Tag: New Zealand

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Is It A Bird? Is It A Bug?

New Zealand has a history of strange elections. That time the Prime Minister called a snap election while pickled to the gills, for example. The time when two parties who respectively got the support of about 1/15 and 1/21 of the enrolled voters got into government.

And yet, despite this history of oddity, I was nonetheless Yours Truly Baffled last night when I read in the news that seventh place in Bug of the Year went to Powelliphanta superba.

Which is a snail.

A large dark snail shell lying among small plants.
P. superba staying in and having an identity crisis.

This is even wackier than a bat being voted Bird of the Year. Birds have wings, bats have wings. Bugs are the Things With Many Legs, snails are…(checks notes) legless. So legless, in fact, that they’re gastropods, i.e. the Things Which March On Their Stomachs.

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I Object!

I object (as previously stated), to the New Zealand government’s refusal to allow families separated by the border to reunite. They have chosen instead to allocate Managed Isolation places to sports teams, film people, yachties, and the Wiggles.

Not that I have anything against cricketers and the Wiggles, but it seems to me that “children have not seen parent in person in over a year” is a much more serious issue to address than “children have not seen Wiggles in person in over a year”.

Mom and Child at Airport

So this Tuesday, the 6th of April, I will be trundling off to Parliament to make my objections plain by joining the Reunite Families NZ Peaceful Protest. If you’re in the Wellington region and you agree that the government seriously needs to sort out their priorities, meet at the corner of Bowen St and the Terrace at midday.

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Of Hamsters, Lavender, and Immigration

I freely confess that I had not realized how much the general “What Even Is This” of the last year had affected me until I came to start actually writing this new novel. It turns out that I now have the attention span of a hamster who has slurped down three large mochaccinos. A rather stressed and easily overheated hamster, moreover, with a long to do list.

hamster looking nervous

However.

I have been trying to get into the garden lately as a way of reducing stress, and it has been teaching me some lessons. (#1: There are Always More Weeds.)

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