I was feeling nostalgic today, and found a clip of the New Zealand national anthem – “God Defend New Zealand) on youtube.

You can watch it here if you don’t remember how it goes.

My co-worker pointed out to me how negative the title of the anthem is. New Zealanders just ask G-d to defend them. Whereas the Australians are singing “Advance Australia Fair” – they are charging ahead, NZers are just blocking the shots. (Of coures nobody would accuse the Ozzies of being ‘fair’ after the 1981 underarm bowling incident, but that is amother matter).

So I am going to start a petition to rename the New Zealand national anthem “God pre-emptively strike all our enemies (especially those with weapons of mass destruction) and strike them and smite them with bubonic plague and may they all stub their toes, before they even get close to thinking about coming anywhere near attacking New Zealand – and when the next rugby world cup comes along may New Zealand advance fair to the finals (where they should beat the Ozzies 107-3) and also may they do pretty well in the rowing, sailing, cricket and equestrian events”. I know it doesn’t scan quite as well, but it sums up the New Zealand spirit much more.

(as for those French, who have beaten us twice now – surely we can take them out, after all they are only children (enfants de la Patrie).

Israel’s anthem is “Hatikva” – “the hope”. Any suggestions for something better (this hoping doesn’t seem to be working all that well at the moment. Perhaps “The (Wing and a) Prayer” would be better?)