Paul Casserly: TV's Best Quotes - 'He's our own version of Joffrey'

Seven Sharp presenter Mike Hosking.

What a crazy month that was. Legal highs, political lows, rugby blues and still no sign of the missing bloody plane. We turn to TV in these times to make sense of things, which only makes things worse. Hosking was no help, Heather du Plessis-Allan lost it, and worse still, John Campbell went mufti mad, left his suit behind and wore a woolen jersey as he got down with the seekers of legal highs.

By the end of the month the moral panic reached fever pitch creating extra salty election year political knee jerky. I may have lost my soul watching the uber-grim French cop show Braquo, yet found strange comfort watching Mad Men's Don Draper sink further into his art directed hell. Oh well, at least MasterChef finally got rid of dreadlocks and her dithering mom.

Here's a bunch of things that our TV people said, some of it makes sense, some of it doesn't, some is the work of genius, and some is clear evidence of madness. But can you guess who said what?

1. "You've got burnt penis?"

2. "He's our own version of Joffery. He keeps killing off all the other hosts."

3. "You are untouched? Because as Deuteronomy tells us, I would be forced to stone to death by my own Christian hands any wife of mine who had e'er lain with another."

4. "They think it's their own personal playpen where they have pussy on tap."

5. "Most Hurricanes fans are like dogs who have been beaten by their owners."

6. "Where's my pickaninny with the head?"

7. "He's lost, legally lost."

8. "Russell decided that N***** should come home."

9. "The last guy wasn't at all creepy."

10. "If there's one penis problem that stands out, it's Brian's."

The Answers:

1. "You've got burnt penis?" Well it sounded like that, and Josh Emett was no doubt saying "burnt peanuts", but given the amount of times the phrase was repeated in promos and recaps of MasterChef, it seemed that the double entendre was intentional. By the time he was yelling "you have to be careful with those nuts", I could hear the Benny Hill theme.

2. "He's our own version of Joffery, who keeps killing off all the other hosts." Radio Live's Sean Plunket on Seven Sharp's Mike Hosking, in the wake of the poisoning of Jesse Mulligan. Or he was he be-headed?

3. "You are untouched? Because as Deuteronomy tells us, I would be forced to stone to death by my own Christian hands any wife of mine who had e'er lain with another." The hysterical preacher, Edmund, from the hysterical Hunderby (UKTV) in conversation with his fiancée. While Edmund (Alex Macqueen) gets the best lines, creator and co-star Julia Davis gets some beauts too; when asked what the moaning sounds were coming from the locked room she says, "It sounds like owls - they do defecate through their mouths".

4. "They think it's their own personal playpen where they have pussy on tap." Harsh words aimed at the sex industry rich-listers known as The Chow brothers, on a revealing item on 3rd Degree. The words were not from feminists or cops but from rival strip bar owner Jacqui Le Prou who is in a bitter turf war with the Chow's using the unlikely battle ground of Liquor Licensing Hearings. Reporter Phil Vine raised the "pussy on tap" issue, with the enigmatic Chow bros. "Do you get to sleep with the staff at all?" But the Chows weren't having it. "That's a personal question." Pushing further didn't help. "That's the answer to the question," said John Chow finally.

5 "Most Hurricanes fans are like dogs who have been beaten by their owners." The Crowd's Gone Wild's Mark Richardson processing the strange turn of events that sees the Hurricanes at the top of the Super Rugby table.

6. "Where's my pickaninny with the head?" Political incorrectness from American Horror Story: Coven's chief scenery chewer, Kathy Bates. "Pickaninny", according to Wikipedia, "refers to children of black descent or a racial caricature thereof". Oxford says: "Offensive. A small black child".

7. "He's lost, legally lost." John Campbell at his most poetic describing one of the wasted legal-high fiends he encountered in Naenae, in a remarkable story on Campbell Live that no doubt played a part in the recent governmental U-turn. Peter Dunne was on hand to pass judgment on the lost souls who lined up to buy the mind-altering tobacco at "9.30am in the morning", at the rundown shopping mall. Dunne was appalled. "I'm appalled at this whole shopping centre, it's unsavoury".

8. "Russell decided that N***** should come home." One News' Paul Hobbs was unafraid to use the 'N' word on an item about NZ's World War One war horses. Thousands were sent overseas, a few came home, one of whom was called "Nigger", which was "a common name" explained Hobbs, who managed to let the word slip three or four times. Any more, and he would have been getting into Michael Richards (Kramer) territory.

9. "The last guy wasn't at all creepy," said creep expert Greg Boyed of One News, in relation to an American man who featured in a rather fluffy story about cat cafes. On a scale of one to creepy, the guy in question seemed unremarkable, to the untrained eye.

10. "If there's one penis problem that stands out, it's Brian's." 70-year-old Brian had a bad case of "tightening of the foreskin" on Embarrassing Bodies Revisits (UKTV). It was a typically grisly encounter that included the dreaded words, "and it does smell a bit".

- nzherald.co.nz