New Zealand’s under-reported cyclone

A Pakeha (Non-Māori) friend in Auckland, who has been studying Te Reo Māori language for some years, thinks all New Zealanders should know at least 100 words. On our visit there between February 9 and 24, I began to realise how many Māori words I do know, and this time I learned a few new ones including Huripari. This is Māori for storm or, if expressing the extremity of a cyclone, hurricane or tornado, you…

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Why our media mostly ignores New Zealand

The young New Zealand journalist broadcasting from down town Auckland described the rain storms which drenched Auckland last weekend as ‘completely apocalyptic’. This may not be overstating the case. as Auckland received 284mm (nearly a foot in the old measurement) in the 24 hours from Friday to Saturday –  and it kept on raining. As The Guardian reported on Monday, intense rain on January 27 brought more than 200mm in 18 hours, as recorded by…

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Celebrating Multicultural Australia

Australia is more culturally diverse than ever, according to the first results from the 2021 Census. Almost half our population of 25.76 million people have at least one parent born overseas. Almost a quarter of Australians (24.8%) speak a language other than English at home. Just over a quarter (27.6%) report being born overseas (Ed: and that includes him and me – Scotland and Canada’s loss is our gain, we modestly reckon). In the five…

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Why we need an annual twins day

As a Dad of one, it quite does my head in when I read about blokes whose wives presented them with twins, triplets or more. Such fun! It seems that if you are good looking and in good shape when you hit late teens, there’s no end to the opportunities in the US when it comes to music, movies and TV series. A recent post by Insider ranked 15 sets of twins by their achievements…

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