The New Zealand Herald is bringing back some of the best premium stories of 2021. Today we take a look at some of the best pieces from Greg Bruce.
Dennis Conner doesn't want to talk but he's not about to let that stop him
It was 45 minutes into our phone call when he first tried to hang up on me. I guess I shouldn't have been shocked, because I had spent a good amount of time over the previous days watching and thinking about the time he walked out on Paul Holmes mid-interview and because I had read a lot of articles dating back to the 1970s in which journalists detailed how much he didn't like journalists: "If you're such an expert," he said to a New Zealand journalist at a press conference during the 1987 America's Cup campaign, "why are you sitting out in the audience instead of sitting up here sailing a boat?"
But I was shocked, because he's now 78, long retired and therefore - I assumed - more reflective than reactive and because, although we'd been covering some contentious subjects in the preceding minutes, during which time he'd become increasingly agitated, we'd spent the previous half hour talking about subjects he seemed to enjoy and about which he'd been talkative and affable.
The media has always been crucial to Conner, and though I knew the relationship had often been fractious, I never imagined it was about to get worse.
Conner is long retired but, as Greg Bruce discovered, he's far from retiring.
What's going on in Mike King's head?
Not long after Mike King landed at the airport in Whakatāne, a man turned to him and said: "Hey, I saw one of your shows in Rotorua years ago, in a pub."
He apologised.
"It was very funny," the man replied. "So funny."
"That's my audience," King said afterwards, resignedly. "My old audience."
From there, he picked up a rental car and drove to Edgecumbe, where a woman approached him, gave him a hug and said: "I didn't want to be a creep, but just wanted to say, 'You're doing an amazing job. You're amazing. Keep doin' it. Keep doin' it, doin' it. And we'll be helping out in the background.'"
These two encounters, 20 minutes apart, encapsulate the two most well-known public faces of Mike King: the anti-PC comedian and the guy who renounced that comedy in favour of trying to save our kids; two faces that are neatly separated by a come-to-Jesus moment in 2013, when he was invited to speak at a school in the Far North after a suicide cluster, where he realised comedy wasn't going to cut it and it was time to speak honestly about mental health.
He's on a mission to save our kids, and he's not afraid to p*** off some powerful people along the way.
The woman with the ear of the Prime Minister in the pandemic
Dame Juliet Gerrard is arguably the most powerful scientist in the country, certainly the one with the greatest access to power. At the peak of the pandemic, during the first lockdown last year, she was in contact with the Prime Minister multiple times a day, talking, texting, answering questions, providing information, talking through new research, helping inform and guide the country's response.
Greg Bruce meets Dame Juliet Gerrard, the Prime Minister's chief science advisor.
Rugby wasn't the winner on the day. I was.
I have always felt drawn to the rugby ball and dreamed of being an All Black, of course, but I was forced to retire from competitive rugby at the age of 14, due to being a nerd, and from that point on my dreams were mostly gone.
But I still feel the longing sometimes and so it was earlier this year, during a promotional exercise for Three's reality show 2nd Chance Charlie, for which media personalities, influencers and I were invited to preview the show and undertake a training session with co-host All Black legend Stephen Donald. I was surprised by the intensity of the thrill I felt walking out on to the field at Ponsonby, the city's most famous rugby club, the home of many of my childhood heroes - Joe Stanley, Peter Fatialofa, Craig Innes, Mark Brooke-Cowden. Va'aiga Tuigamala - and seeing a bag of balls, just sitting there: pure, latent possibility. I was drawn to them, compulsively and, on picking one up, I felt the familiar thrill, and accompanying sadness - the disappointment that I had let this feeling disappear from my life. I bounced the ball. It hit the grass limply and dribbled away from me. I picked it up and bounced it again. Again I failed to catch it. I didn't try a third time.
Greg Bruce goes to a training session with an elite rugby player who likes what he sees.
