> Vaguely related question for non-Americans: When your local station goes off the air at the end of the broadcast day, do they play your national anthem as a closer?
>
> koala"just wondering"mom

I'm not sure what they play now (I don't watch that much TV) but for years and years when I was a kid, it was the Goodnight Kiwi thing. This was a little cartoon segment featuring a thing which became known as "the TV kiwi", turning off his (or her) TV, putting the cat out for the night (apparently little cartoon kiwis own pet cats), and climbing a lot of stairs to snuggle down to sleep in a big satellite dish. Don't ask me, it all seemed to make sense at the time. The segment was a couple of minutes long and was accompanied by the music "Hine E Hine", which is one of those sentimental songs everybody in New Zealand knows the tune of.

It was played music-only on the Goodnight Kiwi thing, but the English words are:

Softly the moon has ascended
Hine, e hine
Sleep till the long night has ended
Hine, e hine
Sleep gathered safe in my arms
Something something something um something that rhymes with "arms"
Um some other things.

I did say everybody knows the *tune*, OK? I know the tune very well indeed.

Brunnen-"I suppose I could find out the words if anybody's interested"G