Niue

[dreamer_easy]

The rule: when you hear about a country and you don't know where it is, post three things about it in your blog.

I'm kind of intrigued that the Confederate Yankee blog is based in Niue, a teensy Polynesian island to Australia's south-east, which governs itself in "Free Association" with New Zealand.

1. Less than 2000 Niueans actually live on the island - about 22,000 live in NZ.
2. In 1774, the inhabitants successfully repelled Captain Cook's attempts to land. lol
3. Niue may be the first state in the world to go completely smoke free.

Coincidentally, I'm reading a bunch of stuff about Pacific islands at the moment (Oliver Sacks' The Island of the Colour Blind and an ABC book about Australian slavery, The Forgotten People), so my pitiful chances at the pink questions in Trivial Pursuit are improving by the minute.

Comments

[laputain.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the entire population of Niue was evacuated to Auckland in World War 2 and only a small minority wanted to go back. There's a meme based on the NZ comedy series Outrageous Fortune, where a character who's a known fence always claims that he doesn't know where his merchandise comes from because it was sold to him by "a drunken Niuean fella".

[murasaki-1966.livejournal.com]

Off-topic: but it concerns something you've been blogging about.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/over-camdens-dead-body/2008/09/24/1222217331341.html

Apparently, there's an Islamic cemetery proposed for Camden....

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

Yah, I saw. Bit of daft, basless panic, but I think they're stuck with this one.

[murasaki-1966.livejournal.com]

I hope so. Islamic people are very respectful of burial sites. It's a big thing in that culture. They'll leave the hertigae site alone and develop their area.

[alisoneales.livejournal.com]

I had never heard of Niue. Now I want to live there. Damn you!