Downton Abbey, Wilsons Parking and Te Radar. Talk soon.

(First published in The Dominion Post, November 29.)

More pressing questions for our troubled times:

Should parents who give their kids weird, unpronounceable and unspellable names be charged with child abuse?

Commodore Frank Bainimarama – a Mugabe in the making, right in our own backyard?

We’ve had Dancing with the Stars hysteria, Masterchef hysteria, The Block hysteria and New Zealand’s Got Talent hysteria – what other ordeals has television got up its sleeve?

Shouldn’t political commentators who double as media trainers be required to disclose who they work for?

Has Coro St become the most relentlessly miserable, depressing, downbeat programme on television?

Cliches are an occupational hazard in sports journalism, but is “riding the pine” – meaning sitting on the reserves’ bench – one of the silliest ever?

Has John Key finally woken up to the fact that his smirk is an electoral liability?

How much more prosperous would New Zealand be if all the time wasted on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube was spent working?

Has the blogosphere become a forum in which frustrated Leftists impotently let off steam while the rest of the country calmly gets on with things?

Is Radio New Zealand’s Kim Hill capable of reading a mildly critical email from a listener without delivering a dismissive rejoinder?

How many Fulton Hogan trucks does it take to protect a single worker mowing a motorway verge?

Had enough of the haka?

When will someone admit that Downton Abbey is really just a glorious spoof, never meant to be taken seriously?

Is Wilsons Parking the most rapacious company in the land?

Closely followed by Wellington International Airport?

How hard can it be for One News to put captions on screen so that viewers can identify the people talking?

Why have so many mature, educated New Zealand women taken to talking with silly schoolgirl voices?

Who do so many slow drivers speed up when they come to a passing lane?

Man-Booker Prize winners excepted, do the media make too much fuss of New Zealand writers?

Had enough of Air New Zealand’s gimmicky safety videos?

Given that National MP Tau Henare seems to spend much of his time sending inane messages on Twitter (for example, boasting about his prowess in the gym), isn’t it time he considered a change of career?

Te Radar is described as a comedian, but can anyone remember him ever saying anything funny?

Shouldn’t TVNZ’s Q+A require viewers tweeting comments to the programme to identify themselves, just as newspapers insist with letters to the editor?

Given up trying to remember all your computer passwords?

Household disinfectants claim to eliminate 99.9 per cent of germs, but what if it’s the other 0.1 per cent that kills people?

Since virtually all politicians cheerfully ignored the 87 per cent “no” vote in the 2009 smacking referendum, why should Labour and the Greens expect anyone to take notice of the asset sales poll?

Has the phrase “systemic failure” (as in the Labour Department’s blind eye to problems at Pike River) become a routine excuse for not holding anyone responsible when things go tragically wrong?

Has television prime time been pushed back from 7.30 to 9.30 pm, given that almost no programme worth watching starts until then?

Now that they’ve taken a caning over the overcooked Urewera raids and the ludicrous swoop on the Kim Dotcom mansion, will the police ease off on the heavy-handed, American Swat-style tactics?

Puzzled by all the media hype over the recent death of the singer Lou Reed, whose existence barely registered with 99 per cent of the population?

When will advertising agencies admit that a lot of TV commercials are made primarily to impress other advertising agencies?

Given their propensity for committing illegal acts in full view of referees and TV cameras, is it possible that rugby league players have the lowest average IQ of any sport?

Will John Banks finally realise his time is up and bow out of public life with whatever little dignity he still has left?

What peculiar conceit motivates people to post a comment on a blog when there are already hundreds there? Do they seriously think anyone’s going to read it?

When did it become fashionable for men to wear suits two sizes too small?

Given the striking resemblance between them, could US Secretary of State John Kerry be the love child of Herman Munster?

Given up trying to make sense of the self-service checkout at the supermarket?

Irritated by emails signed “Talk soon” from people you’ve never met and are unlikely ever to have any verbal contact with?