the minutes tick away pretty quickly. And you're told not to refresh when all you want to do is refresh that place. But if you missed out on Olivia Dean tickets and you don't get them, or maybe tomorrow you should tune into the show.

That's all I'm saying. Maybe, maybe. Okay. What would cause you're a lot less stressed if you just rigged these tickets that we're going to give away tomorrow. Yeah, but I can't do that. I can't do that. He's a man of, he's a man of morals. So, 0,800 the hits.

Longest line you've had to wait in the biggest queue. Someone said text three, I've waited 13 hours for Billy Elish in Brisbane. We'd love to get them on. Did they actually, is that for the concert or was that to meet Billy Elish? I'd love to hear from them, yeah. I'd wait. I'd wait, is there anyone you'd wait 13 hours for? Yeah, I'd probably would.

Okay, who? Name one. Oh, like celebrities, like LeBron James. You'd wait 13 hours to meet LeBron James? Yeah, absolutely. Even if the guarantee wasn't, if you're just going to see him. You guarantee you what?

LeBron wasn't going to come up to you. He wasn't going to say that to you. He wasn't going to dab you up. He's going to get... Nothing. Not even eye contact, guaranteed. No acknowledgement. But he might.

He might. Depending on how he's feeling. I'll give it a go. I'd give it a go. Why not? I hope he really loves someone want to see them, you know? Are you family with you?

No. No, they're not with me. My family with me? No, no, they're not with me. My family with me, we were at a theme park waiting for a scuba. do ride.

It's a great ride. It's just come back. It is a great ride. Yeah, it is. It's just come back. It's been, last time I went to movie world, it wasn't refurnishing it.

Yeah. So they've got it. Two hours, 45 minutes. Two hours and 40, that is, they play the Scooby-Doo movie while you're waiting

just to obviously take your attention away from the fact that you're standing in the line for two hours and 45 minutes. I'll watch the Scooby-Doo movie twice. I don't know what the runtime thing. I'm pretty sure we watch the whole thing twice. But,

but yeah, it's a good ride. But that's a long, It's a long time waiting around. That's where Megan had the fast pass. That's why she is. That's when I would look over at the thing and they'll be like, oh. And you do go through, it's a roller coaster of emotions when you're waiting in a line that long.

You do have disdain for the fast pass people, don't you? You sort of, even though they're fine, they've legitimately paid for them. They're entitled to do it. I don't know why I'm getting anti. I'm like, oh, look at those people. All right, Karina, longest line, mate. What was it for you? So this is quite a famous story.

and my family, they laugh about it a lot. But I think it was 1999, I had four children under the age of four, and Tally Tubby Tavis had just hit. And the warehouse, the warehouse had this thing where they had all four Tully Tubbys,

but you had to line up early in the morning, of course, to get the Tullytubbies, and I had four children all under their age of four. So I had this twin prams. I had one on the roof, two inside, and one sitting out on the front, where the feet go and they were all in these

snowsuits. Yeah, she's talking about a pram, not a car. Yeah. You didn't put the kids on the top of the car. You know, so I'm trying to juggle these children on my own, and I had to go down early in the morning. Anyway, what happened was, it started about 7, 7 o'clock.

It opened at like 8.30, but when the door opened, there was another man that had a child, and he was struggling with his child, and I felt sorry for him. So I opened the door for him, and he got the last Lala. So I only got three off the four Tully Toys. Then I had to wait another two months to get my Lala.

And so the three children that were really happy, and I'm sure the little one didn't really notice. But, you know, the others did notice. You wanted the full sets. Like the Yoshe's. Your life's not complete unless you have the full set. I get it. I get it.

And you were being generous to help the person in. I was, yeah. And it was a big thing to my children every morning. And they'd wake up and they'd be like, And they didn't have all for Tullytubs. And it still cuts deep, I can tell, Karina. Oh, well, thank you. John O'Bin and Megan.

The podcast. The Hats. I played this earlier this morning, but this is the audio of a couple of kiwi birds fighting on Stuart Island. We were making a lot more noise than I thought they would, right? It reminds me of your lovemaking.

And now a couple of weeks ago, We were talking about my cousin in Australia. She, great news, had a baby with her partner, but had taken about six weeks before they decided on a name. You were tracking all this on the family WhatsApp group. Well, I was, because I congratulated them when it happened. And then, yeah, it was a wee while later. They were like, hey, we've now got a name.

And I was like, oh, geez, that's been a while. So I went back, did the mess. It was about six weeks. Yeah, and we did get talking about the longest time it's taking you to name a baby. There's a cutoff, isn't it? there. Is it like eight weeks or something? Yeah, I think it is a couple of months or something. Yeah, there were a couple of people knocking on the door of that eight week limit. Yeah, but

we spoke to Dave and actually in Hindu culture, they've got a bit of a tradition on how they name babies, which takes a while. The name of the baby gets decided by your birth chart. So that birth chart has to happen after three moon cycles. So, yeah, 45 days. 45 days it takes in Hindu culture. So I believe we've got Dave back on the phone. Yeah, you're absolutely right. Yeah, yeah. I don't know if you remember, but towards the end of the conversation,

Megan actually said that, hey, can we retrospectively try and find that out for John. Oh, what my Hindu name would be? Yeah, what is his name? Yeah, the initial letter for your name. and so I went online and you told me that you were born at around 8 a.m. in the morning on the 13th of November 19X. Let's just not let the whole vote notes.

Great. Also, according to Wikipedia, you were born in Seattle. That's right. In the United States. Yeah. He's really done some deep digging. Trust me, that explains so much. Anyway, we went in and we called our family astrologer and we gave him the details.

So basically the three main details that we need. Oh, wow, you went to a lot of it. Yeah, it's all right. That's what we do for the family, right? Oh, that's lovely day. You're part of the family now, Jono. Well done. Is this astrologer on like a celery with your family?

He take donation. So we gave him your date of birth. We gave him your time of birth. when we gave him your place of birth. And it basically, so there are the four letters that comes out is V, so V-I, V-U, V-U, me, M-I or Mu. V-V-O-M-M-U? Yeah, one of, yeah, you can choose.

Oh, you can choose one of them all. Four letters. So like, Varat Koli, whatever, like you could have used the V-I for it to start that off. Exactly, exactly. We, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, like you could combine them all together, I guess. I don't know.

Does anyone else do that? Not particularly, not particularly, but hey, John is one of a kind, right? Yeah, exactly. He's a rule breaker. Vibu Vimu. Vimu. Vimu. The rose of the tongue as well.

Thank you so much, mate. I really appreciate you following that up too, buddy. No worry at all. John O'Ben and Megan The podcast The Hits A Miss Possible way Poor, you know

Luke Metcalfe One of my favourite players from the Warriors Came back It looks so good And then kicking a goal Which he probably does Hundreds of times a day

He ended up injuring himself And he could be out for Well, who knows, you know And to make Luke feel better So on Saturday I was just gardening for a couple hours And I was sort of twisting quite a lot And then I sneezed

And did a muscle between my rib I can actually do better than that I did a disc injury So I did it doing a paint-by-numbers. What? Paint-B-B-what? Like, it's basically colouring in. So, yeah, I mean, they're very base-level,

base-level activities, aren't they? That you think you could probably function up until the age of 90 doing. But sometimes if you're lying in bed, you reach over and get your phone. You just do it awkwardly, and that's a way to... And it just comes out of nowhere. When did this start happening to my body? And it's embarrassing, too, when you have to tell, you know, the medical professionals how it happened.

You know, it'll put it on a form, like ACC. You must be having a laugh at the Christmas party. They'll be like, this guy. They'd probably do one of those carousel things where you can flick through on social media. The text machine really took off yesterday. It was some great stories coming through. Four-four-eight-seven. So we're going to run it back, as they say.

Oh, there's so many more good calls and text. This one, no, we didn't get to yesterday. I just walked into a meeting. It's so at work. Took a step around the corner of the table. My foot was planted, so firmly to the ground. It didn't pivot. And I ruptured my ACL.

Just at a, like imagine that, like a corporate meeting and then suddenly you're, you're in pain. It's a good. I was in a divorce hearing with my ex, and I turned to look at her and then did the neck. And you blame, that's another thing. That's another thing. This is why it never worked out. Yeah. I broke my thumb in my sleep.

Someone has text through. Woke up in agony. Still don't know what happened, but I had an x-ray and it was broken. Yes, I 800 of the hits. We're going to open it up again. You know, the mundane activities, but you pulled a muscle. John O'Benn and Megan. The podcast.

The hits. So we're talking earlier, though, about the longest queue that you've waited in. A lot of Kiwis trying to buy tickets these days, particularly Olivia Dean yesterday. A lot of frustration people not getting through. Also, when I got to the end of the queue, it was like when it counts down and you're about to get let into the sort of holding area of the lobby. Nothing happened. And that was frustrating, too, because you're like,

I can't refresh, he says don't refresh, but you're just waiting there, and the screen is just not doing it. It's not doing, it hasn't moved forward. The little, you know, the little countdown thing, it's coming down,

you know, like, I'm there. And then it's just nothing. I don't know, producer Troy, did you, he was trying to get tickets as well yesterday. Did you have the same thing happen when you finally got through and the little black bar

counted all the way down and then it just did nothing? And then it's nothing. And then it's held there and you're like, I'm not about to refresh, but I want to refresh. How long does it do nothing for? Well, it felt,

I feel like a few minutes for me, For me, it stayed like that until I lost patience and gave up. Oh, did you just, right, because all you can think about is all the other people getting their tickets is you're waiting like a schmuck on this blank screen. Oh, no. So we're talking about the longest lines that people have waited and we've got a great text that came through. Yeah, crazy text. I was waiting to buy tickets for a Korean K-pop group for three days. What?

Three days. I had to drive around with my laptop in the car. I had to take my laptop to work. and kept checking the line it's because the scalpers released bots into the queue and that's why it took so long but yeah, three days,

I mean, that is some persistence. Would you have waited three days on a screen that said, don't refresh? Would you have done that? Well, no, no, but if I knew I was going to get through, yeah, I would, but yeah, I would.

That's like a baby. You're like carrying a child around with you. What's the bot thing, though? But you just draw you across the stuff. Well, I just learned, I just learned about the test today. You've got glasses on, you've got, nerd

I'm no expert but I heard about this yesterday but people can buy a bot which will hold the place of a thousand people or computers in the line it'll basically generate like a thousand fake computers

that will hold a thousand spots in that line and then when one of those bots gets to the front of the line it'll ping you and be like you're ready and then I come in as a human and do the are you a human test

which you found difficult yesterday because it was one I hadn't had before it was like picking up colors shapes in the colours and it was like what order are these shapes

in the picture and it was kind of they were upside down and all sort of blended in I clicked the smiley face and it was blue and purple with all the colours and I was like I can't see it

I'm colourblind but not a robot but colour blind does that out would you tick that I couldn't tick that she that's an ultimate hack how much for one of these box

apparently it's like 30 bucks a month oh jeez I hope that doesn't catch on let's not talk about that too much we're not getting agents soon that's what all the future of shopping You're just going to have an agent that'll do Which is quite nice. Like all the stress you went through yesterday

Imagine not having to deal with that. Some robots. You're like robot. Give me two seconds to let me a day. Yeah, robots taking all that on. The robot's staying awake at night. She's like, God, don't know what to do? Should I refresh?

I don't know. Don't know. Don't refresh. Not my problem. I'm paying you 30 bucks a month. John O'Ben and Megan The podcast. The hits. Now my wife,

well, there's something that she does some time to time. And it's kind of, like, it's kind of cute the idea behind it. You know, she'll will wear a hoodie or a jersey, a jersey of mine. She'll go, I like that one, I'll wear it. And I'm, I'm cool with that.

I do that with my wife's clothes. I'm like, it's nice. I like it when she wears the thing. It's fine, it's cool. I bought a nice jersey the other day, 100% warm. I'm like, cool. And she's like, oh, I like this. I'll wear this.

I'm like, that's fine. But what she does, and it really annoys me is she just pull the sleeves up. Like, she needs to get in the kitchen. Once the forearms out. Yeah, she needs to get in the kitchen or something. She'll pull the sleeves up and pull up the sleeves up over the sort of elbow. Well, that's a big width she's creating there. Yeah, and I

and I'm like, because it's my hoodie or my jersey in this case, I'm like, and it's my head, I'm like, she's going to stretch the cuff. She's stretching the cuff. I know it's not a huge issue, but they don't. They don't. They don't rebond. No, they don't. You're right. And I

say that to her and she's like, who happened? I'm like, when you're wearing your hoodies, jumpers, whatever, it's fine. You do what you want, but when you're wearing mine, you just to stop. And sometimes we're having serious conversations, a bit of stuff going on at home at the moment. Last night we're talking about that, and she was, when my jersey, all I could think of was was, she's pulled up.

She's pulled up. And it's not the time to go, hey, the cuffs are up over the, you know. Over the elbows, too. We're having quite a serious sort of conversation. I mean, it's fine for, like, let's say, a washing hands. You can pull them up, I think. Over the elbows, I feel like too far. Like, a little bit's fine, but you don't need to.

When you go halfway up the forearms, acceptable? Is that a little too far for you? I'd rather have wet cuffs than. then expanded cuffs, they don't, I don't know, it's a problem that annoys me and probably nobody else in the world, but it just really irks me. I would love, is there, the conversation you're having last night sounds very personal and intense.

Was there any moment you could have brought up the cuffs? No, and it wasn't like. At the end of the conversation, hey, just as we're wrapping things up. Can we just look after the cuffs? It wouldn't have been the time, but yeah, but it was in my head, I'm like, stop, get out of my head. It's not important right now, but we're not focusing on what the actual topic was. because the cuffs will be expanded.

So yeah, just a little something, maybe no one else has an issue with it. You do have petite, beautiful little wrists. Like even the hoodie I'm wearing now. Has she stretched that? No, because I bought her one of the same, so she can do what she wants their one. Stretch the cuffs all day long. You can do whatever you want on that one. Oh, well, this is a safe space, Ben.

The podcast. The hits. You buy items throughout your life, don't you? And they do, they do alter your life. They do alter your existence. At times. Yeah, sometimes I do. Yeah.

I feel like the air friars having a little moment. Yeah, yeah. I love air fry. It's great. You're an air fry. Yeah, everyone. I'm not banging on about it to everyone, but geez, it saves you a lot of time. Yeah.

And it's a good way of cooking stuff, you know? How long have you had an air friar for? Oh, it's our second one because I bought one going, I really want an air fry. Dipping your toes. But I'm not going to go top shelf. Yeah, I'm just going to go, yeah, it's an entry-level air fryer. And then we used it lots because there's stuff at home, we don't use lots. I'm like, damn, we use that lots.

And so, yeah, we've got a better one. So 12 months, would you say? Yeah, I'd say we've been in the yearfire game two or three years. Two, three years in the Air Frye game. Yeah, I've probably heard you talk. Upgraded with one, you can cook two things at once. Oh, it's got levels to this. Yeah, you've got levels.

Really, I stepped up my game. So, yeah. But I had, don't bang on about it, but it does, yeah, really. I've heard you probably talk about Year Frye six times, maybe, over that period. Well, a friend of mine just a month ago got into, he got into the Air Frye game. I think you'd love it. And I'm not convinced you'd do whatever you want because it's easy, you know. You want to cook something up, you put it in, put it in the air fry, bang, done, and it's pretty much that.

You don't have to really think about it or fire up the oven, you know? Yeah, you know, my major issuers, the storage. Right. Because our covers are just full. We have it on the bench the whole time. Dude, ready to go. Yeah, it's all ready to go. Ready to air fry.

Okay, well, this is, so maybe I'm convinced me. But it's, you know, if it's not, if it's not, yeah, it's just like, why have we got this thing? So, yeah, I don't care. I'm not working for a big air fry company, so, yeah. All he'll talk about is an air fry. Every day. I put this in the air fry. the air fryer.

Your marriage is in trouble. Put it in the air fryer. It fixes everything in the air fryer. Can't cook. There's nothing it can't cook. Well, I suppose it is. You see people doing some adventurous things on Instagram. I'm like, what do they put in there?

I see someone was trying to do eggs and something on the other day. I'm like, eggs don't feel like an air fry thing to me. Just chipper with them in a pan situation. That's where people go too far. Do you think it's the one item that's really altered your life the most recent history? Well, old's in my life. Helped your life? It's been handy.

handy. Like the thing that Megan is really good. Megan, it's really good. The pressure cooker. The pressure cooker meal that we made a pressure cooker meal that we made again. This is so good. I haven't used it once since. You've been pressure cooked again?

I haven't pressure cooked again. Have you been under pressure cooking? No. No. But, you know, but the air fry, you know, I want to use that 30 times since I, that would do. So, you know, I guess it's just what you're into what you use. Megan's probably used to us as many times. She was here today.

She was devastated. I'm not saying it's not great. I just haven't gotten to that, you know. Yeah. It hasn't changed your life. Yeah. We got, it didn't really change my life, but my daughter's life. She was dreaming of a label maker.

Oh, yeah. Oh, she wanted was a label maker. Yeah. And boy, oh boy, for six months there, everything in the house was labeled. Like, just basic items that didn't require. Door. Yeah. You know, I understand the, I know what a door is.

Yeah. You know, draw. You're like, oh, she started running out of stuff to label. To label. But, yeah, up until the point. point where she was labelling useful things in her life. Yeah, it's probably great. It was really useful.

Yeah, but then everything, it was like, handle. Remote as you're holding the remote. What does this thing do? And you can just flip around. Oh, okay. You're like, oh, thank you. John O'Ben and Megan, the podcast. The Hits.

Costumes taking up a huge part of our garage at home. And my wife said, use them or lose them. So we've come up with the idea of putting on a parade. Masked it and put their hand up and said, we'll do the parade my own old hometown. 8 o'clock Friday, the old town hall spot is where the parade's going to happen, the world's shortest parade. A bit of a spanner in the works.

All I feel the whole week has been is just Troy throwing spanners in our works, producer Troy, who's head committee organiser for the parade. What's the latest one? What's the latest disappointment? I feel like I've also been putting on all the screws and nails as well as the spanners. But throwing too many spanners in works, you know? It's a shambles of a building site. You know, if the council will come along and inspect this site.

There's no permits. You're like, look, little stuff over here, I've nailed it. Well, good news, we're back in the paper today. This was following yesterday's advertising scandal. Yeah, I did have to put a wee retraction in. We were page two yesterday. We've been bumped to page six today. Because you had the wrong location.

The wrong location. Yeah, no. So if you're still going to go to the Woolworth's car park, I can ferry you to the right location. We see that you said this is the thing with clarifications. They get the bloody pizzazz and the story out there and the headline out there. And then if there's any detail wrong, they'd bury it. You know, the later pages. Yeah, so we're now page six.

But anyway, we're going to be at the old town hall spot at 8 o'clock Friday. Come down, help us out. We want to put on a parade. Yes. The other little spanner was that I contacted Guinness to see if they could come down and officiate this record. They don't want a bar of it because they don't do anything around smallest parades because you need to be able to beat a record and the smallest is zero, then you can't beat it. Smallest, smallest person, small.

They play with those people. They mess with those people. Not smallest distance things. Which makes sense. The official unofficial. They said go for gold with your own sort of title. Your little parade. Prear own certificate.

Oh, we will. Okay, so the 27 metres is all it needs to be. Now, the important thing with any event like this, the press junket tour, which we had yesterday, the wonderful Lucy reporter from the Widered Upper Times Age. Yeah. She was grilling, big grilling, being boy. Ben Boyce.

This is how it started yesterday with Lucy. Lucy, it would be remiss of me not to ask you. Is it okay if we just record this to play a little bit on the radio? That's a hard no. That's a hard no from our end. These are all things we're working through. Well, the spot. Good question.

Bit of floundering from our end. Yeah, hey. Hopefully the article will all look good if you're in the Wadrappa wherever it comes out. We'd love to hear from you when the article comes out. I came up with a headline for the article. I don't know if can you be interviewed and then come up with the headline I don't know if anyone's done that before but what's the headline? The boys is back in town

The boys are back in town The boys are back in town Yeah that kind of works Yeah but I don't think it's that bigger deal really Like being there worn that Yeah yeah It's good That's good but yeah I feel like that's probably more about me

than it's about all of us It's community A master ton of costumes That's good yeah These are just brainstormed Yeah we'll see what they go with when the article comes out sometime this week at 8 o'clock. John O'Benn and Megan.

The podcast. The Hats. Mr. Ed McKillan, who was Gandalf and Lord of the Rings. We've been spending a bit of time in New Zealand, filming a new Lord of the Rings movie, and he was in Christchurch the last couple of days, dining at a restaurant and also... We love a celebrity dining at a restaurant story.

We do. We do. We will gobble that up like the celebrity gobbled up the food at that local dinary. I mean, they need to eat, right? I don't know if I'm so surprised. And he put food inside his mouth just like the rest of us do. But it's cool.

He also spoke at the university. Someone wore a Gandalf hat, which is cool. He went over and shook their hand. And he was also given thanks to Christchurch, an honorary citizen of Christchurch as well. So that's nice. Oh, that's a wonderful gesture from Christchurch. Does Serene McAllen know that the rest of the residents of Christchurch

don't have like a certificate say they live in? Yeah, true. No one else in Christchurch probably gets a, you know, where's my certificate? You get a birth certificate, but not an honorary Christchurch, yeah, you're right. Yeah. Oh, yeah, definitely someone went on to Canvaer and went, oh, geez, I'm going to give us something.

Give them something. A-I little thing up there, that looks right. Yeah, yeah. I mean, like, maybe an honorary doctorate to the uni. Yeah, I don't know. I feel weird when celebrities get that sometimes. I don't know if I was a celebrity, I'd be like, why didn't attend there?

Why are you giving me a doc? Like, I didn't go, I didn't pay the course fees. There's doctors and lawyers who have studied six years to get this. And then I just, you know, was famous for a little bit. You've given me a, put a cape on me and put a hat on me and give me a doctorate. You're right. Now, we're talking a lot this week about the parades.

We're putting it on Masterton on Friday. Sorry, Fashion Week, but there's a new player in town. I'm hearing less and less about Fashion Week and more and more about the parade, mainly because this is the only radio show I listen to, but I assume we're overshadowing. You're right. We just want to save my costumes. They take up a big part of the garage at home. My wife has never been able to park.

The car in the garage, since we had the garage. There's too many costumes in there. And we're putting a parade on to hopefully save my costumes to make it, like, use it or lose it. And we kind of wanted to know, am I the only one that has a partner wanting to throw out something? I'm sure I'm not. No, sure. No, I was banned from buying stuff from a website called Uncle Rico, which is, you know, just sort of, you know, basically. It's got some fun.

It's funny stuff, fun stuff. But a lot of base level content. And I did buy a wall hanging, which I did buy a wall hanging, which I'm. I had great dreams and aspirations of hanging in maybe the lounge or hallway of Kim Jong-un on a nuclear warship saying live, laugh, love, with his big, big happy face. Now, this is not in a flatting situation. I feel like it is a flatting situation. I mean, I bar can't talk. I've got Funko Pops in the lounge, so, you know.

I haven't thrown it out. It's just neatly folded in my bedside. It's ready to come out at any point. If divorced dad ever happens, first thing he's dangling up is the sad Kim Jong-un wall hanging. Another thing too for me. is I'll go to the dump with a whole load of items

and then as I'm dumping, I see an item that I'm like, that's great. Six months ago I saw a set of golf clubs just sitting, you know, by the pile of rubbish. So I picked those golf clubs. You'll come back with stuff. And I was like, look at these golf clubs.

She's like, you're never going to use those golf clubs. John O'Ben and Megan, the podcast. The Hits. Now, if you could throw one thing out of your partners, what would it be? We all know the answer for Amanda, your wife been to be your costume collection. There's a lot of costumes.

In the garage, taking up too much space, that's why we're putting them to good use with the parade on Friday. What happens post that? I mean, you got interviewed, you got grilled by a journalist from the White at Upper Times Age,

lovely Lucy. She asked a really, I thought, legitimate question of, like, is Amanda your wife buying the logic that hosting a one-off parade in a small, regional New Zealand town would be enough to keep the collection

from that day forward? Very, very good question. Very, very good question. Right, that's why she's a journalist. Yeah, she's really getting to the heart of. The questions I hadn't even thought of. I just hoped that would be the case, but maybe she's right. So I don't know.

I did ask, maybe Lucy might want to do a follow-up story, a nine-page spread with Amanda, just to see post the parade, you know, the fallout. Do we get to keep the costumes? But imagine, you know, every relationship, you know, when you bring your stuff together or you buy stuff, there's probably things you're like, well, hey, that's their thing. I'd probably rather than I have it, most of us live with it. Troy, you had, producer Troy, had the, um, the headboard. Didn't you come in here?

What was that one, mate? That you had to gently remove from the bedroom before you teamed up with your partner, Neve. I really thought we'd put this to bed. Literally, literally. It was my Marvel Thanos Infinity Gauntlet headboard, and they had the five or six Infinity Stones on it. And yeah. Where is it nowadays? It was a Facebook marketplace cell.

And so some lucky person is probably waking up to it this morning. Some happy couple? Yeah. Couple, definitely. Some happy persons won't get up to that. But hey, it's great. All five infinity stones. Love it.

So I wait out of the hits. What would you chuck out of your partners if you had the chance? Sam, happy new year. Happy New Year. In the Waikato this morning, what would it be for you, Sam? Well, my partner's got two Xboxes. He won't get rid of his old one. He's got a brand new one.

And he's got like a million games. Like there's so many. But then he's got this subscription. They're all on the online thing. So he doesn't need the actual physical games now, which is a sad era now, isn't it, that you don't have physical games. Obviously not for you. Not so much of a sad area. You're like, that's great.

You can get these online. So how many hours a day or a week is you on the Xbox, Sam? Way too many. I honestly would not know how to count. Like he stay up all night and then he'll like sleep on the couch and I'm like, oh, that's why you don't come to bed. You play till like three in the morning. And that's why he loves that Xbox. He loves that Xbox.

I'll thank you for your call. I understand why you would say, we can have one in our relationship, but two's too many. Tanya. Hello, happy new year. Happy New Year to you, Tanya. One day, one chance to throw out one item of your partners.

What's it going to be? We have got this piece of crappy horse float sitting at the front of our yard that my partner has told me he's going to do that baby up and ride us on out of here. I've seen now. to two years

it's got no sides and we store firewood in it so I would love that to go well you just wait till he does that baby up and ride you out of there mate it's gonna tell me about it it's coming one day Tanya thank you

I do love obscure items on front lawns too we uh some friends of mine had a flat all sorts of stuff littered of the couches they'd make use of them all too all weather well it wasn't an all weather couch no but it'll be out there in the weather Kathy, morning.

What would you chuck out of your partners? Both of the Harley Davidson's that are taking up prime real estate in my garage. Oh, is there a motorboat rider, I'm guessing? It would be nice if you was. Be Aint Widenham. Today we got here seven years ago. Oh, really? So they haven't been ridden.

Maybe you need Tanya's husband to come over and ride those babies out of there. Maybe it would be lovely if she did. Seven years. I mean, it would be great to it. It's all a dream to it. I wouldn't be able to ride it. hardly but it'd be a dream wouldn't it has he got a motorbike license

um we did in california but not here oh okay so yeah baby steps he'll get there he'll get there one day you'll be riding those around the neighbourhood right now they're taking up real estate John O'Ben and Megan The podcast The Hats

Megan away today she's spent yesterday racing cars and then today racing cars as well not sure as you say not sure why but that's she loves racing cars so yeah she'll send us she's like you'll never guess I was in a car Oh yeah and I wouldn't have guessed

I mean someone big in the Motor Sport world but yeah So we'll get the update on that tomorrow But in the meantime You did you did a good job of saying Oh that's not Yeah A friend of mine he's got a small business

And he opens doors pretty early Sort of 5 a.m in the morning And he walked into It's like a cafe And he's like oh the locks a jar And he walked in Pitch black darkness And there was a burglar

in the shop as he was in there. And he's a bloody go-getter. He's a go-getter by me. He's not a back-down sort of guy. He's like, all sorts of profanities. And then this, that was a young guy, jumped out the window. And then he chased after him up the road.

And he's like, I'll chase you all day. That's not what you want to hear when you're a burglar. No, no, he wants someone to give up, don't you? You just want to hear, oh, chase you for 100 meters and I'm probably going to run out of steam. Did he get to him? He did. He caught him.

recorded him. Wow. And he said the, so he phoned the police and they came in ratty, righty, right.

But he said the disappointing thing was all the product that the guy had taken was down his underpants. He's like, we can't resell that in good faith. He's like, I'd like,

I'd like, I'd like, I'd like, I know, it was a pretty intense run, so there'd be a bit of moisture in that region. I saw somebody other day doing, cooking a meal called the crotch pot.

It was going on a hike through the world of us. I love the crotch. and sort of quite high temperatures. I was like, I've got to make my snacks and a crotch pot, then ate from it later. Yeah, so I was like, oh, good on them. That is really versatile.

We've got Paula with us. Good to have you on this morning. Paula, happy new year. Oh, happy new year, guys. We just wondered, has anyone walked in on a burglar? You have? This is a two-fold. We're a family of non-panicking people, literally.

Houses on fire one day, and husband just stood there quietly. Yeah, we just don't panic. But this particular day... Hold on, your house was burning down and that didn't set... No panic set in for anyone in the family? No, I moved everybody out, the kids, and my dad was staying with us at that time.

This is actually quite funny. I moved them out. I called one-one, because it's in the open kitchen thing where... And it was going up the wall. I walked in the door, literally, put my bag down, turned around, so there's nothing. Turned around again, it was up the wall. But my husband's, I couldn't find him.

And he's for non-panicers, so he's in the garage, getting out the fire extinguishing. putting out the fire while I'm busy, you know, waiting for the fire engine, and I, without a word of it, I kid you not. We live in a little community and you can see them coming from down the road. The first one, because they came in twos, turned left in the street behind us. Oh, that's nice. And then the next one carried on, managed to make it into the right street and we're at the top of a driveway. So I ran down to the bottom of the driveway and I'm madly waving out, you know, because you can't see our house.

they all waved at me and drove past. Oh, and that was some sterling work there from the service. You're like, that's the one that's burning. Come here. And then, so when did you walk in on a burglar, Paula? Oh, look, I was at my parents picking up my kids after work, and my mother, who's very calm, she came walking down the hallway, and she said to me,

there's a man in my room. I said, pardon? She said, there's a man in my room, and she carried on walking. And so I walked into the room, and he was just climbing out of the winter, so I ran back round and I yelled to the boys at a couple of boys in the house and said, you better come. And he was in the car.

He hopped out of the house out of the bedroom window and the car was parked right there in the driveway. And he was actually in the car going through the car. And I got there first and I looked at him and I won't say the words I used, but I asked him what he was doing. Yeah. And he turned around and he had a knife. Oh, geez. I know, this is great. But by the time that happens, like he's got, he's looking at me, he's got the knife

the two of the boys that arrived, right? So he got out of the car and they grabbed him and this was on the front lawn on the street and they having a bit of a tackle on the lawn. Cars were stopping. People were saying, everyone, okay? Yeah, yeah, call the police. So anyway, they had him on the ground and the dad was on top of him

and my husband was helping him to eat dirt for a wee while. And then eventually the police arrived and the cop walked up to him and said, I won't say the name and said to him, dear Lord, so insist. So it's you again. Oh, geez.

He's a career. A career crim. That is, geez, Paula, that is a roller coaster of a story.