TV review: Sheep and other vital NZ statistics

Te Radar goes on a quest to find out what the official statistics are telling us about ourselves as the Kiwi nation.

Last night was part one of the three-part Hidden in the Numbers (TV One, 8.30). This means there are two parts to go. This is the sort of number thing even really stupid people like me can understand.

Hidden in the Numbers is presented by Te Radar. It looks at New Zealand's statistics and aims to tell us what the statistics "have to say about us as a people". As opposed, at a guess, to what they might have to say about us as a sheep.

Let's get the sheep counting thing out of the way early. There are 40 million of them and no NZ doco which involves numbers is going to leave this vital piece of information off the list.

Other amazing figures we learned last night: the average New Zealander is 35 years of age. We have, on average, 13 teeth with fillings. We drive, on average, at 104km/h on the open road. Isn't that illegal?

Does that mean that the average New Zealander is a criminal? This was not explored, which was rather a shame.

Te Radar could have asked Te Postie. Instead Te Radar went on a road, on a bike, although not at 104km/h, pretending to be a postie. This was not mere whimsy, you understand. This was to demonstrate that New Zealanders move around a lot. We also send and receive a lot of mail. Do we? Yep. The equivalent of a stack of mail "as high as Mt Cook".

But, I found myself thinking, nobody writes letters anymore. So where does all that mail come from? It's too much, wherever it does come from. How many trees do we have left? Don't know. Time to move on. So many stats, so little time.

Why do we move around so much? To get away from all those letters the IRD insists on sending? Nope. We're restless. We hold the record for house moves per capita in the Western World. And there's not even a gold rush on anymore. This used to account for a bit of moving around.

Also, you could avoid letters from the IRD demanding you pay tax on your nuggets. Possibly. That's just my theory. It's not an official stat but it's quite fun to watch this and make up your own theories around the stats.

For example: Te Radar's bare legs made appearances in four different parts of Hidden in the Numbers. In appearance number one he was standing in a cattle trough in what appeared to be his underpants.

This was because he was determined to find New Zealand's centre of population.

Don't ask me what the significance of this is. I was too busy not looking at Te Radar's underpants. (They were red.)

To get to this centre he trudged up a hill in a paddock. "This is turning into an absolute shambles. In reality I probably could have stood in the middle of a paddock anywhere." In reality, he could have kept his trousers on, is what I thought.

But what do I know?

I now know that there are more than 800,000 New Zealanders overseas. That's more than 2000 jumbo jets full.

You learn something new every day. Which is, presumably, the point of Hidden in the Numbers.