New Zealanders

 

Byter Kara sent me an email:

Re Byter Charles and the Master's Apprentices

Oh my goodness Otto - are you Aussies at it again?!

Your list of bands that you suggest you and Charles chat about on Trivia night is followed by the words While we’re talking things Australian . . . has Ray Columbus become another 'honorary' Australian along the lines of the Pavlova?

Ray Columbus was almost the only name (The Easy Beats was the other) I recognized in the line-up so I thought I would make a cheeky comment.

To be honest I don't really care (I'm not even a real kiwi) especially when it comes to pavlova; as long as there is plenty of whipped-cream and no passionfruit-pulp anywhere near it and I get to indulge now and then, I don't care who claims its origin.

I must thank you indirectly as I've just been enjoying some blasts from the past - Mungo Jerry, Lobo, Terry Jacks, and others via you tube - never mind that I wasn't much more than ten years old when the songs were hits! All great stuff and all liked by my young teen sons - I've raised them well on a wide range of music from The Kinks, Manfred Mann, early Bowie and Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, Gene Vincent, Van Morrison, The Doors . .

Kara

Drury, NZ

Okay, I’ll give you that one, Kara, Ray Columbus and the Invaders were Kiwis.  Pavlova originated in NZ, as did a lot of others that we regard as Aussies: Phar Lap, Split Enz, Crowded House (at least in part), Keith Urban, John Clarke, Dragon. . .   The practice seems to be that if they are successful and they have a connection with Oz, we claim them as ours.  Russell Crowe was born in NZ but we'll leave him for you. 

Some quotes about New Zealand:

"A country of inveterate, backwoods, thick-headed, egotistic philistines"

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin 1909

 

 "I believe we were all glad to leave New Zealand. It is not a pleasant place. Amongst the natives there is absent that charming simplicity .... and the greater part of the English are the very refuse of society."

Charles Darwin 1860

"If it would not look too much like showing off, I would tell the reader where New Zealand is."

Mark Twain 1897

"Altogether too many sheep"

George Bernard Shaw

Asked by a reporter during a 1934 tour of New Zealand of his impression of the place, Shaw paused, then replied as above.

"I find it hard to say, because when I was there it seemed to be shut."

Sir Clement Freud

English broadcaster, writer, politician and chef when asked his opinion of New Zealand in 1978.

"New Zealand was colonised initially by those Australians who had the initiative to escape."

Robert Muldoon 1981

Prime Minister of New Zealand 1975-1984

"The United States invented the space shuttle, the atomic bomb and Disneyland. We have 35 times more land than New Zealand, 80 times the population, 144 times the gross national product and 220 times as many people in jail.
    Many of our big cities have more kilometres of freeway than all of New Zealand, our 10 biggest metropolises each have more people than all of New Zealand, and metropolitan Detroit has more cars on the road than all of New Zealand.
    So how come a superpower of 270 million got routed in the America's Cup, the world's most technically oriented yacht race, by a country of 3.5 million that outproduces us only in sheep manure?"

Eric Sharp 1995

US actor and entertainer

“New Zealand is a country of thirty thousand million sheep, three million of whom think they are human.”

Barry Humphries

Australian comedian, artist, author and actor.

“I’ve never been to New Zealand before but one of my role models, Xena, The Warrior Princess, comes from there.”

Madeline Allbright

the first woman to become Secretary of State in the US

“New Zealanders who emigrate to Australia raise the IQ of both countries.”

Robert Muldoon

“The cousin at the party who’s got the short trousers.”

Rove McManus

Australian TV celebrity, describing New Zealand.