New Zealand PM John Key on Letterman

[Sonic 296]

The Prime Minister of New Zealand, John Key was recently on David Letterman's show in the USA. He did the traditional Top 10 list - Reasons to visit New Zealand....

 

 

And apparently John Key's appearance was rather popular.

 

John Key's Letterman appearance 'coup'

By TRACY WATKINS in New York - The Dominion Post

 

John Key's accent might have sounded funny to New Yorkers, but his appearance on Late Show with David Letterman is being credited as a coup by observers in the United States.

 

LA Times politics blog Top of the Ticket noted Mr Key's appearance and suggested tongue-in-cheek that Barack Obama and former president Bill Clinton were just warmup acts when they appeared on the show earlier this week.

 

"Key's clever staff did a deal with the Letterman staff to provide his famous face doing the Letterman Top Ten List in return for slipping in some nice words promoting New Zealand's beauty and tourism," the Times said.

 

"Classic late-night. Letterman gets some publicity and so does the good-natured Key, who can argue credibly back home that it was to promote tourism.

 

"Key does talk funny, to those New Yorkers' ears. However, the writers came up with some good lines."

 

Mr Key agreed that there were some good lines in his top 10 list of reasons to visit New Zealand, but admitted they probably played better to an American audience.

 

The references to Cinnabon and slot machines would have gone over Kiwi heads, but the exposure it gave New Zealand was "huge", Mr Key said. "If you put aside the comedy, it's got an audience of three or four million people."

 

Mr Key might have looked nervous when he walked out on to the stage but at least he didn't fluff his lines, unlike host David Letterman, who referred to New Zealand as New England at one point.

 

But Letterman was glowing about New Zealand, referring to it as a "wonderland" and rating it as "my favourite country in the world to which I have not been".

 

"You hear a lot about Australia, you hear less about New Zealand. My impression of Australia is I'd go down there specially speaking for myself and I would get hurt or beat up. I feel like if I go to New Zealand maybe there is a sensibility more akin to mine."

 

But he claimed that a dislike of flying stopped him visiting, referring to the length of time it took to get there though exaggerating by about five days which he said worked to New Zealand's advantage because it kept the "dopes" out.

 

"Literally it's a six-day flight to get to this country ... you just can't get there and I'm surprised this guy is here as a matter of fact. He left in the 50s. But I love everything about this country; I love the people, I love the mountains, I love the scenic streams, I love the greenness of it, I love the sheep, I love the fishing, I love everything."

 

Mr Key took wife Bronagh and children Max and Stephie to watch him on the show and also had them at his side on a tour of his old stomping ground, Wall Street, where he rang the bell on the closing of the stock exchange.

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It was a first for Mr Key even after his years as a money trader in New York. He had never visited the stock exchange floor before.

 

And as a profile-raising exercise, it put Letterman in the shade the moment when the bell rings on the close of trading is watched by an estimated 120 million people.

 

But it may have left him hankering for his old life. Asked if returning had started him off thinking about another change, he answered: "Not in the short term."

 

KEY'S TOP 10 LIST

 

Reasons to visit New Zealand

 

1. Unlike most of the world, we still like Americans.

 

2. We drive on the left side of the road, like the British and Lindsay Lohan.

 

3. Seventy per cent of our energy is generated through renewable hydropower look, these don't all have to be jokes.

 

4. Visit in the next 30 days, I'll pick you up at the airport.

 

5. Get the whanau together, stay in a bach, crack open the chilly bin and slap on your jandals.

 

6. Down there Leno's on at 9o'clock.

 

7. It's like England without the attitude.

 

8. Only a convenient 20-hour flight away.

 

9. We have the loosest slot machines in the Pacific Rim.

 

10. The Auckland Airport now has a Cinnabon (a chain store specialising in sweet Danish pastries).

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/2...appearance-coup

[Luk3us 63]

Yeah, I think he did a good promo job for NZ. Its tongue and cheek. Of course some people don't get what it was about, and go all stupid... Like TV3 news, those guys can be such total idiots at times.

 

A shame he only got to do the top 10. Funny how they had Obama and Clinton on the tow previous days, for about an hour and 30 minutes, respectively. Then Key gets his 5 minutes to shine.

[Malevolence 6]

I want to go to New Zealand!