Beating the Sheep
New Zealand’s legendary 20:1 sheep to human ratio is in decline, expected to fall to 10:1 by 2005.
News of New Zealanders via Global Media
Trailer Lords
“There’s an advert currently going out on Virgin radio encouraging listeners to go to the cinema this Friday. It does urge you go to a film but only because this is the first opportunity…
First Baggins off the rack
“The most ambitious undertaking in the film world recently has been Peter Jackson’s filming of the Lord of the Rings trilogy in New Zealand. If the results are as epic as the production, the first…
Janet and John Revamped
Janet and John, the New Zealand-authored, internationally successful learn-to-read books of the fifties and sixties are making a come-back in ethnically-inclusive, non-sexist but still easy-to-read versions.
Deva Diva
New Zealand-born Cherry Bishop’s signature fashion boutique is a headline act in New York’s East Village, a place with a history of “anarchy, counter-culture and edginess”.
Running Tragedy
New Zealand’s world record runner and Olympic gold medallist John Walker’s Parkinson’s highlights the increasing incidence of the disease.
Youth Voice
Wellington’s youth council is part of the international phenomenon of youth engagement, pushing youngsters into leadershipand decision making roles.
Get out of the Water…
8 people, 21 of them in serious trouble, were rescued or ordered out of the water on a single day after unusual currents hit the Bay of Plenty.
Maximum Coverage
Prodigy frontman Maxim sports New Zealand-made jewelry – two Ms, also the cover art on his new album Hell’s Kitchen.
More Cate
“I’m so excited to be doing all three movies,” says Blanchett. “It’s thrilling. I wanted this project so badly. We’re talking Peter Jackson. And Tolkien – my God! That man, Tolkien, created a whole…
Scary candy
“Watch out for the scary-sounding Mega Perky Nana from New Zealand,” now starring at Cybercandy, along with co-Kiwi sweet, the Pinky bar.
Baby Step
Researchers at Auckland University have uncovered a gene that may be linked to premature menopause, a condition that prevents up to 1% of women from bearing children.
Blue Star Buyout
International book-giant W H Smith is in negotiations to buy Whitcoull’s, New Zealand’s largest book-sellers.
Kingsley Link
Phil Kingsley-Jones manages Jonah – his son, Kingsley Jones, has been likened to All Black Josh Kronfeld.
Change your life
Get prepared for Rings-mania: Brush up on your Tolkien makes number 16 on the list of 99 ways to change your life.
Splitting the Difference
Grant Dalton’s playing canny in the Race, “splitting the difference between east and west,” lying comfortably in second place.
Holiday high
New Zealander Russell Brice plans to build the world’s highest hotel – at base camp on Everest’s Tibetan flank. The hotel aims to be “a flagship of green construction techniques,” using solar power and…
Blinding Brilliance
New Zealand sociologist James Flynn is unconvinced that increasing IQ results (‘the Flynn effect’), actually means we’re getting smarter: “If people were really getting as smart as the test scores suggest, we should be…
Dolly Good
Ron James, managing director of PPL and the closest thing Dolly has to a father, got his start at New Zealand-spawned pharmo-giant Glaxo. Now PPL is using New Zealand cows in research aiming to produce drugs to…
Rings v Potter
“If the budget on Lord of the Rings is sky-high, so are expectations surrounding the films. Fans of Tolkien’s 1,000-page trilogy about hobbits and elves in the fantasy land called Middle Earth are truly…
Law-man
The New Zealand state schooling system set Jolyon Maugham on the path to barrister-hood in London – a profession he describes as “a great intellectual challenge”.
Burn Out
Earth hits the nadir of its orbit in summer – the mere 147 million kilometres between us and the sun mean New Zealanders face “extreme” ultra-violet levels.
Bank on Campbell
Michael Campbell, in “irresistible” form, caps a brilliant year by claming the title of New Zealand’s best-paid sportsman from Steve Williams, caddy for Tiger Woods.
Major Milk Player
New Zealand’s newly-minted Global Dairy Company has the size to “become a serious challenger to the likes of Nestle, Danone and Kraft” in world diary markets.
Robber Robbie
That’s “my intellectual property on his shoulder,” says leading haka specialist Pita Sharples, referring to the tattoo sported by Brit singer Robbie Williams.
Ocoloco in the Wairarapa
Wairarapa company Siliconblue has scooped venture funding for its Ocoloco software, designed to replace physical Web servers with a combination of software and service.
Hunter Becomes Hunted
Diving for crayfish off the Coromandel, British diver Peter Fuller was hooked by a passing fisherman: “the idiot was rigged for marlin but caught me,” said Fuller, still nursing the hand he was hooked through.
Shear Mind-power
New Zealander Rodney Sutton holds three major shearing records. He credits his success to understanding “what nervous lambs do under pressure”.
Anzacs?
New Zealand voice in Sydney Bernard Lagan dissects the question of Federation with Australia: “It is unlikely that what modern New Zealanders most define themselves as – a nation of Pacific peoples – could have come…
Spin the disc
Radio Pacific DJ Des Coppins hit the airwaves nude after losing his shirt, and his trousers, in an unwise bet.
Going Vertical
Kiwi filmed/helmed Vertical Limit gave star Chris O’Donnell a few moments of terror: “my next thought was, somebody better show me a copy of my paycheck again, so I can remember why I’m doing this…
Precision Boat
Details of the construction Louis Vuitton challenger Young America, designed by Aucklander Bruce Farr.
Demon Cricket
New Zealand giant wetas – also known as “demon crickets” – are among the most exotic animals at London Zoo.
Born Free
New Zealand organisation has succeeded in liberating Sonny the chimp, a former performer with Ridgeways Circus. He has been reunited with his brother Buddy in Zambia.
Facelift, Mate?
Face peels and face-lifts are hot in rural New Zealand – sun-burned, nuggetty farmers are twice as likely as city-dwellers to put themselves under the plastic surgeon’s knife.
Flying Doctor
Mama Daktari spent her life working for the African Medical Research Foundation, co-founded by Kiwi Sir Archibald McKindoe.
Deadly Thorn
A thorn in your side could prove fatal according to doctors at Auckland’s Middlemore Hospital. The bug streptococcus pyogenes, present in soil, can enter the bloodstream through small wounds.
Moving Opera
Diva Kiri Te Kanawa’s welcome to the millennium was “the first, and one of the relatively few, moving moments among a hailstorm of images bearing down from around the globe during marathon New Year’s…
Masai Milk
Milk from Asian and African cows is free of the heart disease-linked beta casein protein found in other milk, according to Professor Bob Elliott of the University of Auckland. The healthy hearts of the milk-drinking Masai switched Elliot…
First Wedding
Julie and Sean Humphrey “found out how beautiful New Zealand was and just decided to do something a little different” – traveling from Ohio to Christchurch for the first wedding of the (real) millennium.
First Golf – Definitely
“Armed with a three iron, a luminous golf ball and a light strapped to his head, Ant Gear dashed around the course at North Island Manawatu Golf Club in 114 – eight shots better than his…
Never Say Die
One of Briton’s most popular MPs before being expelled from the Labour party for communist sympathies, New Zealand-born John Platt-Mills is still a practicing lawyer at 94. “Is there anything else he wants to achieve? ‘Yes, I’d…
Asparagus are from Mars, Potatoes are from Venus
Lincoln University researchers have successfully grown potatoes and asparagus in soil collected from Mars. “Space-based soils could potentially support future human expansion in the solar system,” according to Professor Michael Mautner. “I wouldn’t say very soon, but…
Dishy Neill
Sam Neill puts in a “terrific performance” in The Dish, a “little-known story of how an obscure Australian tracking station provided the crucial downlink for the worldwide broadcast of the 1969 moon walk”, which has…
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Design
The revolutionary John Britten V1 bike featured in a story in Germany’s top news magazine Focus on the ‘The Art of the Motorcycle’ exhibition at the new Rem Koolhaas designed Guggenheim, Las Vegas. And in CycleWorld the…
Sixties Icon
Check out Sixties Motor Racing for Bruce McLaren shots, including New Zealand’s greatest driver salon racing in a Jaguar (choose Catalogue on Palawan website). McLaren is also featured in British Esquire‘s quarterly sports supplement.
Life in a Te Kuiti Villa…
Hints for a best-seller: New Zealand that “far-off place where property is cheap and the good life is to be had on a modest income,” would be ideal for Year in Provence-style escapism.
Tui Flower and ANZAC Biscuits
Tui Flower, the “Julia Child of New Zealand” shares her ANZAC biscuits recipe with readers of the Los Angeles Times.
