They've just come back from London
Ethel and George
carrying two thousand slides
and gifts for us all,
sweets for the sweet
and mugs for the mugs.
God of nations, hear us please
They allowed three days in LA
en route
seventy-two hours
and know everything there is to know about it:
Nice place to visit,
but 1 wouldn't want to live there.
tell us where to sell our cheese,
so we can all go overseas
They took another two days in New York
and found it
full of, well, you know,
black people -
thousands of them
and the girl who cleaned our hotel room
was very interested in my pictures of the bach,
and talk about our wee land.
The thing that struck me, says George,
the thing that struck me
is how cold it was at Christmas
all that winter cold
and darkness starting at five pee em –
that really struck me.
Up below the Northern star
Can you imagine, says Ethel,
handing around a plate
of Anzac, biscuits,
that pub outside of Leeds we stopped at
looking for the cemetery
they said our accent was strange
we're not sure just who we are
but prop us up before a bar
Can you imagine? says Ethel
She's right, says George,
that really struck me, too,
every supermarket we looked in
kept all the New Zealand butter
at the very back of the case
behind the Irish.
That was really striking.
The government should do something about it.
and we'll defend New Zealand.
