I think pleasure flying in the UK, particularly post-war is an area that ought to be highlighted, as no doubt many hundreds/thousands of people had their first flight in such aircraft at North Denes, Skegness etc. I’ve often thought about putting something together for Flypast or similar, but don’t know where to start! As we have had some piccies of Skegness, anyone out there have any of North Denes (Gt Yarmouth) they would like to share?

Auster Fan, if the dedicated aviation magazines are not interested in your proposed article, try the excelent nostalgia magzine ‘Best of British’. They would most probably be interested. It would be right up their alley.

Yes, the Southerner accent is really our only true dialect, those people from down near Gorrrrrrrre.

What about that specifically NZ female accent though, the Lynn of Tawa accent that you sometimes strike – ooh that grates on me. Luckily it’s not too common, but it is JUST a female accent. Have you noticed? My mate is English but he does that accent really well and takes them off to me whenever we strike it. Pretty funny.

Of course there is a whole new female accent that has developed in NZ in the past decade among young girls which never existed in NZ, and I’d like to dub it the Clueless accent. It has caught on dircetly from films like Clueless and all the chick flicks that have followed. It’s that California ‘I’m so much better than you, I’m rich, you’re nothing’ attitude accent of Hollywood films. The stuff like girls saying “Whateverrrr” and ‘Gurlfrennd!!” It bugs me so much. Globalisation at work again.

Some (presumably Aussie) idiot spray painted “New Zealand Sux” on a prominant bridge in Australia. Some enterprising person later added “Australia Nil”.

Haha, that’s brillliant. Billy Connolly would like that one. In the recent series “Billy Connolly’s World Tour of New Zealand” he lamented one of his favourite pieces of grafitti, which used to be in a NZ city – Wellington I think – had now been demolished. But he said it used to read in big letters – “You can always tell an Aussie… but you can’t tell him much!”

I was taking a look at that CIA site. It is a bit misleading in the military area. It reports that NZ spends $1.147 billion on the defence budget per year. This being a US site, refers to US dollars. In reality, this should be NZ dollars. For the past fifteen years at least the NZ defence budget has only ever been jusy over NZ$1 billion, if that much

Also the numbers of men available on that site (and this is the same on all the country’s pages I looked at) make it look like we have a huge strength of reserve military, quoting 984,700 males aged 17-49 available for military service. You’d be lucky if the whole military were 8,000 people I’d guess (not counting Terries), and most of the 984,700 would say sod off if called to go to war.

Well, I knew a good amount about New Zealand before (basic stuff) but am surprised at this, surprised I never knew that! I would have instantly said it was just one island. Are the North and South islands very far apart?

Here’s a basic map. If you look a smidge to the right of Hamilton, that’s where I am in Cambridge. If you see Wellington, that’s where Don the Gnome is. You can see the world famous Wanaka in the centre-bottom of the South Island.

By the way, the islands are generally known as ‘the North Island’, and ‘the South Island’. Foreigners simply tend to say ‘North Island’ and ‘South Island’ (in a manner as if they were named after Mr North and Mr South, if you see what I mean). It’s one of those Kiwi curiosities. Almost every island and coastal area with an English name was named by Captain Cook, but it seems he had an off day when it came to the greatest land masses!

In the very olden days, the maps actually showed The North Island, The Middle Island and The South Islnd, till they realised middle and south were one and the same – no bull!

By the way, here’s some trivia, Mount Cook, our tallest mountain, was named after James Cook, but not THE James Cook. It was named after a navigator called James Cook! I only found this out the other day.

A great photo Don, thanks. I have read many accounts of Kiwi airmen on their way to the UK and the war, who stopped or diverted to meet Nola and visit her club in New York. An amazing lady who needs more recognition here these days.

CB – no, the burger has everything, plus the sliced beetroot. Even McDonalds did a Kiwiburger with everything plus beetroot, right up till the company started to go bust in the USA and they’ve now changed to more salds. The Kiwiburger actually had more salad and was healthier than any other in their range, but the idiots have dropped it. It tasted great and was unique to NZ. Pity.

This site has some good Kiwi icons on it. If you need further explanation, feel free to ask
http://adamdesign.co.nz/xIcons.htm

I think Colin McCahon was an over-rated complete nutter. Just my opinion.

Now, Len Lye, he was an artist. And a revolutionary film maker too. He made a living working for Royal Mail in the 1930’s making their adverts for the cinema. His scratch film art is great, but the best stuff I like (and I am not into wierd art at all but I love this stuff) is his engineering art. And incredible mind. He could make metal do the impossible, and it’s still doing it long after his death.