(Comedian) Te Radar - Off the radar: a man, a plan and a paddock

M arjorie has kindly offered to lend me her walking stick so that I can prod the chicken away from where it has situated itself in the corner of the cage. Now I have two sources of stress: being defeated by poultry, and the fear that any minute a frail 92-year-old woman may topple over and shatter in front of a mortified nation, and itll be entirely my fault.

The hen, a tiny white bantam, is proving feisty, retreating to the back of the cage, resolutely avoiding my grasping hands and the flailing walking stick, while staring at me with what could be either contempt or total indifference. Its hard to tell sometimes what dark emotions lie behind the beady eye of the fowl.

There are more chickens in the world than any other birdsome 24 billion of them. Little wonder its a nightmare when they get the flu. I am dealing with three, and I already wonder if thats more than I can handle.

Im also beginning to suspect that I should have paid a little more attention at a lunch meeting I attended a few weeks prior, at SPQR, a fine dining establishment on Aucklands Ponsonby Road, in August 2007. However, I was a little distracted at the time by the herb-encrusted corn-fed chicken served on a bed of garlic mash and a third glass of a superbly chilled Astrolabe chardonnay.

Jane Andrews and Melanie Rakena are television producers of some note and the founders of Jam TV, responsible for the popular Intrepid Journeys series along with the acclaimed Off the Rails and

Ice. Now they are interested in me. I know this because they had offered to pay for the lunch.

As the fourth glass of the Astrolabe arrived, they asked me what I was doing over the course of the next 10 months. Very little, I stated. This was followed shortly thereafter by my announcing that yes, I would love to be the host of a television programme about sustainable living that would require me to live in a field and attempt to survive. I may even have followed up this proclamation with the phrase, After all, how difficult can that be? and followed that up with a request for a tiramisu. And an espresso.

The programme they have wheedled me into doing is to be a study in sustainability, or more precisely a study into whether I can become more sustainable given a paddock, some time and a little gumption.

Now, when it comes to issues of global warning, carbon neutrality and peak oil, I have to confess that I am something of an agnostic. I am one of those types who prefers to take their own reusable shopping bag to the supermarket, so much so that I now own several of these bags. But as I often fail to remember to put the bags back in the car after taking them into the house, they reside mostly in a drawer in my kitchen. Thus, not only am I using more shopping bags than I should as I never have the reusable bags with me, I am also now hoarding supposedly better bags.

This show may be a challenge.

Sustainability is very much on the tips of peoples tongues at the present time, or at least it is when they are not blathering on about real estate. In an era when people are terrified that their use of too many supermarket shopping bags will fuel a rise in global temperatures and threaten their beachside holiday homes, sustainability has been mooted as the little bit you can do as an individual to help save the entire planet from global catastrophe.

Im all for doing a little bit to help. Especially if it gets me out of doing a lot.

But back to the lunch. It wasnt until much later (well, the fifth glass of Astrolabe) that I might have begun to question what I had let myself in for.

Jane and Mel laid the concept out in greater detail. I would be required to move to a bare paddock in the countryside, with limited resources, including a small set-up fee and a $20 weekly stipend to buy essentials such as any food I couldnt grow. I would then have to attempt to become self-sustaining by hunting and growing my own food over the course of 10 months.

Of course, they explained, you would be free to leave to complete other work that you already have scheduled. This was fortunate, as I was in the middle of completing another television series, called Homegrown, about produce and the way it has shaped us as a nation, which in many ways was a fitting parallel to the show they were offering. But, they said, if you arent away for other work, then its life on the farm for you.

I even had to write and sign a contract:

I, Te Radar, will attempt to live as sustainably as possible off this bounteous land.

They explained that self-sustainability was different to self-sufficiency. Being self-sufficient means taking care of everything yourself, said Mel.

Whereas being self-sustainable means looking at how you can continue to exist while having as little impact on the planet as possible, with what impact you do have being ultimately beneficial for the future, Jane added.

Gosh.

During the course of the 13-part series we would also look at the wider issues of sustainability. I was particularly looking forward to having to raise and hunt my own food.

I have long been concerned about where my food comes from and whats in it. As Id perused the menu earlier at the Ponsonby eatery and contemplated ordering the chicken, I did wonder where it had come from. At that time, there was a stoush between a discount butcher chain and a supermarket giant over who had the cheapest chicken.

Preposterous.

Being able to produce the cheapest chicken is not something, I believe, that could be regarded as a source of pride. However, perhaps my attitude was a little elitist, especially as I wasnt paying for lunch that day.

So it was that I found myself, on my birthday, which also happens to be the first day of spring, filming what would constitute the beginning of the series.

One of the odd things about television is that you are forced to think a lot about the futureor rather, to make wild predictions on camera. This is to provide material for the director to utilise later to deride your naive Utopian dreams, as those dreams become dysfunctional nightmares.

Im grilled on what I think may happen (Ill grow something), what the problems may be (what I grow will die), and what I hope to gain (hopefully not any weight).

Id grown up on a farm, and I am keen to return to the land as a small runholder. There is an immense amount of pleasure to be had from toiling on the land.

Having been employed for the last several years to essentially do little other than talk, to suddenly find myself in a position where I can look back at the end of the day and see a physical manifestation of my labours is going to be very fulfilling.

I mention on camera that I dont really have a problem with early mornings. It is this comment that will cause my mother to convulse in spontaneous laughter at a screening some months hence.

Its late September, just a few short weeks after that fateful lunch, and I find myself bidding farewell to my comfortable house in Henderson, West Auckland, and heading to the wilds of rural New Zealand.

Well, Kaukapakapa anyway, northwest of Helensville. It isnt really the wilds of rural New Zealand, as it is only an easy 45-minute drive from my house.

I had only really been to Helensville twice prior to this, as it had always seemed so far away. Its a small town snuggled into the nook of a river, at the southernmost end of the Kaipara Harbour. On one visit I had bought a toilet-roll holder shaped like a dragon. The toilet roll is held between the dragons outstretched paws. So far I am the only person I have met who finds it adorable.