This is 2019

Media Scrum returns properly next week, probably with a right moan about how embarrassing the whole Tourists From Hell debacle was for everybody. (There was also a huge temptation to start off the year with another rant about how Newstalk ZB hosts - who wouldn't recognise the concept of empathy if it smashed them in the fucking face - should never, ever be allowed near a column space with their boring and rancid reckons again, but that's probably self evident by now.)

In the meantime, we'd just like to give a shout out to all the journalists and support staff who had to work over the Christmas and New Years break, because somebody has to fucking do it. They were always there to make sure the latest edition or broadcast was going out, or that the website was fully updated, and did a fantastic job of ignoring all the pictures of the beach that their great mates and colleagues were sharing on Instagram.

But it could have been worse. You could have been working in a newsroom on Christmas Day when a huge downpour resulted in water pouring down from the ceiling, right over all the technical gear, and then had to work through a fetid stench that filled that newsroom for two days before anybody even even started drying out the wet carpet.

And then you could have been working in that same newsroom on New Years Eve when the mothership building had a catastrophic failure, seeing out 2018 with a mad dash to fill the dead air, and then having to ignore the stunning hypocrisy of a National MP who couldn't figure out why the basic infrastructure of a public broadcaster was lacking. Why, it was almost as if they hadn't been properly funded for more than a decade or something!

Oh wait. That totally did all happen. Never mind.

See you next Tuesday!