> As the only New Zealander on this forum, I hereby invent this list just to counter the swarms of Canadianisms I keep reading about.
>
> You might be a New Zealander if ...
> 1) You get defensive when people say, "That's near Australia, isn't it?"
> 2) It would cost you more to travel to London or New York than to Antarctica
> 3) You can name more than 12 towns which were once known as "The Hellhole of the South Pacific"

Why?


> 4) It doesn't seem totally insane to you when the leader of your nation makes a televised, national emergency "remain calm" type announcement because the national rugby team lost a game

Do they do that in England? They should!


> 5) You don't really believe that there can be people in the world who don't know how to swim
> 6) It is possible to go snow skiing and water skiing within two hours' drive of your home on the same day
> 7) You consider Hercules to be a TV show starring Michael Hurst and some American guy
> 8) You remember when Lucy Lawless was best known as the mother on the BNZ Bank commercials with that stupid baby in the yellow suit
> 9) You could never really enjoy the Hercules or Xena shows because you recognised all the locations and knew there was a phone box or a highway just to the left of where the monster was standing
> 10) Your school fire drills used to include what to do when a volcano erupts

Oh, wicked...


> 11) You sometimes wonder who is running Germany while its entire population is hitchhiking around the North Island
> 12) You know it can't be the Japanese, because *its* entire population is doing bus tours of the South Island


We have that problem in the scenic parts of Canada. There more Germans and Japanese tourists on Prince Edward Island than there are local folks. I think there's something about islands that draws 'em like flies to honey.

Of course, there's the occasional busload of Germans scouring downtown Montreal. Once I was walking down Sherbrooke street, when a bunch of Koreans came up to me and showed me a glossy brochure of Château Richelieu (an ancient fortress near Québec City) and asked, "We need to get to this?" I pointed down the street and told them "Oh, that's about 300 kilometers East in that direction."


> 13) You were 15 before you realised they don't have L&P anywhere else in the world
> 14) When you see damage reports on overseas TV from a level 6 earthquake, you wonder if they got it wrong or if they use a different Richter scale over there
> 15) It gives you the creeps to think of living in a country where you can't walk from the east coast to the west coast in a couple of days
> 16) You simultaneously believe that your country is one of the most technologically advanced in the world, *and* is so far behind the rest of the world that it is an international laughing stock
> 17) You can pronounce place names like Whangaparaoa, Kaiapoi, Waikaremoana, Orakeikorako and Whakarewarewa effortlessly, but do not believe that you can speak Maori

Hmmm. I pass through an Indian reserve (offically federal territory) every day... I can handle Gahnawahke, Caughnawaugna, etc., and I don't speak Mohawk.


> 18) You faithfully went to see Speed 2, fully aware it sucked, just because Temuera Morrison was playing a bit part in it
> 19) The sound of Howard Morrison singing "How Great Thou Art" was surgically implanted into your mind at birth and you know you will never be able to wipe the memory completely
> 20) You have at some time in your life rolled a Jaffa down a movie theatre aisle
> 21) You cried when Billy T. James died
> 22) Every single person you know has been on a package holiday to Fiji at least once
> 23) You know why it was funny when Split Enz sang about how "the sound of Te Awamutu had a truly sacred ring"
> 24) You have been to Te Awamutu but so far have always managed to escape again
> 25) You buy your kiwifruit for $1 per 5kg sack from roadside stands in Kerikeri
> 26) Your whole goal up to the age of 20 was to leave the country as soon as possible
> 27) You did ... and you came back.
>
> Brunnen-"I'm sure nobody but me will find this funny"G

You do know that that's actually "27 Signs", no? You did that just to keep us on our toes, right? 27 for the price of 25. I'll take it.

I agree with Fawcett: #9 is quite side-splitting. There's a great example of how knowing too much can really detract from the immersive experience. I wonder how movie-makers and S F/X stuntsmen can watch other peoples' movies without going "I know how they did that."

Eh mate, pretty please explain numbers 19, 21, 23, and 24?

Wolfspirit