· Ellie. Talk to any New Zealander in London. Ask them if they hate New Zealand for being dull. I think instead you will be treated to gushing stories about how good the surfing is, how our Marmite is better, how much we appreciate the things we miss and how good the nightlife is (you spent a weekend in Queenstown, and you STILL couldn't have a good night out? Are you dead? Or perhaps you'd prefer to be back in New York paying $35 just to get in the door of some club in Greenwich Village? That, after all, would be keepin' it real).

I think you are wrong in every way it is possible for a writer to be wrong about something. I am sure if I approached your average Londoner and peevishly asked what I could do for entertainment, I would not only receive a kind of stammering non-answer (which is obviously what you got in New Zealand), I would also expect to be glared at, stared at, ignored, or be stabbed for my mobile phone. Your "insights" into New Zealand are lame, glib, clichéd, and uninformative.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have some sheep to shear, weather to talk about, emotions to avoid, fun to ignore, and beautiful landscapes to at stare glumly.

Haere Ra,
Ben Lang

· Poor Ellie... being 23-years-old and full of wisdom like that must be tough.

Obviously she must have travelled throughout New Zealand for months and months to see what it had to offer to be able to write such an article...

It may be small and boring, with a government that could well be running the country into the ground in a few years - but at 23 (the same age as me), Ellie, I doubt you even touched the sides of what New Zealand has to offer. Even I haven't yet!

Maybe you should bring a friend next time - how about Elijah Wood, Liv Tyler or maybe even Anthony Kedis from Red Hot Chilli Peppers - they seem to like it enough to buy land here and re-visit; they even might know of something "cool" for you to do like sit in a pub and drink beer... that's what you London girls do, isn't it?

Written by a Kiwi - born in the most boring place on earth.

Charlene Yandall

And in brief...

· "NZ lacks personality? You wouldn't know "personality" if it bit you on the arse, I'm afraid. All I can say is that it's high-and-mighty, jealous attitudes like yours which lost Britain its Empire!"

· "For sure, New Zealand is a very small country, but for such a small and dull country we still manage to beat you in the recent cricket test and we often beat you by large and memorable scores in the rugby. Sure, our native bird may be flightless but you are wrong about the kiwifruit. See - we New Zealanders are interesting people."

· "It's a pity that you felt so bored in "Godzone". We certainly must be dull: we have no terrorists attacking us, no children being attacked by mobs and killed in front of housing estates and we enjoy a pretty fair amount of racial harmony for a country with such a diverse ethnic population. We also do not have to step over young men with dogs selling the Big Issue on the streets because they don't have a home to go to, most of us don't have to commute for ages just to get to work, and we don't get frozen in our moderate winters. We may indeed be dull for loving a lifestyle that can be found nowhere else on earth. If so, good on us!"

And finally: one New Zealander still loves her...

"Just a quick note to say I'm a kiwi and I ain't offended by your remarks on NZ. I thought your article was quite funny really, and probably to a degree quite true."