Of rivers, gods and my beautiful lipstick

"But is it a boy or a girl?" I found myself asking when it was announced last week that New Zealand, that trailblazer of social reform, had declared that one of the country's longest rivers, the Whanganui, is a person.

"The approach of granting legal personality to a river is unique," the country's attorney-general, Chris Finlayson, said with considerable understatement.

I have always got a kick out of telling people that New Zealand was a pioneer, in 1893, in granting women the vote, and that the main claim to fame of its hulking neighbor Australia - which perpetually drags the chain on matters of gender equality - is that one of its prime ministers set a world record for drinking a certain amount of beer in 11 seconds.