Peter,

First of all he is not my friend! My friends are all of, at least
normal intelligence on which point the bloke we are referring to
hardly qualifies, to say nothing of the requirement to be a gentleman.

But in regards to your paean regarding Kiwi accomplishments please
note that these were all the work of expatriate New Zealanders .... in
other words chaps that got tired of sheep and traveled abroad hoping
to find that there was something else.



Bruce-in-Bangkok
(correct Address is bpaige125atgmaildotcom)

Bruce,
I do unreservedly apologise.

I just wondered why he attacked you so much. Now I realise that it is
mere envy on his part.

By the way, Bruce Farr designed winning America's Cup boat for New
Zealand whilst still in New Zealand and the self sealing paint tin was
invented in the 1880's or 90's by a resident postal clerk. The jet
boat was invented by Hamilton, a New Zealand high country farmer after
the war who needed a shallow draft boat to reach his property and
ailerons were invented in New Zealand.

Only Earnest Rutherford and Colonel Pickering of NASA did their thing
away from home.

With all of this we stuff it up sometimes.

The kiwifruit was originally a small berry brought back from China
(used to be called Chinese Gooseberry before the marketers renamed it)
and was cultivated to breed the large fruit of today. In the 70's it
was a gold mine as we were the only place in the world to grow and
export it. Then some moron sold the plants themselves to Chile and
received an export incentive award from the Government. Idiots! Chile
can grow it cheaper in the same season as ours and this resulted in
prices tumbling. Selling them to Italy and California is not as bad as
it is a different season.

We did the same with Brown and Rainbow trout. We are one of the few
countries with no Whirling Disease. We sent fry and eggs to Chile and
to Tasmania and now they compete with us in the world's markets. Dumb.
We even sent eggs and fry of a sub-species of Rainbow trout that had
died out in the USA (where we got them from in the 1880's) back to the
USA. It is from a Lake Gerhard in Oregon I think. The ones we sent
back were bigger than the original and were superb angling (fighting)
fish due to selective breeding in cooperation with local anglers. I
was working as a fisheries biologist for our Wildlife Service at the
time. I spent my time analysing the contents of 600 trout guts and in
writing data collection programmes.

For a country with the population of Singapore Island, we have not
done badly.

cheers
Peter