Jono, Ben & Megan - The Podcast - FULL: When You Go To Japan And Get Mistaken As Team New Zealand

Episode Date: March 29, 2022

We spoke about how you made the news, and we heard a hilarious story from Peter. He's part of the Gisborne yacht club who went to Japan, and got mistaken as Team NZ by the Japanese media. So he made it on the news but it was all a huge misunderstanding! We also spoke to Lois, a 94-year-old woman with an epic bucket list! Finally, we spoke to an anonymous entertainment blogger & lawyer in America who gave us some tea from the Will Smith saga.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Hits with the Jono and Ben podcast. Welcome along, it's the podcast, Jono and Ben, 30th of March today. Come on down, Ben Boyce. I'm here, I'm here. I've been here all morning, guys. And I've been here all week in this room in my house. You got lost in a documentary on Olivia Rodrigo yesterday. The artist, the musician. Yes, yes. It was kind of more, I guess,

she was talking about some of her songs, inspiration by her songs, and taking the trip from Salt Lake City to Los Angeles, where she'd written a lot of her songs. I was there. I was there for the ride. Why did you choose Olivia? There's a lot of docos out there.

A lot of great docos. My kids are big fans of her and it just popped up on Disney+. I'm like, hey, I'll give that a watch. And watching some, yeah. Hey, it's what you do. You're in isolation. I watched a lot of the comedians opening monologues

on the Oscars as well on YouTube yesterday talking about Will Smith. And yeah, you just, you find yourself lost in things that you probably don't have time for. I should be doing better things, but hey, I'm in isolation recovering from COVID. Did you feel like you prepared enough for the radio show this morning? What are you, my boss? Is this a before or after?

Yeah, I'm just like, if you are locked in a room and energy is going somewhere. Hey, mate, what was the thing that you played this morning that you talked about? Oh, Coyote Peterson. The guy that gets bitten by insects. Yeah, I got lost in a hole of this guy. He gets bitten by the world's worst insects and just ends up screaming in pain. Ah! Ah! Ah! I couldn't stop watching him.

But with a name like Coyote Peterson, he was destined for a life of insect stinging, wasn't he? Yeah, he really puts his body on the line, doesn't he? That or pornography is another great career for Coyote Peterson. But yeah, no, you do get lost. I see you're on Zoom there, Juliet, in the studio, looking at something on your internet. Yeah, I'm just scrolling through Instagram stories.

I wish I could really provide something more exciting than that. No, do I need to do today's Wordle? No, I've done today's Wordle, sorry. That's all right. You've only a couple more days to go. Yeah. Friday will be my last day here, and you guys will be at home. Yeah, because we're meant to have a lawn bowl sort of event because it's outside and you

can have a couple of drinks and stuff, a small little thing. But what's happening with that? So I actually got a text from the boss today saying, I hope you don't mind, but I'm going to move our lawn bowls, Arvo. It'll be once you're gone. But it'll be a good team exercise for all the newbies of the hits. I'm so sorry. Your thing is going to be after you're gone.

But she said, I'd still love to do something for you on Friday for those who are well and free. Would lunch work? And I said, I'd still love to do something for you on Friday for those who are well and free. Would lunch work? And I said, yes. So, I won't be part of the lawn bowl. So, we'll go to your... So, Julia's going away has now turned into a team building event for when you've gone away. Yeah.

You might have to Zoom me. I might be like sailing around Greece by that time. But it's not you're going away anymore. It's a team building event. So there's no... Yeah, you can't. But I'm really sorry that we're not going to be there because it's been fun.

It's been fun working with you. Sorry, you go. No, it's champagne stuff. We're all going to miss this sort of champagne talk over each other. I was going to say that the last show that I worked on before you guys came over, that was a COVID show as well. We couldn't, that was in the middle of lockdown 2020.

So the last show I had to say goodbye to the hosts over Zoom as well. Oh, is that Laura, Sam and Tony? Yeah. They were all locked in there. Well, there's one common thread here. You seem to be still at work and then the shows that you say goodbye to contract COVID. Is it just an elaborate ploy

for none of us to buy you a going away present? No. No, I'm kidding. I thought we were going to bring it along to the lawn bowls, right, Jo? Oh, yeah, shoot. If you want it, you need to come to the lawn bowls.

Okay, so should I sail back? Yeah. A fun show for you this morning. We're putting together our bucket list, things that we want to achieve before the end of the year, like keeping Juliet in the country and not have her go away. But that doesn't seem likely. So if you've got anything for us, you can text us as well

because we can help make your bucket list come true as well. 4487 on the text. The show where the masks make them look a whole lot better. Jono and Ben on the hits. Hey, Ben. We are the most positive radio show, aren't we? We're both testing positive, both at home broadcasting, feeling good, are you? Well, you know, like, hopefully I'm at the other end of things now.

We're coming towards the other end. How about you, yourself? You're just towards the start of your COVID journey. Yeah, what a journey it is. You sort of sweat one second, then you're cold the next second, then you want to fall. Like, I could fall asleep right now if I wanted to.

You know, it's a bit of a roller coaster. But hey, it only seems like two or three days of this, then you're back out in the game, aren't you? Well, not technically. Yeah, you're not technically back out in the game. You're at home for a week. Publicly, I'm not going to be out in the game, but, you know, secretly we'll be back out in the game. You're at home for a week. Publicly, I'm not going to be out in the game, but, you know, secretly we'll be back out in the game.

No, no. Does Healthline keep harassing you on text? No, they've stopped, you know. They keep going, fill out your contact tracing form. I'm like, mate, I haven't been contact tracing since 2020. Well, I thought we'd stop. We've stopped now, right? Yeah, so I don't know why they're badgering me to fill out a contract Tracing form

Because I'll only be disappointed once they hear the news So I'm just ignoring that text at the moment Juliette how are you feeling You're trying to dodge the Omicron bond Yes I am I am feeling good I think But I think it's too early to actually Like properly figure out if I've dodged it or not.

I think maybe today or tomorrow is like the telling day. You know what I mean? And the good thing is she's not testing herself as well. So she's just going off ignorance, which pulls you through something like this. Really is bliss, isn't it? And producer Bee Humps, he's back at work.

First time back in a week. He is. He tested negative yesterday. And he's full of chat, clearly. He's back in work, first time back in a week. He is. He tested negative yesterday. And he's full of chat, clearly. He's back in the booth now. He doesn't like talking on the radio. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, he tested negative right on day seven, so it was obviously good to go.

It's strange that we were talking about this before the show, the cycle of, you know, COVID. You sort of get it, and then a week later, most people, I mean, some people it does stay in your system and you're still testing positive even though you're not symptomatic. But a lot of people by the end of it, like he was it seemed he's negative now.

I always wondered if people get sick of us banging on that we've got COVID. I find it interesting. Yeah, do you find it interesting? Yeah, I do. We can do a text poll, 4487. We can stop banging on about it, but then we just sound like two sick people.

I feel like we have to keep explaining why we sound so nasally and sick. And there's not a lot going on in my life right now. And you too, John. Normally you're like, oh, hey, I went to the mall and I did this thing, or I went and walked around. It's like, no, I've got COVID. I'm at home. There's nothing.

I've got nothing else to talk about. I've been locked in a room for three days. I watched an Olivia Rodrigo documentary yesterday. You know, that's where I'm at home. There's nothing. I've got nothing else to talk about. I've been locked in a room for three days. I watched an Olivia Rodrigo documentary yesterday. You know, that's where I'm locked in. That was Olivia Rodrigo. Oh, she's very talented. Made me feel very, very untalented. What is a fully grown man watching?

Like, of all the stuff you can watch, why would you pick an Olivia Rodrigo documentary? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. COVID does strange things to strange people. Tell me one interesting thing about Olivia Rodrigo. Oh, geez. Well, yeah.

She got her driver's license eventually. We know that part of the story. I mean, yeah, she wrote all, you know, like she writes all the songs. I mean, they're all really, really personal to her. And yeah, the driver's license was a real thing there. Yeah, a real issue for her. She felt like she really needed to get a driver's license.

Is this the most interesting thing about the Olivia Rodrigo documentary? Well, I was just like, man, she's talented. She's, you know, obviously she's 19, 20 years old or whatever. She's just deep and, you know, she thinks about things. I wasn't like that at that age. Neither were you. Like, I'm not even like that at this age. When you listen to her music, you feel heartbroken even if you're not

You're like oh my god I am broken Yeah she's like She's feeling these things Doing these things I'm like oh Maybe I'll write a song about COVID How's that sound? You know

I could do that Oh it always comes back to the COVID again It does It's all we've got Will Smith After what everyone's talking about, what happened at the Oscars with him slapping Chris Rock, he's finally apologised, Ju.

Yeah, so he posted on Instagram yesterday, basically saying, violence in all of its forms is poisonous and destructive. My behaviour at the Academy Awards was unacceptable and excusable. He said he reacted emotionally to Jada's medical the joke about jada's medical condition um he wanted to apologize publicly to chris rock he was out of line and was wrong he was embarrassed by his actions um he also apologized to the academy and the williams family and his king richard family he deeply regrets that his behavior has stained what has been an otherwise

gorgeous journey for everyone oh well that's all you can do, isn't it, after you slap someone on international TV? Oh, yeah. I guess you've got to apologise. You've been getting into a deep hole of Will Smith facts this morning too, Jono. That's right, it's an internet wormhole. Jono's internet wormhole. And crikey, dicks, I got lost on a site with 153 facts about Will Smith.

Wow, well, let's not go through all 153 this morning. To be honest, after reading all 153, they were definitely reaching with about 123 of them. I can't even think of three cool facts about me. I caught COVID. That's mildly interesting. And next week, that's not going to be that cool of a fact. Yeah, I know all the words to the Tux dog food jingle. Yeah, that's true. That's mildly interesting And next week that's not going to be that cool a fact I know all the words to the Tux dog food jingle That's true, that's good

And I can't even think of a third one Will Smith's full name, would you like to know his full name? I think it's Wilfred something, is it? Willard Carroll Smith Jr Wow, Willard, sorry, yeah Willard, yeah, Carroll Smith Jr Now he went to a private Catholic school Good Catholic man like me, Will Smith.

So he will be forgiven for his sins of slapping Chris Rock across the face. Don't you worry about that. That's the good thing about being a Catholic. You do whatever you want. Is that how it works? I don't know. You know how that works. Yeah, I've been a Catholic a long time.

Look at all the terrible things I've done. But he's quite interesting. Since the age of 13, he's been 6'2", consistently. So he's never grown any taller. But he was obviously tall quite young. 6'2 at 13. He's remarkably tall. I bet you weren't 6'2 at 13, were you, you loser?

No, no, I'm not even 6'2 now. Will Smith can also speak fluent Spanish. And I think you know this one. He solves a Rubik's Cube in under 55 seconds. Yeah, I've seen him do it on one of the talk shows. It's pretty impressive. While they were asking him questions, which I imagine is quite stressful,

but he managed to do it. Yeah, he can also now add ferocious slapper to his resume as well. And during his presidency, Barack Obama stated that if there was ever going to be a film made about his life, he would like Will Smith

to play him. Wow. I assume that's still on the cards. Maybe. Who knows? And he met Jada Pinkett Smith. She actually auditioned for a role on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Yeah, I think she auditioned to be his girlfriend on the show,

but didn't get that job. But then they became girlfriend and boyfriend off the show. Wow. I didn't know that. And before 20, he was fully bankrupt, apparently. He owed, much like me, he owed, well, not as much as me, $22.8 million to the tax service. I find myself in some tax woes as well, Will,

so I can sympathise there. But he was pretty much bankrupt. And then the NBC, the network over there, picked up Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. And it changed his life. Wow. Well, there you go. Jono Price, internet wormhole on Will Smith. We'll have the latest details with what's been going on in Hollywood.

After 7 o'clock this morning, we had a talk to a Hollywood blogger. It is the hits. You got Jono and Ben. Kia ora. I'm Rachel Jackson-L blogger. It is the hits. You've got Jono and Ben. Kia ora. I'm Rachel Jackson-Lees, and this is the B**** News. Yes, this is where producer Juliet takes news headlines and censors them. We have to figure out what the story is. She censored her mouth with an N95 mask this morning.

And now you need to play us these censored headlines, Ju. Yes, all right. I've got a couple for you. Your first news headline is... Model kept taking a** while in hospital recovering from brain surgery. I'm thinking a model kept taking high-angled selfies and tagging hashtag hospital life while recovering from surgery.

I'm going to say model kept taking the hand sanitiser, the plentiful supply of hand sanitiser from the hospital while recovering from brain surgery. Model kept taking only sanitiser from the hospital while recovering from brain surgery. Model kept taking OnlyFans pictures while in hospital recovering from brain surgery. So she's been urged to take a break by her followers after she continued to share some saucy images of herself in her hospital gown on OnlyFans.

But she kept on going because she said that OnlyFans essentially is the thing that paid for her brain surgery in the first place. I think it was like nearly 20 grand or something. So she's got to keep the information. What were the saucy photos? Well, they wouldn't post it on the article because I think OnlyFans, you've got to subscribe to see those pics, Jono. And what were the saucy photos?

I'm not. Do you know, speaking of hand sanitizers just before, we worked with someone who was a camera operator on a reality show, like a medical show. And someone was brought in and he was intoxicated. So they were trying to sober him up. But he kept getting more and more intoxicated and they couldn't figure it out. And they were looking all over the hospital as he hid in bottles or something. But what he was doing is he was taking the giant commercial bottles of hand sanitiser and drinking the hand sanitiser in the toilet.

That is outrageous. That can't be good for you. With 99% alcohol. No. But not good for you. Not recommended. I'll tell you what, the cleanest insides of anyone in that building. Yeah, true.

And your next news story. I'm surprised you haven't started drinking hand sanitizer Ben, that's the next step. Your next news story... Confused people sending s*** harsh tweets following the Oscars slap. I'm thinking confused people sending harsh tweets towards

Oscar the Grouch, thinking that he may be the Oscar slap. He slapped someone. I'm going to put my money behind confused people sending lesser-known actor Bill Smythe harsh tweets following the Oscars slap. Confused people sending Senator from the States Will Smith harsh tweets following the Oscars slap. Big dog Senator in the States, also named Will Smith, he's being... Lots of people are tweeting him.

There's only a couple of letters difference between his Twitter handle and then the real Will Smith. And so people are absolutely roasting him. But they're not realising that it's actually the wrong Will Smith that they've got. It is a very common name. Is he the senator for West Philadelphia where he was born and raised? Unfortunately not. He's the senator for Maryland, which is in Washington. He's only 40 years old.

That's my age. He's a senator. What am I doing? I'm sitting here in a Miller Lite t-shirt in a spare room, sweating with COVID. Oh, we'd love it. What are you doing with your life?

What am I doing with my life? And that is the news and bits to you this morning. Jono and Ben, just like family. The family members you're ashamed of. Jono and Ben, on the hits.

I feel like we keep banging on about it. You said it before this morning, Jono, about the two of us at home with COVID at the moment. Yeah, it's like a high, like if you're not a fan of hearing two people just moan about how they're at home with COVID, then I don't know if this is the show for you at the moment. Hopefully the normal broadcast will resume shortly,

but at the moment you're just going to hear us banging on about how we caught COVID. I know, and there's a lot going on in the world right now, and I feel, you know, fortunate and lucky that my COVID's, you know, it's okay in comparison to how some people get it, you know. But one of the things I did want to have a wee moan about is wearing a mask. Jeez, you know, like wearing a mask, and I'm sure a lot of people do it for respect to doctors, to nurses, to dentists, you know, to the nail technicians at the mall.

They're always wearing a mask all day, but you just get over it by the end of it, right? We'll tell that to Batman, mate. Yeah. Well, I was thinking about that last night. Batman was okay, though, because Batman had, it is sensible, not great for COVID, but he had breathable, you know, like his mouth and his nose. He had good airflow. Spider-Man.

Yeah, right, you could get some oxygen in there easily. The N95 kind of shuts off all oxygen flow, doesn't it? Yeah, like Spider-Man. I mean, full respect to Spider-Man. I mean, he's going out there solving crime with a full mask on, can't take it off at any stage, can't have a mask break, can't have a breather, but he's got a full mask on the whole time. And Iron Man too. Iron Man, that's a heavy mask as well.

It's made out of iron. And again, I don't think there's a mouth hole in Iron Man's mask, is there? No, I think you're right, actually. How is he breathing? How is that happening? I'll just have a Google. I'll just see if Iron Man, yeah, no, he's got nothing. Nothing.

There's a website that I was looking last night. Someone had done a little sort of blog on the superheroes, the Marvel characters who would be best for avoiding COVID. And much along the same lines, thinking Spider-Man's good. He's got full face mask. Thor, they were saying that Thor, you know, very open to COVID. I mean, Thor, no mask at all, right? Yeah, he's going raw and no shirt

either, Thor. Is he going shirtless as well? I think for the most part. Yeah, shirtless Thor. I'll just have a look at Thor. I can't remember. He's got like some sort of erotica strap or something, doesn't he? Oh no, he's got a vest on here. He does put on a vest, but also spends a lot of it with

no clothes on. Yeah, like he had that sleeveless one for a while too, didn't he? He had the guns out, which was good. I mean, if you're Chris Hemsworth and you've got those guns, you want to get them on display. But you will catch a chill too. You will catch a chill. Well, that's right. So yeah, so I full respect for people that wear a mask all day because

some people do it in their jobs. I mean, even kids going to school at the moment, you know, have to wear their masks all the time. And I felt like, jeez, am I moaning about having to do this? My friend gave me some good bit of advice. She said that if you're wearing a mask for a long period of time, you should get like one of those sort of like gel face masks that you can buy from like a makeup shop to go under your mask. So like you're not getting all clogged up.

And that's some advice for the ladies. Oh, okay. Because I've noticed i've started getting pimples around like where my mask is and it's not very good of course you need to worry about your skin well when you get to my age you know skin and wrinkles and stuff don't become a problem mate hey you forget about them the more you go and let's spare a thought for the uh the dominatrixes out there as well they were going in their weird dungeons with their masks with the zips along the mouth too. Yeah, I mean they're good for, you can avoid

COVID with a zip mask though, right? That's probably the best mask of them all for that. Not that breathable. I'd love to see someone in Countdown with one of those masks on. Just fighting off COVID at all costs. A whole lot going on in the entertainment world so

get let's get to the bottom of it now spy know what's up spy.co.nz all right she leaves us at the end of the week to take up a career as a pirate sailing ships through the mediterranean juliet has slipped down her n95. She's been dodging COVID. Now she's going to bring you some spy. Yes. So obviously after the Oscar saga, Chris Rock will not be pressing charges against Will Smith, the LA Police Department has said.

Something else I found quite interesting about Chris Rock was, so he's obviously going on tour and doing comedy shows. He is coming to New Zealand. But ticket sales have soared since the Oscars. There's been more ticket sales in the night after the Oscars than the whole previous month combined. So obviously this has been... He's got some great new material now though, doesn't he?

Well, yeah. People will be like, is he going to talk about it on his tour? Yeah, I know. So he's obviously become quite popular and it's been probably some good publicity for him. Someone should slap one of us in the face. Imagine many people would like to. And Will Smith's mother, Carolyn, has commented saying that he is a very even people person and that this is the first time she's ever seen him go off

for the first time in his life. So according to her, he's never acted this way before. It seems very uncharacteristic. It does seem uncharacteristic. From what you know of Will Smith and what I've read about Will Smith as well. But, you know, like he says in the book, as I said yesterday, that he's a coward. Like he says he's a coward. So it's interesting that he's a coward. Like he says he's a coward.

So it's interesting that he's gone to that, he went to that extreme. He was that fired up over it. So, yeah. And Richard. So is she upset? Is she, what is she? Jada. Yeah, his mum.

Oh, his mum. She is kind of, she's just more surprised and shocked that he did that. Like that's her sort of, I think someone asked her afterwards and she was like, I'm really surprised. I just didn't see it coming. She's going to ship him off to you-know-where in Bel-Air? Probably. And Richard Williams, who is obviously Vena and Serena Williams' father

and who Will Smith portrayed in the film, that he then won Best Actor for. He's also commented basically saying, we don't know all the details of what happened, but we don't condone anyone hitting anyone else unless it's in self-defense. So a lot of people close to Will are commenting. Jada posted on her Instagram something a little bit cryptic. She said, this is a season for healing and I'm here for it.

So that's all she said so far as well. But it has taken it away from, you know, obviously the Williams family should be celebrating because the movie about their lives has got an Oscar. He's won an Oscar for that, but it's kind of taken the shine off that a little bit at the moment. It has, unfortunately. But we wouldn't be talking about it two days after the Oscars though.

So there's, you know, I said it to Kate Rogers yesterday, there's a little bit of violence what the Oscars needed to keep us, because we are, you know, you peel it back, would we be talking about this? No, you are right. And I'm pretty sure the, like, the view account has gone down year after year after year, so this has probably given it a big spike, so.

I wouldn't be surprised if someone slipped him a cheeky 20, just like, get up there, slap someone, you pick who it is, I don't care. I don't think Will Smith needs 20 bucks. No. It's a cheeky 20, though, it's not your normal 20. Maybe it is the slap in the face that the Oscars needed for the ratings. And that is your Spy Update for this hour. For more, you can head to thehits.co.nz.

Jono and Ben. It is Justin Bieber, Ghost, 649. You're on the hits, Jono and Ben, on your Wednesday. I think if my memory serves me correctly, it was the late great rapper Tupac who sung a song called Picture Me Rolling. And it is the great Ben Boyce who sings a song, Picture Me Scrolling. And here he is

with scrolling through your feed geez you've really gone deep on the google search for things that sound like scrolling uh now spanish media are reporting that the next america's cup has been all signed and sealed for them to host in spain replacing auckland uh a 99 million dollar bid from the New Zealand government and Auckland Council was rejected, meaning it was likely to go overseas, but it's kind of sad for New Zealand. I mean, it's such a big event,

and the last one we had here in Auckland didn't really add restrictions on fans and didn't have tourists coming in because of COVID, so it didn't feel like it really reached its full potential. Yeah, why didn't they go? Why did they go $99 million? It's like when you prepay to fill up your car, you can't go above $100.

Why couldn't they crack over the 100 mark, the government? Maybe that was the bargaining thing, it was like, we'll go 99 and then alright, you pushed us to 100 million, but sadly it's going to be... It is an absolute shame to lose that, because when it is in full flight, you know,

you've got these super yachts coming in with all the billionaires, they're buying all sorts of wild stuff over here, you know, injecting their money into our economy and we didn't get to experience any of that. Yeah, Spain have had the America's Cup before, it's been in Valencia. Actually, when I was overseas,

went and visited their sort of America's Cup village and they had a loaded hog, a loaded hog bar, which they had in there at the time, which they used to have in Auckland. Oh, which was a New Zealand bar. Yeah. It was a chain, didn't they? That was part of their America's Cup village at the time,

but it's going to be hosted. Did they diversify? They went, okay, we've got a place in Auckland. I think they've got one in Hamilton. Okay, where's next on the map? Let's go to Valencia. Yeah, well, I think they went there because it was the America's Cup and it was only there for a temporary basis.

But, yeah, so it's going to be hosted in the city of Barcelona. Now, I think that's how you pronounce it. I want to do that correctly. And we've gone to the guy that we like to go to on the Internet. He's got the amazing voice, and he teaches us how to pronounce names that we find tricky. We are looking at how to pronounce the name of the city in Spain, Barcelona, Barcelona, Barcelona, Barcelona.

Barcelona. Yeah, so there you go. That's technically how to do it. So we'll try and get that right before the next America's Cup over there. He sounds like he's either about to kill me or make love to me. Do you find that? He's got a voice that's equally settling and unsettling at the same time. Yeah, he's probably making love to you first and then killing you afterwards.

I think that's what's going to happen. And just quickly, Wordle, many people have questioned whether the creator of Wordle sold it too early and sold it too cheaply. He sold it to the New York Times for rumored to be $1 to $3 million. And everyone's like, well, you could have got a lot more. But the creator of the game, Joss Wordle, said he was relieved when he sold it because he basically feared he was going to spend a lot of his time and money stopping others from making a fortune off the game.

Now, he gave it for free. But he said heaps of clones popped up on the internet when it got popular. And it kind of stressed him out. And he was getting to the stage where he was going to have to hire lawyers to send out cease and desist letters to people for a game that he wasn't even making money on. Because all these people were making clones of their own versions of the game. So he's like, oh, I'll just sell it. Then I don't own the rights anymore. I've got some money.

And then the New York Times can worry about having to send out all these letters and worry about people making their own versions. So you kind of see. Yeah, it makes a lot of sense now, right? Yeah. He would have knocked off his mortgage. Yeah. Yeah, good on him.

I mean, Julia, you're obsessed with Wordle as well. Your mum got it on the first go by accident the other day. I know, it was a wonderful sight to see. She was teaching my grandparents and she just put in the word depot. She said, oh, just put in depot. And I was like, oh my God, she's about to get it right. So I filmed it, chucked it up on the gram. Probably the most responses I've ever gotten on anything on my Instagram before.

Now, you know, Josh, is it Josh Werdl? Is that his name? Yeah, it's like, yeah, W-A-R-D-L-E. Yeah, Josh, well, you can keep saying that to yourself, that you're going to have to hire lawyers, but, you know, nothing's going to take away from the fact that you probably could have sold it for about $150 million. But whatever makes you sleep. But he wasn't making money off it,

so you see where he's come from. And that is scrolling to your feed this morning. It is Matchbox 20. Unwell, it is the hits, Jono and Ben. And it's a good little link for you to mention the fact that we've got COVID. You can do that here, Jono, off Unwell. Do we tell you we've got COVID? We just keep mentioning we've got COVID and no one cares.

No one's... Oh, people do. You know, there's a lot of people in isolation or have been through isolation as well. I know, but they're not us, Ben. They're not two guys hosting a radio show, powering on through. You know, someone sent some sort of sympathetic

text, 4487. Now, we are creating a bucket list for the show, things that we want to achieve before the end of the year. I don't know if COVID was on your list? Well, let's just say it was and we've knocked one off. Yeah. But something that we actually got a few texts on, apart from get well soon from COVID,

was get on the news for the show to create some news, which we thought was quite a cool one. Yeah, hijack the news somehow. Now, there's a couple of options here around hijacking the news. We could commit a crime. Yeah, but no. That's always an option. That's a guaranteed. Or we change our names to Omicron

and we'll be leading every news bulletin. Well, that would probably make news. If you changed your name to Omicron, that would make news. That's not bad. So that's one idea in the brainstorm. No idea is a bad idea except for that weird Omicron one I just came up with.

But 0800 the hits. Have you made the news? Have you got any tips, any inspiration for us? Welcome to the show, Sam. Thank you for having me. Now, we're trying to make the news this week, get on the news. And we understand you have and you could have some advice for us. Maybe a little.

I think I was about 14, 15 maybe. So I was part of an air training corps group when I was a kid, and we hiked into a bush called Dip Flat down in South Island with a group of other cadets at the time. And, yeah, one of my friends, he decided to get appendicitis in the middle of the bush oh jeez now i don't know where is an ideal location to get appendicitis but i wouldn't imagine the bush is in the top three no definitely not um so we had to walk him to a place that we

could then airlift him out uh the helicopter couldn't see anything, so I decided to land right on top of where I was fishing, trying to... You had a helicopter land on you? Yeah, sunk into a hole. We managed to get him out, and he got his appendix removed. Well, you were stuck under a helicopter. Yep. Oh, my goodness. Yeah, so we made the paper.

We made the local paper, and then made the Bay of Plenty Times back then as well. Wow. Wee. The news spread far and wide. Went global. Well, as far as the Bay of Plenty. Definitely. Yeah.

Were you hurt at all being under the helicopter? No, no. I sunk into a hole. Oh, so it kind of pushed you down into the ground? Yeah, pretty much. Okay, Ben, how far are you willing to go for this? Oh, I can hire a helicopter. I don't think I want a helicopter to land on me.

Would you recommend it? I wouldn't imagine, Sam, you'd recommend this. No, I was crapping myself, I guess, to say the least. But it got results. It got her on the news, and this is what Sam's saying. Do you want to make it on the news or not? Not to have a helicopter land on me, yeah. Is it happening in slow motion?

Well, it did feel like it took forever, but, yeah, it was a bit nerve-wracking, I guess. Yeah, well, I imagine once you've got a helicopter on top of you pushing you into the ground, what part of it? Was it the body of it or the steps or what? Well, I was supposed to be guiding the helicopter's nose into land, and, yeah, I guess I was just a good place to land. Like, you're 14 years old.

I mean, it's a hell of a job to give a 14-year-old to to guide a helicopter into a bush. Well, it was to save a life, right? Yeah. Well, good on you. Good on you. And made the news. And did you save the papers?

Did you put the clippings on the fridge or anything? My mother did. So cleaning out her garage a couple of weeks ago, and that's when I saw the paper clipping. What memories, what memories. The day you were landed on by a helicopter. That's brilliant. Well, thank you very much.

That's an angle we can take. You have a great day, Sam. Thank you. Well, that's how Sam made news. Kim, come through, actually. 4487 on the text or 0800 the hits. How did you make news? We need some inspiration if we try and make news before the end of the year.

We'll take more calls and texts next after Ed Sheeran, Bad Habits. It is the hits. Every time you come around, you know I can't say no. The annoying ones talking between the songs. Jono and Ben on the hits We want to make the news this year, the show That's one of the things that we've decided to put in our bucket list Things we want to achieve before the end of 2022 After watching Jane Campion too, I also want to win an award

Oh yeah It doesn't have to be anything associated with what we do for a living, Ben It could be the Rural Bachelor of the Year, Under-7s Player of the Day, just anything. I think we need an award, okay? That's not bad. What about the pie of the year, the New Zealand pie of the year? I think that's too hard to win.

I mean, there's amazing pies. I mean, have you tasted pies around the country? There are some good pies. There are some good pies. So what are you saying? The award that we need to enter needs to be achievable. Yeah. Like a lamb and calf day or something

like that at a primary school or something. But yes, we are focusing on trying to hijack the news and just talking to people who have made the news. Spoke to Sam before who made the news for a helicopter landing on top of her. And right now on 0800, that's Peter. You made the news in Japan, Peter.

Yeah, we did, actually. How did it all happen? This seems like a fascinating story. Well, we're from Gisborne in the Yacht Club here, and a bit before 2000, some Japanese came over as part of the Sister Cities thing, and they wanted to go for a sail. So a few of us chucked them on our yachts

and we took them for a burn around the bay, and they totally enjoyed it and took off back to Japan. And a couple of years later, I was sitting at work and I got a phone call from our mayor as I was the commodore. And he said that they'd like to reciprocate what we did and offered to get us back to Japan to sail in a yacht race. Oh, wow. Four of us got together with some partners and jumped on a plane and flew over. And we got into Nagoya Airport, picked up by a bus there, met our interpreter. And on the way back to Yamaguri, she happened to say, well, you guys have been entered as Team New Zealand.

Okay. And it certainly got concreted in because we arrived at this brand new hotel. As we go up to the door, there's all these posters on the door saying, Team New Zealand stays at Hotel Pearl. You're the team from New Zealand, so I guess there's definitely some branding issues going on here. They think you're Dean Barker or something.

It was quite interesting. They asked us to sign a lot of stuff and we were very careful just to put a little Team From New Zealand in the middle of it. Team from New Zealand. But we got whisked away to go to the pre-race briefing, which is just pretty standard for yachting. So we wandered off to there and went into this huge room.

There was probably about 400 or 500 people there, interpreters with us, and she says, right, what's going to happen is they're just going to introduce you as Team New Zealand, so just stand up in the crowd, and then you can sit down, and that'll be about the end of it. Well, this Japanese man in a suit comes up, and he talks to Alison, and she looked at me, and I could tell by the body language that this wasn't going to be good.

And she said, all right, change of plan, how are you speaking in public she said well up there in front of all those TV cameras there's some seats and tables set up and you're second from the left and we're going to do a free race conference on Japanese TV

for Team New Zealand you couldn't script it if you tried But anyway So we started standing up there in front of the TV So I had to stand up and introduce myself And they found me They named me Peter Blake after that Being a bit of a load of shit

Yeah well thank you for sharing that with us Peter that was amazing Now Poppy and Oscar Thank you for sharing that with us, Peter. That was amazing. Warning. Contained dodgy parenting advice. Shono and Ben on the hits. Now, Poppy and Oscar, they're my children, and they are of a generation where a lot of the content they consume is just YouTube. Let's watch YouTube. So I don't know what that means for the likes of us, Ben,

but they just enjoy YouTube. And I kept overhearing the soundtrack of this guy. Have a listen to this. Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah!

Ah! It sounds like me when I whack my little toe against the side of the wall. Yeah. It almost sounds like they're in a lot of pain. What's going on? A lot of pain. So this is Coyote Peterson. Have you heard of Coyote Peterson?

No. I feel like if I have, then I definitely remember that name. Yeah, you wouldn't forget the name Coyote Peterson. He looks like a character from Jumanji. And so basically he goes around and gets stung by the world's worst insects. So that's his goal. That's his whole series. You know, 60, 70 million views on each of his videos.

And, you know, he'll get stung by something called the executioner wasp or the serial murderer bees or the genocide ants or something. And he films it. He gives a little bit of education about, you know, what the insect is, where it comes from uh how it defends itself and then he sort of places it on his skin with some tweezers and then this happens it feels like uh a stunt that we would have done on a radio intern

about 10 years ago, when you could get away with fun stuff. Yeah, but he's actually doing it, just doing it because it's an educational thing. He's putting his body on the line. Actually, Googling him, I have seen him now. He does some wild, wild stuff. Has he been seriously, seriously hurt? He put his head inside an alligator and things like that.

Oh, my God. Kind of felt a bit unnecessary, but he did it for them. Like if you've got the option of any body part, you've got to stick inside an alligator. I'm not going with head, but he, the most impressive thing about Coyote Peterson

is he's rolling around in pain for sometimes 10 or 15 minutes, getting over being stung by these things or bitten by these wild animals and he doesn't swear once like he's not i would just be like mother you know i'd be unleashing all sorts of bombs c bombs f bombs s bombs whatever but he's just like ah ah and he keeps it he keeps it friendly for the general audience and that's I take my hat off to him I take Yeah Well the camera person as well too You know

Like at what point do they step in Like you know Yeah the camera guy's kind of unhelpful He keeps going Tell us what it feels like Tell us Keep telling us what it feels like And he's like

It hurts It stinks But yeah I think he's wrapped up his series now I mean there's only so many times You can be stung by the world's worst insects, isn't there? Jeez, putting his body on the line Do yourself a favour and look at Coyote Peterson today

And he gets respect from the insect nerds as well too Like Rude Climepass would like him Because a lot of them, I was reading the comments, they were like I wanted to hate this guy, but he's actually really good He's educational too He's just got the shtick I mean would I be watching the video if he wasn't getting stung to pieces probably not rise and shine time to start the who are we kidding we're not the boss of you Jono and Ben on the hits the world is still talking about what happened at the Oscars with Will Smith and Chris Rock, and Will Smith has since apologised.

But what's really going on over there in Hollywood? Producer Bee Humps has been working hard to get us a few scoops, Jono. He has. I don't know where he got this gentleman from. Maybe found him on the dark web or something, because we're not allowed to know his name. We're not allowed to know his number.

He's going to call us. Well, he has called us already. Welcome to the show, our nameless entertainment reporter. Hey, how are you guys? Nice to talk to you. This is all a bit mysterious for us at the moment. We don't know your name. We're not allowed to know your name.

But you're an entertainment blogger over there in L.A.? Yes, entertainment lawyer slash entertainment blogger. Oh, I love the mystery behind this. I feel like I'm part of like a Secret Service operation right now. Hey, so there's a lot of talk, obviously, post-Oscars, Will Smith getting slap happy with Chris Rock. What is the fallout of it? What really went on? Why was Will so fired up? Well, you know, I think it dates back to 2016 and Chris Rock had actually taken a shot at Jada before. Jada had, it was the year where Oscars so white.

So Jada and several other women of color and people of color decided to boycott the Oscar ceremony. And Chris Rock took a jab at her saying she wasn't invited anyway. So you have that. Then in between that, between 2016 and now, you also had Chris Rock taking a couple of shots at Will Smith on Instagram. So then you move forward to the Oscars, and then you have Chris Rock making a comment about G.I. Jane and a bald head. You know, Jada Pinkett Smith has alopecia, a very tiny portion. So it makes her hair not grow correctly, and Will Smith, I guess, went off, which is overreaction. It's also something that I think everybody expected at the beginning that it was going to be fake and not real.

And I think the fallout is it took Will Smith 24 hours to apologize, not to the Academy, but to Chris Rock. Hey, I just slapped you, but I decided to wait a day before I apologized to see what everybody has to say. I think that at the Vanity Fair party, Will Smith and his family were there, and the Vanity Fair didn't even care. They were just all over him.

Oh, my gosh, you're so wonderful. You're so amazing and everything. Can we have a family photo? Can we put you in our photo booth? So it's very odd that we're going to celebrate this guy who should be in jail. Do you think anything will happen now? Do you think the Academy will take his award off him or anything like that?

No. The Academy has no spine. So, no, they will not do anything like that. I mean, it took Harvey Weinstein going to jail before they removed him from the people who could vote. So, no, Will Smith slapping Chris Rock, they're going to, no, not a chance. We spoke to someone yesterday who made the point that Harvey Weinstein still got his awards. So it would certainly be a bit of a conundrum if they kept Harvey Weinstein's but took Will Smith's off him.

Exactly. And like I said, Harvey's got his awards, but they didn't even let him stop voting until he actually went to jail. So, of course, they're not going to take Will Smith's Oscar from him. They're not. Now, you said before that he should be in jail or should have been charged so are you of the of the mind that this was assault and his award should be stripped off him um i'm i think assault i think it was very bad um a look a very bad look because of the fact that it happened right before he got the award so it's just like i just slapped you made, made you look awful, I committed a crime, 10 minutes later, give me an award,

I'm going to start crying and everything, and I'm going to get a standing ovation. I mean, can you imagine if somebody went up on stage and punched a stand-up comic and then got a standing ovation for it from the crowd when there's no reason, it blew my mind. So what is the feeling over there? Has this ruined his career?

I think it has. I mean, he's going to have to go on some kind of mea culpa apology tour. He shouldn't have won anyway. My personal favorite was Denzel Washington. I think that if you can do Macbeth the way he did it, that you should automatically win an acting award. So I didn't think that Will should automatically win an acting award. So I didn't think that Will Smith really deserved the acting

award. What it also has done is it's brought to light some things that he wanted hidden before, you know, about his ties to Scientology and things like that. But also, it makes you wonder. He slapped Chris Rock in front of all these millions of people because there

was a joke about his wife. But his wife was sleeping with another man for a year, and Will Smith didn't do anything about that. Right? So, oh, it's perfectly fine for you to go ahead and sleep with my wife. Oh, here, here, here. Go ahead. Go ahead. Oh, you made a joke about a baldness.

I'm going to slap you and then cuss at you on national television. Jeez, well, this, I tell you what, we'll have to get you back on again. Thank you so much for your time this morning. Hey, my pleasure. I hope you feel better. I love you guys. Anybody listening, please go watch YouTube videos of what these guys used to do on television. It's great.

Oh, good. You have a lovely day. Really appreciate your time. All right. Talk to you soon. Five words for 5K. You're just five words away from $5,000. Alright, talk me consistently disappointing. And Sally, you're on from Hokitika.

Welcome. Thank you. Good to have you on, Sal. Now, I'd just like to sometimes run through how you would react if we told you you'd won $5,000. So let's just do a little bit of role play. I'll play the bald guy from the radio. Ben, you'll play the skinny guy from the radio.

Okay, okay. Okay, and Sally will play the wonderful Sally, the accountant from Hokitika. Okay? Sally, you've won $5,000. Oh, my God, that's awesome. Yeah, it's good. Oh, it's good.

Ben, I think you could have done a bit better. You literally said nothing. Oh, I didn't know when to jump in. You know, sometimes they're messy, and Aaron, who does their production here, he wants to get that audio and put it in a promo and stuff, so I didn't want to talk over everyone, but you're right. It's like when he's at an

orgy. He never knows when to jump in. Okay. Hey, Sally, you know how the game works, obviously? Yep. Who do you want to send away? They won't be out of here. They'll take the headphones off. Jono and Ben, who do you want to send away? Ben, please. Alright, Ben's going to head off. He's currently in his isolation

room. He's off to the soundproof isolation room which is just a spare room in his household and let's try and win you $5,000, Sally. Now Sally, you work at the accountancy firm? Are you an accountant? No. Oh, sorry, I called you an accountant before. What do you do there?

Sort of manage the office and the team, really. You're the backbone. Without you, the place would fall to pieces. It would. It would, and they need to know that, OK? They do need to know that. Let's hope they're listening. A first word that comes into your head when I say left, Sally?

Right. Gone the opposite there on word number one. Sing, coming in at word number two. Song. Do you know I can see Ben on the Zoom camera now? He's taken his headphones off so he can't hear. But he's kind of relaxing, like lounging on his couch, like a model, isn't he, Juliet?

Yeah, he is, yep. Yeah, very relaxed. We've got a relaxed bed. And I've never seen a relaxed bed before. Giraffe is a third word this morning. Giraffe, as in the tall, the giraffe. I think I'll go with tall. Tall.

Honey. Honey. Word number four, Sally. Bee. And satay is coming in at number five for you. Satay? Yeah, the word's a tricky one

you're throwing there. Yeah, the fifth one is a bit fiddly, but satay there's a couple of things that come into my head. There's sort of flow on words. If you were to order a meal of satay... Yeah. Going blank.

Um... Beef. Satay beef? That'd work. That'd work. Or satay chicken is the other one chicken let's get chicken yeah you want to lock in chicken

I definitely gave you that answer and there will definitely be a huge revolt if you win this competition but let's get Ben Ben

I'll just wave at him Ben back chuck your headphones on Ben boys he's returned you took a very relaxed approach

on that couch we noticed sort of leaning back like a sexy model in a GQ shoot. Oh, really? Can you see that on the Zoom? Okay. Yeah, I can see that.

I don't know. We couldn't see what was happening below the waist, but... I was checking my phone. Could you, Julie? Oh, you were checking your phone. Okay. You were doing it very vigorously. Jeez.

Obviously, a lot of texting going on there, Sally. All right, here we go Let's get into this Let's try and win Sally $5,000 First word that comes into your head when I say left Right Yeah well done one from one Sing

Song Ooh Sally You're essential listening For non-essential banter Jono and Ben on the hits Now we play a game week to week called Close Contacts where we give each other our contacts from our phone and then we phone up and then that person has to work out who we've phoned

It's an awkward conversation but a little too close to home at the moment with both of us having COVID, Jono Yeah, Close Contacts is less of a play on words and more of just a fact of life for us at the moment. And it is probably the only thing more awkward you'll hear this week than Will Smith yelling at Chris Rock on international television. Well, last week. Things have not been the same around here since last week. Yeah, last week you had my phone and you found the number for Brad, from Brad and Laura in the afternoons on the hits.

And you rang Brad and I had to work out who it was and I was like, I know that voice, but I just could not pick it. And that was really awkward. I don't know if we've ever had bears, Ben. No, no, I don't know if we have. Have we? I think we should, though.

Bring Jono. We could. Actually, I'll just pass you on to him because I have no idea who this is. It's Brad Watson, who you work with on the radio station. So yeah, I reckon as revenge Brad snuck in and gave us both COVID somehow. Just because, yeah. So now it's my turn.

Now after that, now after I hung you out to dry, I feel very, very awkward about today's call. Now, Jono, you've sent me your contacts from your phone. And so we're going to phone one of the numbers now, one of your contacts, and you've got to work out who we've phoned. Good luck. Hello? phone good luck hello hi hello how are you it's uh jono here hi jono how you been mate good how's it going yeah good good good how's the fam good how's it going? Yeah, good, good, good How's the fam?

Good, how's the COVID? It's good, it's good Just getting better Good, good How's Ben? He's alright, he's at home too So yeah, we're just both Getting on through it

Oh good What else has been happening? Not much, not much getting on through it. Oh, good. What else has been happening? Not much, not much. Just been working away. You? Yeah, no, just been working away. Doing?

Just what? Okay, no, okay. So, no, just been doing, have you not heard me lately? Laura McGoldrick Laura McGoldrick How are you Laura McGoldrick? I was wildly offended for a second there That you almost wrecked your husband's voice

Yeah, because Laura will obviously do a game It's got a little bit more real today It's called Close Contacts where we call people And we try and work out through our contacts who they are. Jono didn't know that I'd called you, but I did it with Brad last week and I couldn't work out Brad's voice. I was like, I know that voice,

and I couldn't work out it was Brad. It was very awkward. He was deeply, deeply offended by the fact that you didn't recognise his voice. Teddy is appalled. Teddy's not happy. But you did well, John. That didn't take you long at all.

No, no, it didn't. I mean, it just really goes to prove who's the more loyal. Damn it, that backfires. Pays more attention to you than fellow colleagues on station. Damn it. Yeah, no, it's good to know you're on brand and you listen to the hats a lot, especially in the afternoon on drive with Brad and Laura. Quite hard through the Zoom line as well.

Oh, whatever, mate, whatever. If I said the Cricket World Cup, would you have known straight away? Oh, absolutely. What's been your favourite game of the Cricket World Cup, Jono? Yeah, Jono. The team. He's trying to make me pay for some form of punishment. I've already won the game.

He's trying to hang me out to dry Lovely to catch up with you You're doing a great job at the Cricket World Cup And a great job in the afternoons as well We'll catch you this afternoon with Brad from 4 o'clock Yeah, way to grease, Ben Way to grease Close contact, stick back again next week

After 8 o'clock on the show The Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern And we'll ask her how she handles all these rumours going on all the time as well as that free gas to give away it is the hit. Tested safe for listing from home Jono and Ben on the hits.

Now we're putting together a bucket list, things we want to achieve before the end of 2022 and we've managed to find someone who's 94 years old in New Zealand and created their own bucket list at 90 and has been doing some wild things over the last few years. They've made the news by doing things like skydiving and race car driving. It's incredible.

Yeah, it is. And producer Bee Humps, he's really, really good at his job. I mean, the main role of a radio producer is professional pest. And so he's to go around just pestering people, pestering them to come on the show. And he's managed to pester someone, and we've got Lois's number. So now it's our turn to do some pestering.

We're going to call Lois right now and find out about her bucket list. Good morning. Hello there. It's Jono and Ben from the Hits Radio Station. What station is it? It's the best one. It's the best radio station. If you say so.

I'll just take my word for it, Lois, don't listen to it though. I've got all bits ready for you. Oh, you're all ready and prepared? Yep. We've started a bucket list, Lois, and we understand at 95 years old, you're knocking some stuff off your bucket list. Yes, yes.

I started when I was 90. I flew in a helicopter over to Waiheke for my 90th birthday. The next year, I did around the Sky Tower, outside the Sky Tower. Oh, you walked around the top of the Sky Tower, outside? Yes, yes. Wow.

And then the next thing I did was we went through to Hamilton and I went up in the balloon. Hottier balloon? Yes. Hamilton and I went up in the balloon. Hot air balloon? Yeah. And then the biggest thing I did last year was I went in a fast car around the circuit at a Hampton Downs race course. I'm just looking at this right now. You went over 200 kilometers an hour in a supercar, did a hot lap.

That's it. Oh, it was awesome. Lois, you sound faster, too, once I know that information. 200, over 200. What did it feel like at 95 years old going at that pace? Oh, wonderful, yes. Oh, I really thought it was marvellous. What are we going to do this next year?

I want to do a skydive. You're going to skydive? Yes, if God willing and my health keeps, that's what I'd like to do. Now, far be it for me, Lois, to say at age 90, you left your run to start the bucket list quite late, but you've achieved a lot in a five-year period. Yes. Oh, yes, yes. Well, I hadn't thought

about it until then because I'd had a busy life. And then all of a sudden I thought, oh, what will I do with the rest of my life? Good on you. That's what I want to do because I want to get to 100. What would you say to people listening that, like Johnna and myself, that haven't made a bucket list until now?

You've got something to look forward to. And, I mean, we've got great days and good days, but there's always something bright that you think of. Oh, I'll do that next time. Oh, that's beautiful. And what do your family think of you doing these high-paced, adrenaline-seeking stunts? Oh, they think it's wonderful.

Oh, that's awesome. You're an inspiration. You're doing more. You've done things that I haven't done. I've been too scared to do. Oh, it was marvellous going around the Sky Tower. Ben's not a car guy. He doesn't like going fast.

He doesn't like going high. What else don't you like doing? Yeah, most of the things you mentioned I didn't like. But I appreciate that you did them. That's amazing. Oh, yes. You've got to think ahead. Maybe I'll do them when I'm 94.

Yeah, you're only young yet. So, you see, you've got time to think about all these things. Yeah, Lois is like, I've got nothing left to lose, mate, I'm going hard. Lois, it's been an absolute pleasure talking

with you. You're a superstar and good luck getting to 100 and knocking more things off your bucket list. Yes, thank you very much for reading. Oh, that's the awesome Lois. She's 94 years old. She's got a bucket list. What's on your bucket list?

We'd love to hear from you this morning. 4487 or 0800 The Hits. What's on your bucket list? And hopefully this year we can help make some of your bucket list dreams come true. Love to hear from you after Ed Sheeran overpassed graffiti. It is The Hits. This is a dark parade is The Hits. The Hits, the Jono and Ben podcast.

We're putting together a bucket list with your help, things that we want to achieve before the end of the year and hopefully some of the things that we can help you guys achieve. So on 0800 The Hits, we've got Shelly with us now who's not only had her own bucket list but she's actually knocked something off. I did.

I went swimming with whales in Tonga. Oh. That would be, now this isn't just your dolphin swim. Whales, I've seen whales. They're big. They are huge. Yeah, we swam over them. The little bubbles were coming up,

and just felt like you were swimming in champagne for part of it. They were amazing. So do they play with were swimming in champagne for part of it. They were amazing. So did they play with you? In their way, I guess. They kind of hung out with us and then when they got bored, they'd swim away and then we'd all jump back on the boat and follow them and then if the guide said, yep, they want us to come out again, then we'd pop and swim with them again. Is it scary? Because these must be massive, the whales.

Exhilarating. It could be scary if you were doing it by yourself and you saw them, but we were safety drilled and people were there with us. It was fantastic. It was amazing. I've read the story of Moby Dick. It didn't end too well for... Pinocchio, didn't they end up inside a whale

at some stage as well? There's been some terrifying whale tales over the years Do this specifically, this is like the tour to go swimming with them Yeah, so I went out and we went snorkelling at one of the beautiful islands there

had some lunch there and swam with the whales. So you don't get guaranteed to swim with the whales. Yeah. And we spent a couple of hours with them. So it was amazing. That is good. I mean, it's not like you can send a whale a calendar invite, can you?

No. You can't really, no. No. Was this a lifelong dream of yours to do this? It had been a long dream, yeah. And my husband kept going over to Tonga and saying, oh, yeah, I saw whales, you know, off the coast there and that sort of thing. And you see them, like you're standing outside

and you just see whales swimming along at certain times of the year. Can I ask what type of whales they were, if you know? I want to say sperm whales. Wow. They were big. Yeah. They were big whales. They migrate down south and then they come up again.

That is very cool. And so for lunch did you harpoon them and eat them afterwards? No. We did not. No, okay. They look tasty. Not even the baby ones. Now that is such an experience. Well, you'll never forget that.

Yeah, for sure. Well, thank you very much for your time this morning, Shelley. Knocked off swimming with whales from her bucket list. You go and have a great day. Yeah, you too. I'll see you. And can I just say, John, well done. Well done.

There was a name mentioned there before. I was like, oh, here we go. Old mate's got a... Well done. The name of the whale? Well done. The name here we go. Oh, mate's got a, and well done. The name of the whale? Well done. The name of the whale. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well done, well done. God, that didn't even cross my mind. As soon as I heard it, I was like, oh, mate, John, here we go. It was like a timer. I was waiting for it to end. I was like, no, it didn't. I was like, I'm very impressed. Well done.

It took all of my strength, man. Lisa, welcome. Hello. Good to have you on. Now, you, you know, selflessly, don't want to knock something off your bucket list, but your husband's. Oh, yeah. I just love him so much.

And I have been on a plane a few years ago. We went up to Auckland. But he's never been on a plane. He's never been on a plane. He's from Dunedin and now he lives in Christchurch and he's never been on a plane. He's never been on a plane. He's from Dunedin and now he lives in Christchurch and he's never been on a plane. He's not scared of flying or anything? No, he would love to go on a plane. It's just the

opportunity just hasn't happened. Wow, yeah. So yeah, we could potentially try and get him on a plane. Yeah, so he'd be keen to go on a plane if we could try and arrange that. Yeah, he would love it so much. What if his debut plane ride was like that Red Bull stunt plane or something? Oh, jeez.

Actually, he would probably love that too. He'd be like, whoa, okay, this is not what I was expecting. I just wanted to have choose between a cookie and cassava chips. Wow, okay, so you guys are based in what, Dunedin, did you say? Sorry? Oh, no, no, he's from Dunedin, but we live in Christchurch. I'm from Christchurch. And we met and fell in love.

And, yeah, I knew he hasn't been on a plane. And I was like, how great a wife would I be to try and get one of his dreams come true? Well, that would be wonderful. We'll see what we can do. I've got no contacts in the airline industry, but we'll see what we can do. We can also look at... Anyway, yeah, leave it with us. We'll come back to you as soon as possible, all right?

Okay, cool. Thank you. There we go. Making dreams come true. Well, we haven't yet, but we kind of... Just say we are. Just say we are. Get fuelled up with the Hitz Fuel Grab.

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It's pretty easy, isn't it? That's great. What a great game to be doing at the moment. Hey, next, the Prime Minister's on and we want to talk to her about the rumours. So many rumours out there. Well, you do. You do. We know they're all, you know, they're not true. I don't want to make it awkward. You've got to make it awkward, okay? Hard-hitting interviews and

informed opinion. Mike Hosking on Newstalk ZB. In the meantime, Jono and Ben on the hits. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern joins us as she does every few weeks. Good morning. Oh, good morning. This is just a welfare check. It's a welfare check.

It's always great to get a call from the Prime Minister just checking in on how we are. I do a round in the morning just to see how folks are doing. She finds every New Zealander who's got COVID. We both have COVID. You've managed to avoid it so far. Has there been times that you thought you've had it? Thus far, I have. Oh yes, you know, from time to time if I'm

feeling a bit under the weather I'll do the same thing we ask every New Zealander and just do a test and check. But no, no, I've been fine so far but yeah, I'm pretty realistic. I'm out and about a lot. I try and do everything right but

yeah, probably only a matter of time. That's the thing. You feel like it just gets closer and closer to you, don't you? Yeah. At the same time, though, we've seen in Auckland, you guys are at the, the cases have really come down. So you're at the tail end. Definitely, definitely we've seen Auckland's well off its peak when now we've just seen it. It's a similar thing happening in the rest of the country. Well, things are starting to happen again, but everyone's talking off its peak. We're now just seeing it, but there's a similar thing happening in the rest of the country. Well, things are starting to happen again, but everyone's talking about your wedding.

You're like, is that going to be happening? Obviously difficult with COVID. Would you consider just whipping down to the registry office and just getting it done that way? I think I've probably thought about that more than Clark. He's probably a bit more patient than me. No, no, I think we'll do it properly. You know how family, family always, these things matter a lot too. And we've got

one fully organised. We just need to kind of pull it off the shelf again at some point. Dust it off. Well, that's if you can actually find Clark. Who knows where he is, Jacinda? Oh, come on. Oh, he's still doing that gag. Oh, mate, you know I'm going to continue that on for way too long On a serious note though All of the rumours that you do here Does it take up any of your energy?

Because everyone would be like No, that's not true Or do you just have to plough on? It can certainly Do you know what it makes you do? It makes you stop and think back on every time in the past Where you've heard something and gone Oh really? It makes you stop and think back on every time in the past where you've heard something and gone, oh, really?

It makes you realize that probably every single time that happened, it was wrong. It really makes you think about that. Especially in a small country like New Zealand, we were probably, I don't know whether or not large countries are as gossipy as small ones. No, we are a gossipy little nation, aren't we? Yeah. small ones. No, we are a gossipy little nation, aren't we? Yeah, and look, you know, you've just got to ignore it really and get on with your life. If you spend too much time stressing about those things,

then you wouldn't get on with everything that's important. Yeah, a lot of wild weather over the last couple of weeks. You put up something on your Instagram where Clark and Niamh were looking out at the thunder and the lightning, and then next minute you're cleaning up a mess because it all came through the window, the rain at Government House. I mean, Government House looks very old and rickety. Surely it needs to do up. You know, it's been probably, this is, actually I've had conversations with past prime ministers about this.

And everyone's reluctant to put too much money into their house they're living in. And you can understand why because, you know, you don't want to look like you're doing a big reno on the taxpayer's purse. And I totally, totally get that, and I've been the same. But it's also a heritage home, so there's a balance to be struck there, just making sure that we look after it. I've set up a group of people with some experience with heritage homes and just said, you tell me what we need to do to look after this place.

Let's try and get the politics out of it just so it's there for the next generation. When we moved in, it still has leaks. It had possums in the roof. Spiders? Oh, the spiders are a given. That's so funny. It's such a New Zealand approach to it.

Oh, I better not do it up because I don't want to cause a fuss. There was a front page story when they put new fencing in. So I think, you know, such is life, but we're just going to make sure we still take care of it. Now, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, things are, you know, slowly returning back to normal, as you said before. Crowds are coming back.

Concerts are coming back. We've got a lot of concerts coming up later in the year. Ed Sheeran, Guns N' Roses, Justin Bieber, Billie Eilish, Dua Lipa. Any of those you're like, oh, I've got to get some tickets, got to go along and see that? I haven't been, I've tended to try and get to the odd festival, but I haven't got to a concert in a while. I think the last one I went to probably was possibly Elton John, actually.

You remember one that was right, right before COVID hit us. He was unwell and had to finish halfway through, you might remember, so it was probably the last one I managed to get to. I have to say, when I hear Guns N' Roses, I was, you know, a child of the 90s. So the spaghetti incident, that still has a lot of memories for me. So there'll probably be a lot of people in their early 40s at that age. Yeah, it will be. Yeah, that's the thing. And we love that Jacinda Ardern has this hidden inner bogan in her.

Yeah, when you go over morons, well, that's what happens. Well, Prime Minister, really do appreciate your time. Thank you for coming on. You keep well. Keep safe. Thanks a lot. Look after yourself, guys. Take it easy. I don't know about this getting up so early. You should be resting. Well, thank you for our wellness phone call. We really appreciate it. Take it easy. I don't know about this getting up so early. You should be resting. Thank you for our wellness

phone call. We really appreciate it. Take care. Producer Julie, it's last week. It's your last week with us, isn't it, Julie? It is. It is. It's so weird. Two more days. You couldn't really have a bleaker end to your tenure at the Hicks. I know. It's so sad.

The two of us are at home at the moment. Both John and myself have COVID, so we're not in at work. But something that relates to you leaving, and it caused me a lot of frustration last night, Juliet, was trying to print out a reference to sign for you. Now, I have one piece of technology in my house that I just don't blend with,

and that's the home printer. I'm not a boomer. I can operate the TV, I can operate the computer, but when it comes to the home printer, we're not compatible. We're like Will Smith and Chris Rock. The relationship is tense. Did you slap the printer? Well, no, I didn't, but I thought about it. Every time I go to use it, there's like an error. It goes, or it won't connect to my printer, it won't connect to my laptop, sorry,

and it won't connect up. And then it finally prints. But when it prints, it prints a test page, like a test page. This is the thing with the home printer. It's often a forgotten member of the family. It's like a grandmother. You don't use it or see it for months, but then you expect it to just work perfectly when you want to print something out in between times.

Yeah, you do. You turn it off, you turn it on again, you check the trays, you press all the buttons, nothing. And then I was frustrated. My wife comes into the room later and she plugs in her laptop and it works perfectly. I'm like, what am I doing wrong?

But then, because I pressed all the buttons and finally, I had 37 copies of your reference now, Julie. Oh my god. It just kept coming out. So if you want to go hand those around to people, I don't know. Yeah, sweet.

37 of them. That's great. Did you give her good references? That was a shocking one. We don't want her to leave. I said she got fired from here for workplace theft. Just so she can't get a new job, so she can't leave us. That's good.

You know the worst thing on the home printer too? And no darker day when it says, replace the ink printer cartridge. Yes. And you're like, mate. I know. And they're more expensive than actual printers. Without a word of a lie, they are.

You're right. I didn't know that. I've never really bought printer ink before. You can buy a whole new printer with ink cartridges cheaper than buying some ink cartridges. I don't know. The printer industry's really messed this one up, guys. You're running late, stuck in traffic, and now you have to listen to this.

Jono and Ben on the hits. Breakfast with Jono and Ben. America's Cup, sadly, won't be in New Zealand. It's off to Spain. We learned that this morning, and we also learned the critic pronunciation of the city it's going to. Barcelona. Barcelona. Barcelona.

Barcelona. Oh, I didn't get it. We should get in touch with him and see if he can say, Jono and Ben on the hits. We should. We should track him down. Correct pronunciation. Maybe we'll put it on our bucket list.

We're putting together a bucket list. If you've got anything for us that you want to achieve, we might help you out as well. 4487 on the text. We'll be back with that tomorrow as well as free gas and a whole lot of money as well. We'll catch you tomorrow on the hits.