Notes from New Zealand

Last week I flew to New Zealand via Hong Kong and am on tour till mid May at the New Zealand International Comedy Festival. Packing suitcases has become my speciality.

The women’s magazines tell you how to take a ‘capsule wardrobe’ where a few items can make seventeen outfits! A shirt can be tied around the waist to resemble a skirt, a scarf can be worn many different ways and nothing beats a little black dress.

All of that is great advice if you are a size 0 and never sweat.

I am a curvy size 16 and, believe me, there are no shirts invented that can wrap around my big bum and would make me look anything other than post-hostage/ pre-mental patient.

The best thing to do is to take everything you own and roll it up tight.

If in doubt, dump everything when you get there and buy new stuff in your destination country. Especially when the pound is so strong against the NZ dollar!


Wellington city is just beautiful; the people are extremely laid back and very polite, if not slightly eccentric.

They have a local homeless bloke called ‘Blanket Man’ who sits around the streets naked but for a woolly cover. He has huge thick dreadlocks, likes a beer and sings a lot.

I chatted to him when I was there and asked him if he minded that people called him ‘Blanket Man’ and he said, “Yes I do because, technically, I should be ‘Naked Man’ and yet the blanket gets all the attention.”

He wrapped his cover tight around him and showed me some of the city’s sights.

Blanket man told me that the parliament building is called The Bee Hive.

When I first heard this information in his Kiwi accent, it sounded like he said to me: “Our Government gets together ‘n’ behave.”

I arrived in Auckland yesterday afternoon to continue my comedy tour. I will miss The Bee Hive and Blanket Man.


Last night I was staying in a very nice hotel for one night on Waiheke Island.

The place was awesome but very quiet. It was literally in the middle of nowhere.

I lay in my room getting ready for a radio show and all I could hear was…nothing.
Honestly, I could not hear a single noise and I have never had that level of silence in my life. The quietness was frightening.

Then I heard a buzzing sound in my ears. I thought it might be tinnitus. I was unaware that I suffered from the dreadful condition.

I made an appointment with a doctor when I arrived in Auckland today, but when I hit the city, the noise disappeared.

I don’t have tinnitus. I realised that I have just never had peace and quiet in my life and, when faced with it, I mistook it for an illness!