Golden boy
In a rare coup for a Kiwi, Warrior Stacey Jones has been awarded rugby league's top honour: the Golden Boot. The trophy represents the sports media's pick for best player in the world. Andrew Johns, Golden Boot winner of the past two years, had nothing but praise for his rival: "It's not really his strengths - it's his weaknesses, he doesn't really have any these days."
(20 December 2002)
  

Wind beneath her wing
Legendary windsurfer Barbara Kendall stormed back onto the world scene in her first competition since claiming bronze at the Sydney Olympics to win the Mistral World Championships in Thailand. The win is Kendall's third world champ title, to go win an Olympic medal of every colour.
(9-15 December 2002)
      

Science cynics and bad news
Denis Dutton plays scientific advisor to the president in Edge.org's hypothetical survey on issues facing governments in 2003. His counsel? Do away with the scare-mongering and cynicism typifying science (and its media coverage) today in favour of "[choosing] wisely when it comes to supporting pure science, along with research that can give us beneficial technologies." A challenge to all "Cassandras of the labs."
(4 January 2003)
   

Farewell to leading lady
The death of NZ's acting doyenne Davina Whitehouse has been mourned at home and abroad, with obituaries appearing in The Boston Globe and The Independent. Her prolific career spanned stage, film, and television, and included high-profile roles alongside Clark Gable, Barbara Stanwyck and John Gielgud. Closer to home Whitehouse featured in Gloss, Peter Jackson's Braindead, and in the cult Australian series, Prisoner.
(25 December 2002)
  

Runga and artistry: a beautiful collusion
Daily Texan falls for Bic Runga's "innovative melodies, careful harmonies and baby-doll voice" in a review of her latest album, Beautiful Collision. "A wonderfully evocative and brilliant effort […] with the combination of Runga's skilful writing and and understated production, Beautiful Collision is an album that rings with subdued artistry."
(12 November 2002)
    

Sunny praise for Chidgey
The Strength of the Sun by Lower Hutt writer Catherine Chidgey makes LA Times Best Books list for 2002. "An exquisitely written, curiously tantalizing book that looks something like a mystery story but is something far more evanescent […] a beautifully crafted, often poignant work."
(8 December 2002)

    

Karen's Kiwi Christmas
Observer "unwraps Christmas in NZ" from the comfort of Karen Walker's Waitakere Ranges home. "It's a guaranteed white Christmas … the manuka trees are frosted with delicate white blooms so that the hillside appears covered in a dusting of snow." To the ubiquitous mix of pavlova, pohutukawa and barbeque, Walker has added a 10ft tall Christmas tree to the roof of her house: "There would be no point in having the tree inside, we won't come back indoors until March."
(15 December 2002)
   

Environmental oxymoron
NZ's possum epidemic has made unlikely bed-fellows of environmentalists and fur-trappers. New Scientist looks at a globally unique situation, where groups such as WWF actively support the trapping of an animal for its fur and meat as an alternative to ecological disaster. 
(13 December 2002)
   

"Fairway to heaven"
"Spectacularly gorgeous NZ a bargain for golfers" (Detroit Free Press). Golf-mad travel writer scours the length of the country for the best greens available - from the golden beaches of Kauri Cliffs to mountain views at Lake Wakatipu. The verdict? What with the food, fishing, scenery (and golf) "the hardest part of a trip to NZ is leaving."
(29 December 2002)
   

Trans-Tasman trippers
SMH's summary of Australia and her people for the year 2002 notes a 14% rise in holidays across the Tasman. The dramatically increased figure made NZ the most popular travel destination for the year, ahead of Britain, the U.S and Fiji.
(30 December 2002)
  

Rivals of the first order
Reader response to Observer's 10 Greatest Rivalries in the History of Sport points out one glaring omission: All Blacks vs. Springboks. Says Geoff of Cambridge; "their matches are national events and have a history encompassing the development of national identities, intense public fervour, controversy over apartheid […] and a whole lot of fantastic, brutal and controversial Test matches."
(1 December 2002)
   

Bottoms up
Deutz Marlborough Cuvee beat Bollinger, Moet & Chandon, and Veuve Cliquot in a blind-tasting by seven British bubbly experts. Which? magazine organised the test, asking local supermarkets and high-end liquor stores to submit the best of their respective bunches. The grand winner? Tesco's own-brand champagne, at just £12.99 a bottle.
(5 December 2002)
    

Deco-dence in Napier
"I feel as though I've popped a 78 on the phonograph and stepped into my grandmother's photo album. This is the bee's knees." Boston Herald comes to Napier for the annual Art Deco Weekend. Activities include the Cocktail Cascade, Gatsby Picnic, and an old-fashioned soapbox derby: "a not-too-serious celebration of architecture in NZ."
(5 January 2003)

  

Fish a la jug
A Melbourne based charity for drug-orphans has released a cookbook featuring recipes from over 30 Australian musicians. One of the more unusual feasts comes (unsurprisingly) from Mambo-man Reg Mombassa - a Kiwi masquerading as an Aussie pop culture icon. Mombassa's "savoury jug" stems from his early days touring with The Mentals on minimum wage. He describes it as  "a dish that basically involves shoving fish, egg, salami and water into a jug and bringing it to the boil (over and over again.)" 
(3 December 2002)
    

Cruisin' Taranaki
Hollywood A-listers Tom Cruise and Gwyneth Paltrow are both currently on location in NZ. Paltrow is in Dunedin filming scenes for Christine Jeff's adaptation of the life of Sylvia Plath, while Cruise has set up home in Taranaki, where The Last Samurai is being shot. Cruise is already befriending the locals. Said one neighbour: "We were down in the paddock and he yelled out to the kids and introduced himself. We had a little natter and he said what a wonderful spot it was."
(7 January 2003)
  

Clean sweep
The release of The Clean's 46-song Anthology has set Canadian "rock uber-geeks running to record stores." Chart Attack reviewer sums up the Flying Nun stalwarts' attraction: "They have created a near-flawless body of work over a long period of time [...] The Clean are funny and witty, joyous and noisy, which is just what you need to carry you through those snowy winter months."
(10 December 2002)
   

Frodo Air
An Air NZ Boeing 747 has become the latest (and largest) Lord of the Rings billboard. The plane sports a 36m image of the hobbit leads down either side of its fuselage. The advertising is part of a two year promotional deal with New Line Cinema, plugging Air NZ as "airline to the Middle Earth."
(14 December 2002)
    

Washington wine win
NZ wines cleaned up at the 7th Annual Wines for Oysters competition in Washington. Marlborough vineyards won five of the ten awards, with Charles Wiffen's Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc 2001 taking home the Grand Champion Trophy.
(1 January 2003)
  

Shacking up in Macetown
The Times goes well west while taking a tour of the world's ghost towns and sifts around Macetown, NZ. You could be forgiven for not knowing the name: all that remains of Otago's
1860's gold-rush town is the old school-master's house, the bakery, and a couple of wooden shacks.
(4 January 2003)

  

Revenge of the NZ nerds
In a bid to be "taken seriously," members of NZ's IT community have requested permission to use geek.nz as a second-level domain in the country. The office of the NZ Domain Name Commissioner plans to stage public consultations on the issue over December.
(10 December 2002)
   

News lexicon
"The real Middle Earth" features in the annual BBC round-up of new additions to the media lexicon. The official definition: "The country formerly known as New Zealand. An NZ government minister has been appointed unofficial 'minister for Middle Earth' to ensure the country capitalises on its new exposure."
(1 January 2003)
  

Middle Earth to the masses
Te Papa's Lord of the Rings exhibition (opening 19 December) is set to go global. The interactive collection of costumes, props, sets, and gadgetry mounts a two year international tour from February 2002, which includes stop-offs at prestigious science museums in Toronto and Boston.
(8 December 2002)
    

Readable eatables
Business Day gives Ray McVinnie's latest cook book a review good enough to eat. The Modern Cook is more than "a series of mouth-watering recipes," it also builds one recipe upon the next in a step-by-step guide to culinary genius. The reviewer's only qualm is McVinnie's suspiciously thin physique: "Must be the stress of writing such and appetising cook book."
(6 December 2002)
   

Ringing endorsements
"A rare perfect mating of filmmaker and material" (NY Times). Peter Jackson's The Two Towers has been released with a series of glitzy premieres and press reviews which more than match the hype. Variety: "It's hard to imagine a much better version of this material on screen." BBC: "It is a film that never lets the audience down, it touches you emotionally and it makes you think." Guardian: "The battles and sieges are conducted with the ferocity of the Crusades, Agincourt and Stalingrad [...] orchestrated in a manner that recalls the great movie epics of Fritz Lang and Sergei Eisenstein." The Sun: "For the entire two hours and 59 minutes, the only thing that mattered in my life was a plain gold ring round the neck of a short guy with pointed ears and hairy feet."
(December 2002)

   

NZ: Lonely Planet hot spot 2003 
Proving that NZ is not only destination of choice for Louis Vuitton carrying America's Cup acolytes, Lonely Planet, bible of the young and Birkenstocked, picks NZ as the grand winner in its annual survey of hot spots. "Given a big boost, no doubt, by its breathtaking cinematic appearance in the Lord of the Rings films."One US-based LP'er wrote: 'If I could go anywhere in the world, it would be to New Zealand ... [there] seem to be beautiful oasis-like places where you can feel like you're at the ends of the earth" NZ is also SMH travel writer's pick for hot destination of the year: "New Zealand for hip new Auckland and fantastic scenery"
       

"The Prospero of NZ letters"
"Take a Las Vegas gambling magnate who believes in the usefulness of books, add a distinguished poet and a betting pool of natural talent. What do you get? A literary renaissance that has floored critics in the land of the long white cloud." Australian Financial Review profiles Bill "the Magus" Manhire, whose prestigious Victoria University creative writing course has spawned talent attracting international attention, the stable includes Emily Perkins, Elizabeth Knox and Catherine Chidley (see LATimes review below) and latest bet Paula Morris. 
(13 December 2002)

Believe the hype
A major feature in New York Times Sunday supplement heads to NZ to find out if the hype is for real and finds that the answer is youbetcha. "Always seen as 'clean and green,' NZ is enjoying a special premium at the moment as Americans perceive it as a foreign destination largely safe from terrorism […] Queenstown is the Aspen of 30 years ago […] New Zealanders' wanderlust, access to the internet, and sincere interest in good food has produced a fusion of Asian and local ingredients and styles […] even a scenery snob like me found the vistas extraordinary…"
(3 January 2003)

  

Good clean ball
"Small but perfectly formed." Lloyd Jones' The Book of Fame included in SMH's tribute to the short novel, or novella. Jones joins the likes of Michael Ondaatje and Jeanette Winterson as one who achieves that "sustained burst of genius, an outburst of passion, a gift, a one-off in a writer's career."
(28 December 2002)
  

Jackson: Hobbit or wizard?
Boston Globe: "Who would have guessed that it would take a woolly bear horror-flick director from New Zealand to restore our faith in epic moviemaking?" Praise for Peter Jackson reaches epic proportions of its own in the wake of The Two Towers' release. The Age: "To sustain the illusion of the lost world of Middle-earth […] requires generalship, vision, and magical skill - the qualities of a master sorcerer." Sydney Morning Herald dubs Jackson "man of the year" for "[eclipsing] Spielberg and Lucas without leaving NZ." Nominated for best director from the London Film Critics Circle with Phillip Noyce and Pedro Almoldavar. And Fellowship of the Ring wins "hands down" the best DVD of 2002 according to New York Times review.
(29 December 2002)
   

Schnack attack
"They have lured away many of NZ's best sailing minds and talents in the quest for the Cup, but they are all still chasing one Kiwi who did not budge and whose mind and talents may well make up for all those lost." Washington Post interviews Tom Schnackenberg; Team NZ's syndicate chief, design coordinator, navigator and "constant."
(27 December 2002)

   

"Amo, ergo compro"
Kevin Roberts gives edge inspiration, ideas and provocation to Italy's L'espresso. "He dresses completely in black and looks like a barroom bouncer just back from Armani. But Kevin Roberts, CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi, is anything but a bouncer: instead of throwing customers out, he throws them in. With loads of ideas about practically everything from globalization to the world of labor, from the Fiat debacle to the politicians' image crisis to the stagnation of the ad markett."
(21 November 2002)
    

Big Ted gets bigger
NZ baritone Teddy Tahu-Rhodes is receiving great acclaim as the Don in Opera Australia's Don Giovanni. "He sings like an angel but there the resemblance ends. He does a nice line in depravity […] radiating malignant, seductive energy and dramatic control, to which his vocal control [forms] an apt parallel: smooth when it can be, vice-like when it has to be." Compatriot Jonathan Lemalu also features in the production.
(3 January 2003)
  

Behind the scenes
Wellington-born Kristian Fredrikson, Australia's leading set and costume designer, interviewed in Weekend Australian. A designer "whose name is synonymous with opulence," Fredrikson is currently taking his third crack at creating "the perfect Swan Lake." On his 40 years in the business; "The theatre is my family, my universe - and a very demanding one at that."
(30 Nov-1 Dec 2002)
     

Marketing Middle Earth
"Historically isolated by geography, NZers are working to reap a publicity bonanza from [Lord of the Rings], marketing their nation around the world as a destination for family tourism and 'a second Canada' for Hollywood productions seeking to save money on location." From advertising NZ as "best supporting country" in The New Yorker to offering Safari of the Rings 4WD tours, NZ industries are making the most of a 3-year international focus on the country.
(31 December 2002)
  

Leading the field
"Never before has technology played such a pivotal role in bringing an animal back from the brink, setting the stage for computer-based rescues of endangered species elsewhere." SMH feature documents the radical efforts of NZ scientists and conservationists involved in the kakapo recovery program. The team leads the world in breeding expertise and innovation.
(28 December 2002)
  

Muss  vs. Hollywood
"It is not just Lord of the Rings that is ushering in a golden age of Kiwi cinema. Everywhere you look, NZers are taking over Tinseltown." From Peter Jackson, Lee Tamahori, Andrew Niccol, Roger Donaldson and Vincent Ward, to Anna Paquin, Martin Csokas, and Laurence Makaore, the list just keeps getting longer. The writer finds the perfect analogy in Star Wars: Attack of the Clones, in Maori Temuera Morrison's cloned multitudes: "If that's not taking over Hollywood, I don't know what is."
(28 December 2002)
  

Co-host Clark
Helen Clark appeared on America's top-rating Today Show to promote an upcoming Discovery Channel program on NZ. New Zealand: The Royal Tour sees the PM take American presenter Peter Greenberg on a guided tour of Aotearoa; caving, abseiling et al. Tourism NZ expects the show to add to the attention swell heading NZ's way.
(16 December 2002)
   

Canterbrian Miss October
NZ takes out the October slot of  Lonely Planet's year planner for 2003. "Take one of the world's great train journeys, the Tranzalpine, across the southern alps […] the varied scenery takes in the Canterbury Plains, a labyrinth of gorges known as the Staircase and valleys encircled by dense beech forest." NZ also holds two out of six spots in Lonely Planet's "must-see" natural wonders of 2003: with whale-watching in Kaikoura, and a premium view of November's total eclipse of the sun.
(29 December 2002)

  

Conceptual sailing
A New Zealand design took top honours at the inaugural Concept Boat competition in the U.K. Jasmin, a catamaran with fold-away berths for four, was the brain-child of Gray Treadwell, a computer industry worker. Treadwell's design won the £5,000 prize for its "transportability, performance, and sheer innovation" and will be exhibited at the London Boat Show over January.
(4 January 2003)
  

Ta Moko on show
Time reviews Skin Deep, a history of Western tattooing currently on show at London's National Maritime Museum. The exhibit traces the practice back to its Polynesian roots, beginning its official documentation with Cook's 1768 voyage to NZ. "Through expedition artist Sydney Parkinson's striking drawings the Western world got its first glimpse of […] the elaborate facial tattooing of NZ's Maori tribes."
(29 April 2002)
    

Fox gives the hard word
SMH enlists an outside view on recent Wallabies' performances from All Black legend Grant Fox. The verdict? Not good: "There doesn't appear to be a lot of blooding of new talent going on at the moment, and you could argue it's already too late." Fox believes the Wallabies lack a definitive match-winner: "How old is John Eales now, 33? Well, he should still be playing. He was a huge influence and I think your guys are missing him."
(30 November 2002)
    

Satisfaction guaranteed
NZ was voted third most popular holiday destination in the NFO Plog 2002 American Travel Survey of over 9,000 U.S households. The report gauges the most rewarding vacation experiences, as opposed to a head-count of visitors. The top two places went to Ireland and Australia.
(5 January 2003)
  

Back to the future
Canterbury University's Andy Cockburn is leading a team of computer scientists in redesigning the back button function on computers. In a bid to up the popular button's efficiency, Cockburn and co. have reprogrammed web browsers so that the current hierarchical stacking system of index pages is replaced by a chronological one. The team has been in talks with Microsoft and Netscape, but Cockburn isn't expecting a revolution any time soon: "It would be a bold move to challenge the back button right now."
(3 January 2003)
  

Fur-envy
Inspired by the success of NZ possum-fur products, Australian designers have incorporated the "soft, mink-like" pelts into their own winter collections. Most notably, Lisa Ho imported NZ skins for her range of winter stoles and jackets. The New Zealand Nature Company can take their fair share of credit for raising the possum-fur profile - their infamous nipple-warmers and g-strings have made international headlines, and word is their $3,000 possum-fur bed-spreads are the latest in luxe on the American and European markets.
(4 December 2002)
  

Team NZ's bio-tech edge
NZ bioengineering group, Christian Cook, have developed a radical method of keeping Team NZ one step ahead of their rivals. Health levels of the 36 sailors are monitored via a daily "blood reading." The low-frequency ultrasound delivers the vital statistics without the stress and invasiveness of traditional blood-tests. Finally, hope for the needle-phobic…
(20 November 2002)
   

Gender studies 101
Guardian writer Julie Burchill questions Russell Crowe's status as "sole standard bearer" for old-school Hollywood hell-raising in the wake of his latest public brawl. Back in the bad old days, she notes, stars did without the "semi-official conga lines of minders-cum-hangers-on" upon which the modern day tough-guy depends. Film writer Peter Bradshaw doesn't even believe in the bad boys of old. Crowe, he claims, is "just the latest in a line of posturing pugilists [using] drink and brawling to distract both us and himself from the fact that he does a girly-boy job"!
(15 November 2002)
    

Sundance win for Whale Rider
Fresh from an award-winning stint at the Toronto Film Festival, Niki Caro's cinematic translation of Witi Ihimaera's story about a young girl striving to find her place in her iwi, Whale Rider, has won the World Cinema Audience Award at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival. Other entrants in the World Cinema category, voted for by audience members, include Bend It Like Beckham and the latest Dogme instalment, Open Hearts. The film has also won the audience award at the Rotterdam Film Festival.
(December - January 2002)
   

"They know they have an edge"
November's French Vogue goes south seas gothic in fashionable NZ, with the edge providing both spectacular and downtown Aotearoa-style backdrops for a Mario Sorrenti photo shoot, from the volcanic plateau to the local 4-Square. The accompanying essay by Simone Ellis finds, "A culture defined by its people [...] increasingly worldly, NZ urbanites are far less fragile about their identity these days. They are highly educated, they have travelled, they know they have an 'edge'." Edgy interviewees include designer Nicholas Blanchett, photographer Greg Semu, and Pavement co-founder Glenn Hunt. The edition also covers the techno-royal glamour of the America's Cup. Mario Sorrenti and the Vogue crew's visit was produced by Ellis.   
(November 2002)

Tribute to edge-geneticist
NZ's "third man of the double helix" Maurice Wilkins has been honoured in the lead-up to next year's 50th anniversary of DNA. In 1962, Wilkins shared the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with fellow discoverers Francis Crick and James Watson. The Royal Society of NZ commissioned a portrait by Juliet Kac and a poem by Chris Orsman, both of which were presented to Professor Wilkins at a ceremony in his honour in London, November 26. See here the NZEDGE bio of Wilkins. 
(28 November 2002)
   

Giovanni Intra remembered
We are diminished to report the death of Giovanni Intra in New York City on December 17th 2002. Giovanni, artist, critic, gallerist  went east to stir up the LA art scene and established the gallery,  China Art Objects, and its location, Chinatown, as a fresh new locus that, "changed the landscape" of the West Coast art world and was internationally regarded as one of the most influential new galleries. Giovanni was remembered in Art Forum, LA Times, New York Times, Las Vegas Sun, and The Independent. A tribute exhibition for Giovanni will be held at The Hamish McKay Gallery in Wellington from January 18th - February 1st. Kelly Carmichael's NZEDGE profile of Giovanni remains here.
(17 Dec 2002)
      

"What a beauty"
"New Zealand is really buzzing. [...] there is nothing in Sydney to match the concentration of classy bars and restaurants along Princess Wharf and the Viaduct." Confessions of a (former) one-eyed Aussie: "Abandon all those negative clichés. NZ has changed […] To go to a country so deeply etched in the Australian consciousness by cliché and misinformation is to spend most of your time correcting embedded false impressions. [...] Forget the jokes about sheep and the funny accent. New Zealand's North Island is a magic place."
(14 December 2002)

Tall Punga
"A genius masquerading as an ordinary person, a creative whirlwind, financial powerhouse and folk hero rolled into one." LA Times applauds Peter Jackson's phenomenal success, not only in film circles, but in the eyes of his hard-to-please compatriots. "Perhaps because of the nation's egalitarian pioneer roots, underdogs are championed here, highfliers cut down to size. But that's not the case with Jackson..."
(8 December 2002)
    

Frontier Neuseeland
44-page cover spread on NZ in December's GEO Saison - Germany's premiere travel magazine. The article, "New Zealand - Setting out into the Big Freedom," focuses on ex-pat Germans in Aotearoa, from Northland to Stewart Island. The extensive interviews are rounded out by an equally comprehensive list of NZ's best accommodation, eateries, and attractions.
(December 2002)

   

Meeting place between old and new
Multimedia artist Lisa Reihana commended at the 2002 Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art for her current "work in progress," Digital Marae. The large-scale photographs dramatise female mythological figures in an exploration of matriarchy in Maori culture. Art Monthly Australia: "…it is the experimental work by younger artists like Song Dong, or Lisa Reihana's dialogue with the fluidity of tradition that produces the most clever and thoroughly museum-quality objects…"
(November 2002)

What is this? The ghost who paints?
"They can be seen as postmodern hymns to invention and appropriation, or they can be read as theoretical texts that map the visual culture of at least two phases of the 20th century." Dick Frizzell's latest series of work, based around comic strip hero The Phantom, applauded in SMH. "The images float at the edges of the big story: saved or drowning heroines, domestic glimpses, coastlines and jungles strangely not unlike our own."
(5 December 2002)

    

"Not just the land of lamb and honey"
"It's more than just a big farm in the South Pacific, it's a modern, sophisticated economy with some real niche products." [such as specialist communications devices and luxury yacht building]. Gulf Business cover feature highlights the increasingly diverse interaction between NZ and the UAE. Building a relationship well beyond "protein for oil" in the past year the NZ government has actively stepped up relations between the two open economies. Helen Clark: "The aim is to create a two-way flow of trade and investment and people."
(December 2002)
   

Big Tex inspiration
Leading NZ artist Julian Dashper is currently on show at the Campbelltown City Bicentennial Art Gallery. The varied and interactive works (created during his residency at the Chinati Foundation in Texas) include a reproduction of his CV and a sound recording of public reactions to paintings by Jackson Pollock. Overall the exhibition reveals "a pared down aesthetic, a quality rather than a quantity."
(13 December 2002)
   

Front row talent 
Fresh out of London's Royal College of Music, NZ-born Samoan Jonathan Lemalu is being widely touted as "the next big thing in opera." A qualified lawyer and accomplished (former) rugby player - "I kind of don't want to get my larynx stepped on" - Lemalu's vocal services are booked internationally until 2005. He is currently playing Leporello in Opera Australia's production of Don Giovanni. Early reviews are glowing: "It is rare to find lyric smoothness, and vocal warmth, combined so well with an engaging dramatic presence" (SMH).
(1 January 2003)

  

Giving new meaning to wildlife …
NZ production The Most Extreme has proved a hit with international Animal Planet viewers. The series, made by Dunedin-based Natural History New Zealand, involves a countdown of the world's weirdest animal trivia. Due to the quirky show's immense popularity, Animal Planet has commissioned a further 13 episodes, making Most Extreme NHNZ's largest and most successful series to date.
(November 2002)
   

Consistency and then some..
The NZ Black Caps followed up their 2-0 Test series victory over India with a pre-World Cup 5-2 series win in the one-dayers. The Kiwis have remained on top form against the somewhat disappointing tourists, whose much vaunted batting line-up has consistently failed to achieve crdible scores against accurate NZ bowling, particularly from Bond, Tuffey, Adams and Oram.
(Dec 2002 - Jan 2003)
     

Kiwi vs Kiwi 
Team New Zealand will face the Swiss challenge Alinghi in the America's Cup finals in February, setting up a match up between Alinghi skipper  Russell Coutts and his understudy when he was at the helm of Team New zealand, Dean Barker. Alinghi defeated Larry Ellison's Oracle 5-1 to win the Loius Vuitton Cup and earn the right to challenge Team NZ. Oracle was skippered by Kiwi Chris Dickson and the boat designed by Bruce Farr.   
(21 January 2003)
         

Biculiterature
The US readers' magazine Pages ('the magazine for people who love books') focuses on literature from Aotearoa-NZ in its monthly global focus. Contributing editor Bethanne Kelly Patrick focuses on biculturalism and asks, "Maoris and Pakehas are all Kiwis, but does New Zealand literature reflect that?" and tries, through treaties and PC, to suss out just what NZ is or is recognised as. Contributions from Briar Grace-Smith, Linda Niccol, Paul Ward and Debra Daley. Pages is a popular monthly with a circulation of over 100,000.
(Jan/Feb 2003) 
       

Cleaner greener NZ
The Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gas emissions came one step closer to enforcement after its ratification by the NZ and Canadian governments. Although both countries are relatively minor industrial polluters their signatures are vital in making up the numbers necessary for the pact to be put into place. The refusal of the U.S (the world's worst polluter) to sign the Kyoto pact has considerably held up its progress, but its imminent ratification by Russia should see it in force next year.
(11 December 2002)
   

Edenic eye candy
In-depth spread on NZ in The Philippine Star dubs us "the adventure playground that thinks it's a country": "The beauty, the serenity, the vivacity of the greens, the freshness of the blues and the translucency of the most unpolluted air in the world are tantamount to paradise. A bastion of easy lifestyles and eye candy, the little islands in the middle of the South Pacific are well worth a visit."
(29 December 2002)
  

Rain on parade
Christine Jeff's Rain included in Hartford Courant's low-down on the best films of 2002. In a triumphant year for independent and foreign cinema, the "artfully directed drama" was acknowledged as one of the most notable debuts.
(29 December 2002)
   

Thongs? Flip flops? ... Jandals!
The SMH surveys the history of the humble jandal, and Linsay Ward curator at The Powerhouse Museum finds finds that, no matter about its staus as an ocker cultural icon or what name you call it, the fashionable footwear's design most probably originated in New Zealand in 1957 courtesy of Maurice Yock
(14 January 2003)

A sailor's life
"I ran off with a sailor and somehow became a lady!" New York Times talks to Pippa Blake about life with, and without, Peter. Recently returned to NZ from England, Pippa has found "Blakey's" presence larger than ever: "I knew he was a great man, but it's ironic the attention he receives now." Executive director of Team NZ, Ross Blackman, agrees: "I know this sounds funny, but we don't feel we are without him […] We're always saying, 'What would Blakey have done?'"
(28 December 2002)
  

"Great things come out of splendid isolation."
"It's not just about the Datsun's, you know…" Style bible i-D devotes a section of its Cruise Issue to Kiwi creative culture. As well as the usual suspects - Karen Walker, The D4, Natalija Kukija - i-D sounds out the local underground, "designers that plough the dark seam separating Kiwis from their sunnier-disposed Australian neighbours and work the country's enormous creative space to their advantage." The conclusion? "In NZ there's no pressure to be a certain way. You only make stuff because you love it." Above: artist Michael Tuffery. The i-D visit was produced by Jennifer Souness
(December 2002)
    

Precious acclaim: two films tower over rest
"For the first time in a century, Hollywood was beaten in the big budget fantasy stakes. Jackson and his team delivered better special effects and better story-telling in what could be the new millennium's greatest epic. And they did it all without leaving New Zealand." The Fellowship of the Ring and The Piano both make SMH's list of the top 100 movies of all time. 
(6 January 2003)
  

Taylor plugs into the circuit
"Brilliance emerges from the chaos" (Irish Times). Auckland writer Chad Taylor generates strong international reviews with his new noir novel, Electric, a tale of Auckland's maths and drugs scene. GQ: "Hums with energy […] an inventive and intelligent thriller." Observer: "The plot seems to unfold in another world where reality is shifting and elusive. Taylor's impressively laconic prose style is enough to maintain the tension of the narrative right up to the end." Electric was Time Out's book of the week for 21st January. Pulp: "Dark, intense, fast-paced, and perceptive, both noir literary thriller and pulp crime fiction […] Cool, surreal and sexy." The Scotsman: "This is an exciting read, and Chad Taylor is a writer with very much more to say." 
(January 2003)
  

"The Boot" remembered
Rugby fans around the world farewell Don "the Boot" Clarke, an incomparable All Black legend. Business Day calls him "an icon for a generation of NZers," while The Australian remembers his match-winning conversion against France at Athletic Park in 1961, "kicked into a gale-force wind, which people still talk about." Independent: "The man who beat the British and Irish Lions by himself […] a massive man [who] kicked some of the most famous goals in rugby history."
(31 December 2002)
  

Sign of the times
"Freewheeling, irrepressibility & incoherence." Branded as pioneer of postmodernist NZ art, Richard Killeen, is featured in Art Asia Pacific. Killeen's recent works revisit the "cut-out" form with which made his name in the late 70's. Deceptively simple in appearance, the works carry a wealth of social significance: "Killeen seems interested in the excessive, uncontrollable nature of the visual message. His fixation with incorporating images within other images reiterates the question about how ideas are disseminated - how things 'get in'."
(October-December 2002)
   

Corporate edge makes global player
Businessman Graeme Hart - "the New Zealander with aspirations to take on the world" - has joined the bidding war for Australia's major food group, Goodman Fielder. If successful, he will helm a $4.3 billion combined food empire - one of the largest in the world. Hart has made his name with risky ventures (he steered a troubled Burns Philip back from financial ruin in 1997.) Says one analyst: "I don't think he's motivated by proving people wrong. He's motivated to do what he wants to do."
(14 December 2002)
  

Last action hero
"In the age of digitized battle, is there still such thing as a war correspondent?" According to New York Metro, NZ-born Peter Arnett is the last, and greatest, of a dying breed: "He is the real thing, an actual slogging-in-the-mud combat reporter […] who, by a media fluke became a famous person." At 67, Arnett is returning to Iraq as a freelance war reporter - taking on his former employers at CNN at their own game.
(11 November 2002)

   

Intellectual Grand Slam
John Clarke - who "rates as a national institution" across the Tasman - delights critics with his latest book, The Tournament. A blistering satire, The Tournament involves a fictitious tennis contest between the leading lights of the modernist movement - such "cultural titans" as Duchamp, Eliot, Joyce and de Beauvoir. Clarke sees satire as the last bastion of democracy: "The world is full of ideas, full of interesting ways of looking at things. It's all an antidote to being lied to."
(14 December 2002)
   

Lord of FX
Wired profiles Stephen Regelous, the Wellingtonian behind The Two Towers' jaw-dropping battle scenes. Regelous created a program - Massive - which would supply "smart crowds" to supplement the on-screen action. Each agent has an individual brain, with thousands of different modes of being. "When an animator places agents into a simulation, they're released to do what they will. It's not crowd control but anarchy." The results have been so successful that even Regelous "can't tell what's Massive and what's not anymore."
(13 December 2002)
   

Easy riding
Times writer John Naish discovers "biker heaven" courtesy of Adventure NZ Motorcycle Tours. The Nelson-based outfit takes motorcycle enthusiasts on a 7 day guided tour of the South Island (the "land of must-see" recently voted among the top five spots Brits want to visit before they die.) Naish: "I'd hesitate to call any motorcycle trip life-changing, but there is something indelibly memorable about riding roads such as the Haast Pass […] it rated as one of the finest bits of blacktop-adventure I've ever experienced."
(30 November 2002)
    

Liquor, Lear and Liz
NZ's 2002 Actor of the Year, Ray Henwood, has taken his award-winning portrayal of Richard Burton Sydney-side. In Playing Burton the Welsh-born actor brings to life his hell-raising compatriot with uncanny ability.  Opening night at The Playhouse lived up to expectations: "Henwood's strong performance … captures [Burton's] passion, his charm and his skills as a yarn spinner."
(28 November 2002)
    

Almost sevens heaven
A "ferocious all-around display" saw NZ win the first leg of the International Rugby Board World Sevens Series in Dubai. NZ defeated Samoa 36-0 to take their fourth straight victory in the event. The same form didn't quite show at round two in South Africa, where the Kiwis were beaten 24-14 by Fiji. Chile is to host the third leg of the series over January.
(December 2002)
    

Reactive literature
Wellington author Damien Wilkins counters small-town unease and drug-addled characters with a good dose of black comedy in Chemistry. New Statesman: "[Wilkins creates] a world of jealousies, scandals, and suffocating boredom … Although unrepentantly gloomy, a dark, addictive humour pervades this novel of doomed domesticity."
(25 November 2002)
  

Paquin: Make mine a double
Anna Paquin joins an ensemble cast including Edward Norton and Philip Seymour Hoffman in Spike Lee's latest film, The 25th Hour. Advance screenings of the have sparked talk of likely Oscar nominations. Toronto Star feature hails Paquin as "a true-life Hollywood success story." Canny film choices and a close-knit family have spared the Kiwi actress the usual fate befalling former child stars: namely drug-addled anonymity.
(5 December 2002)
    

Win "decisive and expected"
Sydney-based NZer Neville Crichton took top honours in the glamorous Sydney-Hobart yacht race. His super maxi Alpha Romeo beat the field by an hour and three quarters in a win described as "a triumph for Australasian blue water technology."
(29 December 2002)
   

Screw corks
"There's nothing romantic about a corked bottle of wine," says NZ winemaker Kim Crawford in Time. Crawford is one of many Kiwi vintners thumbing the nose at tradition, preferring screw tops to corks despite a recent international PR campaign by supporters of the latter. According to Time, the technology caught on dramatically amongst New World wine producers in 2002.
(30 December 2002)

  

Tokyo girl
Karen Walker has recently returned from a promotional stint in Japan, where her popularity has reached new heights. After four years, she has more than 50 stockists in over 25 cities, and shares a press agency with international fashion luminaries Jeremy Scott and Imitation of Christ. Walker: "I'm very excited about the Japanese market. It is very receptive to original work and it feels like a very natural fit for us."
(October/November 2002)
   

Dance with Daffodils
The Times pays tribute to W.J.B Owen, academia's pre-eminent Wordsworth scholar. Born in NZ in 1916, Owen forged a distinguished career in England and Canada. "Owen was a scholar's scholar - meticulous, exact, exhaustive and always reliable […] Outwardly he could seem daunting, but within the austere exterior was a sensitive, diffident man, with a wry, dry wit."
(27 December 2002)
  

Best supporting instrument
LA Times names The Piano as one of the instrument's most memorable cinematic tributes in the history of film. "In a category of its own is Jane Campion's modern-day classic The Piano... [Campion is one who has] understood - and mined - the dramatic possibilities of this instrument … the strange poetry of a piano being played on a desolate beach."
(5 January 2003)
  

Rebirth of Loop
2002 saw the highly successful reinvention of Wellington's Loop magazine as an independent recording label. With acts like The Black Seeds, Rhian Sheehan and 50HZ on the books, and albums which look as good as they sound, it's not hard to see why. Loop's Hannah Cornwell: "It's about NZ creative culture as a whole. For us to just go 'We're only about music,' we're cutting out a good 50% of our market which appreciates good quality design."
(4 December 2002)
     

Hostel heaven
LA Times' Youth Beat offers tips for the budget traveller. "NZ has a reputation for having the world's best hostels, and one thing that helps to keep the hostel owners on their toes is the Blue Guide annual survey." The free booklet compiles travellers' ratings of individual hostels throughout the country, allowing new visitors to avoid "grimy bathrooms, grumpy management and depressingly overcrowded dorms."
(13 October 2002)
    

The big break-up
"Somewhere east of New Zealand, where Gondwana's break-up may have started some 130 million years ago, with New Zealand splitting from Australia, 'the last resources of mankind' could be awaiting discovery. So say a crew of German researchers, who will spend December analysing rock formations 4 kilometres under water near the Chatham Islands. 
(10 December 2002)

   

Top ten for Two Towers
The Two Towers has made the American Film Institute's list of 2002's top ten movies. Other nominations include Frida, Gangs of New York and Chicago.
(18 December 2002)  
       

Rings blitzes box-office
The Two Towers has set new box-office records around the globe, breaking those set by its predecessor last year. The film made $5.2 million on its first day of release in Australia, and £13.1 million over its initial five days' screening in the UK. The Two Towers also broke opening day records in Germany, Scandinavia and, of course, NZ.
(28 December 2002)