SuperValu, Lusk, Dublin.
Thanks Reppy
Tag Archives: New Zealand
Mount Taranaki in New Zealand photographed spectacularly from space. Once mooted as a location for the Lonely Mountain In the Hobbit Trilogy, a digital mockup of Mount Cook was used instead.
Never mind that. Here’s the new Desolation of Smaug trailer anyway.
(A cartoon in today’s edition of NZ’s ‘The Press’)
Irish workers helping with the [post earthquake] rebuild are sharing the love but it seems they may also be helping to spread sexual diseases.
While there are no concrete figures to analyse who is giving chlamydia to whom, health data show the number of confirmed cases in the Canterbury District Health Board (CDHB) region has been increasing since 2011.
Board sexual health director Edward Coughlan said the clinic had started recording the number of Irish nationals making appointments, and there had “definitely been an increase” in the past two years.
Christchurch Hospital’s emergency department and the sexual health clinic had since started recording the nationalities of all people associated with the rebuild.
Figures for other international workers were not yet available.
…CDHB member Aaron Keown said New Zealand historically had high rates of STIs but guessed it would be local women passing infections on to rebuild workers and not the other way around.
“Statistically Kiwi women have been found to have a lot more sexual partners than other women [in other countries] and these Irish lads might not be used to living somewhere with such high STI rates.”
He said many women found the Irish accent alluring and “jovial and outgoing” rebuild workers were cashed up and going out regularly.
“If you take one plus one plus one, you get three and that would likely end up as chlamydia.”
Luck of the Irish has sex-disease downside (Georgina Stylianou, Stuff.co.nz),
Irish people Living In New Zealand (Facebook)
Thanks Reppy
New Zealand’s North and South Islands.
FIGHT!
The two main islands have been called the North Island and the South Island. They have also appeared that way on maps and charts. But in recent years, officials discovered an oversight: the islands had never been formally assigned the monikers.
…the Maori names for the islands had been the same since Europeans first arrived, but the English names had changed over time. On some early maps, he said, the islands were called New Ulster and New Munster, after the Irish provinces. The South Island was also sometimes called the Middle Island, a reference to the much smaller Stewart Island, which is even further south.
New Zealand forgot to name its main islands (Guardian)
Thanks Mark Geary
(NSFW: language)
A group of Auckland law students’ parody of ‘Blurred Lines’ – viewed over 300,000 times on YouTube before being removed (apparently for indecency) – now back (for the moment, at least).
In a case of role reversal, the male of the species is mercilessly objectified.
Men, how does this video make you Pharrell?
Students’ parody performance ‘blurs lines’ (3News, New Zealand)
Previously: Blurred Loins
Reppy writes:
Some Kiwi solidarity Following the earthquakes earlier in New Zealand, cars were stopping off at Wellington railway station to fill their spare seats with stranded commuters.
Kiwi drift maestro Mike Whiddett careens his 750bhp Mazda RX7 around Crown Range, a 10.4km former state highway linking Queenstown and Wanaka in New Zealand. It’s the country’s highest paved roadway, 1076m above sea-level with 47 corners.
Behind the scenes feature here.
Go Crazy for Mad Mike – the Drift King of New Zealand (Drifted)
Watch what happens when the Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Bill is passed in New Zealand’s parliament in Wellington.
Wait for it.
It’s a Maori love song called Pokarekare Ana.
Which, according to Wikipedia:
The tune of “Pokarekare Ana” has been borrowed for an Irish hymn to the Blessed Virgin: “A Mhuire Mháthair, sé seo mo ghuí”
Photographer Mark Gee’s unedited real time video of people observing the moon rising over the Mount Victoria Lookout in Wellington, New Zealand this time last week.
Music: Tenderness by Dan Phillipson
LOTR fans Kerry Shawcross and Chris Demarais of RoosterTeeth make the 200km trek from Hobbiton to Mount Ngauruhoe (Mount Doom) in New Zealand just to prove Boromir wrong.
MORE: Part Two and Part Three