Savaged Ring bearers bite back

The Lord of the Rings has become the latest transtasman punching bag

After the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper ran a knocking piece in its Heckler column by an Australian who admitted he had written it after three bottles of red wine, it was hit by a record 300 e-mails in protest.

Yesterday, a New Zealander was given right of reply in the wake of the bagging of Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings film trilogy.

The piece, written by "a cross Kiwi", Bradley Reeve, wondered whether Australia's history as a penal colony explained "the distrustful and uncouth attitude of Sydney's shops" towards customers, including hanging out signs saying: "We can and will search your bags."

"Is Australia a Nation of Thieves? I doubt it, so why are they treated as such?"

The Heckler column is open to anyone wanting to have a go at anything that made the blood boil.

Two days ago, Australian reader Martin Graham lampooned New Zealanders' celebration of Jackson's first instalment of the Rings trilogy.

He said the movie was not that great. Looking like serfs was not hard for New Zealanders and it was not as if a New Zealander had split the atom.

The Sydney Morning Herald said the surge of e-mails responding to Mr Graham's comments was a record for the column, which has been running for 18 months.

Letter writers have also vented their anger about Aussie upstarts to the New Zealand Herald, which ran the column on Thursday.

The column even moved Government minister Pete Hodgson, the so-called Minister for Lord of the Rings, to write to the Sydney paper for a retaliatory poke in the Australian eye - with cricket in mind.

"Some local troglodyte ... painted on a central Sydney overhead bridge 'New Zealand Sux'," he wrote. "A second artist replied a week later by painting underneath 'Australia Nil'."

Mr Graham, who described himself as a cardigan-wearing public servant, admitted that he had not seen the film or been to New Zealand and had written the piece after drinking three bottles of red wine.

"It was like shooting fish in a barrel," he said, adding that he was surprised by the amount of reaction.

"I didn't know so many New Zealanders could read."

The Sydney paper has printed several replies from Sydney-based New Zealanders in its letters-to-the-editor page over the past two days.

Craig Cooper said he could understand Mr Graham's confusion over the success of the Rings movie. It had none of the elements essential to an Australian film: Bright costumes, ballroom dancing, rehashed 70s and 80s pop, or Geoffrey Rush.

"It does have one of the mainstays of Australian artistic success, however - Kiwi talent."

The New Zealand Herald's letter pages included messages from writers like J.A. Eagles, of Devonport, who pointed out: "Australia played a part in the film's success too. It was where they filmed scenes involving the sick wastelands of the land of Mordor."

And they are losing at cricket.

- NZPA, staff reporter

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