By Adam Bisby, the greatest globe-trotting, child-wrangling, season-pushing and hyphen-abusing freelance journalist in Toronto's M6R postal code.
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KIWI KRONICLES: THE BALLAD OF ANGELA BISBY

1/14/2018

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Sung with plenty o' twang to the tune of "The Ballad of Jed Clampett," the theme song for The Beverly Hillbillies TV show (1963-71) and 1993 film (I still want my Blockbuster Video rental fee back).

Come and listen to my story 'bout my wife named Ang,
A poor buccaneer, greatest momma in the land,
A few weeks ago we were driving 'round NZ*,
With Ang and her phone in the shotgun seat.

Spoken: An iPhone 6 that is. Black and gold, it was free (when she signed a two-year contract with a company that is partly owned by...Satan?!?).

*Sorry, that's "zee," British (and many Canadian) friends.

*****

Related anecdote: As we were driving into Christchurch (on the left-hand side of the road), I failed to signal an abrupt lane change after inadvertently activating my windshield wipers for the 314th time.

The driver behind me had just honked his horn -- fair enough -- when a sketchy-looking woman stepped off the sidewalk in front of us and darted into our lane. She gestured at me to roll down my window, which at home in Toronto I would never do. This being New Zealand, however, I figured she wanted to offer some helpful tips on the proper use of windshield wipers.

Instead, she jabbed her index finger at me and barked: “Why did you toot at me?!?”

“I didn’t, er, toot at you,” I replied, taken aback. Behind me, my daughters giggled at the use of “toot.”

“You’re an American liar!” the woman declared loudly.

I wish I had corrected her on both counts, but all I could muster was a swift denial. “It wasn’t me, it was the guy behind me!”

“Frucking...framerican...friars,” she mumbled, and spun on her heel to face the poor tooter.

Now, back to your regularly scheduled earworm.

*****

Well the first thing you know Ang is snapping from her seat
The kinfolk said, "iCloud storage isn't free..."
Angela replied, "Keep it zipped and watch the road,
“We just hit the Instagram motherlode...”
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KIWI KOUNTDOWN PART 2: INSTAGRAM-FUELLED EXCITEMENT BUILDS

12/6/2017

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Full disclosure: I'm trying to like Instagram. I have an account I use now and then, but as a travel writer I can't help but feel it undermines my chosen field. A click is a click is a click, I suppose, but when you get paid by the word the power of digital photography becomes highly disconcerting. Then again, 375 million active users can't be wrong, and many of the posts I come across are pretty damn cool. That must be why Instagram is making me feel so optimistic about my family's upcoming trip to New Zealand.  

With exactly one week till take off, I just stumbled upon New Zealand Tourism's "Top 10 Instagram spots in 2017." ​

Which ones are already on OUR itinerary?

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1. Milford Sound? If it's good enough for Rudyard Kipling, it's good enough for us...
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2. The Hobbiton Movie Set? By the Staff of Gandalf, the Bisbys will be there!
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3. Lake Tekapo? Does a kiwi bird flit in the woods?
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4. Mount Maunganui? I've never been able to resist an extinct volcanic cone.
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5. Aoraki/Mount Cook? I'm looking forward to admiring the mountain named after the man Captain Kirk was named after.
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6. Lake Wanaka? Yes, but I'LL bring an ENTIRE watermelon.
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7. Tongariro Alpine Crossing? Trek 19kms over an active stratovolcano with two young kids? Yes, as long as my taser is fully charged.
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8. Takapuna Beach? If it's good enough for Shania Twain, it's good enough for us.
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9. Lake Wakatipu? Legend has it the lake was formed when a giant sleeping ogre was burned. Or was he tasered? Either way, this could lay the groundwork for Tongariro Alpine Crossing.
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10. Lake Pukaki? That's 10 out of 10, friendos! Now you can follow ME on Instagram to see what all these spots look like when partly obscured by an enormous blurry finger...
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THIS JUST IN: COPYCAT INSTAGRAM SELFIES CAN BE DECEIVING

11/24/2016

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When I first read about a globetrotting blogger's photos being meticulously copied by another woman, my first thought was: "That's really creepy."

As a fellow creator of original content, I sympathized with poor Lauren Bullen. In a “Gypsea Lust” blog post that proceeded to go viral, the 23-year-old Aussie expressed dismay and concern over the efforts of a fellow Instagrammer, @Diana_Alexa, to mimic her stylized selfies. "When a girl travels across the world recreating your exact imagery over and over again you begin to worry," Ms. Bullen wrote in the post that made headlines worldwide.

The brunette copycat appeared to be following Bullen and boyfriend Jack Morris to scenic locations in Greece, Morocco, Italy and Spain. (Shots of the women atop Montserrat's stunning Escala de l’Enteniment sculpture led to my quirky little story in the Globe and Mail.) The copycat was posed identically in similar attire (or lack thereof), and even seemed to have enlisted an unidentified male companion to stand in for Morris. Staging the copycat photos “would have taken a lot of time and work,” Bullen went on, adding that even the jewellery aped her own. “Not to mention the cost of all this -- those outfits and accommodations don’t come at a cheap price.”

So true. So disturbing! So...full of holes:

  • Why would anyone go to such trouble and expense to copy someone else's photos? Psychopaths don't need sensible reasons, I suppose, but this isn't John Lennon and Mark David Chapman. 
  • Bullen isn't specific about the locations of her shots, and they aren't tagged in the images. So how would @Diana_Alexa have been able to find the exact same spots? It's not like Bullen is posed next to a guard at Buckingham Palace...

I'm no Clarice Starling, but maybe, just maybe, the two were travelling together. (Insert sarcastic fanfare.) That would have made it a lot easier to share the aforementioned duds and bling, and would explain the identical locations. 

But wait, there's more: According to various reports, the copycat's Twitter account has been linked to Bullen's, with the latter's personal email address appearing as the contact. Bullen has also deleted her initial post about the incident, and @Diana_Alexa has disappeared from cyberspace. Curiouser and curiouser!

Bullen has denied staging a hoax. "
I worked so hard for years to get where I am, why would I risk loosing it all for an attempt to gain some extra followers?" she told PetaPixel.com. "That would be stupid."

Sounds like a non-denial denial to me. 

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