"The Panel" continues its ghastly decline

[Radio Transcripts Ltd]

We are already into the fourth week of this year's version of Jim
Mora's program "The Panel". Sadly, the producers have made no
innovations or improvements to the format at all; Jim's volubility is
as insufferable as ever, his glib delivery has got even worse, and the
"talent" is drawn from the same stagnant pool of lacklustre sycophants
as it was last year, and the year before.

Today's edition was typical….

"The Panel", Radio New Zealand National, Monday 4 March 2013
Jim Mora, Jonathan Krebs, Tino Pereira

MORA: All right, the next subject is ACC payouts. Some of these claims
to ACC are hilarious! There were fifty claims for sunburn!

JONATHAN KREBS: Ha ha ha ha!

MORA: Hur hur hur hur hur! Fourteen thousand claims for insect
bites...

TINO PEREIRA: Ha ha ha ha ha!

MORA: There were one hundred and ninety-five claims for windsurfing
and---hur, hur, hur, hur!---two hundred and eleven for bodyboard
injuries!

JONATHAN KREBS: Ha ha ha ha ha!

JIM MORA: Hur hur hur! And 938 barbecue injuries! Hur hur hur hur hur!

JONATHAN KREBS: Ha ha ha ha ha!

TINO PEREIRA: Ha ha ha ha ha!

MORA: Professor Grant Duncan from Massey University joins us. Hur hur
hur hur!

PROFESSOR DUNCAN: I am concerned about this apparent trivialization of
injuries.

MORA: Uhhhh….

PROFESSOR GRANT DUNCAN: I don't think these injuries are trivial. If
you get stung by a swarm of wasps you need to get yourself to
hospital. I think it's dangerous if we start to trivialize injuries
like this.

MORA: Hmmmm. Inevitable with media reportage though….

SOAPBOX….

MORA: Now's the time we find out what our Panelists have been talking
about. Jonathan, you want to talk about university fees?

KREBS: Yeah, I don't have anything that's really NEEDLING me at the
moment, Jim, but my daughter Harriet is off to university and I have
had to pay $6,000 for her accommodation and $7,000 for course fees,
which made me pucker up a bit!

....and so on, and so on, and so on….