There goes the neighbourhood!

With immigration a topical issue, some New Zealanders may be interested in an article in a recent Omni (January 1990) which looks at apocalyptic prophecies. In it Mark Harwell of Cornell University's Global Environment Program offers cheer to those fearful of nuclear winter: "Move to New Zealand. It's way the hell south and has 30 sheep per capita. You can survive on lamb chops until the smoke clears out of the stratosphere."

Another academic rather more seriously sees moving to this country as the answer for large numbers of socially distressed. Dr Frank Johnson, a university lecturer, has written a book The Janos People about the abduction of an English family by some extra-terrestrials from Janos (wherever that is). In her recent book Abduction Jenny Randles comments that Johnson, "did not help himself by proposing that the inhabitants of New Zealand move off one island and turn the other over to these kindly aliens who, even now, must be getting very frustrated after a decade of being inter-stellar refugees!"