Speaker: Re-Entry III: The Eagle has Landed
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Incidentally, who is that on the cover, making free with Peter Jackson/King Kong in perhaps the weirdest mixed visual metaphor ever to stand for Auckland's alleged awesomeness?
Madeleine Sami, I think.
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What I loved about coming through customs last year was the "Welcome home, Brent". Not "Mr Jackson", not "sir", but "Brent".
I knew I was home.
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That's an awful magazine cover for the ages.
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That's an awful magazine cover for the ages.
Top ten magazine covers designed to make the rest of the country dislike Auckland.
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before starting work in a fortnight
Actually, we're expecting you on Monday, chum: don't be late.
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Top ten magazine covers designed to make the rest of the country dislike Auckland.
Like you really need the encouragement?
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Like you really need the encouragement?
Well, it's like you're trying hard to encourage it!
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My power to control the city's magazine covers knows no bounds.
Mwah ha ha. -
Well, it's like you're trying hard to encourage it!
Oh, that Auckland, with her short skirt of... urban-ness. She was asking for it!
(Kyle, you grew up on the *Shore*, for goodness' sake. I don't think you get to be all Mainlandy without that disclaimer attached. :) )
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(Kyle, you grew up on the *Shore*, for goodness' sake. I don't think you get to be all Mainlandy without that disclaimer attached. :) )
Shush! You'll blow my cover!
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As a Kiwi currently in London (and not sure how much longer for given the state of the Visa laws) I'd like to throw out how SICK I am of the people who loudly announce that they will NEVER return because New Zealand is SO DULL. As one of our best local bands pointed out, you're bored because you're boring.
I'll have mixed feelings when the time comes to go back, mainly because I didn't expect to be facing it so soon. But I will be happy to be in New Zealand. Slightly worried about employment, fully willing to start something myself.
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So, that Listener article - would someone consider ripping out and mailing me a copy in return for, I dunno, a homemade patisserie treat at such time as we are co-located?
Amy, I have that issue! I thought I'd recycled it but rediscovered it under a pile of New Yorkers. Will gladly mail it to you - article or whole issue if you like - in exchange for you NOT taking me to Moosewood next time I'm up that way... Patisserie treats, penguin-shaped or otherwise, gladly!
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I just found some notes I wrote just after I moved back to New Zealand after 20 years in the US - bear in mind these are from 2004 - most are pretty tongue in cheek, I mostly knew the real answers:
Things I wonder about:
- why can't I turn left thru a red light? when will I remember to yield to people turning right when I do
- why do people honk at me when I give way to pedestrians? am I somehow letting the other drivers down?
- what are "boy racers"? why are some of them girls? surely they are just "hoons" ("hoonz"?) by another name, has another good kiwi word bitten the dust?
- why are most of the ads on TV and the radio for things at the other end of the country? do they really expect me to hop on a plane and race to Auckland because they are having a 10% off sale?
- what happened to rugby being almost pathologically amateur? didn't they used to kick people out who had the wits to write a book? if they're now a biz why do they want the local city to build them a stadium? they say it will be a boon to local biz but and we should pay more taxes ... but the chamber of commerce of biz round table or whatever it's called isn't asking for biz to pay more taxes
- how come it costs me 5 times as much to call Auckland from Dunedin as it did from India? and 3 times as much as it costs me from my VOIP phone (relayed thru the US)? why do cell phone calls cost 40c a minute when they were 1c a minute in India? someone's making way too much money
- when did bikies become bikers?/why
- what's with the strange company names? is there some contest among the marketing people to get the most generic obtuse name past the owners? what on earth does 'Business New Zealand' sell?
- what's a 'tall white'? why can't I buy a 'non-fat latte'? and why on earth would I want 'green milk' instead?
- who was renamed "chinese gooseberries" to "kiwi fruit" years ago I got sick of americans thinking it funny that I styled myself as a small brown fuzzy fruit .... I want to find the bastard who stole my national identity, track him and do something unmentionable .... -
no matter how much I tried to communicate this, and more - the wondrous things I saw - I was always left with the feeling that I was a Martian talking incomprehensible gibberish.
Christopher, I have a friend who travels very, very widely to places I will never visit - Antarctica, the Amazon, Macchu Picchu, the Falklands, Russia etc. I love hearing of her travels exactly because I will never, ever go to any of those locales. If you are talking about the UK or somewhere people would know quite well, then yes, I would be listening politely but not with huge amounts of interest. And maybe it was the tone you used when you were trying to tell people about your experiences abroad? I don't know, but there will be another reason apart from ignorance, I am sure, that people weren't that interested in your travels. And photos help too. Of interesting things.
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