Avid

I glanced at a website (nationmaster.com) that ranks countries by different categories and New Zealand came 'first in the world' in, amongst others, the following:

property crime, rape victims, teen suicide, cannabis use,

and came '2nd' in the following:

young adult suicide, all crime, number of McDonald's, immigrants, tax, mispronunciation of vowels.

(I made that last one up in order to lighten the mood a bit.......and I only included 'cannabis use' as a negative thing to upset the Daily Mail readers)

I spent most of yesterday walking up and down the beach...pondering how long it would take to swim to the South Island and trying to convince myself that taking photos of seals was a decent substitue for Blue Penguins. One of the seals gave me a very queer look.....

Am I living 'the dream' as in 'a total fantasy'? Has NZ (outside of Wellington CBD) gone totally feral? Or are these lists a load of nonsense?

Genesis

Indeed. I do not think anyone comes to NZ thinking it is a crime free, perfect society (if they do they have a very rude awakening!!).

NZ is rife with problems...soooooooooooo many it can be depressing. We can boast some awful stats here, worst this, most that etc etc...very sad some of the problems we have here.

Thing is you can escape the crowds (if you don't live in Auckland!!!!!). Empty beaches are always close by as is beautiful scenery. Whilst I appreciate you cannot eat the latter (or former) one hopes that ALL potential emigrees have done their homework and will work out what they earn/have in the bank, versus living costs...thus will not be caught in a poverty trap and will enjoy living a less stressful life away from the madding crowds of suburban UK.

One hopes also that (if you choose your location carefully) you can negate a large degree of the problems that NZ has..certainly I had daily problems in my last choice of location (part of Northampton) that drove me nuts, now they are a distant memory.

My choice of neighbourhood/town here in NZ affords me all the things (and more) that I yearned for in the UK..and never found in anyone of my many locations in the UK that I formerly called home.

So in answer to the posting's title...certainly not....inspite of all the country's problems.

happynz

#11 on the beer drinking league table behind the US at #8 and Aussie getting 89 litres down their collective necks giving them #7. The UK pipped the Aussies to take #6 at 97 litres per year per drinker. The top drinkers are the Irish who on average quaff 118 litres of beer per annum.

Now, are they drinking to celebrate or are they drinking away their sorrows? On a scale of 1 to 10 with ten be very satisfied with lifestyle and one being very dissatisfied with their lifestyle. New Zealand comes in at #11 again with a satisfication quotient of 7.4. Our trans-Tasman cuzzies come in at #14 and the Blighty denizens rank #16 at 7.2. The Irish are at #4 and the Swiss, Maltese and Danes all scored eight showing them to be self-satisfied smug buggers.

Kippers

And there was me thinking Eritrea had the worst rape statistics and suicide was higher in post Communist Russia.


Kip

Avid

I'm surprised that Australia didn't come first in all the lists seeing as they seem to think they are 'number one' at everything.

'Australia'....the new 'Texas'.

The Weezer

Depends on what your dreams and your fantasies are! Why don't you tell us.
So far, we know you have a fetish for penguins.
Did you come here thinking it was all Lord of the Rings scenery?
Do you live in Wellington hoping to catch of glimpse of Peter Jackson?

Kippers

No. I heard his wife has a job at the Japanese Embassy


Kip

Avid

Peter Jackson's parents are both English......

There's a lot of things to like about the man...but his films are RUBBISH, aren't they?

I live near one of the LOTR locations...think it was the scene in 'LOTR: The Twin Towers' were biffo gives bongo the stick of healing, or something....

Avid

Yes!! here's a photo of her at work...

Kippers

She's very pretty. Congratulations


Kip

The Weezer

I knew that, but didn't want to disappoint the converted NZ zealots.
I think they are, but his film about the 1950s Christchurch murder has precise period detail, according to his legion of fans.

This deserves my first :

kiwi_child

They drink less beer than they used to but drink more wine to make up for it!

Personally I don't place much validity in these polls or supposed reports. To easy to be biased, not truly cross-representational and lacking bone fide empirical evidence and proven methodologies. Therefore more chance of inaccuracy in the findings.

brussels_sprout

Crime/rape statistics are liable to be influenced by how much the public trusts the police . But the main worry in those statistics is the teen suicide rate, which cannot be disputed really, i haven't really lived here long enough to begin to undestand why it is so high. The adult suicide rate is much smaller, but the teen one is a bit of a shocker, yes (including one of my relatives)

kiwi_child

A couple of years ago Australia had the world's highest teen suicide rate. Some say globalisation, job insecurity, poor wages and conditions, faster paced life, lack of family time, materialism, superficial sociteties, poor youth employment levels etc lead to creating a sense of hopelessness and despair.

When the value of a person is measured by what they earn, own and can acquire then as a society we are in deep trouble.

tootsie

That's shocking, I'd have thought it would come first in the mispronunciation of vowels.

As for that swim? about 30 years or so.