I have a confession to make. I may be a secret New Zealander. I was born in Melbourne and my father was a fifth generation Australian. However, my mother was born and raised in the world’s most southern city, Invercargill. I know this because when I was at primary school, I had a pencil case purchased from Invercargill which boasted this important fact.
Just quietly I think Invercargillers or whatever they call themselves might have a challenger from Punta Arenas in Chile but let’s not get bogged down on the finer points of geography.
Invercargill isn’t the arsehole of the world but if you clamber out to Bluff at the southern tip of New Zealand’s South Island, you can see it from there. Just up the road is a town called Gore, a place so windswept and uninteresting that even the locals look embarrassed. I guess Gore would be the perineum of the world.
My mother arrived in Australia in 1954 and became an Australian citizen a decade later. She claims that process required her to renounce her NZ citizenship so she could vote in Australian elections. Her memory is based on the fact that her mother, who was visiting Australia at the time, took serious umbrage.
Full column here.
Champion Mare WINX consecutive win number 19 today, Mr Insider, wining the Chelmsford Stakes at Randwick.
http://tinyurl.com/ycyrop5h
did anyone see this? This is the type of world dutton and his supporters dream. If you don’t like the laws just take it into your own hand because you are part of a sanctioned gang with a badge and a gun. This is why the US is a failing state.
http://www.9news.com.au/world/2017/09/02/05/18/us-cop-under-investigation-for-arresting-on-duty-nurse-who-refused-to-break-hospital-rules
Interesting how you can draw Dutton into something that allegedly happened in the US. If you aren’t already, you really need to seek urgent psychiatric help.
Idle thought. What do you think the scooter casualty rate is on Bali? Saw a family of four on one.
My Son just came back from Bali Dwight he loves it and he and wife stay in Resorts but they do get to take in the sights on the streets and the scooters he said are amazing. A very different culture indeed. Cheers
Not a lot Dwight. I see up to six people on bikes in Penang, Mum at the back and Dad in control with the kids in between. If you’re in a car which we are, we give way to them and wave….I worry a lot, but hey they all seem to get away with it.
Have a great time in Bali and great to hear your news.
Thanks Penny!
Same thing in Vietnam, Dwight.
And the youngest kid is usually seated on the handlebars with no helmet on………..
Scooter accidents there are horrendous. In Hanoi the public hospital’s surrounding walls are plastered with blow ups of ghastly injuries – gruesome stuff – alongside which the locals sit on the pavement eating their lunch quite unperturbed.
Best I’ve seen was in Vientiane with a family of 7. Father driving, two toddlers sitting on his lap with legs over the handlebars and protected from sideways movement by his arms. Two older children facing forward, squashed between father and mother. Mother facing backwards with baby in pouch.
A good effort, but I really liked the 2 guys on a scooter carrying what looked like half the contents of a hardware store, including 6m lengths of PVC pipe.
Only four?
“Well may we say God Save Australia but nothing will save Malcolm Turnbull”, Mr Insider, to paraphrase the late great Gough Whitlam. The astute Anne Summers puts the slipper into one of the greatest if not the greatest white anters Australia has ever seen, one Tony Abbott. Always remember folks with Abbott he never does what he says he will do.
http://tinyurl.com/ya7jyh3m
Geez, am I the only one on this blog who cannot get dual nationality?
Marry a foreigner.
Bigamy or divorce?
Can’t afford either.
Looks like I will have to go down with the ship if it ever sinks.
I doubt I’d count either. It doesn’t come through great-aunts or -uncles that I’m aware of, or great-grandparents.
You say in your full column, Mr Insider, and I blush “I once joked preselection in the National Party involved party veteran Ian Sinclair popping down to check candidates’ teeth and pop a finger up their dates.” Possibly true I do remember Sinclair well he was a “ram” if ever there was one. You being a New Zealander by confession would no doubt be familiar with the delightful township of Hukawaukafuka?
That’s in Hawaii.
We live in a parallel universe Jack, sort of. My maternal grandmother was a Scottish shrew, especially toward my mother who like yours turned Catholic to marry my father. The only photo of granny with me was just before she died, and I was aged one, but I have to say that face staring at the Box Brownie has always haunted me.
In my case the Enn Zed connection was my paternal grandmother, a far more genial soul who I’ve always suspected was at least part Maori from her features, but the family would never speak of it. I always looked forward to the family presents from our Kiwi rellies, and wonder if your pencil case held a ruler made of all the South Island timbers? I treasured mine until some thug at school snapped it in two.
As for Invercargill, the only worthwhile thing to come out of the district is Bluff oysters, so I’ll stay away from the perineum jokes.
For the record, Usuhaia in Tierra del Fuego, Argentina comfortably takes out Invercargill and Punta Arenas for the World’s most southern city, being just 1000kms or so from Antarctica. it is known as the end of the world, well below the arsehole. Usuhaia started as an Argentinian penal colony of great brutality, and funnily the penitentiary now a museum boasts a room dedicated to Tasmania’s penal past, as if to say they were just as bad. it is a pity it is not still operational, it would be the perfect new home for the Human Headline.
It’s not easy being us, Lou.
“…I’ve always suspected was at least part Maori from her features…”. What gave it away, Lou the tribal tattoo on her face, or that her oven was a hole in the backyard?
Just joking mate.
I’m surprised Lou that you don’t have nightmares about your South Island timber ruler being snapped in two. I have to say I was pretty upset by my younger sister pulling the head off my teddy bear, but your experience sounds worse.
Please:- a picture of you at 10yrs of age trudging orrff to school in your nicely pressed school unicorn!
Barnaby in full flight doing the haka, red faced, eyes bulging , tongue out, frothing and spitting would be cause for pause and concern.
Bless our “cuz” or is that “bro” Barnaby, Milton, I have always been fond of him and now more so as he qualifies to be PM in not one but two countries now, a not inconsiderable feat! Cheers
Have you not seen question time??
That’s what informed me, Unmade.
And Henry, I loves the Barnaby mate. We could do with more of his type in our public life. A straight talker, like Trump and er, um Abbott.
You have just proven all that is wrong with coalition supporters. Barnaby is a national embarrassment. He does not even try to use facts he just talks false and misleading rubbish. The fact you continue to embarrass yourself in support of bigoted freaks like um er ahbut um er ahbut and even worse trump again highlights all that is wrong with the coalition and its supporters. Shameful. No surprises.
Dismayed, I found Milton’s comment amusing. It might help if you lighten up a bit mate, I do know you’ve got a sense of humor, try and show it a bit more.
Good try Penny but unfortunately wasted I suspect. Just a very angry little man pushing an agenda. No pragmatism, so one eyed he’d make cyclops look positively binocular and the thing I consider his worst character trait is he is completely without humour. The Nazi’s could have used him at Auschwitz. Five minutes in his company and I’d be volunteering for the gas chamber!
I have either or can claim five citizenship’s; Indian from my father who was a British army brat born in Bangalore, British from my mother born in Misterton, England, Sri Lankan by virtue of birth, New Zealand and Australian by naturalisation.
I am an AngloBanglo Kiwi Aussie…
UQ, you could have five different passports and use any that suited the situation at the time.
I keep them separated in my passport case. Pulling both out at the same time tends to get you a personal conversation with immigration agents.
Some immigration authorities, eg Canada, already keep records of dual citizenship – when my wife and son checked recently in with their Australian passports in Sydney, the Air Canada staff were aware that she also had Canadian citizenship.
I’m guessing your accent is neutral.