A Fistful of Factoids
The "Five Things" Meme
List five things which are basic common knowledge in your country, which foreigners are generally unfamiliar with. This is not about obscurity, but something everyday to you, that others go "buh?" at.
- The KEA, New Zealand's alpine parrot, is extremely omnivorous and will eat carrion if it can get it. Thus if you die in the Southern Alps, it will probably be necessary to identify your remains from dental records.
- The most popular sandwich spread in New Zealand is "Marmite", which tastes rather like black jelly-beans.
- New Zealand has more firearms per-capita than the US. Most of these are machine-guns and light artillery in the hands of collectors however.
- The Police in New Zealand don't routinely carry firearms (although these are issued in emergencies), relying instead on their government-issue knuckledusters and switchblades to maintain order ( see also).
- There are approximately 8 sheep per person in New Zealand. Disregarding children, the aged and infirm, this makes most Kiwis responsible for about a dozen - me and my flatmate have 2 dozen penned out the back.
In unrelated news, I discovered today that the stylesheet urls for the KEA Operational History were still pointing at localhost; so it looked fine to me, but rather unadorned to everyone else. D'oh! What a n00b mistake.