THE FIRST 6 THINGS TO CROSS MY MIND AT THE END OF THE WORLD

Okay... now it isn't December 21, 2012 ANYWHERE anymore, looks like we can safely say the Mayans were way out of whack with their apocalypse thing. However, when I was woken up just after 4:30 this morning by some crazy, "Please evacuate the building!" type siren which went off for nearly an hour, I began to wonder if they had it right after all. Here's what I spent my final moments of existence thinking...

1: Can't believe my first night's sleep on holiday after having to get up at 3 all year is being ruined by the end of the world.

2: Should I put some clothes on? You know, if I'm about to be involved in some mayhem in the streets, perhaps I should try and find a T-shirt.

3:At least I won't have to mow the lawns today.

4: Damn it. I was really looking forward to opening that Christmas present I bought for myself. To think I could have been using it all this time and now I won't get to.

5: I wonder if the internet's still working. Then I can Google what to wear for Armageddon.

6. I could really go a mince and cheese pie right now. (Then again, I'm usually thinking that, so no change there)

6 REASONS YOU SHOULD NEVER PRINT YOUR OWN CHRISTMAS CARDS

It always seems like such a good idea at the time - whip out the old Publisher program, come up with something that looks pretty professional, yet with a nice, personal touch. Don't you remember all the things that went wrong LAST YEAR???...

1: Your printer doesn't do cardboard. Oh, I know it's SUPPOSED to. But it doesn't.

2: You don't have enough paper. Of course, you didn't realise you'd need any paper, because you thought you were going to be using cardboard. Trouble is, you need to send the cards first thing and the nearest stationery shop has just closed. For the holidays.

3: You've buggered up all last year's holiday photos by cropping them in silly shapes, changing the colours and then accidentally saving them over the originals. That's one Christmas you'll never get back.

4: It's not printing properly. Maybe the nozzles are clogged. How do you make it do that head cleaning thing again? Why can't you cancel the printing? Probably should have printed a test page before doing 60 copies. That may have been a mistake. Stop printing, damn you!

5: You've done the head cleaning thing so much you've run out of coloured ink. Guess you should have stocked up. Never mind, you can do them in black and white. It'll make them look arty.

6: You've run out of black ink too. Bugger. How can it be 1AM already?

THE 6 WORST THINGS ABOUT EXPECTING A ROYAL BABY

Being a princess isn't all royal tours and jubilees. Once you've been commanded to produce an heir, the pressures really start to pile up...

1: People wanting to touch your tummy. It's bad enough having to shake hands on those royal walk-abouts. Those yobbos need to learn about personal space.

2: Crowning. This is something that happens just as you're about to give birth. Quite painful apparently. Now imagine it with a real crown involved.

3: Names. Always tricky - even more so for a future monarch. Music and movies are often big influences here, so Prince Bilbo for a boy? If it's a girl, I'm thinking Gaga. We already have a Lady called that, so we know it works with a title. Princess Gaga could also be the first baby in history to say her own name as her first words.

4: Kate's boobs. Come on, we've all been thinking about them. Breast or bottle, I mean. What were YOU on about?

5: The red hair threat. Imagine if it comes out a ginga. After all, it happened with it's uncle.

6: Having to deal with not looking like a stick insect for a few months. It must be just awful to be that skinny, then suddenly not be skinny. I don't even want to think about it. Luckily, I'll never have to.

6 REASONS THERE'S NO SILLY SIX-PACK THIS WEEK

If you've come looking for this week's Silly Six-Pack, my apologies. Due to circumstances beyond my control, it was never going to happen. Here's why...

1: It's my birthday. Hey, if it's good enough for the Warehouse to give their team their birthdays off, it's good enough for me.

2: I'm drunk. After all, it IS my birthday.

3: I'm asleep. Drinking after getting up at 3AM for over a decade is a pretty narcoleptic combination. There's a lot of stuff I can do in my sleep but this blog requires a bit more effort. Not MUCH more, but a bit.

4: When you're as old as me, you start to forget thi

5: I'm out of the country. This is a brilliant excuse for just about anything. Especially when it's true. Which amazingly, today, it is.

6: Due to reason #5, to make it work, I'd have to have written all this last Wednesday and nobody's THAT organised.

6 REASONS WOMEN MAKE TERRIBLE BISHOPS

This week, the C of E decided to not let women be bishops again. Still. Hitherto. Good job too. Here's why...

1: Women take ages to put their dresses on. Church services would obviously be delayed left right and centre. You can say what you like about men in frocks, but at least they turn up on time.

2: "Educating" choir boys. Women probably don't even get why I put the word educating in quotation marks.

3: They probably think God is a girl.

4: Rather than telling you what to think, they'd just expect you to know what THEY'RE thinking.

5: Lipstick on the communion glasses.

6: They might make organised religion seem more mainstream, logical and you know, NORMAL.

6 THINGS I ACTUALLY LIKE ABOUT CHARLES

It'd be safe to say I'm not the biggest royalist in the country. In fact, if you were to suggest I consider the royal family to be a monumental waste of everybody's time, money and attention, I probably wouldn't disagree. However, as a bloke, Chas ain't all bad...

1: He doesn't think it's rude to talk to people with your sunglasses on. This sets a great precedent for me as I wear prescription sunnies and it's a real pain in the arse swapping specs just to pay for your petrol.

2: He shares his food. Even cake. Even on his birthday. With 64 other people. Legend.

3: He's turned on by a woman's personality, not just her looks. Clearly.

4: He doesn't visit too often. Can't stand people who are always coming round, can you? Don't they have homes of their own to go to? (Actually, just quoting Mike Hosking a bit there)

5: He's not afraid to visit Feilding. (I'm allowed to make jokes about Feilding, I went to intermediate school there. That's how I know how to spell it properly)

6: He's resisted the temptation to poison his mother so he can have her job. For decades.

6 ALTERNATIVES TO "LORD MAYOR"

Turns out nobody in the Wellington area is particularly keen on the title, "Lord Mayor" for whoever is lucky enough to end up being in charge of the capital's version of Auckland's super city. Are you with me? Anyway, I thought I'd offer a few second choices...

1: Your Royal Majesty Mayor On High. Not much less pompous than Lord Mayor, but a bit.

2: Super Mayor. I've often wondered why Len Brown didn't go for this one. Instead he went with the slightly less cool, "Mayor In a Chair."

3: Sauron. Come on, they'll basically be ruling the capital of Middle Earth. Give them a ring and a bad-ass volcano too.

4: Boss Hogg. There are some obvious similarities between the Wellington region and Hazzard County, revolving mostly around traffic issues. Nothing a few Roscoe P. Coltrane-style speed-traps wouldn't sort out. It's good for the boss's first name to actually be "Boss" too, I reckon. (If you still have no idea what I'm on about, google Dukes of Hazzard. The original awesome TV series, not the try-hard movie remake)

5: Mum. Automatically generates a climate of respect AND she'll have the authority to send any whinging ratepayers to their rooms.

6: Ooh! Ah! Umaga! Admittedly, this really only works if they elect Tana Umaga, but he'd be as good as anyone, wouldn't he?

6 THINGS I LEARNED AT THE VODAFONE MUSIC AWARDS

Every year I say I'm not going to go because I'll be out past my bedtime, but every year I go anyway. This time, someone actually asked me if it's my favourite night of the year. It isn't, although here's what I found out about Kiwi music in 2012...

1: Kimbra is exactly as awesome as I thought she was. Not sure if you can learn something you already knew, but it was gratifying to see everyone else at my table learning it after I'd been banging on about her all night.

2: Young people's music isn't all bad. They seem to really like Six60, which is good because they're actually a good band who play great songs really well. Way to go, young people.

3: Presenting an awards ceremony is a tough gig. If people like Ricky Gervais and Russell Brand can't always get it right, it's hardly surprising some of Ben Boyce's jokes fell a bit flat. He wasn't terrible though, which is about the best you can hope for, I reckon. Not having the mic's turned up loud enough to hear Jamie Ridge speak was a stroke of genius, by the way.

4: Taika Waititi is one of New Zealand's funniest men. Ignore everything I said in thing #3. Just hire him to host the whole thing next time. If his material was scripted like everyone else's was, he's even more of a genius than I thought, because he got genuine laughs and not just groans of vague disintrest.

5: Home Brew are a bunch of dicks. No talent. Can't rap. Can't dance. Swear too much. Think they need to talk like their idea of 1990's American gangsters. Dicks.

6: Chris Knox was in a band called Toy Love. I thought his legacy was the song "Not Given Lightly." After hearing some of Toy Love's music, I still think that.

6 EXCUSES FOR NOT DRESSING UP

For some reason, not sure why, but it's probably something to do with Niva Retimanu, there are a lot of themed dress-up days at Newstalk ZB. Most recently we were instructed to turn up in our running gear in support of our entrants in this weekend's marathon. Of the 3 people pictured below, one is me, one is Kimberley Crossman and one didn't dress up. He never dresses up. Ever. How come?

1: Maybe nobody else will. There's only one thing more embarrassing than turning up not dressed up when everyone else is dressed up; that's turning up dressed up when no-one else is dressed up.

2: Maybe you've got the day wrong. When you ignore as many emails as Mike Hosking does every day, you can't be expected to remember things like dates, times and dress-up themes.

3: You've got an image to maintain. Don't get me wrong here. I certainly don't have an image to maintain. But apparently, some people have images that require maintenance.

4: Hat Hair. Again, this particular issue doesn't affect me personally, but many dress-ups seem to involve some kind of headwear and if you take pride in your hairstyle, that's just not a happening thing.

5: You don't want to draw attention to yourself. Some people may point out doing things like hosting a nationwide radio show attracts a certain amount of attention too. A completely DIFFERENT kind of attention though. Obviously.

6: It's a bit gay. Not that wearing flowery shirts is gay. Or moisturising. Or pants with cuffs. Or lady-boots. Dress-ups is though. Totally gay.