Jack Of All Trades Finally a Winner

The final of Mitre 10 Mega Jack of All Trades was spread over four episodes. In the first part of the final of this reality television competition, tradesmen competed in three challenges. In total there were 11 challenges, with scores assigned according to speed, quality and safety. Riveting stuff (not).

Mate! Tonight, we find out who is the best tradie in the nation. Or, more accurately we find out how many times the sponsors can get their products mentioned during the show. Forget flipping the channel during the ad breaks. Miss Prozac lost count of the number of times the sponsors products were mentioned. She’s certain the pail of gin and tonic had nothing to do with her fuzzy memory…

Tacky award goes to… Jade Collins for this comment
Hot tip for the ladies at home. Apparently host Jade Collins, in between several awesomes, recommends the women pick up a tradie of their own. Hmmm maybe Hire a Hubby should branch out into dating or swingers parties? Awesome! Miss Prozac smells a new reality TV show in the making. Rushing out now to trademark that idea.

Highlight:
Pio Terei singing You Don’t Have To Be Rich To Be My Girl, with Wayne Take Yer Shirt Off Bowden doing spastic dancing around him. Hilarious. Next time, let’s have 30 minutes of that and flag the competition. In fact, get them on Pop’s Ultimate Star to host the show and provide entertainment. Can’t be worse than Dominic ‘Plastic’ Bowden.

So who are the finalists?

• James aka Mr Gadget
• Mike/Michael aka Superman ‘go hard or go home’ (too tempting but Miss Prozac is a lady)
• Warwick ‘I’m gonna kick butt’
• Scott/Scottie

Up for grabs, $100,000 in prizes. Awesome! Coming into the final, James is in the lead with nine out of 11 challenges completed. James Williamson was seeded as the top contestant and expected to take out the title. Warwick Beckett is a close second, and it looks like the other two won’t be in the running.

Challenge 1: Dulux painting challenge (with PAL rollers)
The guys get to paint a tongue in groove wall in some cacky mauve paint.
Result: Warwick finishes moments ahead of James and gets one extra point for his trouble. Scott struggled with time and quality, Michael managed good quality but very slow and the points reflect this. Barring a major calamity the winner will be James or Warwick.

Challenge 2: listening to advertorials Landscaping
The tradies have to build a garden, choose plants and stick them in the dirt. Creativity and design could win the day. So could another pail of G’n’T.

Warwick finished first with James not long behind. Insert more advertorials. Yawn.

Results
Scoreboard – Warwick and James tied on the last challenge so James Williamson wins by three points and gets crowned as the first Jack Of All Trades. Yep, you heard right. The next series is already planned. Miss Prozac is placing her gin order in advance and will be busy tonight crushing grapes.

Keeping it Real
There is also a Sunday News ‘Keeping it Real’ award for the tradesman/woman with the best attitude. Who bets smiley Kirsten Drabble will win?

The prize is $1,000 and a 12 month subscription to Sunday News. In the end the judges struggled to choose and awarded it jointly to Dave ‘Rip Sh*t n Bust’ McClean and Kirsten Drabble, who get $500 each. Presumably they don’t have to share the newspaper subscription?

Competition:
Win A Jack For A Weekend – entry forum in Sunday News. You could win a tradesman for the weekend to get some jobs done around the house.

Jade Collins movie wins award

Last month, we reported that Jade Collins' second movie was to premier this month at the 2007 Dances With Films Festival in Hollywood, Los Angeles. We've just heard through the grapevine that the award is one of three feature films to recieve an Honorable Mention. We're not sure how prestigious these awards are (most people we spoke to said "what?"), but it can't hurt.

Jade Collins plays the part of conniving stage assistant Celestine Richards in the movie 'The Last Magic Show'. The movie is billed as a romantic comedy and is written and directed by Andy Conlan, who also takes on the lead role of Ronny Roman. The only other name I recognised on the cast is NZ Order of Merit Officer Michael Hurst, who plays the part of Trevor Norton, the magician's slimy agent - but I freely admit that I'm not up on all the new talent.

Jade is currently appearing in reality television show Mitre 10 Mega Jack of All Trades screening on TV One on Saturday afternoons. If you enjoy watching gals in short shorts fondling utes and tools, this is the show for you.

You can view the promotional video for the movie The Last Magic Show and other background information and photos at myspace

Thanks to reader 'MiMac' for directing us to the myspace link

Mitre 10 Mega Jack of all Trades Finalists

The four finalists in the Mitre 10 Mega Jack of all Trades competition are:

• Timaru builder, James Williamson
• Napier builder, Warwick Beckett
• Whitby electrician, Mike Webster
• Christchurch Carpenter, Scottie Evans

They compete against each other in a total of eleven challenges covering carpentry, tiling and other trades, with results judged on speed, quality and safety. The judging doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. In one of last week's challenges, the four blokes had to grind four bolts off, well something. I'm afraid Miss Prozac was more interested in her Chardonnay, but she couldn't help noticing that Michael was the only tradie who did a good job. The others rushed through the challenge and left the bolts "proud", yet Michael scored lowest. Apparently New Zealand is so desperate for tradesmen we give them points for turning up, and don't care if the job isn't done properly.

The show continues to be relentless tedious and even the perky Wayne Bowden and Pio Terei are starting to sound pooped. On the plus side, Jade Collins continues to look cute in her short shorts, which is fortunate because her presenting skills are below par.

The 11 final challenges are being dragged out over four painfully slow episodes with the results announced on 28 July 2007.

Related Stories:
Episode 3 Recap: No Jill at final
Episode 2: Jack of all Trades sends Horse to Knackers Yard
Episode 1: Jade Collins in shorts fails to save Jack of all Trades
Jade Collins Movie World Premiere

Celebs strut the Catwalk in support of Mission

It seems like everyone who is anyone is modeling clothes for the Auckland City Mission's fundraising event.

To launch this year’s Winter Appeal the Mission is hosting the charity event ‘Fashion Rocks!’ The event is a celebration of New Zealand music and fashion and involves some of Auckland’s best designers and rock bands. Featuring at the event is the ‘I See Red Celebrity Fashion Show’, where well known Aucklanders take centre stage modeling red designs.

Designers involved include: Karen Walker; Nom’d; Hailwood; Andrea Moore; Jane Rhodes; Sera Lilly; Annah Stretton; Carlson; Robyn Mathieson; Ruby; Huffer; Petrena; Zambesi; Chocolat; Catalyst; Doris De Pont; Berkahn; Stolen Girlfriends Club Says Relax; and Lola by Rachel Hunter.

Modeling the designs are: Angela Bloomfield; Lana Coc-Kroft; Jackie Clarke; Jade Collins; Jeremy Corbett; Kate Elliot; Beatrice Faumuina; Jay-Jay Feeney; Clarke Gayford; Jessie Gurunathan; Dom Harvey; Jayne Kiely; Mary Lambie; Siobhan Marshall; Amber Peebles; Mia Pistoruis; Antonia Prebble; Miriama Smith; Carolyn Taylor; Hilary Timmins and Renee Wright.

Entertainment by: 48May; Steve Abel; Quarter 2 and Motorcade. MC for the evening is John Campbell.

It is hoped the evening will raise $100,000 for the Mission’s work with the homeless.

Tickets for the evening are $220 + GST per person and are available from Rebecca Lowe on 09 376 9247 or via email

No 'Jill' at Jack of All Trades Final...

Kirsten Drabble

How many ways can you describe a female tradie? On Mitre 10 Mega Jack of all Trades, the presenters outdid themselves. Pio introduced contestant Kirsten Drabble (previously seen on reality television renovation show, Back to Basics) as a girl in his introduction. Later he said “Check the girl out.” Sigh. Where were you during the political correctness and sensitivity training? Later Wayne Take Your Shirt Off Bowden said she looked like she’d have a woman’s touch in the glue gun challenge.

Then presenter Jade Collins, who really should know better said she was the only chick in the contest, and then asked her how it feels to be the only lady in the contest. Later, Wayne and Jade both described her as having a woman's touch. What happened to treating her like an equal?

By the first ad break Miss Prozac was praying that contestant Warwick Beckett would be eliminated for excessive brown-nosing. After the first challenge, backing the sponsor’s ute, Warwick was enthusing about how it was such a great vehicle to drive and gave the sponsor Mitsubishi a big plug. Despite Miss Prozac’s misgivings that Kirsten’s inclusion as a wild card contestant had more do to with ratings than skill Miss Prozac was praying she would demolish the sycophantic bootlicker and send him back to Taradale. She was also praying that one day Jade Collins would learn how to present and ask insightful, or at least original, interview questions. She's improving but it seems her purpose is more decorative than informative.

Onto the carpentry and creativity in putting together a dog kennel and Miss Prozac was worried Warwick’s nose was getting sore after he etched sponsor Dulux’s name onto the top of the kennel. For heaven’s sakes. Then after the painting challenge he put a Dulux sign on top of the kennel – what a strange name for a dog. Can we give him penalty points for being such a tosser?

Kirsten’s kennel including a swing and her design skills saw her take out the kennel challenge and take the lead. Sadly after the bricklaying challenge Warwick nosed ahead and kept his snout in front for the remainder of the contest, even though Kirsten closed the gap during the demolition challenge. Time for the girl to go. Shame about that. She was the most exciting contestant to date. She had a big smile on her face and a great attitude. Or as Wayne Take Your Shirt Off Bowden said, it’s a shame to see her go because she was the

"Best looking thing here since sliced bread.” Well that’s not sexist.

Kirsten quipped, “Except you.”
“Goes without saying”, he replied.

Hooooo-kay. On that note we’ll leave it. We’re going to skip the next few shows. Miss Prozac has better things to do on a Saturday afternoon, but we’ll be back to review the final show on Saturday 28 July, 2007.

Free stuff!
You can win a handyman for the weekend with Sunday News. You can also win a pack of tools with Mitre 10.

Related Stories:
Top Tradesmen competition starts Saturday
Episode 2: Jack of all Trades sends Horse to Knackers Yard
Episode 1: Jade Collins in shorts fails to save Jack of all Trades
Jade Collins Movie World Premiere

Images: Mitre 10

Jade Collins Movie World Premiere

Jade Collins, currently appearing as a co-host of TV One's Jack of All Trades reality television show, plays a key role in the movie, The Last Magic Show, due to premiere next month. The movie has been selected to play at the 2007 Dances With Films Festival in Hollywood, Los Angeles, on July the 11th.

The Last Magic Show features some faces familiar to New Zealand audiences, including Michael Hurst (Hercules, Maddigan's Quest, Fracture, The Tattooist, Be Very Afraid), Jade Collins (Miss Popularity, Juice TV, Charlotte's List: Sexiest Women), Matthew Sunderland (Out of the Blue) and Lucy Wigmore (Shortland Street).

The light hearted romance with a dark twist tells the story of Ronny Roman, a failing Escape Artist whose recent heartbreak has left him with the delusion that he has real magical powers. He's offered one chance at the big time – to make the escape that nearly killed him last time he attempted it. There's just one catch – he must find a beautiful new Stage Assistant to replace the one who put him into his current state.

Related Stories:
Hayley Holt voted NZ's Sexiest Woman (Jade Collins runner up)
Jack of all Trades sends Horse to Knackers Yard
Top Tradesmen competition starts Saturday
Jade Collins in shorts fails to save Jack of all Trades

Images: TVNZ

Jack of all Trades sends Horse to Knackers Yard

Horse

Another scintillating episode of Mitre 10 Jack of All Trades saw the team of Jade Collins, Pio Terei and Wayne Bowden continuing their love-fest with the sponsors’ tools.

John McLeod (Horse) reckons he’ll win on strategy and is looking forward to the bricklaying but he’s up against higher ranked Michael Webster. Speaking of which it’s a good thing Wayne Bowden is pretty to look at because hasn’t mastered the English language. Today’s helpful tip: Ranking not rank’n. Miss Prozac might not have noticed if his shorts were as short as Jade’s but unfortunately he was once again covered to the knees with just a wee patch of calf showing above his workman’s boots.

Apparently the Titans have a great turning lock. Sigh. Two minutes and the blatant product endorsements start. Horse starts the backing exercise accompanied by whinnying sounds from commentators Pio and Wayne. Seriously... whinnying. Not sure if this is a reflection on the age group of the expected audience, or their IQ. Either way, it was a bizarre accompaniment to a bloke's program.

On to the kennel making. Miss Prozac is thinking of turning off the sound after hearing Wayne and Pio singing the praises of power tools and safety features yawn yawn.

Two challenges up and Michael is ahead by a nose (yeah sorry, the horse analogies were infectious). Meanwhile Horse still swears he’ll win on strategy.

Horse raced through the brick laying with more whinnying and horse analogies from Wayne and Pio. Miss Prozac suspects the constant references to a stallion will see Horse replaying this video in place of Viagra in the coming years. Unfortunately it looks like Horse is due to retire to the knackers yard. He seemed tired and sluggish in a lot of the challenges.

Free stuff!
You can win a handyman for the weekend with Sunday News. You can also win a pack of tools with Mitre 10.

Michael Webster (above) won against wild card John McLeod aka Horse

Highlight
The best part of the show was discovering TV One's program Extraordinary Kiwis: True Grit screening at 5:30pm. This episode featured Nathan Fa'avae, who was going off the rails, until an outdoor pursuits course set him on a pathway to become a world champion in the gruelling sport of adventure racing. He does motivational speaking to youth and raised funds to help grow the sport in New Zealand. Very inspiring. We'll be looking out for more episodes.

Related Stories:
Top Tradesmen competition starts Saturday
Jade Collins in shorts fails to save Jack of all Trades

Images: Mitre 10

Jade Collins in shorts fails to save Jack of all Trades

Can you spell advertorial? This heavily endorsed show was an advertisers’ dream with commentators Wayne Bowden and Pio Terei waxing lyrical over the wonders of Makita power tools, Hardie villa board and Mitsi utes. Jade Collins was the resident dolly bird, lovingly draping herself over the Mitsi ute and tromping around the yard in her short shorts. Naturally everyone wore a Mitre 10 Mega uniform. Who’s sponsoring this show, anyway?

Clearly this is a bloke’s show and probably not designed to appeal to the sharpest tool in the shed if they think anyone is going to fall for this hyped up exhibition of carpentry with all the excitement of watching paint dry (but thankfully that wasn’t in this week’s show).

Pio and Wayne twittered happily in the commentary box as chippies and the like backed trailers into pens and manfully threw big bales of Batts and other sponsors’ products onto the deck. The backing exercise was reminiscent of that old television classic ‘A Dog’s Life’ where farmer and dog has to work to get a bunch of sheep into pens and shut them. Only the dog show was more interesting.

Miss Prozac has never heard a commentary team so excited about two men whacking things with hammers, putting bits of tape on walls and building brick walls. Oh yeah, they made a dog box too. Pity they didn’t put the show concept in it, where it belonged.

Wayne and Pio were gabbling so fast you would have thought it was the Melbourne Cup they were commenting on rather than a couple of lumbering lads out to win $100,000 in sponsors’ prizes. Perhaps they were just in a hurry to get to dinner, Miss Prozac certainly was.

Sorry chicks, nothing to see here. Miss Prozac had to watch reruns of Antonio Banderas and George Clooney to sate her hunk hankerings. Wayne Bowden, who was a decent bit of eye candy in TV3’s Hot Property show, and obligingly removed his shirt at every opportunity, was disappointingly attired in long shorts and a buttoned shirt.

Apparently there are points for quality as well as speed but the Maori dude, with whom Pio seemed to have some sort of affinity, making copious references to whanau, didn’t get that memo.

Some bloke won. Fortunately it wasn’t the rip, shit and bust dude that put the tape on crooked and had a wee bit of trouble backing. Reminded Miss Prozac of just about every tradesman she’d ever dealt with. Except these ones turned up on time. We can only assume they were told the appointment was for an afternoon of beer and some popular chick (Miss Popularity, get it?) parading around in the shortest shorts imaginable, as she's quite certain no one would have been there if they'd known there was work to be done...

Added: Don't worry guys you haven't seen the last of Miss Jade. She will be back with her bare legs next Saturday afternoon. However as there won't be any bare-chested men Miss Prozac isn't sure whether she'll bother watching the rest of the shows.

Related Stories:
Top Tradesmen competition starts Saturday
Hayley Holt voted NZ's Sexiest Woman (Jade Collins runner up)

Images: Mitre 10

Top Tradesmen competition starts Saturday

Another scintillating reality television show starts this Saturday. Fortunately it's screened at 5pm Saturday while Miss Prozac is dolling herself up for a night out on the town. However if you're home on Saturdays and it's pouring with rain you might like to see New Zealand's most egotistical tradesmen battle it out for the title ‘Mitre 10 Mega Jack Of All Trades’


Jack of all Trades is presented by Wayne Bowden, Pio Terei and Jade Collins (ex Miss Popularity).

Kirsten Drabble

Continuing the pattern of recycling reality TV contestants, we see that the eight finalists include previous 'stars' of reality TV. First up is 'Horse' (John McLeod) who found fame on Treasure Island. Miss Prozac wonders how long it will be before we see him cavorting on Dancing with the Stars. Kirsten Drabble, who previously appeared as the interior designer on Back to Basics renovation show, features as the Jack of all Trades token female.

We have a hard time believing these are New Zealand's top tradesmen (and woman). It's more like the battle of NZ's most fame hungry tradesmen (and woman).

The other finalists are: Michael Webster from Whitby, an electrician by trade; and builders Warwick Beckett from Taradale; Scott Evans from New Brighton; James Williamson from Timaru; Dave McClean from Porirua; and Daniel Saunders from Rolleston.

Horse

The showdown will see New Zealand’s best tradies face a series of challenges from carpentry to brick laying, painting to tiling and ute handling.

The show kicks off with eight finalists racing each other and the clock to determine who has the best all round trade skills; from their physical ability on the tools, workmanship and safety, to their organisational efficiency. Weekly contests between the finalists will be shown on Saturdays at 5.30pm with the overall Mitre 10 MEGA Jack of All Trades being crowned on 28th July. Miss Prozac can barely stand the excitement.

Related Stories:
Hayley Holt voted NZ's Sexiest Woman (Jade Collins runner up)

Images: TVNZ

Hayley Holt voted NZ's Sexiest Woman

Dancer, snowboarder and Treasure Island winner, Hayley Holt, has been voted NZ's Sexiest Woman according to a recent poll by Prime Television for their show Charlotte's Lists.

It's not a complete poll, as Charlotte compiled a shortlist of 13 women for voters, but we're sure Hayley would have won against most competition. We only have to look at how popular she is in google searches to know she's one of the hottest bodies names around at the moment. And her code cracking skills on Treasure Island Pirates of the Pacific show she's more than just a pretty face.

The top 5 sexiest women according to Charlotte's Lists

1. Hayley Holt
2. Jade Collins
3. Toni Marsh
4. Aja Rock
5. Kelly Swanson-Rose

Nicky Watson, currently filming a swimsuit/lingerie calendar in New Zealand was ranked 7th in the list.

P.S. Can anyone who voted for Toni Marsh please tell us the sex appeal of this emaciated gal?

In next week's show Charlotte's Lists showcases 'true stories' of some of our biggest stars who blazed and then crashed and burned.

Related Stories:
Charlotte's Lists - Is Hayley Holt NZ's Sexiest Woman?
Hayley Holt profile and bikini photos
Hayley Holt's Single Life
Is Hayley Holt NZ's Sexiest Woman?
Treasure Island The Final!
Top Tradesmen competition starts Saturday

Images: TVNZ