Wild weather greets baby Prince George in New Zealand

My advice is to never take a baby on an airplane. Its about the worst place to develop otitis media aka ear infection aka inflammation of the middle ear. You may not find out until its too late as the baby cannot talk. And the damage will be long lasting, serious and you will be on a constant schedule taking your child to the doctor afterwards with your child enduring a lot of pain over the years with recurrent ear problems.

Prince George probably has a personal doctor constantly checking things like this to ensure it does not happen. You don't.

NZ should drop the monarchy, who needs them they do nothing for NZ at all, and that cheeky prince goes down to NZ and cheers on the English when the two teams play rugby, booo to the poms and their royals, cant wait til NZ has a decent flag too without the reference to englund on it.

@Storm I agree NZ should dump the monarchy. So should the UK for that matter. However, I'm not sure why the royals supporting the English rugby team in NZ should bother you. They are English after all. They also happen to be in the minority of English people who actually give a toss about Rugby Union which is basically a jolly private school wheeze in England. I hope you don't see them as representative of UK people.

Taxpayer wise NZ like other Commonwealth realms is getting a good deal having a Head of State that pays for itself. I wonder how many Commonwealth republic presidents actually make money for the country by attracting tourists to their residence. When was the last time Singaporean President's house was listed as sightseeing destination on the Lonely Planet?

Massive news in NZ, first thing on the news, headlines in all of the papers... regular updates.

It seems that StormR is in the minority

What a crock! The media hype is so very contrived with veteran anchors and newscasters clogging my screens with the most inane comments that the suits are forcing on them as the main viewer market is for housewives and other women, as it is for women's magazines. With NZ's population increasingly non-British in origin and, in Auckland where I now type this, 49% Asian by last year's census, most people do not give a damn.

In Princess Anne's last visit, there were so few people turning out to see her she complained. But then, she does not have a new baby and is not part of the current show which is a such a feature of the women's magazines and similar shows. Wiilies wife, like Diana before her, is a shrewd manipulator of the media, but sometimes that puppy turns around and bites the hand that is feeding it. Think back to the Charles and Diana, Fergie and other royal family fiascos and the Queen's famous quote from one of her Speeches from the Throne commentng that that year, I forget which, had been an "annus horribilus" - a terrible year, mainly because of the shennanigans of her offspring and their spouses.

Funny, you must be watching different news in Auckland to me. And listening to different radio stations as well.

It's also been reported that there have been twice as many hits on UK travel websites looking at NZ as a holiday destination, despite the pictures showing a typical Wellington day.

I suppose it will be interesting to see how many people turn up to watch them, I'm guessing you won't be one of them going to the viaduct on Friday? Though I'm not entirely sure why they're getting on the chokers boat.

The 49% comment is also wrong. According to Stats NZ (you know, the official statistics site) that 1/3 of Auckland's population will claim to be Asian by 2021. Somewhat lower than 49%