Dave Gee: Life from Right Field

You've got to admit it... the real kiwi accent (as spoken by dodgy New Zealanders who live in the suburbs or out in the country) is pretty rank... ya know, kinda naff... but in a 'good to make fun of' kind of way ;-)

Aussie talkshow king, Rove McManus has spent his last Rove Live show taking the "puss" out of kiwis, and trying to pronounce a range of Maori placenames and phrases.

In his first lesson he learnt that in Maori, they pronounce "Whaka" as "Far-Car"... This of course way highly amusing, and he couldn't quite believe it was really true... "Far-Car?! That can't be right, surely... Far-Car?! - Are we still on the air?!"

He challenged kiwi tv legend, TV3's John Campbell to drop the phrase into conversation on air... Johnboy took up the challenge, and featured an interview with Rove on his new show, Campbell Live this evening... discussing what Aussie's really think of kiwis and their strange accent.

* Campbell Live website
* Rove Live website

John pointed out this great piece from Aussie paper, The Age, about Prince Charles' recent visit to NZ...

Would Prime Minister Hillin Cluck please control that Kiwi rabble! Poor Prince Chucky, still glowing after the Aussie hospitality he enjoyed on the more civilised side of the Tasman, was greeted yesterday by this underclad creature in Wellington, her sorry torso inscribed with the odd message: "Get your colonists' shame off my breasts".

This followed a report from our man in Dunedin where the rozzers rushed to a bus shelter on the royal motorcade route to tackle a chap who had bared his lower regions, a traditional Maori insult (and not looked upon too kindly elsewhere in the world).

Incredibly, after investigation, a police officer announced that it "just seems coincidental"! Just one of your random New Zealand bus-shelter trouser incidents, it appears.

Gotta love their phonetically-correct-spelling of New Zealand's Prime Minister - isn't it said when people can't even pronounce their own names?...


When I was at summer camp at Lake Greeley in the United States last year, there was another kiwi counselor who kept insisting his name was "Crick"... Crick?! Who TF calls their kid "Crick"?!

It took a while for Moray-the-Scottish-Guy to figure out his name was actually "Craig" ;-) The best trick was getting the kids to ask him to count to ten... (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, Sux , Seevin, 8, 9, Tin)... Mighty Hilarious in an immature kindof way!

However, he didn't actually have the worst "Nu Zahlund ex-cent"... there was a girl called Laura who told her campers she came from Rotorua, but she actually lives close to the Thermal Village "Whakarewarewa", which sounds much funnier! (Far-Car-Ray-Wah-Ray-Wah) ;-)

She would spend hours on the phone talking to her friends and family back home about "eating fush in chups", how much she enjoyed 'The Bourne Supremacy' (It was a fentestic, eck-shun-pecked fluck, apparently), how she'd hut her hid on a disk, and how her alarm woke her up at sux toe sux in the mornung...

Admittedly, not all kiwis talk like Lyn-of-Tawa (NZers will understand), but there does seem to be quite a few who still think the capital city is "Wullingtun" (Wellington)... they like to drink "Muwk" (Milk), and think "Jiff Woowsun" (Jeff Wilson) is a great Cricket and Rugby player.

WE FEAR NO-ONE - Shearer - Football365.com

"Newcastle captain Alan Shearer believes his side 'can beat anyone', following their convincing 4-0 UEFA Cup win over Olympiacos at St James' Park."

Woo-hoo! Newcastle have finally come right this season, and seem to be unstoppable at the moment. Alan Shearer's been playing some right blinders recently, with the help of Keiron Dyer, who's come right after a pretty dodgy patch...

"Newcastle manager Graeme Souness may consider handing Kieron Dyer a regular striking role after watching him help dump Olympiakos out of the UEFA Cup.

The England midfielder partnered Alan Shearer in attack after Patrick Kluivert and Shola Ameobi were ruled out through injury. And he turned in an excellent individual display, scoring the opening goal with a cheeky backheel, as Newcastle won 4-0 to overwhelm the Greeks 7-1 on aggregate.

Shearer scored twice to move within nine goals of Jackie Milburn's club record of 200.

Dyer's performance capped a remarkable turn-around for a player who looked to have no future at St James' Park a few months ago."
(www.thisislondon.co.uk)

NZ Herald: MP ousted in TV film outburst
(A good summary of yesterday's proceedings, if somewhat lefty-biased in the traditional Granny Herald sort of way ;-)

It was like watching a spoilt only child on 3News tonight... New Speaker of the NZ Parliament, Margaret Wilson, getting increasingly agitated, as she tried in vain to get ACT Party leader Rodney Hide to eject himself from the chamber! ;-)

It all started with some innocent questioning by ACT, relating to the rules on what cameras could shoot in Parliament. (The NZ Government are trying to get rid of all network cameras, and replace them with their own state-run-and-sanctioned feed... We're not China for crying out loud!)

ACT's Richard Prebble and Rodney Hide asked whether TV cameras could film the empty Labour back bench seats... it seems a large proportion of the Government haven't been turning up recently, however those that do come to work are shuffled up to fill the frontbenches - hence making it look on tv like the Government's full of busy beavers.

In the end, Wilson (described by some as "possibly the least qualified Speaker NZ Parliament's ever seen") realised Rodney Hide wasn't going to listen to her rantings, and had to get some official security fella to escort him out of the house.

Today's activities follow a move by TV3 to broadcast a shot of Associate Education Minister David Benson-Pope, fast asleep in the debating chamber, on its Wednesday night's news.

Interesting that State TV has been playing catch-up about the latest developments...

---
(Quote of the day from Parliament:
Hon Richard Prebble: When the Prime Minister says that Mr Benson-Pope is a hard-working and conscientious Minister, can she confirm the belief that he rises at the crack of noon each day, works hard until the early hours of the afternoon, and then comes into the House to have a well-deserved sleep—is that his general work pattern?)

Martin Stenmarck to represent Sweden | eurovision song contest 2005 at esctoday.com

What's happening with the world of music? A shock decision today in the world's greatest pop music nation - Sweden...

The final of the Melodifestival contest was held today (their competition to decide Sweden's entry for this year's Eurovision song contest) - and despite having a bunch of corkers to pick from in the Final 10 songs, they picked a dodgy bloke named Martin Stenmarck singing a dodgy Tom-Jones-lite rock number called Las Vegas.

Second place went to Nanne Grönvall (who represented Sweden a few years ago, and also tried for the UK contest). Her song Håll om mig wasn't the best slice of pop in the world, but wasn't as pants as Martin's track.

Third place went to the real deserved winners, Alcazar with their song Alcastar - maybe a tad self indulgent, but still pure pop genius, and currently Number 1 on the Swedish single charts. Little Shirley Clamp was fourth with Att älska dig (good wee pop song, but last year's effort Min kärlek was better).

The other song which was criminally overlooked was Linda Bengtzing's Alla Flickor, which sounded like a traditional Swedish Eurovision Abba-style pop stormer - a bit like Charlotte Nilsson's winning number from '99 actually.

Meanwhile the UK have chosen Pop Idol reject Javine (with her Turkish-R&B track Touch my Fire), over former glamour model Jordan - now known simply as Katie Price - who performed Not Just Anybody while wearing a tight pink PVC jumpsuit, despite being pregnant.

There's still 69 days until the real contest in Kiev, Ukraine...

We had a touch of Royalty in the city over the weekend... HRH Prince Charles flew into Dunedin as part of a five day tour of New Zealand.

While he was here, he went to a church service at St Paul's Cathedral in the Octagon, plus visited the Royal Albatross Colony at Taieroa Head to highlight the plight of the endangered birds.

Unfortunately, he decided to have an early night (at the exclusive boutique hotel Corstophine) after he flew in on the Saturday night... missing out on the Great Southern Stag Do organised in his honour, to mark his last weeks of freedom before he marries Camilla Parker-Bowles.

It was disappointing he didn't turn up for a good old knees up... I'm sure if Wills or Harry had been given a similar invitation, they'd be well up for it! ;-)

Anyways, here's a few pics from his quick 'walkabout' in the Octagon, after the Sunday morning church service...

"Hmm... well we could walk... It's only 30 km..." - Dunedin's Mayor Peter Chin meets Prince Charles at the airport, but suddenly realises he forgot to organise a car back into the city.

What-ho, you didn't all have to get dressed up for me

I've seen you on the telly mate!

welcome to cd:uk

A great day in the life of Dave's weekly tv viewing, as the legendary UK music show cd:uk finally comes to New Zealand tv on C4 (even if we are getting it just as VJ Cat Deeley has left the show ;-(

Kiwi TV has had brief flirtations with the UK music scene in the past, with a feed of MTV-UK for a year or two, followed by nothing until we got a weekly broadcast of the UK's Top of the Pops.

That was okay (although State TV's TVNZ would edit out 2 or 3 songs a week to make room for commercials)...

However things got worse when... 1. Andi Peters took over producing it and ruined the UK TOTP, and then... 2. State TV decided to steal some money from NZ on Air, ramped it up to an hour, got rid of most all the decent UK acts and filled the show with a pile of dodgy kiwi tosh instead.

So, Yay for C4 TV... And nice one for sticking cd:uk right up against State TV2's "Top" of the "Pops". Looking forward to watching the show on kiwi telly for a long time to come!...

C4 Music Television