Jim Hopkins: Normal, abnormal or paranormal, that is the question

Normally, it's a nightmare. Normally you sit in front of the keyboard and stare at the silent ranks of qwerty little characters with a mixture of abhorrence and detestation. (Sometimes it's terror and loathing, but normally it's just a and d.)

Having allowed such emotions to corrode your karma and unbalance your chakras, you normally find yourself hoping irrationally that the qwerty little characters you've been staring at will, in some mute and mass-produced manner, offer inspiration of their own.

Or better still, write the thing for you.

After all, as others have pointed out, if we can land a man on Britney Spears, we should be able to produce a creative computer; a clever little codger that'll cogitate for us.

So, normally, you hope the characters will come to your aid. "Leave it to us," you imagine them saying. "We've got a ripper this week ... In Praise of Porn. Our argument is, if it's legal to sell real sex, we shouldn't bother getting in a fine old Victorian lather about a few images of it down at the local naughty nooky nick. Besides, anything that keeps the plods away from the speed cameras has got be good for us, right?"

"Wrong," you scream. (Well, normally, anyway.) "Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. You can't say that, you little tossers. [Sorry] In this modern age, when the Winz of change are rattling our moral foundations, priests and porn are the last outposts of indignation, the final bastions of righteous outrage. Everything else must be understood. Exonerated. And counselled - with every resource available to ACC, CYF, the DHBs, the PHOs, the PPTA and the NZEI, not to mention the Corrections Department and Ministry of Immigration.

"But not priests. Or porn. They're not ... not ... " normally, about now, you find yourself groping for a word " ... they're not ... normal."

Fortunately, however, this is not a normal week. In fact it's anything but. It's actually a week in which the normal panic has been replaced by the very abnormal question: Are You Normal?

As if you'd want to be, you may say. These days, being normal seems to involve deciding what to wear at your old footy coach's civil union. (It'll be the tweed jacket, Norm, but with a ruffled shirt.)

However, that hasn't deterred the folk at Helenvision New Zealand. They've launched a show called Are You Normal? which asks an audience of potential normals all manner of searching questions.

This week, the subject was Work, so the questions were things like:

1: Since it's entirely wrong to ask the unemployed to actually do any actual work in exchange for payment, how come those grotty boss people have the gall to tell us we have to turn up at 8am or we won't get paid?

2: And even if we do turn up, why should we be expected to get our hands dirty?

(Ensure your answer doesn't include the pleasure you get from paying taxes.)

Other programmes will explore other aspects of normalcy and, eventually, the whole gamut of normal life in Outer Roa will be covered. No stone will be unturned, no issue unexamined in the quest to find the normal answers to inquiries such as these:

Were you appalled to hear the police have porn on their computers or were you just happy it wasn't something truly disgusting like Shortland Street?

How long are we going to tolerate a publicly owned channel stealing childhoods with that kind of stuff at 7pm?

Have you ever met Judy Bailey's investment adviser?

Do you like smothering yourself with molasses and asking the postie to lick it off?

Do you enjoy the way everyone on this channel talks to you like you're a kindergarten pupil?

And, finally: What would you say to those silly Turks who object to our fabulous haka?

A: Go away.

B: Would you rather have John Howard on a didgeridoo?

C: What we do at Gallipoli is our business, or

D: Count your blessings. It could've been John Farnham.

To help determine the "normal" response, the show has an expert panel of normal-watchers who discuss what is and isn't normal just as you'd normally expect. There's John Somebody and Sarah Somebody and also the much-admired Dr Flying Bedwards. Which is a tad un-normal, what with this being an election year and him having such high-profile political connections.

Happily, of course, his high-profile political connections are with the Prime Minister, who's normally just about the only other person with political connections that Helenvision New Zealand ever features, so that's probably why he's got in.

Well, they wouldn't have Bob Moody, would they? Or the mysterious Army fellow who suppressed that secret bridge report. Chaps like that might upset us, in the same way old "Wallaby John" Howard just has.

Which leads to the one question Are You Normal? didn't have time for this week:

If you were a hard-bitten journalist and Helen Clark's spokesperson came rushing up to you after the infamous Gallipoli snub and said that John was terribly upset about the fuss he'd caused and how it was all a dreadful mistake, would you:

A: File the story as if it were fact.

B: Be like the Tui ad and say "Yeah, right."

C: Check with Johnny H before reporting anything.

or D: Tell him it doesn't matter what he says because everyone knows that we're normal and he's not.

Tune in next week for the thrilling answer.