Hubris.co.nz

Sleep lately has been of the 4.30am nightmares, so getting up at 8am to get my show on the road really didn’t seem like a viable option. Instead, I rolled out of bed at 9.30 and waited for an age at Peoples Coffee [sic] before finally getting on the road. The first mix CD that Lisa ever made for me, which introduced me to Bright Eyes (“now your hands are on me / pressing hard against my jeans / you didn’t care to know / who else may have been you before”), the Arcade Fire (“there’s something wrong in the hearts of Man”) and the saddest music video ever for ‘The Death of Romance’ by The Dears (I challenge you to watch that and NOT cry!) guided me through the wake-up period, and then Bloc Party took me to Taihape and lunch at the Brown Sugar Cafe.

My first memories of the Brown Sugar Cafe, (probably from 1997 going up to check on AUT, and then on so many subsequent trips back and from Auckland, including one particularly memorable road trip to Mark F’s 21 where Jo (starla) only got to come along because she returned a teaspoon to her mother in time) were of me drinking cappuccinos, which came with a chocolate-covered coffee bean on the spoon, They used to have monstrously big foccaia sandwiches filled with tomato, alfalfa and thick long slices of Camembert cut all the way across the wheel, and they cost something like $5, but no more. They do still have chicken and cashew croissants, but they’re smaller, staler, and my bill for a tiny croissant, a juice and a bacon in cibatta was $18. State High Way One Robbery, I tell you!

But that area is my most favouritest to drive in, so off I set, cranking up Eight Arms To Hold You and realising that I know all the words still, and – as I twittered once i got off the Desert Road – their songs have essentially the same structure as my essays I used to write in fifth form. Introduce your theme, provide three examples, sum up. And these sheets smell like bayous, not mine, not yours, not yours. It was sweaty and hot, and on the Desert Road all I could think about was the piece I wrote called ‘North of You’ in 101 Stories That I Want To Tell You, and hey, it’s 2009, you’re going to contact me, right? It’s been three years. But it was a different person’s handprint that I have burned into my thighs. I fucking hate being left alone to my thoughts all day eh. It was like every single line of every song I sung was directly applicable to me – even when I switched away from Birds to Britney Spears in total desperation.

There was tar on my shoes from Taihape, which made the pedals sticky and somewhat scary to operate. When I got a can of the newly redesigned coke from the Tairua Caltex and waited an eternity for their one bathroom because it was just after 5pm when the public toilets close, it exploded on me in the car. I lost my glasses somewhere before Hamilton and spent a frenzied frantic ten minutes tearing my car apart to re-find them. I got stuck behind a Newman’s coach liner from Hamilton to Huntly, and then I overshot the city because I got confused about Great South Road and State Highway One and ended up on the expressway to Auckland before I manged to call the Romantic Getaways place and finally found it. I was overwhelmed by seeing Kat again, and trying to hustle into my room, and trying to get a shower, and discovering that my room hasn’t been renovated at all, and in fact they’d given me a single bed because I’M NOT MARRIED but Kat insisted that I’d paid for a double so I may in fact be sleeping on the owners’ bed, and that is why I only have two pillows, despite all the other furniture piled up in this room. Half the corridors here are still linoleum, and i need to use school-camp quality bathrooms – unless I go down to K&K’s honeymoon suite, where their shower has two heads, and oh yes, I had them both going, at different temperatures on top of me and I giggled and giggled and giggled at the sensation, and also at the thought of wasting all that water, and then Kane came back to his room and I told him that his wedding treat was waiting for him, and oh how we laughed!

Eventually after more cat-herding than even I would ever be able to deal with (parents, cousins, brothers, oldies, littlies) we headed down the hill to the Old Courthouse Cafe for a lot more waiting for late people. I got some wine as soon as was civilized to do so, and oh, it was nice, It’s been hard being so dry lately when my friends are all so wet, The staff were very unsure with wines, but the wood-fired scotch fillet was oh my fricking good amazing.

More cat-herding found me and Kat and Brooke and Vanessa in Kat’s suite, ever so vaguely watching The Princess Bride, while Brooke practised doing Kat’s makeup, and Vanessa and I had facials and hand jobs. I’ll put links in to the appropriate PPP posts when I have internet, I swear. But now I might find my book, see if I can read little while I wait for zopiclone, and get my eyes ready to cry lots tomorrow! OMG OMG OMG! They’re getting married!

Monday August 19th

On Saturday, I meant to leave by 9.30am, but instead I ended up getting up then, which meant I left at 10.30am, cos it took time to shower and gather up glam rocker clothes and accessories and my princess dress and bedding and bundle it all into the back of my car and fill up with bagels and petrol. But yes, I was on the way by 10.30am. It was a gorgeous lovely wonderful day, and I was all happy and smiley as I drove along. It only took like an hour and a quarter to get to Paeroa, home of Gil and too many people who listen to Sublime, apparently. So many small towns, so many memories of people who came from there. And there was Waihi, where Shirley took me to one day, so that was choice and I tried to spot her old house as I sped along, but I didn’t – I did pull off the road to text her though – I’m so glad that there are text links to the UK. My wrists got a little sore eventually from the driving, but it was all so sunny and nice, especially the island-like driving just outsidea Tauranga. And then as I was retuning my radio, I suddenly heard Brad’s voice, so I realised i must have found Bayrock and that Whakatane couldn’t be too far away, and it wasn’t. 3.5 hours easy driving – loverly.

So I met Brad’s (intellectually challenged) flatmates and giggled lots, and then he took me on a tour of the town. It actually took a lot longer than I thought it would, and he took me up over the hill to a lookout point where we Parked (i’m using the capital letter there cos we were both like at the same time “hey, we can go Park” although of course we didn’t actually make out or any monkey business like that – I may lick Anji’s belly from time to time but I’m not actually incestuous) and took photos of the pretty view, and then went down to Ohope Beach where he used to live. So that was all cool. Then we went to the completely authentic Whakatane experiances of The Warehouse for masks and Pak’n Slave for food (I got baked potato chips, and let me tell you, they were nice, but they just didn’t satisfy on a chip level – they were far more like crackers). After that, I kicked Brad’s ass at Monopoly without even cheating at all. I am a railway mongol. And then we watched the Olsen twins’ TV show to reminisce about the old Garland Full House days and made lots of savvy commentary.

Eventually after dinner (he’d offered to make me Rice Risotto with Mince, his signature dish, but i declined) we started drinking and got ready for the masquerade party which had provided the extra incentive for me to visit him. Brad wore old blue flares of Fatty Si’s, a brown shirt and my purple feather boa, and I did his makeup all fabulous, and I wore my princess dress and tiara and lots of glitter. His flatmate Asher and some carny friend of his came home and made me play 3Man with them, go the dice drinking games. They were a little suprised at what a filthy mouth I have. Eventually we set out in the mist to this party. Oh dear. All the lights were on in the house and the music was turned down really really low – and plus, it was like, hits from 1999, which would have been fine if the house had been filled with Garlandketeers, but it wasn’t – they were mostly old people, and no one was dressed up. Oh well. We ended up sitting in the kitchen playing 3Man again with a larger group of people. That’s okay though, cos all I wanted to do was get to dress up and see Brad, and I achieved both of those things fabulously. I guess eventually we ended up walking home, but I don’t remember that, and we got changed and went to town. Brad bought me a KGB in keeping with local traditions (ewwww) and we danced like dicks in a bad bar called The Boilerroom cos the rest of town was completely deserted. Eventually the music was just too hideous to put up with any longer so we went and sat in a taxi office for what seemed like hours to get a taxi home. We listened to more music and sent off random texts and watched m2 for a while and I (apparently) told his flatmate in great detail just why Linkin Park are so crap, and then I fell asleep pretty much as soon as I had the couch open.

Brad had to work from 10-2, so I woke up before then, feeling more than a little seedy but fighting it. He left for work and after I’d had a shower and stuff, I managed to extract my car and set off for town. After driving around a little and checking out what times the movies were playing, I decided it was far too nice a day to sit inside crying at people chasing fences, so I went to Ohope Beach again instead, and sat outside in the cold sunny wind reading the paper, fightign the urge to throw up. Eventually I got too cold, so I went and found a suprisingly good coffee and some bad food and sat in that cafe for like an hour and a half reading magazines, getting rude comments from the couple sitting behind me who said to themselves that “you could read magazines at home” but it’s not like there was a shortage of tables or anything, and besides, they ordered Steinlager, so what would they know about anything? Damn carnys.

Finally it was almost 2, so I went to the radiostation to meet Brad and he gave me a tour around it. After that, he was hungry so we went to a cafe called ‘Friends’, and yes, it’s painted the same colour as Monica’s apartment and is hung with posters of the cast. It was scary. But there was a cool purple corduroy couch and they made really good smoothies that made me feel a lot better. And then we went and rented movies. Here’s a tip – if you would like to see Angelina Joile’s breasts, you certainly do get to see a lot of them in “Original Sin” but that’s pretty much within the first 15 minutes, adn you should TURN OFF THE TELEVISION after the long extended softporn scene (complete with softporn music). I want the two hours of my life that I wasted on that movie back please. And then we went and had dinner in an Indian restaurant overlooking the harbour, and it was all 1960s decor (we might have our wedding reception there) and we were the only people in it and it was just carny carny carny. And then I had to drive home. I hate driving in the dark, I must remember to remember that.

And now my back and shouldersa re SO sore from all that driving and I’m tired, and we had Nicky Hager come talk to us today but I don’t feel like deconstructing him right now, so I won’t, but if anyone has suggestions about what I should get Clay for his birthday, do email me.

My eyes hurt, so I probably should go to bed sometime. I’m in Wellington. We have a massive looming Xmas tree and funny lights. There are big parcels for me under it which I have fondled and am still confused by. The house is all clean. It’s cool.

I had SUCH a nice drive down today, all lovely sunshine and little traffic. I sang and smiled, young, fabulous and free. I listened to Kiss FM for 2 hours whilst in the Taupo vicinity because Jarrod was dj’ing on it. Innnnnnteresting music selection going on there, Fur Patrol one minue and Meatloaf the next. Oh and speaking of Fur Patrol, how fucking cool is it that they’re the Xmas number one in NZ? So fucking cool. The Xmas number one in the UK is probably “Bob the Builder” which I heard on the simulcast of Top of the Pops somewhere in the Manawatu. Eminemem played “Stan” on Top of the Pops as well, but he was strangely cut off before the last two verses. What a suprise.

My father’s trying to tell me that Robbie Williams is gay. As if.

I got a text message today from an unknown number saying “Are your nipples errect?” . I was a little confused, but unsuprised. When I rang the number back, the answering machine said it was Kate, and later i talked to the Bentons to confirm that it was indeed Kate B. So I sent her back a message that said “yes and I’m all wet and ready for you”. She hasn’t replied.

My cat Pixie is sitting on top of the largest present for me. It’s a bigass box, but I bet it’s just a cd with a lot of newspaper around it. I love Xmas pressies. I have to go shopping tomorrow though, which will be a mare.

Simon’s not answering his phone. We still have nowhere to stay in Taupo. No room at the Inn. I guess I’ll just give birth in a manger instead. Hayley never knows who I am when I phone her. Brad rang me today to ask where the axe is. He also emailed me some addresses for home&away related sites. I like this one – http://www.alfstewart.cjb.net/. Stone the flamin’ crows, Ails, you build a website and then those bloody yahoos come in with their caps on backwards and just smash the place up.

My belly hurts too. I should go, although it’s been great having a yarn with you. Oh wait hang on, what are you getting me for Xmas? This is what I would like:

• A nokia 3210/3310
• Bed linen! Queen size duvet covers, and make sure they’re pretty
• Makeup – ‘Juliet’ coloured Poppy eyeshadow, or anything Napolean, or any kinda lip gloss at all
• Money or vouchers
• CDs: ‘Kid A’ Radiohead, ‘Pet’ Fur Patrol or ‘The Altruist’ (or is it ‘Altruism’?) DLT.
• Lamps, pillows and candles (I wanna live in a harem)
• Alcohmahol or illict substances
• Art works – not movie posters
• Handbags (cos you can never have enough)
• a digital camera
• a cd burner
• a trip to Melbourne/Sydney

Thank you. I will give you my postal address on request. Oh and one last thing – my sister Karen wrote this tonight.

Me (in bear mask)”roaaaaar!” Kara: “eeek!” Me:”Sorry, I didn’t mean to score you. I mean, scare you”

So I’ve been online for like 30 minutes and I still haven’t managed to read a single one of my emails yet. I really must change email accounts.

I bought two heads of brocoli today at 15 cents a head each. This is a good thing. I got them in Northcote, if you’re interested. Today again I was driving around the Shore investigating venues. It’s great. I like Rob in the car division – he gave me a manual drive car today when I told him about the stupid things I did with the automatic last week (I was wondering why the car braked so damn jerky when I was being super gentle until I realised that I was using my left foot on the brake, which as we all know is wrong). There’s a couple’o pajs parked down in amongst the company car pool too – I’ve promised Brad and Clay I’m going to try my hardest to get to take a paj out for the day and I’ll come and pick them up and we’ll drive through Remmers darling. Anyways. So yeah, Northcote/Birkenhead in the morning, then Devenport and Albany in the afternoon.

I had a meeting with the PR Consultant lady I’m working with who’s only in 2 days a week and gave my report and she said I was going well, and that I have full authority to go ahead and book the venues and start drawing up a timetable. Scaaary! I’d much rather someone was checking me every step of the way, but I just don’t have that at work – they leave me up to my own devices. I’m very good at looking busy. I have email at work now, finally my own key and login, but so far I’ve only given my email address to essential contacts (read: Kini and Olivia). I’m trying to be good. I don’t want to fuck this all up. I’m alredy worried about finding a job in February, because I know I have a tendancy not to be very good at seeking things out because basically everything i ever need falls in my lap. Except for my paycheque – grrr! I don’t get paid for a fortnight, and I’m in malls and shopping areas for half the morning – all my xmas shopping could be done by now if I had a cent left in the bank. Ahh well. Tomorrow I’m going to be in a working party conference anyways. Have I mentioned that I get business cards?

Wank wank wank wank wank. I actually am often left without anything to do, so I call Shirley, and since I’m in an open planned office, the people around me would hear
“Hi, it’s Joanna here from *, is that you Shirley? How are you?…….. Right, I’m calling in regards to the communication briefing I received the other day……….. No no, that’s fine……..yes I was in contact yesterday but we decided to not pursue that avenue any further for a while…. yes of course it’s re-occuring….I appreciate that…. absolutely, I’ll just make a note of that…….. yes…. yes….. well would you have some time free for a meeting?…….. how’s today for you?…..alright well we’ll scheduale something for next week then” and then my boss will come back and I’ll want to ask her something so I’ll hang up on Shirley really abruptly going “Great, well thank you very much for your time”. I’m SO a kid in heels and pearls. Nevermind the fact that the rest of the office spends their lives on the phone having really boring conversations with their car insurance and real estate agent places that I can’t help but evesdrop on. Or maybe they’re all speaking in a secret code too. Hmmmmmmm, intriguing!

Because I spent so much time driving today, I came up with a list of memorable car moments that I jotted down because I was bored. You know how I like my lists. Sheesh, anyone would think that I was incapable of stringing together anything more cohesive. And ha! I’m going to alphabetize them by the first letter in the sentence:

• A memory from Primary School; the greatest day of my life ever at that stage was when I got to sit squashed up next to my Crush – Andrew Carnegie – to and from a netball tournament
• Amy and Andee taking me over the harbour bridge by mistake, playing the Spice Girls and bumping the car to cheer me up
• Anji and Greg taking me up to Auckland for Pearl Jam when I was 14, determined to corrupt me and we picked up a dumb hitchhiker who said “Youse guys”
• Countless Welly/Auck drives with Kate B, listening to Cat Stevens, blowing bubbles and taking mad photos left right and centre
• Driving myself to Wellington thinking so hard that later I wrote a 7 page essay on the appropriate course of action to take as a consequence of that thought process
• Driving to Welly with Simon and Matt Sawkill in the backseat, me giggling away to myself like the cat that’s got the cream and is mixing its metaphors like a DJ with religion.
• Going to Waiuku for Kate H’s goodbye party, Justin putting the car in neutral going down a hill and it kept going, freefalling
• Kim speeding along Greenlane West at 3am in the fog when we were on a mad sugar rush and couldn’t see 10 feet ahead of us
• Kini in my rear view mirror, the magical drive into the Coramandel
• MM in the MR2, subwoofer under my seat, lost in Remuera at 4am trying to find food cos we’d been up arguing all night
• Pajero pulling up outside my house in Mount Roskill, Shirley and Dee Cavalry coming to be with me when I found out that Opa died
• Pixie’s friend Sam’s orange pumpkin car, tinnie house in Te Atatu right next to a primary school and I thought we’d be beaten up by protective westie parents
• Roadtripping to Waihi with Shirley, her doing crazy overtaking manouvers and making Trudie scream when I dared her to drive down a bank
• Sung Song association all the way to St. Heliers with Brad in the stereoless Grey Ghost
• the other night in Jeremy’s car, cold from swimming, falling asleep on Clayton’s shoulder

I warned you that i have full stationary cupboard rights – notepads are perfect for lists.

“I think you’re crazy, maybe, I think you’re crazy.”

Tuesday 12; January, 1999

Jo and I were waiting in the van outside of J’ville Mall for Mum to buy flowers for Oma, listening to @ctive 89fm (which isn’t half as cliched as it appears from that spelling). Because it was so hideously early in the morning, it was still the breakfast show (Felix wakes up djs and laughs at their houses), and they had a ‘classic track flashback’. We were SO estatic to hear ’3am’. I so so so wanna be the KLF. So that set us off in good spirits.

We had to stop off at Oma’s, so that she could give me some ‘travelling money’. I know, I know, I’m a spoiled brat. What am I supposed to do about it? It costs a lot to set up a new flat you know. And stuff.

Simon took ages to cram all his stuff into the cars, and he ended up leaving shit like his stereo with my mommy, so that she could bring it up two days later in the van-mobile. Jo got in the car with Simon’s momma, and I got into his car. We agreed to stop in Taihape for lunch, cos we figured that with his boyracingwannabe driving, we’d end up miles and miles ahead. We didn’t though, and had only 20 minutes to spare in Taihape (at the reject jean store). While in Taihape, our entronage reccomends the Brown Sugar Cafe for reaaaaaally good coffee and foodage. I remember the good old days (ie – before I went to Japan) when we used to have picnics during long road journeys instead of stopping in cafes. In fact, there weren’t even cafes – only tearooms. It’s so much cooler to be driving reaaaally fast listening to reaaaaaaaally loud music (even if ears do pop when windows are wound up – no air con in the honda accord) than sitting in the back seat feeling carsick like I used to. Did that make sense? I’ve just finished a bottle of wine so I hope so. This is all written post-humouressly by the way. Oh god, I wrote btw, but then had to erase it. That’s what nearly two years on chat’ll do to an otherwise nice girl. Annnnnyways………

So yeah, whenever we stopped and met up, it was a very joyous occasion for me and Jo. I’m not sure what the people in Bombay thought of two girls kissing (that’s not SNOGGING, sorry to disappoint). Oh well, I’m sure they needed it. She’d managed to charm Si’s momma into sharing the stereo, and they sat smoking away in the air conded mitsubishi as happy as Larry.

Simon’s mother had booked us into the Mount Eden Motel, on Balmoral Road. Shihad stayed there too, but I guess we’ll get to that a little later. We had to go to the shore to drop Jo off at Matter’s, so that was a laugh and a half. Then we had advacado on bread for dinner. Mmmmmm.

I got on the phone like really soon after we got there, and so Si and I headed up Mount Eden Road to Shirley’s house. Classy Classy place, so near town, but it’s $120 a week each for her and her sis which is a bit too much, so she’s looking for a new place. I’d love to live in her house, only we want somewhere that’s bigger than two bedrooms.

I was a trifle worried about where we were to sleep, since it was a one bedroomed unit. I mean, I’m grown up enough to not mind having to sleep in the same bed as a boy, or an older woman, BUT I hate sharing a bed at the best of times, and especially in sticky sticky hot summer. As it turned out though, it was semi-sweetass, cos I got to sleep on the sofabed in the lounge while Si and Si’s Momma did the Oedipul thing. Well, not quite. She SNORES sooooooo loud man. I fully couldn’t sleep.

Sunday the 3rd of January, 1999

So it’s a new year, so we get a new colour scheme. Possibly this purple is a little too bright for your tender eyes – do let me know. Okay. Onward ho. Do make sure you’ve downloaded my font too, okay?

I woke up around 10.30am when Karen came into the lounge (I was in the moonlight lounge remember?) and said Good Morning to her. She was fully suprised and was like “what are you doing here?” I replied “sleeping” and turned over and went back to sleep. Such a shocker of a McLeod answer huh?

Anyways, I got up properly at the far more dignified hour of 1pm, and explained to her that I’d been out with Anji. We went to have breakfast at the Krazy Lounge, which was nice, only I’m not a big fan of breakfast menus. Eggs and I are not on speaking terms, basically. But yeah, anyways. Mum and Neil came to collect me, and I went home.

Did I ever explain why I call my father ‘Neil’ ? Like, everyone always asks me, so maybe I’ll write it down here for you.

Once upon a time, way back in the early seventies, a man called Neil and a woman called Aimee had so much love for each other that the love formed a whole seperate baby that they called Angeline – or Angie (Anji now) for short. Angie watched her mother and father refer to themselves as “Neil” and “Aimee” so when she started to talk, she called them that too. Aimee and Neil made another baby out of their love, called Karen, who was basically just an Angie wannabe and called her parents the same names too. One day Angie started Preschool, and saw all her peers call their mothers “Mum”. Aimee helped out at the preschool, and all the children there called her “Angie’s Mum”. A lightbulb went on in Angie’s head, and she started to call Aimee “Mum”. Karen instantly copied her. Neil however, was not as involved in his children’s lives, so he didn’t have his name changed to fit in with their peers’ expectations. A few years later, Joanna came along, and mimicked her sisters. She got really tired of telling the story, and since she resented being moved to Japan and loathed her father for it, she claimed that was the reason he didn’t get called Dad. But it wasn’t really.

Gosh, that was a fun digression, wasn’t it? Anyways, where were we? Oh yeah.

The rest of the day was pretty boring. In the evening I totally hid out in my room because my aunt and uncle came over and they’re excrutiatingly boring. I was just sitting on IRC and stuff when Kate came online, and she was like “can I come over?” Of course I would have said yes, only up pops Simon with “come and visit me!!!!!”. So yeah, on the spur of the moment, we decided to make the hour long drive up to Waikanae. She told me that she’d be at my house in fifteen minutes, so I went to wait for her at my letterbox, foolishly not realising that she meant half an hour. Ah well. Eventually, we were on our way. In Johnsonville, she decided that we needed to get KFC, so we got burgers that were actually really yucky. The roundabout had its sprinklers going, so we drove around it like four times, shrieking when the water came in the open window. Ahhhh you crazy kids!

The drive out to Waikanae took a long time, and Kate’s driving is slightly scary, but that’s okay. It was amusing ‘cos she made me smoke a cigarette, and I realised that they taste like shit, even more so because I wasn’t drunk. So yeah, I don’t know what the moral of that story is. Smoking IS sexy though, even though it probably shouldn’t be. Most of the people I know smoke; it’s kind of suprising that I don’t. In fact, neither me or Anji or Karen smoke. I guess in Karen’s case, that’s not suprising, but both me and Anji dwell in what are extremely smokey societies. How Brady are we then?

Anyways. Kate and I decided as we drove along that we’d take Simon to the beach, so after sitting around for a while watching him play with his linux, and after making more arrangments with his momma for our exodus up north (she’s coming next week to help us flat hunt) we did just that. It was so dark walking through the trees barefoot, and then we had to scramble down sand dunes, but it was completly worth it. There was a full moon, and it glinted off the water something gorgeous. Further along the beach was a bonfire, but as it was midnight, it was completly deserted otherwise.

I rushed into the water, although Simon calling out a warning about blue bottles was a little spooky, as was the thought of Katipos. Kate rolled her pants up (I was holding up my long skirt) and came wading in too. It was so lovely and warm. It could have been so romantic if I’d been there with a guy, instead of two of my best friends. We splashed around a bit, after finally convincing Simon to come in – he’s such a big girl’s blouse sometimes. Kate gave me the fright of my life, sneaking up while my back was turned. I screamed so loud, it was crazy. I ended up totally soaked, which sucked a bit, plus I got sand in my open blisters, which wasn’t the best thing in the world, but it was soooooooo much fun!

We dropped Simon off back at his house then, and went to harrass the macdonalds staff at Mana. When we found out the drive through was shut, we drove through it like three times, sharks circling their prey. Meanies. Shit, that’s like three times Kate and I have played games with Maccers staff that they didn’t get. You’re terrible, Muriel. I swear to god, she’s just a bad influence! I have a classic quote from her, talking about her boyfriend Anton – “I’m so mean to him and he doesn’t even realise”!