New Year's news

Charlie, Nathan and George are out. Lucas, Hunter and Lachlan are in. But Jack is still alright — keeping his position as number one among the top thirty names given to New Zealand’s boy babies in 2007.

This is an election year, but in the summer holiday period there is little sign of it, except perhaps for some wrangling over who should or should not have been in the New Year’s Honours List. Instead, domestic news has been dominated by what is happening at the beaches, resorts and holiday camps, and by totting up what happened last year.

Among the boy babies, Jack is followed by a couple of other Js: James and Joshua, while Ella, Sophie and Olivia head the girls’ list, in that order. Helen doesn’t figure, so the PM (Helen Clark) clearly hasn’t served as inspiration for parents with ambitions for their new-born baby girls. But where are the Maori, Polynesian and Asian names? Substantial communities they may be, but their names are not in sight.

As for the beaches, which abound along the country’s coasts, not all the stories are of happy holiday-makers splashing in the sea. There have been some shark sightings, although the danger is not considered so great. More serious was the accident on New Year’s Eve when a 15-year-old boy, racing his motor bike on a beach without lights in the dark, ploughed into two young girls, killing one and seriously injuring the other.

In the eyes of New Zealand law, beaches are no different to roads! Unless there is an official local sign to the contrary, motorised vehicles can not only be driven on them, but are subject only to the open road speed limit of 100 kph! There have been other fatalities and serious incidents and now there is talk of introducing ‘restrictions’.

This is a country where 15-year-olds can be licensed to drive. Two or three years ago I met a man in the lower North Island who had learnt to fly a Tiger Moth at the age of 12. He was brought up on a large farm and flying on your own property was not covered by the regulations, which anyway seemed to be extremely lax. He later became a helicopter pilot, hunting deer in dangerous country, flying low in deep ravines. He called it ‘the wild west’. Farmers could fire shotguns at them and shatter the windscreen. They would shoot deer from the ‘chopper’, then lower a winch-man, who would gut the carcasses before getting them winched up. Neil said they lost two pilots and I think four other men during his time in this precarious occupation before he came a cropper himself. He survived, but years afterwards was still in pain.

But back to the New Year. It is a time when many Kiwis evidently resolve to find romance for there is a sudden surge in on-line dating, with the typical person looking for a partner in cyberspace said to be 39 years-old and with some higher education.

An older romance that resulted in marriage twelve years ago was between a New Zealand woman and a retired English dentist. Having lived in England since their wedding, they are now on their way here by sea to start a new life. What is remarkable about that? Only that he is 102, his wife a mere 87. About to become the country’s oldest ever immigrant he says, “When I’m 105, I don’t want to be thinking: I wish I had moved to the other side of the world when I was 102.”

All those who think they are past it at forty or fifty, or even sixty or seventy, please note.