New Zealand is a proud nation of the South Pacific. The benefits of living in New Zealand are so numerous, they can barely be counted on the one hand of a three toed sloth.

Obscurity: Outside New Zealand, no one knows you or it exists. Unless you split atoms of course or climb very high mountains, ” Because they are there”. And if someone has heard of it they will never know where it is. “Is it next to Norway?”, a cab driver asked me in New York. And in New Orleans: “Yeah I know it well. I was in the army. It is between the mainland and Hawaii”…

Well at least we are nearly in the right ocean now.

World domination: Well at a game few others play, rugby. Mind you, New Zealand does not have a World series and only have teams from New Zealand competing like the World series of baseball in the US of A. And the definition of rugby – one man trying to push two mens heads up three mens backsides. Not my definition but if you have ever played rugby, as every New Zealander has at some stage, and you played it poorly, you will understand.

Being called a Kiwi: The Kiwi is the national symbol of New Zealand. Most people have only seen a kiwi at a zoo. And then you have to tippy toe quietly into a darkened nocturnal house, wait for five minutes for your eyes to adjust and then behold, the phantom shadow of the kiwi. The kiwi is an endangered bird. Birds were designed to fly but the kiwi couldn’t see the point. Too much energy, too much fuss and being nocturnal, it did not have it’s night flying license anyway.

This flightless bird wanders around in the dark, literally, and what eyesight it has is very poor. It lives on worms and small insects and invertebrates living on the forest floor. Oh, but it is such a bend to get down there! So the kiwi has a very long beak and to help him out, it is the only bird to have nostrils on the tip of the beak rather than at the base. Beats the bending though. Kiwis of course have very few back problems.

So you see us Kiwis are ingenious too. I can’t count that as I don’t have any more fingers.