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The alternative Kiwipedia…
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Nothing too fancy, thanks, mate.
Most countries in the world like coffee. But only New Zealand actually wants to marry it.
Formerly a nation of PG Tips and Nescafe drinkers, around the late 1980s to early 90s, Kiwis embraced coffee hard. The real-coffee revolution started with young, urbane women and gentlemen considered ‘light of foot‘, but it wasn’t until the invention of the Flat White – half way between a Cafe Latte and a Cappuccino, only minus the effete European name (a coffee, in other words, that no-nonsense Kiwi men could at last order in public without fear of sounding ‘like a bloody shirt-lifter’) - that our national obsession really took off.
(17 votes, average: 3.76 out of 5)
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Guaranteed no less than 2/3 Kiwi
The number of Kiwis who really make an impression on the world’s stage, in any given generation, can usually be counted on one hand. And yet, as a nation, we are so eager for high achieving celebrities who will put New Zealand on the map.
It is easy, therefore, to understand the pain felt by every New Zealander when, as often happens, yet another of our most cherished, internationally famous actors/musicians/filmmakers/sports stars is mistakenly referred to as an Australian.
Correcting these mistakes is a legal obligation of every New Zealander, under the Treaty of Waitangi.
'Ow do you like ze taste of zat Rainbow Warrior, losers?
Kiwis are really, really good at a small range of minority sports. So good, in fact, that the weight of the entire nation’s expectation rests on the hope that these sports might firmly, and finally, put New Zealand on the map.
It is a heavy burden to bear by our national sports stars who, lets face it, are not altogether the smartest, most well-rounded cookies in the jar.
Which inevitably leads to the one sport in which New Zealand truly leads the international field…Choking.
A typical Kiwi billboard ad.
Kiwis love being told what to do. And then doing the exact opposite.
In a, perhaps ironic, counterbalance to all the hours of Cheap TV Adverts on New Zealand television, the government happily invests millions of taxpayer’s money producing film-quality, 30-second vignettes and print ads, reminding us what a bunch dicks we all are, and how, if we only drink less/drive slower/eat lamb/exercise/breast feed/buy NZ/don’t bash our kids/& make it click, then this could, at last, be a really choice place to live.
Half as nice, at twice the price
A recent addition to the bar menus of most New Zealand cities, it seems Kiwis have gone a bit mental for small plates of food that don’t quite fill you up, but somehow end up costing just as much as a regular meal.
Not to be confused with the original Spanish tapas, which is usually a plate of over-salted patates braves or slices of roadkill chorizo, given away free in bars to keep the customers drinking, and ward off the flies.
Really?
Georgie Pie – New Zealand’s own answer to McDonalds, featuring meat pies instead of burgers – began life in the 70s. But in the early 1990s, a ‘perfect storm’ of events significantly boosted the fortunes of the company, triggering a rapid over-expansion of franchises which, like all great empires, eventually caused the company to implode.
And even though Georgie Pie is also the single biggest contributing factor to an alarming rise in teenage bowel cancer during the same period1, Kiwis, particularly late 20s and thirty somethings, still get all misty eyed at it’s memory, and fall over themselves in support of any campaign to bring it back. So why is this?
Actually, yes, I do like Mudhoney. What gave it away?
Soul Patches (aka ‘Clit Ticklers’), Goatees & Lamb-chop Sideburns – or any other combination of facial hair that wouldn’t look out of place on a sound-engineer mixing an ‘Alice in Chains’ song, for the soundtrack to the movie ‘Singles’, in a recording studio in Seattle circa 1992 – are all still weirdly popular with a large percentage of modern day, Kiwi men.
Pie chart of a typical New Zealand statistic
With the exception of New Years Day on the Millennium, and the climbing of Mount Everest, New Zealand has never really been the first at anything. In fact, it’s unlikely we’ve ever even been in the top ten. We simply lack the population to, say, win all the gold medals at the Olympics, or become the worlds biggest consumer of pitted olives.
But, by a clever manipulation of the statistics, we can put ourselves firmly at (or near) the top of any international pissing contest. The importance of this, towards alleviating our deep national fear of being ‘basically irrelevant’ to the rest of the world, should not be underestimated.
And in other news...
Nothing happens in New Zealand. Ever.
And yet, against all better judgement, both TV networks feel compelled to provide a full hour of news coverage every evening. And how do they pad out the content, in a country where the biggest news event of the decade was the shearing of a stray, be-dreadlocked sheep? Segment after segment after segment of weather.
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