Open Writing

Dateline: March 2005

News in Not-So-Brief

6 February - After a period of limp exhaustion from doing the tiling, during which the weather was damp but steaming hot, we set off on holiday, first driving something like 300 miles down to Taupo. By the lake-side we found a motel which had a restaurant attached. “Jolly Good Fellows” not only served the best beefburger main course I’ve ever tasted, but also had eleven beers on tap, including Newcastle Brown, Boddington’s, Tetley’s, Bulmer’s and Old Speckled Hen! Moreover, these were served by the pint. I seriously considered staying for a week, but (probably wisely) didn’t mention this to Pam.

7 February - The day dawned fine, and we set off for a drive around Tongariro National Park, to the south of Lake Taupo. By the time we’d skirted the lake, it was overcast and drizzling. Photographs of the three volcanos - Mts Tongariro, Ngauruhoe, and Ruapehu - can best be described as moody.

The drive back up the east side was very reminiscent of a drive round the Yorkshire Dales on a typical Bank Holiday: murky and sopping wet. The main difference was that in Yorkshire you also need your windows wound up and the heater on. Never mind: in the afternoon we went for a look at two other fascinating features near Taupo. Firstly, Huka Falls. By a quirk of geology and erosion, a fairly broad river is forced to traverse a narrow, deep, steep channel. With two olympic-sized swimming pools’ worth of water per second gushing through, it’s fizzier than a bottle of lager - and far, far noisier. As the river water is blue, it end up looking like the outflow of a gigantic washing machine! Secondly, the so-called Craters of the Moon. Under the floor of the crater of an extinct volcano, a water table has formed. Under the water table lies a geothermal “hob”, resulting in numerous fuming fissures, steaming craters and a boiling mud pool. The area is aptly named!

8-9 February - From Taupo to Napier, in Hawke Bay on the East Coast, is a lovely drive through the lofty, enforested scenery of the Ahimanawa Range. Moreover, the weather was glorious! For two nights we bunked down at a gorgeous motel: our room had a balcony looking across the Norfolk Pine-studded Marine Parade to the deep purple of the South Pacific. Very nice, too.

We spent the afternoon and the next morning doing the Art Deco tour. Following its almost total destruction by an earthquake in 1931, the city was rebuilt in a mere two years, using the then fashionable Art Deco and Spanish Mission styles. It all looks fabulous, though we agreed that they ought to curtail the habit of allowing businesses to erect inappropriate signage over the side-walks. Not only does it obscure the view, but also much of it constitutes brash disfigurement of the beautiful buildings.

I will never forget one lovely building, cowering behind two garish signs, one proclaiming Fire Cats Strip Club and the other Candy’s Massage Parlour. Pam forbade me to investigate further. Still, there are flowers and trees everywhere, occasionally coalescing into gorgeous gardens (which appear to be tended full-time). We also saw the most beautiful Methodist chapel (yes, Methodist! No penny-plain box buildings here, matey!).

10 February - Drove back “home”. At Taupo, seeing as the weather was still glorious, we detoured to have another crack at those mountains. However, this time the problem was that there was a moist east wind, so the little darlings were growing their own clouds! We got a few decent piccies nonetheless, except for Mt. Ruapehu which, being a lofty, frosty maiden, was particularly reluctant to lift her billowing skirts for the benefit of my camera!

12 February - Paula (Mike’s younger sister) cut my hair, which was starting to look a bit on the Bohemian side by now. She soon had me looking respectable, i.e. like a raw conscript. Oh, alright, maybe not that bad, but it felt like it at the time.

16 February - I had noticed, simply because I’m so observant, the Whau Valley water treatment works which we just happen to drive past en route to Hazel and Mike’s. It being yet another nice day, we stopped off to take a photo of it. Feeling unsatisfied with a mere general view of the building, I rang the bell, introduced myself, and asked if we could go in for a look around. The chap, like most Kiwis, was very obliging and showed me the works which, if you’re at all interested in such things, was just being upgraded to include a UV treatment process. Our Hazel couldn’t believe that I’d just gone and knocked on the door. I couldn’t see any alternative course of action.

18 February - In the evening, I went with Hazel and Mike to a rugby match: Blues (NZ) v. Waratahs (Aussies). The Waratahs won, yet there was neither rioting in the streets nor wholesale destruction of local amenities.

20 February - Pam hosted a baby shower. This, as far as I can make out, imported American tradition was organised for Hazel by her friend Nicole. Basically, the hens gather, shower the prospective mother with gifts for the incipient infant, then eat, drink and, of course, gossip. Men, of course, are banned, so I was out on my ear.

22 February - In the evening, Carol and Clive (our landlords) took us out for what turned out to be a very enjoyable meal at the Schnapper restaurant in Tutukaka Bay. Interesting place: thatched roof and thatched walls, with a raw wood interior. It was a bit like a native hut, but beautifully done and with a nigh-on unique ambience.

23 February - Went with Hazel, Mike and Kian for a picnic on Ruakaka beach, a vast expanse of fine, white sand with hardly a soul on it. Kian had a whale of a time playing in the ocean.

24 February - Having finally acquired the required materials, I finished off the job of tiling the floors in the toilet and bathroom! We spent a very pleasant evening sitting out and chatting with Carol and Clive over a drink or two (or was it three?). Possibly due to oversights regarding insect repellent, we both got bitten.

25-27 February - With a twinge of sadness, we moved out of our house and went to stay the last couple of days with Hazel and co. Over the weekend, we had farewell visits from Paula, her worse half Manny, and kids, and also Mike’s parents Joy and George. By Friday afternoon, Pam’s bites had spread all over her lower legs and her arms, and some of them were coming up in lurid blisters the size of marbles. Hazel took one look and frog-marched her off to the medical centre (this is the only known way of getting Pam to the doctor’s). The doctor scratched his head, riffled through numerous textbooks, and concluded that he didn’t know what it was. By way of compensation, he guessed that she’d been bitten by insect or insects unknown, and had acquired some toxin that, when exposed to strong sunlight, caused her immune system to turn on her. He also said that, if it wasn’t getting any better by the day of our departure, we wouldn’t be going anywhere. Luckily, or unluckily (depending on how you look at it), the prescribed medicines did the trick.

28 February - The day we had, increasingly, been dreading: goodbyes to Hazel, Mike and the grandsons, and onto the local flight from Whangarei to Auckland. Kian’s last words, as we went through the gate to the ‘plane, were, “You’re coming back soon, ey?” The little mite thought we were just off somewhere for a day or two, but was clearly starting to harbour suspicions regarding the amount of luggage. Well, we would be back, but it would be taking us rather longer than he could imagine.

Conclusions?

What had we learnt from our three-month experiment in living? Quite a lot, actually:

· We were effectively free of any symptoms of homesickness which, if they were going to show up at all, would certainly have shown up during a period as long as this.

· We had both missed all our relatives and friends back in the UK but, and I don’t think we can be shot for saying this, not as much as we had previously missed our descendents in NZ.

· Pam feels that she did not miss the UK at all. I felt some sense of loss at not seeing around me stone buildings, solid age-old churches, proper pubs and so on, but not to any extent with which I couldn’t cope.

· Neither of us missed the English weather! This Kiwi summer, which was supposed to be the worst for over 60 years, was still 1000% better.

· The countryside is plentiful, wonderful, and immediately accessible. In Northland, we have found areas reminiscent of the Yorkshire Dales, the Scottish Highlands, and so on. Although it is always green, it has to be said that the colour does not rival the matchless glow and bloom of England on a fine, summer day. I am sure that this has something to do with the trees: at any given time a proportion of the leaves are turning brown and dropping off, so there’s always a slightly autumnal tinge to the overall colour.

· The sun can be brutal. Even on a dull day it’s advisable to apply sun-block (on the weather forecasts, I never saw a sunburn factor less than about nine!). It’s ironic that the bulk of this problem is due to the recklessness of Man in the northern hemisphere! Really, though, this is just one more little personal chore: get up, get washed, apply deodorant, apply sun-block . . .

· From my own point of view the one real imponderable is music. There was none of it about, but then it was summer. Even so, Whangarei hardly rivals Huddersfield when it comes to classical music. As far as I can gather, for symphony concerts you have to travel down to Auckland, where there are lots, but this means a round trip of 200 miles and, very likely, an overnight stay - so it could prove expensive. There is, however, a local Music Society which puts on a few solo and chamber recitals a year, so the place is not entirely bereft of music fans. I’ve even heard rumours that there’s an amateur orchestra of symphonic proportions based somewhere in Northland, but thus far I’ve not been able to find any concrete evidence of this. So, the music question stays up in the air for now.

· Day-to-day living tends to be a much more pleasurable experience. For one thing, it’s a lot cheaper (apart from baccy, Naxos CDs and, curiously enough, salmon). Heck, even the widget cans of Tetley’s cost less in NZ than they do in Tesco’s! For another, you feel much less oppressed by milling crowds, because there aren’t enough people to generate any really effective milling. And the people you bump into are generally more open and approachable. However, in the interests of even-handedness, I have to say that even NZ has its share of criminally-inclined trash - but I’d better resist the temptation to mount that particular hobby-horse here.

On balance, our experience has confirmed the gut feelings engendered by the desire to be near to our dearest: we could both happily settle in New Zealand - and, unless the NZ Immigration Service or medical matters prevent it, we very probably will.

“Do They Know Ut’s Chrustm’s?”

A Few Quasi-Random Observations on Living amongst Kiwis - Part II

The majority of Man’s most carefully planned and executed projects conclude with a period of mopping up which, as we all know, is a euphemism for shovelling in all the vitally important things that should never have been overlooked in the first place. Permit me, then, without offering any guarantee of consequent completeness or correctness, to start with a few addenda and the odd correction! Corrections, of course, include any unresolved references to “see below” that you may have noticed in Part I, and which now should find their resolutions in the “belows” below!

The People

I should have mentioned that the people live in houses - or, more precisely, I should have outlined the nature of their dwellings. In something of a reversal of the tale of the Three Little Pigs, they build their houses of wood. Maybe it’s something to do with earthquakes and wooden houses being easier and quicker to repair or rebuild, but brick-built houses - although there are quite a few - are nevertheless very much in the minority and, in Pam’s eyes at any rate, tend to look out of place. On the other hand, certainly in Northland, you don’t see stone-built houses for a very different reason: stone is very expensive.

The still-huge amount of space that Kiwis are accustomed to having around them strongly influences pretty well all aspects of housing. Thus, the vast majority are detached, single-storey houses - the term bungalow isn’t generally used, and seems to be reserved for particular instances, although I was unable to detect just what it was that distinguished bungalows as such. As often as not, where you see a house with more than one level, it will be on a hill-side. You find so many houses on the (sometimes quite precipitous) hill-sides simply because Kiwis value their views.

Another striking thing is that they are all different - different shapes, different sizes, different colours! Rows - or even just pairs - of identical houses are about as common as good managers. By and large, houses are built from a finite set of architectural drawings. It follows that dotted around there should be some identical houses. There probably are, but arrayed as needles in haystacks. I’ve acquired a strong feeling that builders indulge in a degree of artistic licence when it comes to interpreting the drawings, freely modifying them to suit particular tastes and/or circumstances, especially bearing in mind that a popular way of getting your home is to acquire a piece of land, and then get a house built on it. Daft as it seems, this can actually work out less expensive than buying an existing house, as well as getting a decent view (possibly) at the expense of prior properties.

Interiors are correspondingly spacious, tending - bathrooms and bogs apart - to favour open-plan layouts. And, why not? The Northland climate relieves you of the need (in the UK, the necessity) of central heating and double-glazing - one or two strategically-placed wood-burning stoves and a stock of logs under the house sets you up against the worst that winter can throw at you. Alternatively, if you’re tight-fisted or impecunious, a few pairs of long johns and a couple of woolly pullies (preferably incorporating possum fur - see below!) will probably do very nicely, thankyou.

Roads and Motorists

That “give way” business actually turns out to be a special case of a more general rule which says: “When turning, always give way to traffic coming from your right”. Alright, so this makes lots of sense if you’re turning into a major road from a side road, or approaching a roundabout, and so on. However, to my way of thinking and, judging by the number of accidents, to most Kiwis’ way of thinking as well, a vehicle coming down the other side of the road is not actually coming from the right but coming towards you. It’s only when that vehicle actually makes its turn that, for a fleeting moment, it can be construed, though hardly more than theoretically, as “coming from the right”. So, please excuse me if I stick to my guns and say that the rule as it stands is a danger to road users!

Flora, Fauna and Bio-hazards

I find myself wondering: how could I possibly have overlooked these little darlings? -

Cicadas: The Cicada (pronounced sick-aider) is quite one of the ugliest insects ever to take to the air, which is probably why you generally see very little of them. At a guess, I’d say that one of them is equivalent in bulk to between eight and a dozen bluebottles. Yes, they are monstrous as well as ugly. A bit like a snake, the cicada outgrows its skin, so periodically it shucks this off leaving behind a hollow shell, complete in every detail except the wings which, presumably because it still has a use for them, it takes away with it. I know this because a couple of times I came across the pale tan ghost, squatting on a fence-post looking remarkably like a cross between the live insect and a jelly mould.

They aren’t hazardous - unless one of the brutes happens to bump into you which, purely on account of the considerable momentum it generates when in flight, can severely dent your decorum- but by golly are they noisy! They make two sounds: a dry clicking (somewhat like fingers snapping) and a high-pitched, rapid-fire, damnably shrill chittering. A single one of them is all-too-audible. Unfortunately, they are social insects, and when they colonise a tree or large bush en masse, the result is a cacophony to rival any rock-concert. Coming back from Tongariro, to the south of Lake Taupo, we pulled in at a scenic viewpoint. As it happened, we parked too close to just such a bush, and the racket nearly blew off our heads. The daft thing is, if you go and look (ear-plugs recommended for H&S reasons), you very rarely actually find one, even though there must be thousands!

Fortunately, they are not nocturnal, otherwise nobody would get any sleep. Thankfully, at least for folks living nearby, they leave the night to the far more mellifluous and much less multitudinous crickets.

Black Ants: These, it seems, are everywhere, except on volcanic soil. When a property is advertised for sale, the vendor will make a feature out of volcanic soil. Kiwis tell me that this is because such soil is the best for growing things. I reckon it’s because you’ll be buying into an ant-free zone. Not that these ants are are harmful as such. They cheerfully go about their daily business and seem utterly indifferent to having their colleagues trampled to death, or being squashed if they stray onto your person. There’s none of this calling up the troops for a completely disproportionate revenge attack, such as you seem to get with ants elsewhere!

But, they can be, and usually are, a right old nuisance. They seem to have incredible powers of detection. Leave the merest smudge of marmalade on the kitchen worktop, and when you return (from shopping, say) an hour or so later, you will find the little blighters have sussed the smudge, found a way in, mapped out a marching route, and are swarming all over it. Needless to say, companies that supply “click-seal” plastic containers are coining it in. The same goes for companies that make poisonous baits and aerosol-based ant bombs.

Mynah Birds: Although these are not native to NZ, they have made themselves quite at home there, and have developed an amazing skill. They find abundant nourishment on the roads, mainly insects which have been sqashed by car wheels. As you drive along, you see them often, strutting cockily on the carriageway, the pale yellow flashes around their eyes making them appear stiff and stupid. However, as Mike astutely observes, “You’ll never hit one, ey?” - and he’s dead right. I have never seen such practised arrogance in all my born days. Only rarely do they resort to anything as undignified as actually flying out of the way of oncoming vehicles. No, they stroll out of the way, with immaculately precise timing. Many’s the time I’ve been convinced that I’ve got one only, on checking my mirror, to see it still nonchalantly pecking at the road behind me. One of these days . . .

Possums: Pity the poor possum! This cuddly-looking little creature is about the size and shape of a large hedgehog, but with a longer snout and with fur instead of spines. If it is fortunate enough to be born in Australia, it joins an élite, possums being (I believe) a protected species. Not so in New Zealand where, on account of little more than its appetite, it is regarded as a pest. If it had had the good sense to apply its appetite to (say) yellow ginger, which the Kiwis are sworn to eradicate before it devastates their forests, then it would be afforded a place of honour in Kiwi-land. Instead, the silly little b****r has gone and allied itself with the ginger!

Possums are nocturnal, and about as intelligent as the British rabbit when it comes to roads. Consequently, on both counts, you usually see possums on the road, either transfixed in your headlights by night, or as a mess of blood, bone and fur by day. However, I have seen a live one a couple of times. For example, one night I was standing out of the front of our house, trying to cool off a bit from the heat of the day, which lingers indoors right through the night. From my left, in the light trickling through the blinds, I observed this small dark ball ambling towards me. As it got within a yard or so, it executed a neat little semicircle around my feet, then continued on its merry way, exiting stage left into the gloom.

This surprised me a bit because, with a meaningful wink, Mike had assured me that “They’ll climb anything that’s upright, so it’s best to keep out of their way, ey?” I should add that, in spite of their cuddly-toy appearance, they can apparently be a mite vicious, though on the balance of the evidence I’d reckon that this might be no more than the daft creature mistaking your ear for a juicy leaf.

On the other hand, that cuddly-looking fur turns out to be exactly that: to the touch, it’s as silk-soft as mink. Not surprisingly, whole industries take advantage of this fact - possum skins are used to make things like throws for your bed (very luxurious!), and the fur is used, sometimes in combination with marino wool, to make stuff like gloves and scarves (presumably to take home to England as gifts!). On the whole, then, I’m glad I’m not a New Zealand possum, otherwise, instead of trying to get into the country I’d be doing my damndest to get out!

Right, now it’s time totime to proceed to Part II Proper!

Sex and Shopping

I have little (oh, alright then, nothing) to report on the former, as it’s not something which is particularly observable as you go about your daily grind However, as will become apparent, the former does surface, albeit obliquely, in the context of the latter.

The most remarkable thing I noticed about the shops is the large number of local shopping precincts (equivalent to the UK parade of shops) or individual dairies - which are not, as you might not entirely unreasonably think, places where you go to buy dairy produce, but rather like UK corner shops. Town centres are brimming with many and diverse concerns, small jostling cheek by jowl with large. In New Zealand, the small business still thrives.

Around the edges of town, there are drive-in retail parks, hosts for much larger businesses with huge and varied stocks, massive turnovers (should that be turns-over?) and correspondingly aggressive pricing policies. In the UK, as we know, these monsters have sounded the death-knell of many a small business, yet in New Zealand (or, at least, the parts which I have seen) there seems to be some sort of balance. The operative word is seems.

Our neighbours, Alf and Doris, who have been around for long enough to know, tell us that the balance is slowly but inexorably swinging in favour of the big boys. They feel that it’s only a matter of time before the rich diversity of small businesses yields to the corporate monsters. NZ is starting to go the way of the UK. But, it is such a pleasure, wandering around, discovering and investigating these small shops, being made to feel welcome by the traders and their staff (even though they know you’re just looking), that I hope this commercial heat death can somehow be staved off. It would take a very firm hand indeed, on the part of local authorities, to curb the expansion of corporate enterprise. Somehow, I doubt that the firm hand will resist the commercial pressure. Ye gods, that’s a depressing thought.

However, in NZ even these monsters tend to have a quirky sort of charm, a character that you don’t find in the UK. Top of the tree has to be The Warehouse (subtitled Where Everyone Gets a Bargain). With its distinctive white-on-red frontage Wuddy Fuddy - as the locals call it, using a corruption of a Maori translation of its name - tries to be just that, your one-stop shop for just about anything. Oh, it has breadth, all right, but with the best will in the world it would have to be ten times its already expansive size to give you the requisite depth. Even so, this is where we found the dimply pint beer-glasses I needed for my Tetley’s, so I quite like the place.

In view of the Kiwis’ laid-back, easy-going lifestyle, we were staggered to see what happened in the run-up to “Chrustm’s”. Almost overnight, sales sprang up. Yes - sales before Christmas! The TV overflowed with sale adverts, insert advertising and retailer newsletters ballooned, and the town centre bristled with shops trumpeting Big Discounts and what-have-you! The TV adverts didn’t limit themselves to vague percentage promises, but focused to an extraordinary degree on actual prices, bombarding the viewer with dense clusters of hard pricing information: “Was $X, now only $Y - save Z%!!” All of this is quite contrary to the UK, where retailers know that the punters are a captive market, obliged to get ever more costly Christmas presents, so they keep their prices up in order to screw us for every last penny.

A bigger shock was to come. We expected that, after “Chrustm’s”, things would settle down. No way. The sales push roused itself from what turned out to be its former state of titillation into a fully-fledged orgy (a-ha! Notice the oblique reference?). Discounts zoomed up to 40% and beyond, and advertising surpassed fever-pitch, entered the realm of unbridled hysteria.Kiwis flocked to the shops, all but panting like dogs let loose in a pound full of bitches on heat. Well, it wasn’t actually that bad - I’m just trying to illustrate the extent of the contrast!

What’s more, as our Hazel confirmed, the discounts on offer are absolutely genuine. This we found out directly. We’d bought Jake a mobile ‘phone - nothing flash, you understand - for his Christmas present. Immediately after “Chrustm’s”, the same shop was selling exactly the same package at two-thirds of the price! My Yorkshire teeth started to grind, and my Yorkshire wallet stifled a scream.

Come the New Year, did it all die down to post-coital repose? Not a bit of it - the post-“Chrustm’s” orgy blended seamlessly into the Summer Sale, and discounts either edged even higher, or shops expanded the range of goods subject to discount, or both. I don’t know how to describe this: what do you have beyond a fully-fledged orgy? Whatever it is, the Kiwis have one - it must be the retail equivalent of the mating season. Ah, but we were there only for three months (by the end of February, the hubbub had just about exhausted itself). Hazel says that sales happen at regular intervals throughout the year: “You never buy anything big unless it’s in a sale. If there isn’t a sale on, you make do and wait.” Apparently, this also applies to bulk purchases of things like meat: you stock up your big chest freezers only when something you need is on special. Hazel again: “You only pay the full price if you’re really desperate!”

The Media

Presumably to encourage the nation’s active pursuit of its open-air lifestyle, the indigenous, terrestrial Kiwi TV is unmitigatedly abysmal. The three main channels - imaginatively entitled TV1, TV2, and TV3 - are supposed to cover the cultural spectrum in three broad categories. Hum. Looking through the programme listings I found myself hard pressed to figure out what these might be, and which was what, if any. They seem to have collapsed, like a red giant star, forming a white dwarf packed to maximum density with lowest common denominator programming.

I refuse to go into details, save to observe that (a) I never knew that there could be so many reality shows, although to be fair the listings authors did also tend to refer to documentaries as reality programmes, and (b) most of the few programmes that I did find worth watching seemed to have been imported from the UK. Oh, there were some home-grown programmes that passed muster, but you needed something akin to a metal-detector to find them!

The TV news broadcasts were interesting - whatever channel I watched, they all seemed to follow the same pattern. Lasting half an hour, the broadcast included headlines, stories, sport, and finally (is there some universal law governing this?) the weather. Yet, somehow, it all seemed very unstructured or, to coin a term (and why not? Everybody seems to be doing it, these days) mishy-mashy. International, national, and local news seemed to be all jumbled up, which seems very strange when you’re used to the BBC, which proceeds with a rule and order of Civil Service severity. This feeling is aggravated, I suppose, by the lack of a regional system, but then, with an average population density of less than one fifteenth the UK’s, I reckon that such things simply aren’t economic.

These three main channels are public service! There are two other terrestrial channels, Prime and C4. In answer to your question, “No, and anyway C4 seems to be nothing more than a part-time pop-video channel.” Reception for both of these seems to be poor everywhere, suggesting that the broadcasters see little point in wasting electricity putting them out. I can suggest a better way of conserving the juice.

It came as no surprise to learn that, in New Zealand, the TV licence is not a legal prerequisite to receiving broadcasts. From what I can gather, not too many folk put their hands into their pockets. No doubt the government kindly makes up some of the shortfall by dipping into the tax revenues on their behalf. However, there is another way that they make their money. In New Zealand, even the public service TV carries advertising, and oh boy does it carry advertising! Even on the news, great wodges of adverts seem to turn up at unconscionably short intervals, and usually without warning - on some occasions, depending on the programme content and the nature of the advert, it took me a while to realise that I was actually watching an ad. Strangely enough, however, although a programme would be broken by adverts even when it had less than five minutes left to run, very rarely did I see any adverts between programmes. Obviously, this was the fruit of the deliberations of some dynamic young marketing executive. What his reasoning was I dare not conjecture.

I couldn’t honestly say I was surprised when Mike told me that, in New Zealand, everybody has Sky. Equally, I couldn’t help but notice how the town centre and many shopping precincts had apparently flourishing video/DVD rental shops.

It almost goes without saying that, in addition to the usual plethora of pop and rock stations, there are quite a few sports channels on the radio. One of these struck me as remarkable. Apart from providing news and latest scores, it seemed to consist mostly of ’phone-in discussions. In itself, there’s nothing particularly remarkable about that However, the subjects discussed and the candour of the contributors would, in the UK, surely have had station managers continually reaching for the plug, radio company lawyers busily preparing defensive briefs, and the Broadcasting Standards/Complaints people inundated by irate calls from the various anti-discriminatory Commissions! It made for very interesting listening.

In view of the almost total lack of programmes of a cultural nature on the TV, it was gratifying to note that at least there was one station broadcasting classical music full-time. Maybe no match for BBC Radio Three’s music broadcasting, it nevertheless sounded better than Classic FM, in terms of both content, presentation style, sound quality (i.e. reasonably uncompressed dynamics) - and lack of interruptions!

Turning to the printed word, I can’t let pass without comment the most common listings magazine, of which we availed ourselves (albeit largely to no avail). Cast in the form of an A5 booklet, it is summarial in the extreme: many programmes are listed by title only, and none get more than a curt note by way of elucidation of their content. It contains, as afterthoughts, equally curt summaries of the main radio stations, including the classical one - although quite what use is a bald list of composers’ names, I don’t know. The booklet is padded out, if that’s the right term, with articles, adverts, and puzzle pages. All the articles appear to be on the level of teenage fan mags (at least, that’s how I imagine it!). It brought it home to me what a brilliant production the UK has in the Radio Times!

Unlike the UK, which is awash with national dailiy newspapers of every political shade under the sun, New Zealand has very few national dailies. Well, actually, it has just the one. As far as I could see, anyway. Ah, but local newspapers proliferate. Covering, as they do, international and national as well as local news, these papers fill that gap left by the TV, are far better structured than the TV news, and in each area provide at least an alternative to the national paper. In Whangarei, the local paper is The Advocate.

I don’t know if this is generally the case, but this paper actually costs more to buy over the counter than it does to have it delivered to your letter-box, or rather the bird house at the gate that substitutes for a letter-box! This is because paper-boys (and girls) seem to be a protected species. Unlike in the UK, where newsagents have a tough time getting the staff, and an even tougher time persuading their staff that they actually have to do something to earn their crusts, in New Zealand the kids are clamouring for the rounds, and the waiting lists are often a mile long.

While we were there, the Advocate decided to bring the paper delivery operations in-house, relegating the newsagents to the rôle of supervisors. The next thing Jake knew, his wage was being paid into the bank, and he was provided a six-page document - his contract and terms of employment! Our immediate reaction was, “That’s ridiculous; it’s only a bloody paper round!” However, it does make a lot of sense. For starters, a kid only has to have (say) a little Saturday job on top of the round, and his overall pay is likely to exceed the income tax threshold. Then again, as an education in“real life it has far more value than any amount of desk-learning. Nonetheless, you should have seen his face!

But, I’m digressing, so let’s get back to the point. Better-structured the Advocate may be, but it seems to be written and edited by illiterates. The Advocate is not alone in this: the local “advertisers” - free papers such as we get in the UK - are just as bad (I didn’t get to see a specimen of the national paper). Now, I appreciate that this is one of my hobby-horses, but really I am compelled to mount it, because this is some of the worst written English I have ever had the misfortune to witness. Not only is the grammar abysmal, but also they have a deal of trouble with semantics, often using what are patently the wrong words simply because they sound about right.

In one edition of the Advocate, I found a double-page spread of around a dozen articles, every last one of which was a garbled mish-mash masquerading as English. It wouldn’t have been so bad if it had been the letters to the editor section which, by the way, is even worse than the professionally-written stuff. No, this spread gloried under the title Book Reviews, and one of them even had the bare-faced cheek to praise an author’s clarity of expression (at least, I think that’s what it was doing).

Actually, to be fair, I think that the Editor must have been on “Chrustm’s” leave: in January the standard of the editorial content suddenly improved markedly (from abysmal to awful). In my humble opinion, the Editor should sack his Sub-editor - oh, and start editing readers’ letters.

There is a New Zealand English, rendered official by the existence of a Dictionary of New Zealand English. However, this is - by definition! - limited to the definitions of words. Finding no corresponding volume, I gather that the same rules of grammar apply, or are supposed to apply, in New Zealand as anywhere else - which is just as well, if the human race expects to continue to communicate pan-globally. Somebody really ought to tell the journalists in NZ about this fact.

I must say, though, that it is fascinating to encounter what we might term Kiwi words and meanings. Obviously, as this dissertation is already long enough, I can’t mention them all, but then someone has thoughtfully done so (see above). However, here are some of the more endearing ones that I simply can’t resist passing on:

Trolleys, supermarket - are called trundlers, no matter how quickly you push them along.
Buggies, baby - are called joggers, but only if they have three wheels. Apparently, though, it’s OK to just walk along with them. One with four wheels is called a stroller, even if you jog with it. If you are a person out for a stroll, I don’t know what you are called.
Patio doors - glory under the name ranch sliders. Yet, there don’t seem to be any “ranches” in New Zealand.
Fields, meadows, paddocks - are all called paddocks, whether or not they are used to contain horses. Hence the well-known hymn, “We plough the paddocks and scatter”.
Wellies (Wellington boots) - are termed gumboots, even in Wellington itself. Somehow, “gumboot-whanging” seems to lack a certain je ne sais quoi.
Speciality - the Kiwis say specialty, just like they do in the U. S. of A., which sounds like a good reason to change it (or will that be construed as a racist comment?).
Geyser - the Kiwi word is spelt the same, but instead of pronouncing it “geezer” they say “guy-ser”. Somewhere along the line, somebody has decreed that the “ey” should be pronounced as in “eye”, in convenient ignorance of words like “key”.
South Pacific Ocean - is called the Big Pool, but only by our Kian who, I suspect, is as yet unaware of the nickname for the North Atlantic!
Sweets - are known as lollies (short for lollipops). There is no distinction between lollies mounted on sticks and lollies not mounted on sticks.
Ice Lollies (or Lollipops) - are called ice blocks. Actual blocks of ice are called ice blocks.
Rice Krispies - the packets are labelled Rice Bubbles.
Crisps i.e. “potato crisps” - are known as chips. We started to think that the Kiwis had a downer on the word “crisp”, but eventually found something called chocolate crisp (which wasn’t particularly crispy).
Chips i.e. “potato chips” - are known as hot chips (except in MacDonald’s, where they are, by decree of international law, called fries, although everybody knows that these emaciated little twigs are nothing like proper chips!). When bought with battered fish, or served with a hot meal in a restaurant, hot chips are referred to simply as chips. If you want chips, as opposed to chips, with your hot meal, you have to ask for chips. If you’re lucky, you’ll get chips, though not necessarily the chips you’d expected. Trying to clarify matters by using the complementary term cold chips is greeted by a puzzled expression, followed by the serving of what you asked for: cold hot chips. Does that make sense?

In view of several references above, I must also enlighten you regarding the quaint and ubiquitous expression, “Ey?” (nothing to do with geysers above, but pronounced something like “hey” with the stress on the “y”). In conversation, Kiwis have a habit of appending this to the ends of their sentences. Its effect is rather like the “over” of radio communications fame, with the added characteristic of turning even definitive statements into questions. By this simple device does the congenitally gregarious Kiwi promote prolonged social intercourse. Imagine, if you will, an enthusiastic exchange over the outcome of a rugby match - the “Eys” crackle like automatic gunfire across a battlefield!

FINALLY! The Kiwi style of pronunciation, which is part and parcel of the general accent. Australians are wont to point out that Kiwis have trouble pronouncing the letter “i”, i.e. that when a Kiwi says “six” it tends to sound more like “sucks”. Actually, this turns out to be a special case in a general pronunciation style. Let me give you an example:

If a Kiwi says “stick”, it sounds more like “stuck”. Similarly, if a Kiwi says “stuck”, it sounds more like “stack”. I asked Mike what it sounded like when they say “stack”. The answer? “Stick”! Not that I believe him, not for one second - and my apologies for failing to engineer a proper experimental elucidation. Again, the word “Wednesday” is invariably pronounced along the lines of “Winsday”, which sounds like the common UK mispronunciation (“Wensday”) with a superimposed vowel-sound shift that is distinct from any in the “stick” sequence.

There is clearly at work here a convoluted system of partial interchange of vowel sounds, probably so complex that I am sure it will take a lifetime of close study to fathom. For this reason alone, Pam and I are ready and willing to give it our best shot!