Why living in New Zealand is probably better than where you live

There are lots of reasons - but here are a few. Please bear with the zeal of recently emigrated - after a while we'll probably settle down and start finding things to be annoyed about like proper folk.

• 1.

  Fork-lift trucks are regularly advertised on prime-time television. And not only that, but said advert has a catchy jingle: "There ain't nothing like a Crown, for picking it up and putting it down." Admittedly those are the only lyrics, but it is sung in a barbershop stylee, complete with comically deep bass voice for the final d-o-wwwwww-nnn.

• 2.

  Being a relatively low-population country, some economies of scale don't make sense. This means that it's rare to have telephone answering outsourced to an overseas call-centre, and quite often you speak to people on the 'phone who you may have met in person in the bank or wherever. It would, sadly, be remiss of me not to point out that some telemarketing calls are being handled overseas, so we aren't completely devoid of the long-pause-and-click of the autodialler picking up...

• 3.

  Coffee is almost universally good - the only place I've come across where I couldn't get an espresso was on board the Fullers Waiheke ferry - and even Fullers have recently introduced proper coffee. As a side-benefit, different styles of coffee here have amusing names like "flat white" and "long black". Bill Bryson was so tickled by this phenomenon in Australia that he wrote a little spiel about it.