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Suburban nirvana?
After striving from Yamoussoukra to Tunis to turn trouble-spots to hot-spots aspirational living guide Wallpaper magazine strolls down the "1930s model of modern living" - Savage Crescent, Palmerston North. Named after the then Prime Minister, Savage Crescent was a state-housing project based on the utopian 'garden city' philosophy - the ideal that a nuclear family would be happy living in suburbia away from the mean streets in the city.
(November 2001)
         

Lessons from the Kiwi experience
The Scotsman praises "small, proud" New Zealand - "the more the government intervenes in industry the less enterprise and boldness there is. By rolling back the frontiers of the state New Zealand has discovered enormous energy and drive. These are qualities we could do with in Scotland".
(14 January 2002)
       

Tiger tamer
13-year-old New Zealander, Jae An, becomes the youngest ever male to play a professional golf tournament, and then the youngest golfer ever to make the cut, when he lines up alongside Tiger Woods at the New Zealand Open. "He's the most developed 13-year-old I've seen. He's young and fearless", comments Aussie pro Marcus Wheelhouse.
(10 January 2002)
          

Flooring the market
Forty-one companies, mainly from the US, confirm they will exhibit high-end Wools of New Zealand branded carpets at Surfaces 2002. The giant US flooring trade fair, which last year attracted more than 60,000 trade visitors from throughout the world, is being held in Las Vegas.
(19 December 2001)     
            

"All the world's a stage"
24-year-old Aucklander, Miles Lattimer-Gregory, hits the big time in London's West End, with the company he founded, the British Touring Shakespeare Company opening its season of Hamlet and the Twelfth Night at the Westminster Theatre. "This production contained some of the best Shakespeare I have ever seen", praises Threatre Review magazine. "Witty and wonderfully engaging, it was an energising performance which left the audience cheering for more. This company's work is must-see stuff". 
(17 January 2002)
                     

Counting down and counting up
The 31st America's Cup is 13 months away, but the Hauraki Gulf is already a hive of activity as 10 syndicates prepare to battle for the Auld Mug. And Government puffs up Team NZ's sails with a cash injection. Says Helen Clark, "Team New Zealand has not only been a wonderful ambassador for NZ but their success also had a positive impact on the country".
(5 January 2002)
        

I see red
A New Zealand company, Knights of NZ, wins the contract to make the Australian Olympic team's opening ceremony coats for the upcoming Winter Olympics. Worth more than $3000 each, the coats are made from 100 per cent Kiwi baby virgin wool. Aussie World Champion aerial skier Kirstie Marshall believes they will threaten the sporting tradition of uniform swapping between competitors: "I don't know that any Australians will want to swap. These look fantastic,"
(23 January 2002)
        

One Love
Anna Kournikova, "the tennis temptress whose courtships tend to garner more attention than her shot selection", completes her 99th WTA tour singles event - the Auckland Classic - in the same way she ended the previous 98. She loses. With a sense of the occasion Auckland's tennis director Richard Palmer remarks, "This is a huge day for the tournament and the sporting public of New Zealand". 
(8 January 2002)  
           

Record tourism numbers
"Despite the global downturn New Zealand still welcomed a record number of international visitors for the 2001 [...] 1,909,391 people visited, a 6.9 percent increase from the previous year".
(31 January 2002)
           

"Call me Dr Johnson"
Adventure-seeking Kiwi scientist, Mark Johnson, tags 60-foot sperm whales in the Gulf of Mexico. Shrugging off comparisons with Captain Ahab (I've already been given three copies of Moby Dick", complains Johnson. "Never read it") he modestly qualifies his profession as modern science, not some gothic quest for immortality or riches. Johnson, formerly an electrical engineer with an Akld Uni PhD, hopes the survey will dramatically expand the knowledge of the behaviour and genetics of the sperm whale.
(13 December 2001).
           

Global fashion guru
Hilary Alexander, the editor of London's Daily Telegraph said to "make or break reputations at the stroke of a pen", returns home to New Zealand to cover our national Fashion Week. She is well impressed with the local offerings: "I love the colonial past, the way Maori and Polynesian heritage creeps into it, the mix of fabric and colour. Some of the clothes are very, very sophisticated. The quality is very high. A couple of collections took my breath away".
(October 2001)
      

Gilding the director
Peter Jackson is nominated for the Best Director award as judged by the Directors Guild Association. Jackson, however, doesn't seem very interested in taking home any coveted gold trophies: "Its the icing on the cake. Every day in NZ people send us letters...that is the best, to feel the audiences are being entertained. Its not really about awards".
(23 January 2002)
           

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Ceci n'est pas le hype
New Zealander Jennifer Flay, owner of one of Paris's "edgiest contemporary art establishments" - Galerie Jennifer Flay - talks to Interview magazine's October French flair special. Flay has gathered a stable of European names who have achieved international acclaim, including Paris-based video and installation artist Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster.
(October 2001)    
         

Commanding performance
Grant Dalton and his crew hold second place in the Volvo Ocean Race, as the event "reaches its spiritual home", Auckland. "The World's premier yachting capital". according to the Volvo Ocean race website.
(8 January 2002)
      

Asian free trade zone
Japan is keen to envelop New Zealand and Australia into its vision for an Asian free-trade zone in both trade and investment, and beyond into technology, education and tourism.
(14 January 2002)
   

Feel like Jonah/Never meaning no harm?
Phil Robinson, helicopter pilot and Greenpeace activist, films rare Southern Ocean footage of a Japanese vessel harpooning a whale after a 40 minute chase. "Scientists" responded by targeting Greenpeace inflatables with water cannons.
(18 December 2001)

             

Diabetes breakthrough
Diatranz of Auckland claims it has conducted a successful trial that could eventually provide a cure for 15 million people around the world with type 1 diabetes who currently need daily injections of insulin. The Mexican trial, involving pig cell transplants, has yet to be approved in NZ.
(28 January 2002)
        

Young stars
Australian Ex-Monty Python director, Maurice Murphy, stars students from Toi Whakaari New Zealand drama school in his latest feature film, Zenolith.
      

Truly, madly, deeply explicit
New Zealand actor Kerry Fox visits Sydney to promote her controversial new film, Intimacy and offers this boyfriend-friendly pronouncement on her method: "Its not sex. It's not lovemaking. It's pretend", says Fox of the movie, which contains 35 minutes of explicit copulating.
     

Master Blasters
Explosive all-rounder Chris Cairns plays "one of the great one-day international innings in the 22-year history of the game [...] When he is on song, no oval in the world is big enough to contain him". The team's ability to fight back and win receives high praise in Australian newspapers: "they simply refuse to accept they are beaten", remarks the Sunday Herald. Fleming is hailed as the "best young captain in the game", and Warne is flogged out of the Aussie attack.
(19 January 2002)      
       

#1 Trans-Tasman Lampoon
Australian correspondent Martin Graham, in the 'Heckler' section of Sydney Morning Herald mocks Kiwi hobbit hubris over Lord of the Rings raving. While accusing NZers of fawning over "the fulm" like they'd split the atom, he praises the production designers - "New Zealand is Middle Earth ... the story revolves around a race of short, slightly furry creatures who are none too bright but relatively loyal in a tight spot. If this doesn't scream the middle bit of ANZAC, I can't imagine what would".
(January 2002) 
             

#2 Heckler good-humoured
500 e-mails and several severed subscriptions and after a visitation by one J.Lomu later Graham offers an open apology. Planting tongue firmly in cheek he concedes amongst other things that that Split Enz are indeed better than Midnight Oil and to finding ug boots "disturbingly comfortable". He wonders whether some Kiwis have a sense of humour but: "I apologise for suggesting that most of NZ could pass for the Middle Ages. Yes, I have been to Hobart on a Sunday. Point taken".
(16 January 2002)    
         

Internet Oscars
Wellington web firm Click Suite scoops the internet equivalent of an Oscar at the European Multimedia Awards. The company won the business training award for its 'Find the Lady' CD-Rom, designed to inspire London-based advertising agency Leo Burnett's staff in 100 offices around the world.
(29 November 2001)

         

PG Tips
Peter Gordon's "new Marylebone showcase", The Providores, wins the BMW Square Meal Award for Best New Restaurant in the United Kingdom. Gordon is said to "demonstrate his intelligent mastery of flavours to stunning & clean effect", with signatures such as "grilled quail pepped with a cinnamon-based marinade & zapped with the multiple flavours of a roast carrot, wattleseed, pomegranate & ginger salad" ... "If you think you don’t like fusion food, then it’s probably because you haven’t tried Peter Gordon’s cooking." 
(October 2001)
     

"Cook me some eggs James"
NZ-born Lee Tamahori, is charged with the license to uphold pop-cultural iconography, as he undertakes the directorship of the 20th James Bond installment, taking over from another Kiwi Martin Campbell. "To me the Bond film is a kind of impregnable fortress of film making ... It used to be about girls and gadgets and a good-looking spy and then it changed shape and is now about girls, gadgets, a good-looking spy - and big action. It is a timeless thing and is constantly evolving". The name's Tamahori, Lee Tamahori.
(11 January 2002)

         

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Upside down-under architect
Paris-based Brendan MacFarlane and partner Dominique Jakob talk concept with Interview magazine. "At Georges (the applauded restaurant atop the Pompidou Center), we deformed the floor", says MacFarlane. "Here...[referring to the duo's concept for the Renault Communication Center] ...we decided to suspend structures from the ceiling plane so that rooms would hang like bats".
(October 2001)
       

Great Escape
The Times lists New Zealand a hot destination, due to scenery witnessed in Lord of the Rings. United Kingdom travel companies report 20 per cent increases in travel bookings since the film's release.
(5 January 2002).
       

Coach Blackadder
Former All Black captain, Todd Blackadder, takes his first step into international coaching with the announcement that he will be joining the Scotland Under 21 set-up.
(21 January 2002)
        

NZ Schoolboys take England to the wall
"No one can decide who is the best rugby team in the world at present, largely because the two main contenders, England and NZ, circle each other without actually engaging [...] On the evidence at Twickenham yesterday, future best-in-the-world debates could prove similarly troublesome: The edge, though, must lie with New Zealand". Well said.
(31 January 2002)
         

Clean, green and safe
Conde Nast Traveller recently rated Aotearoa the world's safest destination and the Government wants to make sure the haven remains safe, committing increased resources to help fight terrorism.
(30 January 2002)
          

This sporting life
Ben Willis, ex-King's College and NZ Academy player, is carving out a career as a rugby pro playing off the bench at half back for Leinster, as well as turning out for Ireland A. Unison profiles the up'n'coming Willis and documents the day-to-day life of a modern rugby player.
(1 February 2002)
           

Movie of the year
"The most heartbreaking thing about faithful movie-going is that awe, beauty and excitement, three of the things we go to the movies for, are the very things we're cheated out of the most. The great wonder of Lord of the Rings is that it baths us in all three....It would be an insult to say the picture merely lives up to its hype; it crashes the meaning of hype ... advertising is dead: Long live moviemaking!". 
(01 January 2002) 

South Sea's start-up
Stephen "Warehouse" Tindall, (Forbes: "the Sam [Walmart] Walton of the South Pacific") backs NZ technology innovation in Red Herring. Citing do-it-yourself Kiwi advances in biotech, multimedia and software (the world's leading agricultural bio-tech research and the success of Lord of the Rings) Tindall pushes New Zealand forward: "We need our country to be self-sustaining ... I refuse to let our inventiveness go to waste - this is my home and I want to see it flourish."
(22 January 2002) 
          

"Fair-dinkum" Kiwi tops the pops
NZ-born musician Daniel Bedingfield, 21, tops the UK pop charts with Gotta Get Thru This - recorded on rudimentary equipment and a computer in his south London bedroom. "The track is absurdly brilliant, as if Off the Wall-period Michael Jackson had been blasted forward 20 years, genius intact, to make an irresistibly danceable garage anthem," says The Guardian. Bedingfield cities his antipodean roots as key to his success: "They gave me my pioneering spirit".
(15 January 2002) 
           

Cell-phone sunblock
SMS sun-safety - who says cell-phones are bad for your health? As the Kiwi summer heats up Auckland's Hyperfactory, in partnership with telco Vodofone and cosmetics company Nivea has developed a short-message service advising cellphone users of ultraviolet levels and burn time warnings. 
(4 January 2002)

     

The peoples' choice
"New Zealand's most revered sportsman", Michael Campbell, finishes a gallant second at the NZ Golf Open, five strokes ahead of world No 1 Tiger Woods. Back in the clubhouse, Campbell announces he will allocate to children's charities every cent of NZ prize-money he wins for the rest of his career. The following day Campbell is invested as an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit in Wellington.
(15 January 2002)     
          

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Man with the hook
NZ-born Sam Chisholm, the man who spent more time in the boxing ring than class room at King's College, who then went on to become deal maker and right hand man for both Kerry Packer and Rupert Murdoch, is profiled SMH's Good Weekend. Depending on who you talk to, Chisholm is "a little guy with a Napoleonic complex,...a bully who respects people who stand up to him,...or a man with a tough exterior but a soft interior". Chisholm: "Loyalty is important ... once you've sold your principles you've got nothing left". 
     

Moment in time
Photographic heavyweight Regan Cameron engages his lens in some model-watching to  "express the emotion" behind the new range from high-end watch-maker Patek Philippe.
(January 2002)
         

Irish rugby miracle
Alone it Stands, a heart-warming and hilarious re-enactment of Irish club side Munsters' defeat of the All Blacks in 1978, plays to its 100,000th person. "Beating the All Blacks is the ultimate dream of anyone who ever pulls on a rugby shirt, and here were guys like them - fellows with ordinary jobs who prepared for a game with a few pints the night before - beating this untouchable team", relays playwright John Breen.
(3 January 2002)
     

School of hard knocks
Jonah Lomu talks to The Independent about growing up on South Auckland's mean streets. "I lost an uncle decapitated in a shopping centre and a cousin who was stabbed. That's when my mother said I was off to boarding school. Her greatest fear was that I didn't know my own strength...once I learned to control my anger...that was the biggest turning point in my career". The street's loss - world rugby's gain ... 'till the fields ring again and again?
(16 January 2002)
     

Global Chief
Heineken names New Zealander Alan Gourdie its global brand chief.
(7 Januray 2002)

      

Strutting in their genes
New Zealand's "young kid band with famous fathers", otherwise known as Betchadupa, tours Australia for the Big Day Out series. Frontman Liam Finn bears the iconic surname of Spilt Enz and Crowded House star and father Neil; while drummer Matt Eccles is the son of Angels' drummer Brent.
(23 January 2002)
     

World First
Associate finance minister Trevor Mallard is the first person to conduct a euro cash transaction, exchanging NZ dollars for new euro notes at Wellington's airport.
(1 January 2002)
         

 

The Crowe road to Oscar success?
Russell Crowe is named Actor of the Year by the Broadcast Film Critics Association for his lead role in A Beautiful Mind. Crowe has won the award for the last three years.
(15 January 2002)
           

Bollywwod or bust
Lush locations, talent and technology make NZ an ideal shooting location for Bollywood. Its almost monsoon season down under with the production schedules over-flowing, "the total number of song and dance routines filmed in NZ has gone up to 80"... Already New Zealand earns almost as much income from cinema as it does from wool. 
(1 February 2002)