New Zealand Listener Issue 23, 2022

I started my OE in Britain in March 1987, just as the Neighbours cultural tsunami was crashing down on the UK with full force. I never consciously set out to watch a single Neighbours episode, but I absorbed it by osmosis. If I wanted to bludge a meal off relatives in the north of England or workmates and friends in the south, I had to make sure I was in front of their TV at about 5.30pm, for dinner and Neighbours. Phrases that hadn’t been in general use in the mother country five months before were now embedded in British English, and still are. Like “uni” for university, “barbie” for barbecue and “no worries” for “think nothing of it”. Compared with British soaps, Neighbours was bright and relentlessly optimistic. Coronation Street and EastEnders…

FINALISTS Boris Johnson: “Thus, children, ‘Partygate blowout’ was me accidentally blowing out the candles in the Queen’s Jubilee crown.” – Ann Neale, Nelson Johnson: “And here’s one of me, with my curlers in.” – Ray Battersby, Wellington Johnson: “I’m sorry, Your Majesty. I don’t think I got the hair quite right.” – John Henderson, Whanganui Caption: The Joker and the Queen. – Trish Bishop, Hamilton. Johnson: “So you see, children, this is my way of showing that I love Her Majesty with all my art.” – Dean Donoghue, Papamoa Beach Caption: BoJo becomes RoPo after painting a royal portrait. – Trish Bishop, Hamilton Johnson: “I’ve captured that withering glance really well.” – Ann Love, Nelson Caption competition THIS WEEK’S PICTURE Caption Competition {listenercaption@aremedia.co.nz} TO ENTER Send your captions for the photo at right to listenercaption@aremedia.co.nz, with “Caption Competition No 463” in…

It’s always good to find new people speaking up about something they know about or care about, but not so much when the thought behind the ideas is a bit disparaging, contradictory and/or insulting. With Ani O’Brien’s interview with philosopher Nina Power (“In defence of men”, May 28) the latter seemed an appropriate reaction. Power appears to have a following, but her book, What Do Men Want? Masculinity and its discontents, seems more an active push to be provocative at the expense of reasonable debate. She belittles feminism, a word women use as a force for change, one that proclaims the idea women should have the same rights as men. They want to walk safely in open areas, socialise with mixed groupings safely, receive wages that recognise their worth, and to…

“Remember to turn your clocks 70 years forward on Sunday – as we exit the 1950s.”– Seen on Twitter in response to the Australian elections“When a man opens a car door for his wife, it’s either a new car or a new wife.”– Prince Philip“When in doubt, tell the truth.”– Mark Twain“Most money media is usually about men. For women, it’s about how to save $10 on your grocery bill.”– Simran Kaur, of podcast Girls That Invest“It’s a rare treat to watch Republicans tear each other apart because when Republicans decide to knife each other, they hold nothing back. Democrats just snipe at each other on cable news about who’s responsible for their poll numbers.”– Seth Myers“My records are basically a litany of complaints against the world, and I’m quite…

1. True or false? Weka are found in the wild only in the South Island. ❑ True ❑ False 2. Which TV alien arrived on Earth from the planet Melmac? ❑ Doctor Who ❑ Mork ❑ Dick Solomon ❑ ALF 3. Which of these is NOT a species of oceanic dolphin? ❑ Beluga whale ❑ Pilot whale ❑ False killer whale ❑ Orca 4. True or false? Antarctica was once covered by a temperate rainforest. ❑ True ❑ False 5. Which children’s novel by Margaret Mahy won the prestigious Carnegie Medal in 1982? ❑ Under the Mountain ❑ The Halfmen of O ❑ Night Race to Kawau ❑ The Haunting 6. Which of these prisons contains New Zealand’s only specialist maximum-security facility for male inmates? ❑ Rimutaka ❑ Mount Eden ❑ Paremoremo ❑ Spring Hill 7. In which year was New Zealand’s annual $110 public broadcasting fee abolished? ❑1979 ❑ 1989 ❑ 1999 ❑ 2009 8. Which of these films does…

The defeated Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison, described himself as “a bit of a bulldozer” in the last days of the election campaign – a hollow analogy he hoped might convince those dispirited by his overbearing manner that he recognised he needed to change. It was too late. By then, Morrison had bulldozed the Liberal Party he led into an organisation almost unrecognisable to many who have supported it and had ensured it was the most successful political party of the nation’s past 80 years. Far from the broad church of conservatives and liberals that the party’s founder, Sir Robert Menzies, had intended when he started it in 1944, under Morrison it changed into a feckless lobby that traded in disparagement, punishment and fear. Australia’s path to a trillion-dollar debt during Covid…