Roger Rabbits with Jim Bunny

If the answer is a pumpkin – what is the question? Ponder that while you shine your glass slipper Cinderella.

Before trying to get your noodle around this conundrum, here’s some context, not vegetables, not pumpkins. So…

We throw open the doors, we welcome them in, we stock up on imported mushy peas and Branston pickle, we keep that God-awful Union Jack on our flag, we don’t beat up on their try-hard rugby team too badly, we know the words to their turgid national anthem, we sort of sympathised when their soccer team lost the final of the Euros. And then they turn on us, repay us with moaning and complaining.

For example – this message from an Auckland-domiciled ex-pat Brit to another Brit toying with the idea of a move to New Zealand. “Wages are s**t, food is expensive, houses are cold, transport is crap.”

The might be defence in truth. But that was it. No mention of beaches with real sand and surf, no mention of decent fish ’n’chips, no mention that knotted handkerchiefs and sandals with dress socks are not mandatory dress code for a Kiwi barbecue.

Our pukana and haka are who we are. Fierce, loud, intimidating. NZ made and embraced. Whereas that dirge Swing Slow Sweet Chariot is a dubious and borrowed African-American spiritual song.

Look out the window, Luv 

Now that British mum asking if she and her family should move to New Zealand – did she really have to think about it? Why didn’t she just look out the window at the chill, wet, the consuming gloom and despondency. It’s every Brit’s main motivation for abandoning the motherland, escaping the weather, to get some vitamin D in their lives.

Anyhow, mother-of-one’s hubby has been offered a “well-paid” job in Godzone, and he’s anxious to move his family out of firing range of the chest-beating Putin. Mother-of-one thinks such a knee-jerk, life-changing decision mightn’t be the way forward. She asked for advice. She got it by the Brexit load.

Remember “wages are s**t, food is expensive, houses are cold, transport is crap”. She didn’t mention any reason why it’s called Godzone – like we have pavlova and they have something called spotted dick, and when you arrive in NZ you don’t risk forced relocation to an internment camp in Rwanda.

Cutting free advice

I consulted a successfully transplanted Pom who offered this advice to her Auckland compatriot. “Pull ya head in and stop your whining wench.” Free advice too.

Now here’s an interesting thing – it’s guaranteed that generally complainer’s names will be Kim, Karen, Susan, Sue or Sarah. Research suggests they’re often the names of the world’s worst complainers. Also Julie, Emily and Claudia, Anna or Rachel.

And matching them bellyache for bellyache are Paul, David, John, Mark, Andrew or Steve.

The UK research is by a website called Uswitch. It filtered poor and terrible reviews of the world’s biggest tourist attractions like the Eiffel Tower and Sydney Opera House and collated names of the negative reviewers. Hardly incontrovertible proof.

So we have golden sands and boiling white surf versus their grey gravel, we have beach weather whereas they have beach notices warning about the dangers of hyperthermia. We have bathers and wifebeaters versus their puffer jackets. And we don’t have ‘black snot’.

You read that right. I asked an ex-pat Kiwi to tell me one thing she wouldn’t miss about life in Blighty. And black snot was right up there. She said when you blow your nose after you get home from wherever in London “black stuff comes out. Gross!!”

A Cinderella endorsement 

And what is one thing “transplanted Pom” loves about New Zealand? “Pumpkin, love NZ pumpkin, love it.” Apparently, she never ate the stuff in Pomgolia – they used it to make scary heads for Halloween. “Now I love it. NZ pumpkin cooked any way.” So NZ has wonderful orange pumpkins and UK has black snot.

An English observer of the English wrote that English moaning doesn’t involve redress, or putting right the source of the moaning. English moaning only involves venting. You don’t do anything about it. You just enjoy the moan.

For example, an English woman goes on holiday to South Africa every year. And the moment she returns she complains: “Bloody South Africa” and “bloody South Africans”. The carping goes on til she boards the plane back to the republic the following year. No one asks why she goes back. They’re too busy complaining about something else.

Did you know a pumpkin is actually a fruit, not a vegetable? Because anything that starts out from a flower is, botanically, a fruit.