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Archive >> January 2002
Middle Earth homestay
“I just want to stay in NZ making my stuff.” PJ interviewed by PBS’s Charlie Rose. Listen to the interview here for a fascinating conversation as Peter Jackson…
Bollywood 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…
Record Tourism Numbers
“Despite the global downturn New Zealand still welcomed a record number of international visitors for the 2010 1,909,391 people visited, a 6.9 percent increase from the previous year”.
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 …
East to the Edge
A book exploring the distinctly Japanese art of Kabuki has been “beautifully translated into English” by New Zealander Kirsten McIvor. Kabuki Today throws open the door to the mysterious…
Art for Masses
LATimes cover story on art for the people in Chinatown, LA, features NZ artists and curators, including an exhibition at the Lord Mori Gallery, curated by Tessa Laird…
Wading into a Globalisation Debate
Prospect (“Britain’s intelligent conversation”) hosts a debate between prominent LSE economist NZer Robert Wade and Martin Wolf over whether global inequality and poverty are actually getting worse. Wade: “At the heart…
NZ Biologist Battles in Spice Wars
Michael Pearson, a biologist at the University of Auckland, has isolated six different viruses threatening to destroy the world’s second most lucrative spice – vanilla planifolia. “We are the world experts…
Chopper
Jason Wynyard, New Zealand’s World Champion Axeman, along side countryman and defending champion Dave Bolstad, is featured in an article previewing the STIHL Timbersports Series. “Lumberjacking: the epitome of…
Taste Sensation
Award winning vineyard – Goldwater Estate – Praised for its 2001 Dog Point Sauvignon Blanc: “This impeccably crafted wine offers a complexity and excitement equal to the finest Sancerre of the Loire…
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…
Crowe: Edgy Actor
Front-running for repeat Oscar victory Crowe would rather have a beer according to this excellent Independent profile that plays on Rus’s ANZAC roots, “Like the classic guy from Down…
Dead chuffed
The A-list from the cinematic, corporate and consulate worlds turned out for a deliciously irreverent Sam Neil tribute honouring his 25 years in film and his contribution to New…
Down-underwear
New Zealand-edged designer Collette Dinnigan (trained at Massey University Design School, formerly Wellington Polytechnic) enlists Dane Helena Christensen to model her new ‘supersexy’ collection of underwear, ‘Wild Hearts’ for…
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…
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…
South Sea’s Start-up
Stephen “Warehouse” Tindall, (Forbes: “the Sam 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…
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:…
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.
A Beautiful Mind
Wellington-born Russell Crowe, who last year won an Oscar for his lead role in Gladiator, pulls off the second biggest win of his career – a Golden Globe for…
Values Party – BYO
Don’t miss Marlborough’s “tangy, medium-bodied, cranberry-dried” Saint Clair 2000 Doctor’s Creek Pinot Noir. “Perfect with poultry or perhaps salmon, it epitomizes the remarkable values coming out of New Zealand”.
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…
“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…
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…
Heckler Good-humoured
500 e-mails, several severed subscriptions, and a visitation by one J.Lomu later, Graham offers an open apology. Planting tongue firmly in cheek, he concedes amongst other things that Split…
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…
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…
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.
“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…
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…
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…
“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…
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…
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…
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…
Global Chief
Heineken names New Zealander Alan Gourdie its global brand chief.
Fans Flock to Tolkien Trail
“Thanks to a bunch of elves, orcs and hobbits”, New Zealand is “one of this year’s most fashionable tourist destinations”. Experts believe the trilogy will boost NZ’s tourist industry by a third….
Front line truck stop
War correspondent Margaret Moth heads to another of the world’s trouble spots, this time Kabul, Afghanistan. Along the way, while searching for a truck waylaid picking them up at Bagram…
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…
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 1 syndicates prepare to battle for the Auld Mug. And Government puffs…
Madcap Pamela bestselling biographer
New Zealand-born Pamela Stephenson, practicing psychotherapist and ex-comedian (part of the anarchic foursome who made the seminal and career launching comedy Not the Nine o’clock News – along…
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 Vodafone and cosmetics company Nivea has developed a…
Young stars
Australian Ex-Monty Python director, Maurice Murphy, stars students from Toi Whakaari New Zealand drama school in his latest feature film, Zenolith.
Clean, Green and Safe
Condé 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.
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…
#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…
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.
