Island Life by David Slack

Christchurch girls are easy

In all the flurry of the political turmoil, you may have missed a little gem. Wammo - who recently moved up from Christchurch's RDU to host a show on the bigger and brighter reincarnation of Kiwi FM - shares a talent with Noelle for relaxing Don Brash into a disarming candour.

Last week, Wammo dug up some old audio and shared it on air with Scoop's Kevin List, who subsequently posted it on their site. You'll find it here

In it, we hear Dr Brash, Love Guru, providing agony aunt advice to anyone having trouble with their sex life. He's an awfully good sport, and it really is very entertaining.

Once a week on RDU breakfast, Wammo and his sidekick Spanky would have a chat with Don. Perhaps it's fair to assume that hosts styling themselves Wammo and Spanky are not going to give you the grilling you'd expect from Sean Plunket and Geoff Robinson. But appearances can be deceptive. Wammo is very well informed, and he has his wits about him. Spanky was mostly doing it for laughs.

They hit on this wheeze of making up letters from their listeners asking about problems as varied as a woman with a preponderance of body hair and "a dude in a wheel chair" having relationship difficulties, and getting the leader of the opposition to weigh in with some advice.

Wammo would lead off with a question about the current account deficit, or preferential funding based on race, and then Spanky would chime in with a letter from a lovelorn listener.

Don had a decent and sympathetic word to offer all of them, and along the way he confided a few turbulent experiences of his own. His upbringing was clearly at least two universes removed from the licentious steaminess of Hot Springs, Arkansas where William Jefferson Clinton came to manhood. But there's no doubt that Don is a man of the world. His reminiscence about a night out with a beauty queen is magnificent. Steve Braunias would never be the same again, to coin a phrase.

All good things must come to an end, though. Wammo is pretty sure that the day Bryan Sinclair came along was the kiss of death. Within a week, the slot was dropped. One can't help pondering what Matthew Hooton would have advised.