A Russian soul

Joanna Wood’s “beautifully written” biography of “short story master” Katherine Mansfield, Katerina: The Russian World of Katherine Mansfield, details the New Zealand-born writer’s lifelong passion for everything Russian: “She…

Jihad … whoops, I mean Shihad

NZ rockers Shihad undergo cosmetic change post-Sept 11 after concerns were raised about the band name’s similarity to the word jihad, (meaning holy war). The name Shihad…

Black Crowe

“I was a kid faced with adult fury. This is tattooed on my brain”, recalls Russell Crowe in this Irish Independent interview about growing up in New Zealand as…

Shadow play

The allure of the artistic life, “the journey towards the light” is the central concern of Maurice Gee’s “thoughtful” new novel Ellie and the Shadow Man, reviewed by Nicola…

Bugger. New Zealand creatives doing it better

Australian advertising, left in the mud by a Cannes Gold Lion winning Toyata Hilux ute, barks enviously about creative NZ: “many an advertising executive here would give a black…

Conquerors’ Offspring in Everest Assault

Forty-nine years and a generation or two on, Peter Hillary, son of Sir Edmund, and Tenzing Tashi, grandson of Norgay, will make their own assault on Mount Everest next month to…

The Response: “Anything But Dull”

Ellie’s provocations do not go unanswered with fans and citizens coming to the defence of the land and people. NZ enthusiast Marianne Curphey: “What makes this country different is that it…

Diabetes Breakthrough #2

New Zealand biotechnology company Diatranz will run clinical trials, in the Cook Islands, of an experimental diabetes treatment which once in place start making diabetes-curing insulin. The controversial treatment…

Stephenson wins UK Book of the Year Award

Not the Nine O Clock News comedian turned psychotherapist turned biographer, NZ-Edged Pamela Stephenson wins the book of the year prize at the British Book Awards for her “frank…

Riding On

Maz Quinn proves he’s no grommet as New Zealand’s first representative on surfing’s elite World Championship Tour and sets the pace during the opening round on Australia’s Gold Coast. “I’m…

The most feared woman on the internet?

NZer Rebecca Wilson (“director of leaves and petals” at the experimental Dutch Arts’ Foundation Studio for Electro-instrumental Music) postulated as as a real identity behind Net legend…

Kiwi Prof Named Head of International Federation of Accountants

Professor of Accounting and Public Policy at Victoria University, Wellington, Ian Ball named chief executive of the world’s top accountancy body, the New York based International Federation of Accountants. “Ian is…

This is Not the New Zealand Edge

Guardian Netjetter Ellie finds Godzone = dullzone, writing that you may need a thesaurus to do New Zealand’s beauty justice, but unfortunately that doesn’t make the country any more interesting: “One…

Don’t bank on it

“Maverick film producer” Kiwi John Maynard, (All Men Are Liars, An Angel At My Table co-produced with Jane Campion) is nominated for Best Film by the Film Critics Circle…

The Milligan Side-step

Revered and irreverent icon of comedy ex-Goon and Bad Jelly author Spike Milligan passed away on 26 Feb. A huge rugby fan with many NZ connections, he never got his biggest…

Oxford, Sorbonne, Harvard … Multiversity?

A radical new education model is questioning the relevance of Western/colonial education system and the university model of higher learning. The project is called “Multiversity” and will focus on those supposedly…

NZ: Stroppy Sheilas & Mana Wahines

Hauling a caravan behind a vintage Valiant, the Adventure Divas crew do New Zealand. Along the way they shoot pool with young film-maker Sima Urale, chill in Wellington with documentarian

NZ Founding Father of British Anthropology

Sir Raymond Firth, one of the world’s most prominent anthropologists, emeritus professor at London University, Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit, and recipient of first Leverhulme medal…

Cometh the Hour

Nathan Astle comes to play with “a superb and dominating” unbeaten 122 for the Black Caps to help them take the series 3-2 over “plucky losers” England and deservedly finish the…

“Come Together”

Wearing a traditional Maori cloak of native bird feathers, the Queen calls on New Zealanders to work together to resolve lingering differences between indigenous Maori and the Government. Elizabeth II was…

Pleasantly Rough: 7 Worlds Collide

Neil Finn’s latest album, 7 Worlds Collide brings together Pearl Jams’ Eddie Vedder, Tim Finn, Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien and ex-Smith’s legend Johnny Marr. BBC: “Finn is a consumate…

NYNZ – fringe thrills

Chris Niles‘s new novel Hell’s Kitchen well-received in the Big Bad Apple: “Here’s a novel that’s crowded, rushed, excited, mixed-up, fun, dangerous and a little dirty….

First

Wellington’s City Gallery hosts a major retrospective of the work of internationally renowned Australian artist Tracey Moffat. Curated by Lara Strongman and Paula Savage, the important 15 year survey…

Progressive Governance

Prime Minister Helen Clark joins leaders of “third way” governments from five continents at a Progressive Governance Conference in Stockholm. “The post-September 11 environment requires not just a military response but much broader…

Bafta – Remembered Gold

Lord of the Rings is ready to cast its spell on the Oscars after bewitching the Baftas with five awards, including best film and best director, for Peter Jackson:…

King of the Rings

“New Zealand has always reserved its greatest adulation for sporting giants like Richard Hadlee and Jonah Lomu, but a place must now be found on the victory dais for…

“Sweet As”

Next stop Queenstown – “an adrenalin-fuelled, hyperactive, big scream of a town where tourists go for one of two reasons: either to jump from a plane, mountain or bridge,…

University Challenge

Roger Barnard, chairman of linguistics at University of Waikato, argues in The Guardian that sharp increases in enrollments of Chinese students at NZ universities and polytechnics requires an urgent response by staff…

Raining at Sundance

Christina Jeff’s evocative feature Rain screens at the Sundance Film Festival with Merata Mita’s portrait of painter Ralph Hotere, Hotere, and short bursts of edge cinema in…

Skating Away

In the popular cartoon series about Californian skateboarders, the Rocket Power kids skate across New Zealand as the gang enters the NZ Junior Waikikamukau Games, an extreme sports…

Kevin Smith Farewelled

One of New Zealand’s best loved screen stars, Kevin Smith, dies aged 38, in a Beijing Hospital. Best known for playing Ares in the hit series Xena:Warrior Princess, Smith…

Ocean’s 11 = Moonshine

Ernest Rutherford’s musings on the improbability of the development of nuclear weapons because of the large scale industrial resource needed to do so act as a trope for Phillip Kerr’s New…

89 All Out!

“England were routed by an undeniably better team”, proclaims The Guardian, as New Zealand dismisses the poms for their second lowest one-day score ever (80) in the 2nd…

Wheel World Road Trip

SMH’s Kendall Hill goes Campervanning in NZ. She jokes that she was looking forward to a “wucked trip” but, “the pursuit of puns and funny thungs gave way to the pure…

Dawson’s Return

Australian media personality and regular on The Bert Newton Show, NZer Charlotte Dawson packs up her Louis Vuitton trunks to return home to her native country. “There are just…

Filler Up!

NZEdged comedian Deb Filler rises to a theatrical challenge in her one-woman show in Baltimore: “Glistening and piping hot, the bread has a rich, yeasty taste. But in the…

Edge power play

“Are Tim Bevan (43) and Eric Fellner (41) the most powerful London-based film producers in history? As Working Title (of which they are co-chairmen) is responsible…

Deep Video Tech

New Zealand company Deep Video Imaging throws away the wacky red and blue desktop monitor capable of displaying several layers of information. The first clients will be in the gambling industry, seducing…

En-Rot

New Yorkers jaded by the Enron scandal voice their concern on the street and yearn for the paradise in the Southern Seas – writer Alex Bauman: “If I had…

Love in a cold climate

Say it with flowers: NZ-born floral designer Nina Sherson’s fashionable West End floral boutique, Earthworks, features in a BBC Valentine’s Day special. As well Sherson tops the list…

Kiwi Resourcefulness

The Guardian takes time out from the New Zealand – England cricket series to talk up World Cup preparations: “England are on the way although they have a way to go,…

Earlier Ellie: “Sweet As”

Ellie finds down under dialect quirks and more: “At the Polynesian Spa I soaked in the thermal pools overlooking Lake Rotorua…I don’t know whether it was the ylang…

Most Valuable Harry

“Chris Harris is the bald bloke who must have been in the New Zealand team since they started playing cricket. He hangs around at backward point taking spectacular catches, bats irritatingly…

The tyranny of distance

…didn’t stop Russell Crowe…talking at the Berlin Film Festival about his edge: “Growing up in New Zealand or Australia you look outwards, fully aware you’re living in the last…

Giant Icebergs Leave Penguins Stranded

NZ scientists involved in penguin dynamics research in Antarctica report on the deaths of hundreds of thousands of baby penguins this summer, caused by the blocking of food routes by giant…

From NZ with Love

“Spunky New Zealander” Mary Hobbs, editor of NZ Outside, and her mountain guide husband Charlie, use their own money to put together a book from their fellow countrymen…

Are You Looking at Us?

PJ helmed, NZ-made Lord of the Rings…Russell Crowe in Beautiful Mind…Andrew Adamson co-directed Shrek. The Oscars go antipodean as the edge gives Hollywood a prod in tandem with a…

Oscar Double?

Russell Crowe earns his third consecutive Best Actor Oscar nomination for his depiction of Nobel Prize winner John Forbes Nash Jr in A Beautiful Mind. If he were to win,…

World Class Metropolis

Good life here and now: Auckland is ranked above Munich, Melbourne, Stockholm and Toronto to win sixth place for overall quality of life in a William M. Mercer survey of…

Intellectually Challenged NZ

Record numbers of NZ scholars, researchers, and graduates continue to leave antipodean pastures in search of work overseas notwithstanding another dose of local official hoopla, this time heard at the Innovate Conference…

A Pub Crawler’s Guide to Philosophy? Yeah Right.

US tour New Zealand “via its breweries, pubs and hard-case taverns”, finding barmaids who “pour the purge with a scowl that could compete with the hog trophies on the walls”, and…

“Give Me Red Wine, the Kind That Makes Me Feel Fine”

Two NZ Pinot Noirs – Gibbston Valley’s 1999 Nevis Bluff Pinot Noir and Wither Hills’ Pinot Noir (2000) – are included in  Guardian Top 5 “seduction wine” list for Valentine’s Day….

Triple Bottom Liners

Janet Street Porter gets down under with the finer points of NZ culture, including food evangelist Dick Hubbard and the socially conscious breakfast cereal. The Triple Bottom Line philosophy = the…

Everest Celebrations

Sir Edmund Hillary’s 54-year old son Peter will attempt to ascend Mount Everest this month, as Nepal approaches 50th anniversary celebrations of Everest’s first successful ascent in 1953.

Paradise Found

The Southern Alps. The Tongariro volcanoes. The Fiordland rain forest. “There is something archetypal about the scenery here, as though someone copied the planet’s most distinctive landscapes and jammed them all…

Man of the Series

Kiwi paceman Shane Bond wins Player of the Cricket World Series, taking an astonishing 21 wickets against Australia and South Africa. Sir Richard Hadlee rates him “the quickest bowler New Zealand has…