spinofflive
Today, Leah Panapa took over for Peter Williams on Magic Talk Mornings.  How did it go? (Image: Tina Tiller)
Today, Leah Panapa took over for Peter Williams on Magic Talk Mornings. How did it go? (Image: Tina Tiller)

SummerJanuary 3, 2022

Leah Panapa’s Monday morning shift from hell

Today, Leah Panapa took over for Peter Williams on Magic Talk Mornings.  How did it go? (Image: Tina Tiller)
Today, Leah Panapa took over for Peter Williams on Magic Talk Mornings. How did it go? (Image: Tina Tiller)

Summer read: Peter Williams had departed suddenly. His morning radio audience was mad as hell about it. And, somehow, Leah Panapa nailed it.

First published on September 6, 2021.

At 9.46am this morning, a press release shot into the inboxes of journalists with this tongue-twisting subject line: “MediaWorks Media Release: MediaWorks Appoints Dallas Gurney as Director of News and Talk and welcomes Lloyd Burr”.

Even more headline-worthy announcements were to be found within. Firstly, Ryan Bridge would be taking over The AM Show after Duncan Garner’s resignation two weeks ago. Secondly, Peter Williams would be retiring, effective immediately. The latter was covered in only two lines:

“Meanwhile, Magic Talk Mornings host Peter Williams has decided to retire. At the age of 67, and nearly half a century in the media industry, he wants to enjoy life with fewer commitments.”

Williams’ last months as host had been marred by the veteran dealing in anti-vaccine views, UN conspiracy theories and climate change denial. His departure is the latest in a run of high-profile on-air changes at MediaWorks this year, following John Banks being officially taken off the air due to racist comments he made about Māori while filling in for Williams, Sean Plunket departing his own show Magic Talk Radio, and Duncan Garner resigning last month over “brutal hours”.

Unfortunately, the press release went out 46 minutes after his show went to air, where Williams’ fellow Magic Talk host Leah Panapa was filling in, permanently.

Leah Panapa on The AM Show (Photo: Newshub)

“Now yes, normally I know you would be joining Peter Williams who has been here since the inception of Magic Talk some two and a half years ago,” starts Panapa, as jovial as one could be expected to be in a new job with less than 48 hours’ notice. At the start of the show, Panapa reveals she was informed only at the weekend that she would be taking over from Williams. And if there was a list of jobs you wouldn’t want sprung on you, “hosting a talkback show the Monday after a terrorist attack” would be pretty high up on it.

She continues, because she’s contractually obliged to. “Look, I’m more than happy if you want to talk about Peter, but in a positive way: there’s no point shooting the messenger. I want to continue Peter’s good work. As I said, I’m honoured and excited to be here.”

The show starts off promisingly, with Panapa opening the audio floor for viewers to ring in and discuss their responses, emotional and otherwise, to Friday’s attack. The first caller is Neville, who wishes Peter Williams well. The second caller, Eric, gasses Leah up. “There’s no use being nervous, you know you’re a good radio announcer! We will miss Peter but there’s no need to be nervous. Everybody’s respects you, you’re all good.”

Then we get to David from Christchurch. “I know you won’t have much to say about it Leah, and you probably might end up hanging up on me, but has your radio station gone woke?”

David continues, as Davids are wont to do. “First Sean Plunket, then Tony Amos, now Peter Williams have all been given the boot … Obviously something’s happened to one of your people you get sponsorship from or something like that – they’ve had enough of the way Peter talks on this radio station and has decided if you don’t get rid of him, you’ll be gone.”

Panapa reminds David that she only learned about it at the weekend, as she explained at the beginning (“I didn’t hear it,” interrupts David). She goes on to repeat, not for the first time and not for the last, the list of reasons that Williams might not be here (wants to spend more time with his family, is old, doesn’t want to work, etc).

“Sometimes,” she sighs. “People do just leave.” 

David is one of those people who just leaves, apparently. “Well, you’ve lost yourself a listener too, Leah. I’ve got no drama with you whatsoever but every other presenter that’s been replaced by these other people, they’re not for me anyway so… I’m not listening to Magic Talk any more. Your radio station’s gone woke.”

Panapa manages the impressive feat of putting an eye roll into words. “All right, David. I’ve given you three minutes of your opinion. So I’ve proven that I do let you have an opinion. You got to say what you wanted to say, I let you, I didn’t hang up on you. And we will miss you as a listener, hopefully you’ll come back.”

Another lost listener is Michael. He can’t believe that Peter Williams has retired, any more than he can believe that John Banks had. “I think your management has to look seriously at themselves, because they have lost me as a listener, as a poster, as a contributor.” Panapa says she is sad to hear that, which I’m sure is true on many levels.

If things weren’t bad enough, the second hour of the show is plagued with the aforementioned sound issues – Panapa appears to be on a five-second delay with every caller, and also appears to have to explain to everybody who calls in that this is happening, even though you’d assume they’re listening to the very programme she just explained it on. 

She soldiers on. At one point, she exclaims, “What a nice baptism of fire today, let me tell you! Lovely. Peter’s gone, phones don’t go. Boy, this is great for day drinking! And I shall keep talking just to annoy you even more!”

The rest of the show continues are you might predict. Chris believes there’s a rat amongst the Peter Williams resignation, then calls Panapa by the wrong name (Pania). A man called Michael recommends a book that “not a lot of people might have heard of” that reflects current events at the moment – George Orwell’s 1984. Panapa states flatly that she’s heard of it and, by the grace of broadcast, moves onto the news.

The one time the host comes close to losing her remarkable cool is in the last half hour. After another caller, James, goes on what could charitably be called a “ramble”, she says, “I would like to think after 35 years of radio … I would like to think that Peter’s audience can still converse with me. I’m not going to shut them down. I’m probably one of the few announcers or broadcasters that do let both sides on. As wonderful as Peter is, he was one-eyed. You have to admit that.”

If there’s anything that this debut proves, it’s that Panapa has the skill and guts to handle the job. While we all staggered through the specific kind of Monday blues that settles in during lockdown, Leah Panapa had the patience of one of our better saints. In one three-hour period, she had to deftly navigate the emotions of people not just reacting to the sudden loss of a (subjectively) beloved radio host but a terrorist attack, while fielding not just sound issues but the issues of a listenership that doesn’t appear to actually listen.

But it’s not all doom and gloom. After a Williams-adjacent rant, caller Reuben wishes her well. “All the best with your new time slot there.”

She answers with an audible grin. “Cheers, mate.”

We are here thanks to you. The Spinoff’s journalism is funded by its members – click here to learn more about how you can support us from as little as $1.

Keep going!
Illustration: Gary Venn
Illustration: Gary Venn

SocietyJanuary 2, 2022

The Sunday Essay: What to get rid of

Illustration: Gary Venn
Illustration: Gary Venn

Summer read: Bathroom, kitchen, sitting room, bookshelves, friends, memories – Linda Burgess ponders the decluttering of life. 

Made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.

First published April 11, 2021.

Original illustrations by Gary Venn

Go to the second drawer down in your bathroom. Open it. In it are countless small bottles of shampoo and skin cream that you brought home from that hotel. Most tragically, they are evidence that you found staying in a hotel unbearably exciting. Along with that, they show that you’re bordering on the edge of being a petty thief. You are someone who assumes that if you’re not meant to take them, well damn them, you’ve paid, they’re yours, aren’t they? They also show that you’ve been taken in by hype: just because the bottle has a double-barrelled ostensibly posh English name on it and the word lavender subtly highlighted, doesn’t mean that the chemical-rich creamy stuff in that bottle won’t give you eczema in your ears. And what were you actually going to do with that skimpy plastic shower hat that makes you look like you work on the production line of a factory in China? Goodbye, impossible-to-unscrew mini tube of toothpaste. 

Move now to the kitchen and open what can only be called the kitchen drawer. Test every one of those biros and throw away every single one that doesn’t work. Also dispose of the really crummy ones, the wobbly ones, the ones that have pale green ink, the ones with the brand name of the shop you don’t recall ever having been to, the ones with a minuscule amount of ink in them, the ones with the broken bit that if you’d been an office worker 45 years ago, you’d have had nonchalantly displayed clipped on the outside of your polyester cotton shirt’s breast pocket. And when did you last use a pencil? Chuck it. After dealing with those, take out those neatly rolled short pieces of string, place the ostensibly useful purple rubber bands that were round the broccolini, the wooden sushi chopsticks and the rip-here sachets of soy sauce, the little sachets of sugar, the receipts that you can no longer read, in the bin. If you don’t know what lock that key is for, why do you still have it? Be aware though that the week after you get rid of it, you’ll suddenly remember why it was there for safe keeping. 

The coin jar that sits on the shelf in the sitting room. Oh dear. Who’s going to treasure the Egyptian coin from 1942 that your father possibly brought back with him from the war? Let’s hope there’s a freakish grandchild who also wants your – actually rather lovely – stamp album. There’s loads of NZ 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 25 and 50 cent pieces. How quaint! Then there’s the French 10 franc coins – an aside: why on earth did they go for the euro when they had such pretty banknotes? – but getting back to the coins in your bowl, there’s the 10 franc coin, now worth nothing more than a fleeting memory that only you have – no one else, just you – of once living in France, and how 10 francs was round about NZ$2 and $2 bought you blah blah blah.  A house in the country? Ten croissants? Then English pounds. Oh, a pound! Once a gift from your richest aunts! Australian dollars. They don’t work in parking meters. Whatever.

Speaking of aunts. Go to your bookshelves. Your husband’s aunt, wondering what the hell to buy him for a birthday, will have got him a book about a cricketer called Glen. All cricketers are called Glen. If you take all of these books – and there will be a lot of them – to a secondhand bookshop they will look pained. They will pull away. You may have to bribe them to take them. Pretend to faint if you have to, and while they’re away getting you a glass of water, dump them and run. They might be slightly keener on Edmund Hillary. Or not. The good news is your husband, who’s argued energetically on their behalf, will actually not notice that they’ve gone. And also he will not notice that you have everything that Margarets Drabble, Forster and Atwood, the Barbaras, the Alices, the Elizabeths, the Penelopes, the Fionas have ever written and that nothing, nothing would induce you. 

Hmm, small silver frames. They’re in the drawer in the spare bedroom. Possibly pewter. Once they were the best birthday present for a friend, the best sort of token gesture. You bought them yourself from that little shop your friend opened. You have dozens of them; tiny tiny wedding photo of your in-laws, that really cute one of your husband and his brothers in their smocked shirts, you with your golliwog, one of your darling baby. So small that no one even looks at them. Always black and white, or possibly, that odd browny yellowy colour that photos in the 70s turned. No one has them displayed on the piano any more. Do whatever you’re going to do with them. Feel no shame. 

Into the bedroom. Your wardrobe, oh no, your wardrobe. Beware. You’ve read that article about putting your clothes on hangers at the back of your wardrobe and if they’re still there unworn in say three to six months’ time, get rid of them. But hang on – there’s that cardigan, the beige one that makes you look like your cousin, the one who looked like a nun, the one who actually wanted to be a nun, the cardigan that the dog gnaws in a slightly salacious way if he gets half a chance, and there it sits until you think “bugger it”, and take it to the hospice shop. Two weeks later, you go out somewhere at night and it would have been perfect. Cosy, practical, unassuming. Warm! What were you thinking of? 

What you need to come to terms with at a certain age is only buying and keeping a certain type of clothes. Now, I go into a shop and say, “I already have something exactly like that”. So yes please, I’ll buy it. If they look like your other clothes, keep them. If they’re colourful, quirky, fun, have got hemlines that look like a fault line, ask yourself why the hell you ever bought them in the first place. You know you don’t do turquoise, bold flowers, you know you’re not a good sport, you know you don’t work for the Ministry of Something Serious, so shove them in the last plastic bag you got from the supermarket. (Hey! That’s collectable!) But goodbye quirky garment. I won’t miss you for a second.

Your husband’s wardrobe. Deep breath. Trousers with pockets on the sides, for when he’s out being David Attenborough. Elderly corduroys that swarm around his knees. Shirts that look like ones either of the Bushes might wear. Give thanks for the t-shirts from Ata Rangi and MOMA, the yellow trousers. And close the door. You are not anyone else’s keeper.

You’re nearly there, but let’s look at what you’ve been caught up in lately. Oh please don’t say you have words on your kitchen wall. On any wall. I ask you to remember you’re not Ralph Hotere. You’re not Bill Manhire. So then, is your house on the market? Are those cushions smothering your bed? Is that why you’ve got the soppiest sentimental words to do with food and family displayed? If not, I need to quote my son, who said, after having older family members to stay, that the only words he wanted on his kitchen wall were these: Don’t Hover. Give the cushions to the hospice shop. The words back to someone who doesn’t value them.

Sit down and make yourself a cup of something, or pour a glass of something nice. You’re in the mood now, you’re on a roll. Turn on your computer, click on Facebook. Click on friends. Declutter, declutter, declutter. You have 1,394 friends. Now this is a conundrum. What if you decide to delete everyone you’ve never met in person? That leaves you… say, 100. Or what say you decide to delete everyone who has ever posted anything on the sentimental side? Something cute about an animal? A photo of themselves in a frame which says I Am..? Something homophobic, racist, right wing, humble-bragging, misspelt? You’d have no one left. 

It comes to your attention that you’re sitting down. You’d forgotten how nice it feels, sitting down, compared with pulling out drawers and flinging open the doors of cupboards. Something is draining from you. It could well be the will to reorganise. Turn off that computer. Push those drawers back in, kick the cupboards closed. Ignore the bags of stuff that you’re passing on to become someone else’s clutter. That could well sit by the back door for quite some time. That could actually start gnawing their way into your conscience. Why did you own so much to start with? Why are we filling the world with so much rubbish?

By your bed you have that pile of books, the ones you’ve bought, borrowed from a friend, borrowed from the library. Walk over to your bed. Lying down is even better than sitting down. You have a choice: the sofa, or, what the hell, that bed. Who cares what time of day it is, daylight saving has already stuffed everything up. Choose randomly from the pile. Turn to the page that you’ve folded over, even though you know that this drives some people nuts. To you, it’s a sign: a reader has had this book. A reader has loved this book for what it says. These aren’t words to enhance your kitchen wall. These are words that matter.

But wait there's more!