Paul Holmes - broadcaster, dancer, singer, olive oil producer, award-winning columnist, TV interviewer, thespian. Who says men can't multi-task? He talks to Deborah Coddington.
Paul Holmes is genuinely astonished. It's a curly question.
When daughter Millie emerged from Auckland District Court after her first court appearance on drug charges, did Holmes grab a chance for publicity with a speech to eager reporters?
"No. That's preposterous ... I didn't want to be associated with
P.
"I went with a little statement written because I knew the entire media pack of Auckland would be in court and if I'd simply walked away I would have been chased. I simply stood there and said, we've got a problem."
It's ironic, he agrees, because other media personalities sell their stories to women's magazines, and then spit the dummy over bad publicity.
Holmes does the opposite: he fronts on the bad news stories, then gets criticised as some sort of self-promoter.
He makes a living interviewing people, so he says it would be "sanctimonious and hypocritical" to turn around and refuse interviews.
Most parents whose children get caught doing drugs hunker down in shame.
But Holmes is not most parents. He made a documentary. Formed a trust. Writes about it in his columns. Surely that must affect his family life?
"I do walk a fine line. My son has never liked that so I never talk about him. But I'm a public figure and my daughter's particular difficulty is a big public issue, and I suppose in sometimes referring to my daughter's issues it might help other people."
But like all parents, Holmes carries guilt. When the children were small he was away before 5am doing the breakfast show at NewstalkZB. When they came home from school he was at TVNZ preparing the Holmes programme.
"I have beaten myself up about that. There were key points of the day when I didn't see them. But someone said to me one day, it is not your fault. Deborah and I decided we had to ... live our lives as well."
Then again, Holmes' let-it-all-hang-out personality is the key which opens the tightly locked doors of many high-profilers' private lives.
Sarah Stuart, who as former deputy editor of the Herald on Sunday commissioned Holmes as a columnist, reckons it's his fearlessness about being completely open about his own life which disarms people into letting their guard down.
What other journalist has ever persuaded Helen Clark to reveal so much about her relationship with husband Peter Davis, as Holmes describes in an evening with the couple, cooking and eating curry?
The book also includes a hilarious column on John Banks (September 30, 2007), when he was standing again for mayor of Auckland, in which he reveals he's only ever seen two movies - The Sound of Music and Laramie.
In May 2008, to the tune of gnashing print journalists' teeth, Holmes accepted the Qantas Award for New Zealand's best columnist.
And, like the best columnists, Holmes gets right up the noses of his rivals. Though he denies it - "I don't spend my life throwing muck around at colleagues" - there are the little spats with other male media stars.
He asked the producers of Russell Brown's Media 7 programme why Sean Plunket would be of any value on a programme discussing the art of the interview. When told Plunket is quite controversial, Holmes airily declared he must have missed it, unless they count the time Plunket was caught driving DIC.
Then just last week John Campbell, on radio, allegedly accused Holmes of not being "terribly generous" about him and said they hadn't had "a great relationship over the years".
Holmes says he doesn't know "what came into John's head for him to say that. If John had asked for help I would have willingly given it, but he's always been very good at what he does."
Campbell told this reporter while he doesn't have a bad relationship with Holmes, there's no reason for the two to be great buddies.
"People get very confused about television - it's very tribal, like sport. Paul and I have never worked together, we've always worked in a parallel universe, whether that be radio or television."
Holmes agrees. "That's true. I'm sure John and I could sit down together some time pleasantly over a drink."
One sure truism in media is that it pays to get over yourself, and Holmes reckons while he may pay the odd person back, "I don't bear grudges."
He certainly darted back to TVNZ for Sunday morning's current affairs programme Q+A last year, after storming off in high dudgeon in 2004 to Prime Television, where his own show failed.
Holmes' critics gleefully predicted his demise, but their smiles disappeared when Q+A won a Qantas Award for current affairs.
"Someone asked me the other day if it's thrilling doing those big debates on television. I said no, it's just hard work.
"And if people come up to me and say hello, I will respond nicely. Partly that's because they might say Holmesy was very nice to me today and that might make them watch my show. But also I know that person is meeting me for the only time, and they've been inviting me into their living room, or breakfast radio for years and I don't want them going away thinking, 'What a grumpy bastard Holmesy is'."
In Auckland Holmes lives out of a tiny apartment in the Viaduct, complete with pull-down double bed. It's the total antithesis to his glorious Hawke's Bay farm where he's a self-confessed obsessive gardener.
Massive speakers blast music - often his own CD - over the entire valley. Locals phone him to complain about the noise, or request repeats of certain tracks.
Visitors drink and eat too much, argue, and are toured around the estate in golf carts.
He's done well for a boy whose parents both came from "big, very, very poor families. It has given me a feeling for the underdog.
"My father said several times in my childhood: 'Paul - if you're ever in a crowd, and a whole crowd are saying that man is a bad man, then think for yourself. Do not join the crowd. Make your own decision.' And so that was burned in me really."
