The world's most expensive urine

t’s fascinating to think about the “miracle” health products promoted over the years that have come and gone. They have almost exclusively been advertised on radio and usually on those stations whose target audience is mature.

Let me run you through some of these vendibles.

There was bee pollen and then the new improved “potentiated” bee pollen. We had “Biomag;” an under-blanket peppered with magnets to ease back pain. There was “Body Enhancer” to help you shed weight (provided you also exercised vigorously, drank gallons of water and cut back on your food intake), a cure-all balm made from bee venom, (promoted by sports broadcaster Tim Bickerstaff who has since died) a hair restorer called “Follimax” and colloidal silver which I suspect if purchased would relieve you of lots of gold.

As far as I am aware most these products have exited the market as consumers became aware of the snake oil component of their claims.

All is not lost however. One door closes and another one opens.

One radio advertiser, acutely aware of a whole new and expanding market, circles in for the kill and offers an elixir that would warm the cockles of the hearts of MacBeth’s witches.

Lani Lopez sells a dietary supplement called Pez-Rez which she says is “dynamised.”

“Dynamised” must be the new word for “potentiated.”

Pez-Rez promises energy for the heart, brain, joint, prostate, breast and digestive health and supports fatigue and stress. The main ingredient is resveratrol. Popular broadcasters Leighton Smith and Mike Hosking both swear that resveratrol has improved their health markedly.

The medical profession is not convinced. One journal I read said: “Resveratrol is a stilbenoid, a type of natural phenol and a phytoalexin produced naturally by several plants in response to injury or when the plant is under attack by pathogens such as bacteria or fungi. Sources of resveratrol in food include the skin of grapes, blueberries, raspberries, mulberries and senna. Although it is often promoted as a dietary supplement there is no scientific evidence whatsoever that taking resveratrol affects life expectancy or human health.”

Professor John Dwyer is highly critical of the claimed palliative powers of these improbable potions. He suspects their sales success is due to the fact that people are simply hankering for a little “magic and mysticism,” and others think they can compensate for a destructive lifestyle by consuming megadoses of the supplements.

He accused users of listening to “misleading advertisements” and “drifting off into unscientific hands.”

General Practitioner Paul Koenig is even more scathing. He reckoned swallowing a whole host of these dubious substances is a complete waste of money and constantly reminds his patients who are concerned that their poor eating habits could mean they are missing out on essential vitamins and minerals that half the world’s population survives on rice and the odd vegetable. Only someone with an extraordinary bad diet would be vitamin deficient, he believes, and because the kidneys rid the body of superfluous vitamins quite quickly, most users are doing no more than creating “expensive urine.”

I wondered what Ms Lopez might have meant with the acronym PEZ and I came up with Perplexed Elderly Zone.

“Our body is a machine for living. It is geared towards it, it is its nature. Let life go on in it unhindered and let it defend itself, it will be more effective than if you paralyse it by encumbering it with remedies.” - Leo Tolstoy  

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Contemplating a life of iniquity

I have decided that I am going to commit a crime. I’m not exactly sure just what sort yet. It will need to have an outcome that will advantage me personally, so I may rob a bank or a great train. I could lower my sights slightly. For instance it would be fun to steal say a Lamborghini, but I would probably need to go to Auckland to access one which would be a bit of a nuisance.

You may be wondering why, after a relatively blameless life I suddenly intend to embark upon such a distraction, but I have come to the inevitable conclusion that crime does in fact pay.

I’m not one of those people who think we should lock people up and throw away the key, but some of the sentences handed down these days, or not handed down in some cases, are farcical and no real deterrent.

I read recently about an accountant in Blenheim who robbed an elderly couple of $250,000, but had his sentence reduced because he had dementia. And then last week an heir to the Delegat winery fortune was given a mere $5000 fine and 300 hours of community service after brutally assaulting a policewoman. The crimes I intend to commit will involve no brutality and I reckon my whole family will willingly testify under oath that I have mild dementia; some will even go a step further and the report that the dementia is bordering on being severe.

Unfortunately I can’t remember which members of the family will actually say that.

My mother’s maiden name was Biggs and I’m thinking that the late Great Train Robber Ronald Biggs was possibly a relation, so perhaps it’s in my blood to set my sights on KiwiRail. It would be very easy to board the Wellington/Wairarapa train as it is always stopping - sometimes intentionally, often not - but I’m a bit perplexed as to where they might store all the money. I’m sure one of the conductors will willingly point me in the right direction, particularly when I tell him of my distant relative who, from memory, also ended up with dementia.

And anyway if I get caught, and even if I appear before a so-called “hanging judge,” given I have no previous convictions the most likely outcome will be home detention, which won’t faze me. I will be able to catch up on some TV programmes I’ve recorded, but never got around to watching. For example I don’t think I saw the last episode of The Beverly Hillbillies.

Also the leg bracelet will give the dog something to chew on.

I will get the lovely Nadia Lim to deliver her food bag daily and pay her handsomely from the money I stole from the train stashed under the mattress.

As I write this I am starting to get quite excited about my new career. I will use the cover of darkness in the Rimutaka tunnel to threaten the guard and rob the train and I will park my newly acquired Lamborghini at Maymorn to expedite a quick getaway.

There’s not a police car in the country that could catch me.

“I broke a mirror in my house which is supposed to be seven years bad luck. My lawyer thinks he can get me five.” - Steven Wright

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A mad Monday in Melbourne

I happened to be in Melbourne on the occasion of my 50th birthday. I was with a tour group of NZ meat retailers, about 40 in all, husbands and wives, seeing what we might glean from observing the craftsmanship of our Aussie counterparts.

My fellow travellers decided to put on a surprise party for me in the lounge bar in our hotel. I’ve should have known I was going to be the meat in the sandwich when I observed that most of the attendees had brought along their video cameras.

Half an hour into the celebrations the door opened abruptly and a rather large female burst into the room and demanded to know “Where’s Ricky!”

The revellers parted like the Red Sea leaving me in the middle of the room with all fingers pointing my way. The scantily-clad lady placed a ghetto-blaster on the floor, chained me to a chair and proceeded to strut her stuff dancing to an appropriate tune blasting from the cassette player. The video cameras worked overtime.

The raunchy Australians are apparently inclined to send a strip-o-gram to young men on their 21st birthdays; for 50-year-olds it’s a fat-o-gram.

Fortunately for all concerned our performer didn’t strip down completely, ending her erotic routine still wearing an over-burdened bra, skimpy bikini knickers and fishnet stockings.

Her final act was to sit on my knee, announcing she was going to kiss me and said if I put my tongue down her throat she would bite it off.

No such instruction was necessary.

A few months later I happened to walk into a pub in Geraldine. I was the National President of the New Zealand Licensing Trusts Association at the time and the CEO and I were visiting the South Island trusts. I was surprised at the attention I was receiving from the patrons standing around their leaners. They were all looking at me and appeared to be talking about me. One gentleman called me over and said “You’re that butcher fellow from Masterton aren’t you?” I allowed that indeed I was and he told me that the previous week I was the star on the big screen in the public bar.

It seems the local Geraldine butcher had his video camera at Melbourne and had proudly shown the pub patrons the main highlight of my fiftieth birthday party. The evening had been well advertised and was well attended

They all said they recognised me, only my face was more florid in the video.

Well it would be wouldn’t it?

This all came back to me last week when the NZRU blunderingly downplayed the seriousness of the Chief’s “Mad Monday” escapade and justifiably copped a fair bit of flak from a wide cross-section of the community.

I’m certainly not condoning what the reckless rugby team got up to with the hapless young lady with the unlikely name of Scarlette, but it occurred to me that from time to time boys will be boys and middle-aged men and women will also be boys.

But I was happy with my own conduct. Chained to a chair and with my hands tied behind my back, my behaviour was impeccable.

“Whatever they may be in public life, whatever their relations with men, in their relations with women, all men are rapists, and that’s all they are. They rape us with their eyes, their laws and their codes.” - Marilyn French

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Bridging the age gap

A delightful story I read in a Readers Digest concerned a rail commuter en-route to New York who was sitting next to a professional bridge player. The traveller took the opportunity to tell the bridge expert about a hand of bridge he had been dealt the night before and how he had acted upon it. He particularly wanted to know had he played the hand correctly, or should he have represented it differently.

The bridge man considered the question and then allowed that indeed the hand had been played exactly as it should have been. A few days later our man got an account from the bridge expert for $250.

The next day the commuter found himself sitting next to a lawyer so he relayed the story about the information he had asked for and the subsequent invoice. “Was he liable to pay the bill?” he wanted to know. The lawyer said that he was. He knew the bridge man was a professional, he had sought his advice and therefore the payment was owed.

Next day he got a bill for $250 from the lawyer.

I tell this anecdote simply as a lead in to confessing that I used to play bridge

Once you think you have learnt the game you are coerced into to joining the local bridge club in Villa Street. The internal walls of their clubrooms are marked North, South, East and West and they really take the game seriously. Gold leafed honours boards adorn the hallowed hallways and subjects other than the finer points of bridge are not up for discussion. 

There was no room for gossip.

And they use a whole new language. They have stamens, singletons and doubletons and pre-empt bids and I am accused of being an interposer. My head is spinning - “Learn from your mistakes” was a common piece of advice - and I made plenty - and suddenly I’m told I am “vulnerable,” though I hadn’t a clue why.

And it was not as though you could hide your incompetence. You move around the room travelling with the east of your west (north and south remain seated) and your progress is plotted by a cunning computer that cleverly calculates your score. The next week they post the outcome on the door so all the world can see that you came last equal. Your mortified partner, whom you unwittingly dragged down with you, is desperately looking for someone else to play with.

The trouble with the bridge exponents is that they have never moved on. The poker players now have their poker machines; clever pieces of electronic wizardry tucked away in neon caverns with spinning wheels that can relieve you of your money in comparative anonymity. But the bridge fraternity still use the fifty-two piece cardboard card set that should have been phased out with the Gulbransen radio and the DC 3.

Bridge players will often tell you they’ve taken on the game to slow down the ageing process and perhaps it works. I was talking to a bridge player other day who is nearly 90 and he says he doesn’t need glasses.

He drinks right out of the bottle.

“If you want to know how old a woman is, ask her sister-in-law.” - Ed Howe’ 

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