happy medium

Dad’s now been here for about two days, and he’s managed to see a fair amount of Auckland in that short time. After a snooze to get rid of some of that jet lag, I showed him around the CBD, including the Britomart, Queen’s Street, Waterfront, and Albert Park. We headed up the Skytower for a fantastic meal at the revolving restaurant. As you’d expect the views are totally breath-taking, and we managed to get the sunset followed by all the city’s lights turning on. Today we caught the first ferry over to Rangitoto which I climbed on my birthday back in July. After that, we headed up to the domain park, then down Parnell road to check out work and a Mövenpick. Absolutely exhausted now, but busy day tomorrow. Picking up the rental car and heading North to the Bay of Islands. Here’s a selection of snaps:

So, 21 days into ‘07 already, where does the time go? Sorry about the lack of posts so far, basically I’ve just been working and saving so not much to blog about. I’m on a delayed holiday in fact, worked over Christmas and NYE so I can take my 3 weeks off in February, and what a 3 weeks it’s going to be! Dad is coming out from Jan 30th, and we’re going to rent a car and tour the country. Over these 3 weeks we plan to go white water rafting, helicopter flying, jet boating, sea kayaking, glacier exploring, and even after a short flight, climb the Sydney Harbour bridge! We’ll travel north to the sub-tropical bay of islands, then back around the coromondal, then inland towards Rotorua, Taupo and the volcanoes before ending up in Wellington. Quick flight over to Picton and the golden sands of Malbourough Sounds and Nelson in the South Island, down the west coast, past Mount Cook and ending up in Queenstown the adventure capital. Cruise the lake of Milford Sound, then back on a plane to Sydney for 48 hours or so. This will be a trip of a lifetime!

Getting updates on to Happy every day may prove a bit difficult as I’m not going to be able to take the laptop (or probably have time to update!) So might be a case of one big update when I get back, or just text updates if I manage to get into an internet cafe. Rest assured I’ll be taking loads of photos (Dad’s bringing my brother’s identical camera, so no doubt will have fun with the both of them) I’m thinking about putting together a mini site on the trip when I return, as they’ll probably be too much info for happy to handle in one go.

Other than getting ready for pops, I’m working on two new broadcast pieces, will be up for you to check out by the end of the week.

HRT, nope not that HRT, but high rising terminal. This has been bugging me for some time. Spotted the trend of people ending sentences as if it’s a question? Where someones talking and they pitch up at the end of the sentence, making it sound like a question. Well, turns out this feature of speech has a name – high rising terminal – up-talk or up-speak. According to information stolen from wikipedia, it’s used as a tool to encourage the listener into the conversation, but shows the user has not yet finished and to avoid interruption.

The reason I’m mentioning this is that I’m noticing it more here in New Zealand, where it may have even originated. The theory is a lot of Kiwis will also end a sentence with an “eh”, like “went to the beach eh” Funnily enough, back home it’s referred to as ‘Australian Questioning Intonation’, and the finger is pointed at the ozzy soaps.

Regarding the New Zealand accent, the only major difference is that Kiwi’s vowel shift. So for example pair will sound like peer to an Englishman, pen like pin. It can sound a bit softer than that. However, took me ages to figure out a guy’s name was Ken, and not Keen…

Other than that, the most famous phrase is the use of “she” instead of “it” – “she’ll be alright” – “it’ll be alright”. You’ll hear “Choice” and “Sweet as” a fair amount too!

For Kiwi’s (or anyone to be honest!) a leicester accent is not a pretty one. For starters, Leicester, or anything ending in “er”, is pronounced with a dull “a”, so leicester becomes lessta, or lesstuh. “innit” is used at the end of every sentence, instead of the kiwi “eh”. Being stuck in the middle of the country, it’s a mixture of northern and southern pronunciations. Mixing of was and were can be particularly bad, but is less common now – for example “she were on the bus”

Other gem’s include (loads more here)

giz a goo – Can I have a go?
gorra gerra bus – I have to catch a bus
bit nippy enit – rather cold isn’t it?
i aint purrin up wiit – this will not do
ayah – ouch!
mardy – in a bad mood
bare – a lot of something e.g. I got bare cash
dunno – I don’t know
gaff – home
Keep yer airon – calm down
on yer bike – would you mind vacating my personal space
seen – ok
eyar – there you go

Happy New Year everyone!