democracy with a side of toast.

I saw an interview on Breakfast the other day, the subject of which being "why should scalping be illegal?" with regards to the 2011 Rugby World Cup. The actual topic under discussion, though, was "come look at this freak who has an opinion vaguely resembling something original; let's interrogate him with often irrelevant questions not pertaining to his original argument".

This article has two points to make. The first is about the shocking decline of Breakfast following the departing of Paul Henry. The second is the broader and more general opinion that scalping indeed shouldn't be illegal, and that the fact that it is a merely another example of the unnecessary interfering with economics by our nanny-state government. Phew, long sentences there.

Breakfast was never that bad. Let me rephrase: it always rested miles ahead of its six o'clock counterpart, thanks to some much needed personality and wit in the form of Paul Henry, who has since 'resigned', though under immense public pressure, meaning that he was as good as fired. In Henry, Breakfast had somehow managed to discover and fill a niche- news with soul. His became a humour iconic of our young nation, a satirical wit thoroughly lacking from other shows, be they the following (and I really don't envy them because Henry only highlighted their total blandness) Sunrise, or the dismal Australian Good Morning, both little more than advertising thinly veiled by far-too-cheery yin/yang style hosts and a certainly blind wardrobe guy.

These shows had nothing, nothing on Breakfast, and Henry and the rest of the team knew it. They knew the joys of a complete 6:30am media monopoly, and the managers must surely have spent days at a time on luxury cruises in baths of $100 bills surrounded by women who would make Burlesconi blush. Henry, too, grew bolder with each week, and what began as a single remark regarding a woman's pseudo mustache (I laughed) or use of the phrase "fucking mongrel pommy prick" at the QANTAS Awards, grew and grew, finally and perhaps inevitably, culminating in one hell of a week. Slamming the Governor General as "not a real New Zealander" (despite Henry himself, as the "pommy" witticism referred to, being born in the UK) followed promptly by the "Diksit" (etymology: dik- shit) incident. The poor man.

Or maybe it was foreseeable, not only to the public but to Henry himself. Maybe going out with a metaphorical "bang" was his way of immortalising himself in pop culture- god knows he had the self-inflated view of himself that would crave desperately an Achilles-like downfall. His equivalent of Steve Irwin's death (not that the Crocodile Hunter's fate was self-engineered (or was it- possible conspiracy theory (ha, brackets within brackets (Inception!)))): a method of ensuring he never fade into the interminable mediocrity celebrities fear so deeply in the twilight of their careers.

It makes me mad, the routine our public have fallen into these days- one of the more regrettable byproducts of free speech I guess: we love something, be it Paul Henry's sharp tongue or otherwise, and then as soon as someone even slightly oversteps the mark, we are suddenly out for their blood. The same idea carries over to politics, in the sense that our populous are fundamentally all swing-voters, and it only dawns on us to vote for the opposing party (I'm only talking Labour and National here) once we have grown tired of not the other party's policies and ideologies, but rather are prompted by some external intervention like revelations that John Key earns a bazillion dollars and drives a Bentley. So? His job sucks, and he at least deserves to be compensated for his efforts. We expect a ridiculous amount from our politicians, and utterly fail to acknowledge that we could scarcely do a better job.

Back to Breakfast. For a short while, the hung in there, making do with substitutions like the straight-talking and occasionally droll Peter Williams or intelligent and eloquent Alison Mau, or even, god forbid, the scarcely post-pubescent Jack Tame. Yet there was a noticeable void, a profound feeling of emptiness, that no weak one liners could fill. You felt it every time the cameras panned over to Tamiti in some nondescript North Island village; you felt it when we were greeted by the furiously fast-speaking Corin Dann at the Business Desk, to discuss figures I can only imagine even he harboured no real interest in.

Ah yes, Corin. He now sits atop Henry's once extolled throne, paired with what I can only contemptuously describe as the washed-up b-grade presenter Petra Bagust. It seems that Henry (and, granted, Pippa Wetzell) were tough acts to follow. Breakfast is meaningless to me now, joining the likes if Pokémon and Home and Away. I will tune in only if it is already on, and even then, will only pay the bare minimum amount of attention required to get the gist of what is being discussed. My apologies, Mr Dann, but it is my belief that it would have been better to stick to the markets and currencies- your journalistic style and apparent glare at guests simply doesn't make for gripping viewing.

As for this scalper business, I fail to see how it is very different from my sister buying clothes from an Op-shop and re-selling them on TradeMe users at five times the price- and, naturally, pocketing the difference. Nor do I see anything inherently unethical about this- at the Australian Open, and most events, last minutes tickets are sold at vastly inflated prices, and this is the basically same thing, isn't it? The only difference being that someone other than the organisers will profit- and in the case of the Rugby World Cup, the Government. I do see the irony in my being outraged at this having just openly derided those who do exactly what I am doing, but in my defense, the act declaring scalping sports tickets as illegal could surely easily be reversed.

Sure, I'm all for increased export receipts from the World Cup (cue endless flow-on effects), and I'd rather see this profit re-dispersed in the health/education sector than go directly to private corporations, but what about this fabled market dictated wholly by supply and demand?

I suppose I'm just a capitalist at heart.