KIWI TV

Those of you who have listened to us enumerate the reasons we love New Zealand over the past twenty years are sure to remember our descriptions of television. Perhaps it is their no-nonsense farming history, but kiwis don't mind showing blood and guts on tv. Years ago we saw news coverage of a shark attack on a swimmer, and the news team went right into the poor bloke's hospital room and interviewed him about the attack showing all his stitches and cuts in full splendor. Kiwis thought nothing of realistic TV. So, we were not surprised the other day when we saw a thirty-something woman dressed in sweatshirt and jeans crying and walking around the streets of a deserted town late at night calling for her lost chihuahua, "Misty". They interviewed her about her love for this little eight year old dog and interviewed a classroom of schoolchildren making up lost/reward signs for this dog. We were properly amazed that a lost dog would get this kind of coverage until a few minutes later when they took the time to remind the audience who this woman was by showing her dressed for work in her skimpy stripper clothes. Apparently New Zealand's most famous stripper lost her dog. There are signs up all over town advertising her lost "chawawa"- nobody said blond strippers have to spell.

What else is on TV? Well, for one the news people don't have to be "beautiful" people. The Morning show is hosted by the blond Rippa lookalike, along with a funny looking man with crooked teeth and funny round glasses that could never be mistaken for Matt Lauer. He was telling a story from the newspaper yesterday that Mike relayed to me (I was in the shower). Mike says you'll never get the humor of it in print, but here goes anyway: One of the New Zealand farmers was working with some piece of heavy equipment that caught his arm. while trying to free his arm, the machine malfunctioned and caught fire. This poor farmer chopped his arm off after partially burning his body. The show host was relaying this story in disbelief. He remembered the famous story of the American mountain climber that hacked off his arm after getting it caught under a boulder, then making his way to safety. He started talking about how ward it is to imagine the how-to's of chopping off your own arm. In working through it verbally, he exploded in laughter and talked about making little "chippie, chippie motions on the bone to get it to cut through". The more he imagined chippie, chippies, the more he laughed. And, because he was so hysterical, the Kelly Rippa lookalike started laughing, and before you know it they were snorting their way through the story.

Today's big news, and I mean BIG news is David Beckham. It has been a tense three or four days as the news as covered him all trough the LA Galaxy's trip to Australia where they played "football" or soccer against an Australia team to the biggest packed stadium (85,000 people) in Australia's history. Well, to make it even better, the Galaxy is coming to Wellington to play against the local Wellington team. The team flew in from Australia yesterday and were met at the airport by the biggest crowd since the Beatles visited New Zealand. Apparently a group of disabled kids were standing by to present Beckham with something they made, and he walked by them without seeing them and the scandal in the press has been huge. He has apologized for the accidental slight and is hosting a private meeting with these kids. He and his team are inviting 10,000 kids from all over NZ Zealand to travel by bus to watch them practice today. The official game is tomorrow night and it will be the only thing happening in all of New Zealand. Apparently Wellington had to pay over a million dollars to get the Galaxy to travel here for this game. I guess we know how they are recouping the $25 million they are paying Beckham in salary. But Bekham mania is alive and well her in New Zealand.

If any of you are Netflix users, we have it on good authority (but, untested as of yet) that the movie, Crackerjack, will give you a funny introduction to the New Zealand game of bowling. In previous columns I have written about our growing appreciation for this SLOW game, but apparently this movie is a funny peak into the game. If you see it before us, let us know.

New Zealand has two terrestrial national television channels. Most of what they show is daily news, British Television shows (Coronation Street) and American television (every crime show we have it seems, plus the worst of the reality shows like the plastic surgery show- the Swan). Over the twenty years we have been coming here, the mix has moved much more to US shows, with fewer British shows on nowadays. There are also satellite stations, including CNN, but only the more upscale places we stay have the satellite stations. For example, at the winery cottage where we stayed, our host Wendy told us that she is such a cricket fan, and cricket matches go for six hours per day for five days running, that she purposely does not subscribe to satellite tv so as to get her work done around the vineyard. And, if she doesn't get to watch it, either do her guests.

Today we arrived in Queenstwon. The New Zealand Open golf tournament is being played here in the little nearby town of Arrowtown where our former condo lies. It is almost impossible to find anywhere to stay, but with a slightly higher budget we landed an apartment on the road into town. We can park our car and walk around from there, which is a nicer way to see Queenstown than having to park everywhere we go. We have a cottage reserved in Arrowtown begin Dec. 6th for the final week of our stay, after the hubbub of the golf tournament is past. For now, golf is the only thing on TV, where we can watch them play golf fifteen miles from where we sit.

'Til Later,
Deanne