A couple of days ago I wrote about an emergency. A soup emergency. Two weeks in Auckland and I was missing the Khmer Noodle House’s seafood deluxe noodle soup (no bean sprouts no spring onions). I eat one every day. I needed a substitute and I needed it quick.

I turned to social media. I was desperate. I had nowhere else to go. Kate had left a good suggestion on my website, but that was all.

My two favorite tweeters (for God’s sake follow them) are Philip Mathews and Jolisa Gracewood and low-and-behold it was one of them who set my rescue in motion. Philip banged out my problem to his followers and suddenly things started to happen. I began to feel something I hadn’t felt in days, something that Auckland traffic had near choked out of me. I felt hope.

First came the ever-sharp Steve Braunias who came through with Kung Foo Noodles on Dominion Road. Say what you like about Braunias, God knows I have, but he has a keen eye for an emergency. And he responded.

Then along came John Campbell. A Hurricanes supporter, John has spent much of his life empathising with lost men. He also has a keen eye for restaurants with Formica tables. An absolute must in the search for a great Asian eatery.

Campbell started rattling off names. Tweet after tweet. Each ended with a single word. More. And more came. A cascade of Laksa possibility. Other suggestions started flooding in too.

Simon Pound recommended Laksa House in New Market by describing it as a “smelly carpark food court. Amazing.” Others agreed. It was enough for me. That was lunch. The Curry Laksa was incredible. And the carpark was incredibly smelly.

By this time, work had gone off the agenda. It was really just a matter of waiting for dinner and the Sri Pinang on K Road. The place had glass tables. A bit bloody bourgeois.  

It was just before 7pm as I prepared to eat and Campbell was still tweeting advice. Focusing on his telly program might ordinarily take all of his attention, but the man knows a soup emergency when he sees one.

POW! Two from two. Sri Pinang really delivered. And the owner Angie told me stories of Campbell coming to the place since before he was famous (he was always very polite apparently and believably). I asked if they used to have Formica tables. She looked confused.

Don’t get me wrong, neither of these places offered the seafood deluxe noodle soup (no bean sprouts no spring onions) but both Laksas were excellent. Furthermore, I now have a plethora of options. Unfortunately, I’m leaving for Cambridge this afternoon, though I leave Auckland not just with a lovely sense of virtual community but also having had a powerful epiphany.

When I have minor issues I know where to go. Keeping my business accounts in order, my accountant. Legal problems, my lawyer. If my kidneys give out, I’ll pop in and see my doctor.

But for the really important stuff, I’ll go to Twitter.

I have a problem. The problem is that my friends have begun to call me Raymond. As in the autistic character played by Dustin Hoffman when he starred opposite Tom Cruise in his Oscar winning performance. Yip, I am Rain Man.

This terrible slight on my good character has come about over the most innocuous of issues: my enjoyment of a seafood deluxe noodle soup from the Khmer Noodle House (no bean sprouts, no spring onions).  And the fact that I add a precise amount of chili sauce to every bite (nobody likes too much or too little). That it must be eaten noodles first, then noodles with meat, then meat on its own, then the broth (any other order would be madness). And the fact that I like to sit in the same seat every time (it’s a great seat). And that I have at least one of these soups every day of my life (I prefer the days when I have two).

What’s wrong with that I hear you ask? Nothing. Except your friends start to call you Raymond.

I used to travel from Sumner to Riccarton to get that soup. That’s just over an hour round trip. Sometimes I went twice a day. As I said, it’s a good soup. Once I walked in, saw my seat was taken and drove immediately home. It really is very good seat. Needless to say, though, I was pretty pleased when a mate found one in Woolston. That cut my travelling time in half, and obviously increased the number of days I could enjoy two soups. A classic win-win.

My girlfriend and I were in Wellington two weekends ago. I found a Khmer Noodle House. We went there each day. She was unhappy but I was understandably very, very pleased. I explained that fifty percent is a pass. She shook her head and texted my lawyer. Many of you will be aware that my lawyer and I are close and have shared many great times. He was the one who came up with the name Raymond. It’s one blemish on an otherwise impeccable friendship.

Now I’m in Auckland. I’ve been here for two weeks. I don’t mind telling you that  I’m slowly losing my bloody mind. My modest waistband is shrinking. I cannot find a Khmer Noodle House anywhere. Today I was at my wits’ end. I travelled to Milford. Nothing. Takapuna. Nothing. I Googled and found two possibilities in the city. What did I find? Nothing. Then nothing. I got angry and rang my lawyer. He laughed and called me Raymond. I hung up and rang my girlfriend. She laughed but then spoke in slow and grave tones. She sensed the seriousness of the situation.

Rain Man is NOT happy. If you are in Auckland and you know of a place that might be close to what I need, please drop me a line. If you know what you are doing, feel free to open a noodle house. I need Formica tables, little or no English and a similar amount of customer service. It definitely can’t be busy (I don’t like crowds) and I must be able to choose my own chair. It will also need to have the perfect chili sauce. In a city as big as this, it shouldn’t be hard.

Where the fuck is Tom Cruise when you need him?

If we imprison young people then we need to get used to doing it. Almost 90 percent of prisoners under twenty will be re-convicted within five years or release. Seventy percent will find themselves back in prison. Recidivism rates drop significantly for people aged 40 or over. It's a long time to wait.

Statistics be damned, though. Make every statistic a victim and things become more significant. Yip, there's a massive financial cost (each prisoner costs more than $90,000 per year), but the social cost is immeasurable. We need to move beyond ideas of punishing criminals and think about future victims. If what we are doing is creating more victims then it clearly isn't a success.

I've been asked many times what might work, and while much of my fieldwork in other areas has given me some anecdotal answers, it's only recently that I've undertaken research to prove them.

One of those projects evaluated a reintegration strategy employed by Pathway Trust, and this showed some promising results in employing wrap-around service provision (I will write specifically about that soon). Another project highlighted the very simple and astounding gaps in rehabilitation efforts (I will write about this in detail when we're done, too).

Perhaps my most important study, though, is just beginning. A team from Interdependent Research Solutions and Zavest are finding and interviewing people who were imprisoned at younger than 20 who have not been re-convicted for at least five years. We are hoping to learn what worked for them so it can be employed on others. If it doesn't sound exciting, I assure you It is.

Only when the public (read voters) demand a more evidence led approach will we get it. And for this reason I can only implore this: reject those politicians who offer simple solutions to obviously complex phenomena. We need to discard the idea of being tough on crime and replace it with being smart on crime.

Some people will invariably misconstrue my words, so let me be clear: in no way does that mean we need to go ‘soft’. For example, I firmly believe in protecting the community through preventative detention (indeterminate sentences), but statistically those cases are small. I also believe that prison is an important tool of punishment (we do, after all, need our pound of flesh). There is absolutely no doubt, however, that we need to find a way of reducing crime and not just punishing it.

Given we are all potential victims, it’s in our interests to find a better way of tackling crime. Politicians please take note.

I am a childless cliché. I like kids but only in very small – let’s call them tiny – doses. I love their smiling little faces but I loathe their sticky little mitts. I dig it when they make drawings for my fridge, I absolutely hate when they make crumbs on my couch. You simply can’t beat it when they say cute things, but equally you can’t beat them when their incessant whining becomes intolerable.

If I’m honest, I don’t know why people have them. I’m pretty sure my parents have reached the same conclusion. Few others seem to have. Most people I know now have children. My life is swarming with them, like ants. It’s as if my social circle became a sugar bowl, one came along and now you can’t get rid of the little buggers.

What’s more, apparently you can’t have favorites among kids of one family. You can, of course - we all do – but you just can’t say it. Oh, don’t the parents get upset and blame the fact you’re drunk. Yet parents are always demanding honesty from their kids, ‘Tell me the truth, did you wipe snot on the wall”. In that particular instance I wondered why even ask? It was obvious the culprit was the kid. The snot was only about two foot up the wall, the kid who was approximately two foot tall, had been sniffing all day and he had snot on his sticky little fingers.

Guilty! I shouted as I pointed at the villain. The little bugger did a tearful Oscar Pistorius and suddenly I’m the bad guy.

Fuckin’ kids.

It’s not that I’m just against the young, though, I’m really against old people too. Largely for the same reasons I dislike kids. But just like I’m rather fond of the elderly who can control their bowels, keep their teeth in their face, don’t smell like wet carpet, and abstain from repeating themselves every four minutes, I do love some children.

Among others, I have two nieces and a nephew, who are pretty cool. I have my adopted family (they took me on at aged 36) who has four kids including me and the others are bloody terrific. I am also extremely found of ‘The small guy’ who @CherylBernstein talks about on Twitter (although for all I know he could be fictional).

Anyway, all of this qualifies me, of course, to write a children’s book. So I’ve done that. Truly, I have. I’m now looking for a publisher. I will let you know how I get on. If I’m successful I’m going to hold the launch at a crèche, because after all I’ve done it for the kids. And if I’m totally honest, I’ll look at those kindly old grandparents with years of love in their hearts and melt just a little. I’ll gaze at those giggling, beautiful children using tired old bodies as climbing frames and smile (who wouldn’t?). And I’ll see that timeless symmetry between the very old and the very young and I’ll wonder just how many units I can sell to one to give to the other.

I’m eagerly awaiting a publisher’s call.