I knew I was taller than the Foreign Minister-outside-Cabinet but I didn’t expect his American counterpart, the Secretary of State, to be.
]]>This was one of my favourite scenes from the new comedy, The Jaquie Brown Diaries.
Background: TV3 journalist Brown, playing a fictional version of herself, is known in the series as New Zealand’s top ‘lightweight journalist’, specializing in human-interest fare (not too far from the truth in her real-life role on Campbell Live). When she discovers a rival at the network, Serita Singh, who happens to be Fijian Indian, and after discovering that the ‘Nelson’ ratings (obviously a parody of Nielsen) have her polling poorly among minorities, Brown urges her producer to let her do an interview with visiting American rapper Bizzy Trickle. Her problem: she hates rap, and uses her rival’s notes, but is ill-prepared, despite trying to dress up as a rap fan. Trickle, meanwhile, thought he would do the interview with Singh, and is none too pleased at the change. Filmed at the Sky Tower.
(Language warning: the n word is used once for comic effect.)
I knew I was taller than the Foreign Minister-outside-Cabinet but I didn’t expect his American counterpart, the Secretary of State, to be.
]]>I must say the Kiwi media have done a good job covering this up: Dr Condoleezza Rice’s visit to New Zealand. I heard about it for the first time on Timothy’s blog. She’s here for 24 hours, according to the TVNZ site.
We often do a lousy job here covering international politicians’ visits.
We’re spending more time covering Sen. Obama’s Berlin speech. Guess it’s cheaper buying news from overseas agencies.
Who else thought this? The Jaquie Brown Diaries is the funniest new comedy of 2008! Snappy writing, almost perfect timing, good casting. Brown, playing herself, is a natural at a sitcom. (And from my infrequent encounters, she is very humorous in real life.) This might even be exportable—maybe back to Brown’s British homeland? It would work there.
The rapper interview was hilarious.
TV3 needs to do a far better job promoting it, mind.
A judge ruled that the nine-year-old girl, who is the subject of a custody fight, should be placed in the guardianship of the court until she is renamed.
A lawyer acting for the girl claimed she was so embarrassed by her name that she had kept it from her friends, insisting she should be known as "K" instead. She also feared that if it became public she would be mocked and teased.
The lawyer claimed the girl fully understood the absurdity of her name, unlike her parents who had not considered the implications when they named her.
Justice Robert Murfitt said the name clearly presented a social hurdle for the child.
"It makes a fool of the child and sets her up with a social disability and handicap," he said.
He also voiced concern over other names given to New Zealand children, such as Violence, Midnight Chardonnay and Number 16 Bus Shelter.
A set of twins was named Benson and Hedges, after the cigarette brand and some children had been named after six-cylinder Ford cars. There has even been a case of a child being named after the entire All Blacks side.
"Recently, for the first time in my experience as a Family Court judge, the name of a child described in text language has emerged," Mr Murfitt said.
In that case, a girl was named O.crnia, but in negotiations with the mother over a parenting order, the name was adjusted to Oceania.
New Zealand officials said they did have the power to block outlandish names.
Brian Clarke, the registrar general of Births, Deaths and Marriages, told the New Zealand Herald that the law did not allow names that would cause offence to a reasonable person, that are more than 100 characters or that include titles, military ranks, punctuation or numerals.
Names rejected by the office include Fish and Chips, Yeah Detroit, Stallion, Twisty Poi, Keenan Got Lucy and Sex Fruit.
Mr Clarke said officials attempted talk to parents who proposed unusual names and convince them about the potential for embarrassment.
"Often when we explain the situation to parents we can agree on an acceptable name to register," he told the paper.
]]>This is the funniest thing I have ever heard! HAHAHAHA! Omg ok I will stop. HAHAHAHA!
A judge in New Zealand has made a 9-year old girl a ward of court so she can change her name. The girl was apparently too embarrassed to tell people her real name and I can't think why, I mean Talula Does the Hula From Hawaii has a certain ring to it.
And no I'm not joking her parents did really name her that. But what is more shocking is the list of names that Kiwi officials have blocked parents from using:
Yeah Detroit; Stallion Twisty Poi; Keenan Got Lucy; Sex Fruit; Fat Boy; Cinderella Beauty Blossom; Fish and Chips (twins)
And if that wasn't bad enough here are some of the names that have actually been ALLOWED:
Violence; Number 16 Bus Shelter; Midnight Chardonnay; Benson and Hedges (twins)
The latter is particularly classy and just goes to show that you probably shouldn't joke with parents expecting twins about calling them things like gin and tonic. (Thank goodness my friends Jenny and Spike are sane and didn't take any of mine and Mosh's suggestions for their boys names seriously, although I still think Moet and Chandon would have given them a regal air.)
Full story on the Beeb is here.
]]>The path to New Zealand relies on simplification.
]]>
A New Zealand judge has ordered that the parents of an eight-year-old girl change her name, saying it is highly embarrassing and makes the child a target for ridicule.
The girl, who lives in New Plymouth on the west coast of the north island, is named "Talula Does the Hula From Hawaii".
The Family court was told that the child is so mortified she has not told any of her friends her real name.
Judge Robert Murfitt ruled that the name was a social disability.
The girl's parents have separated and she has been placed under the court's guardianship while a new name is selected.
Judge Murfitt says he is appalled by the judgement of some parents.
He says in New Zealand there are children called Midnight Chardonnay, Number 16 Bus Shelter and Violence.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/07/24/2313126.htm?section=justin
]]>I’d been looking forward to this film for weeks – in fact it was the deciding factor for me to stay in New Zealand for the Auckland International Film Festival – and I wasn’t disappointed. The scenery was as stunning as expected – vast plains and simple nomadic settlements framed by dusky mountain ranges on the great steppes of Mongolia. In this first part of the planned trilogy I don’t know whether Director Sergei Bodrov challenged the genre but he certainly made a good job of it.
Read my full review and more online at
http://watchmorefilms.blogspot.com
Wellington is the capital city of new Zealand which is situated at the end of the North Island. It took us about exactly 12 hours to reach there by flight or bus. We depart from the Britomart as early as 730am by The Scenic Train which design specially for the tourist to know and appreciate the New Zealand wonderful landscape.
Ida and Lina already there at the time we reach Wellington, thank you my dearest friends. Isn’t it good to have a friend at an unknown place like that? It save your travel budget and the most important thing, they could be your tourist guide, much better that you can get through the tourism agent. It makes me sound materialistic if we just look at it on the surface only. The main reason we went there is to visit (ziarah) them and at the same time spent few days of our holiday to know new places in Aoteroa.
Within this short vacation in Welly, in only manage to visit interesting places nearby like Te Papa New Zealand’s Museum, Bee Hive The Parliament, Wellington famous cable car, Victoria University of Wellington where all my friends studied, and the Habour. It was only when we are in Wellington we finally feel that we are in oversea country since we rarely meet any Asian or any Arabic walking around. All Kiwis walk fast and seem to be very busy while cafes are almost everywhere, a different scenario compared to Auckland.
Here are some photos taken there. The most exciting place I visited is the parliament house where we joined one hour trip around the parliament house. I was fascinated with the interior design they have. The building was actually burnt somewhere around 1900 and was rebuilt again. To maintain its originality, they ordered the same material from the same country again with high price since the company need to reproduce them again. It took a lot of effort just to keep everything as similar with the previous one. Shows how much they appreciate the building since they are willing to spent millions of money to rebuild it again. Wow hebatkan.
]]>Great news! Flight of the Conchords has received three Emmy nods for directing, writing, and original music and lyrics. It didn’t get an Emmy nomination for best comedy series, which I think is a sin.
Not bad for a show conceived by a bunch of Kiwis, even if it did take American money and HBO to get it off the ground.
And thank goodness it did—how else would it have become so widely received? I can’t see a TV3- or TVNZ-funded Conchords cracking the US market—it would, like Outrageous Fortune, have been remade at best.
Good luck to Bret, Jemaine and the others associated with the show.
This
film came highly recommended by a friend, and although animation
doesn’t usually attract me I went along. And by God, I’m glad I did.
Persepolis is the autobiographical account of the Iranian born Marjane
Satrapi; a tale of ordinary growing pains and young adulthood set
against a politically charged climate in Iran.
Read the rest of my review and others at the Auckland Film Festival blog: http://watchmorefilms.blogspot.com
I've just bought one-way plane tickets from San Jose to Vancouver and Vancouver to Dunedin. We're really doing it - emigrating to New Zealand. I'm a bit nervous about the whole thing, but excited as well.
We're leaving here in mid-September, spending a month in Vancouver (I got a really good monthly rate for our accommodation - we're staying in an apartment right on Denman Street, in our old neighbourhood), then flying to New Zealand in mid-October.
We're taking the long way round because we need to deal with all the stuff we left behind when we moved to San Jose, and we want to spend some time with friends before we disappear off to the other side of the world. I'm also planning to visit all my old haunts to say goodbye - sentimental type that I am. Flying's gotten so horribly expensive that we might not get back to Canada any time soon, so I plan to soak up as much of the Vancouver experience as I can while we're there.
It’s quite easy to work out the agenda of the mainstream media when it comes to an article like this, trying to harm Samantha Powell’s chances at Miss Universe tomorrow night.
My views about the appropriateness of Samantha Powell’s haka are at the Lucire blog. I agree that Māori culture should be defended. But you couldn’t really call it a haka. She just did a few moves. It would be like a Caucasian donning a lion mask and moving two metres and calling that a Chinese New Year’s lion dance.
As I said in Lucire: ‘I know of no Māori who, while rightly guarding against improper use of their culture, would deny a chance for it to be promoted or be rendered so “untouchable” to those who came later to Aotearoa. In fact, one kaumatua I spoke to says it is our duty, regardless of our ethnic origins, to be promoting Māori culture when we are abroad.
‘Sometimes, because we have not been immersed in the culture, we err. It is to be expected. And, when the one who errs is not of our own race, we forgive and we educate, but we do not criticize.
‘All New Zealanders should be proud to propagate Māori culture as the alternative would be to ignore it and pretend we are mere facsimile of Great Britain, as many Kiwis did 50 years ago.’
I’d hate to see us head back to those monocultural times—though it looks like the Herald wants that to happen by running a story like this.
Since the newspaper has been shifting a lot of its work to Australia, I imagine an Anglicized monoculture makes it easier to take more editing work away from Kiwis.
Any time you see a story about over-sensitive Māori getting upset about the way the culture has been portrayed, think again about the agenda.
All the Māori I know put mana first and actually see this as an opportunity to reach out and educate in order to promote their culture.
A big fail for the Herald. Sam’s still going to wow the world tomorrow night.
I see that the annual Young Farmer of the Year contest is on again, televised on TV One.
The questions aren’t that easy. But what they don’t show are the heats, featuring questions such as, ‘How many legs does a sheep have?’
And, ‘What is the end by-product of sheep?’
‘No, no, it’s not cheese. And it’s not an escort agency, either.’ (With apologies to the late Peter Cook.)
A friend suggested reviewing my favorite beers after posting a blog about what to do with $300 extra.
I really should update those photos of my kitchen, as cupboard #2 is full of different beers now (completely full), and not Kokanee.
Now, I don't pretend to be any expert on beer. I couldn't explain any subtle nuances about any given beer like the wine experts in that movie 'Sideways'. But I know what I like, and I have drank many different brands, and types, over the years. It's not that I drink a lot, but I like to sample.
We've even brewed our own from a kit in our house for several years. We haven't done it in the past year because of the time it takes to bottle etc, and because with 2 little ones running around, it's hard to protect it while it stews.
So, I'll start with an old fav of mine.
Spotted in Waikanae (an hour north of our office) last week while we were heading to a beauty spa for a story: a lovely and well maintained Austin Ten.