April 2008 Archives

The Way We Cooked

The Way We Cooked

Two of the first television chefs, Graham Kerr and Fanny Cradock.

Investigating a Colossus

Investigating a Colossus

Te Papa’s colossal squid, the largest ever caught, has created a worldwide media furore making headlines from South Africa and Germany, to Iran and Uruguay. Very little is known about colossal squid; only…

Otago Examines Obesity

Otago Examines Obesity

A University of Otago study has found that obesity in women may worsen the impact of asthma and also mask its severity in standard tests. The findings were published in the first issue for…

Autumn and Rainbows

Autumn and Rainbows

From Takaka, Telegraph foreign correspondent Peter Foster writes a weekly blog on life in the small South Island town, population: 1,182. Foster was the Telegraph’s South Asia Correspondent for four years until January 2008…

From One Village to Another

From One Village to Another

New Zealand journalist Thomas Butson began his career in copy at New Zealand’s Truth, followed by positions at The Toronto Star and from 1968 at The New York Times. In 1992 Butson and his…

Nessun Dorma – Simon O’Neill

Nessun Dorma – Simon O’Neill

Simon O’Neill sings Puccini’s Nessun Dorma.

Bond Says It Like It Is

Bond Says It Like It Is

Shane Bond, ex-Black Cap fast bowler and now in the money at the Indian Cricket League’s Delhi Giants, says the decision to go to India is a “no brainer“. Though he will double his income,…

New leathers for Lawless

New leathers for Lawless

Lucy Lawless, has been both trawling the back streets of West Hollywood for replacement leather chaps and performing at the Carling Academy in Islington, London. The lesbian icon, just turned 40, talks to Time…

Great spirit returns

Great spirit returns

New Zealand’s favourite wizard, Sir Ian McKellen will return to the country to reprise his role as Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings prequel, The Hobbit. McKellen had told Empire before he was…

Legacy Well Spent

Legacy Well Spent

In a helicopter from Queenstown and beyond, over Lake Whakatipu and the Remarkables and then down through Milford Sound, The Mail’s John Stapleton is spending his son’s inheritance on New Zealand scenery. Queenstown is:…

Nadal’s NZ Predecessor

Nadal’s NZ Predecessor

Christchurch-born and educated Anthony Wilding was a world tennis champion from 1911-1914, and up until this week held a 90-year undefeated consecutive record for winning four titles in Monte Carlo. Overall, Wilding…

Pastoral in pieces

Pastoral in pieces

Auckland pebble mosaic artist John Botica has created what is considered, in the specialist publication Mosaic Art Now, one of the world’s top 100 contemporary mosaic works. Botica’s ‘Tree of Life’ was commissioned by…

Outfoxing furniture

Outfoxing furniture

The small town of Pokeno in Franklin district, Auckland is behind ex-Thompson Twin Alannah Currie’s latest artistic foray, a display of surreal furniture on show at London’s Ragged School. Under the moniker Miss Pokeno,…

Trade Relationship Anniversary

Trade Relationship Anniversary

In 1983, New Zealand and Australia signed the Closer Economic Relations trade pact, and this year, on the 25th  anniversary of the agreement, chief economist of the Australian Trade Commission Tim Harcourt reflects on…

Two Hobbits of a Kind

Two Hobbits of a Kind

Peter Jackson is joining forces with Mexican director Guillermo Del Toro to make the two back-to-back film adaptations of JRR Tolkien’s The Hobbit. Jackson will co-produce the film with fellow director Fran…

Jonah Lomu: All Blacks Legend

Jonah Lomu: All Blacks Legend

Watch some career highlights of All Blacks legend, Jonah Lomu.

Lange’s Working Class

Lange’s Working Class

Pioneering filmmaker New Zealander Darcy Lange’s work screened in New York’s Lehmann Maupin gallery as part of group show, You & Me, Sometimes… A “textured” and “cool” show according to The New…

From a Common Ancestor

From a Common Ancestor

Auckland Museum’s “most ambitious” travelling exhibition Vaka Moana – Voyages of the Ancestors is currently at Taiwan’s National Museum of Prehistory and the National Museum of Natural Science. University professor and editor of the…

Island Calling at Festival

Island Calling at Festival

New Zealand filmmaker Annie Goldson’s An Island Calling, featured at the Canadian International Documentary Festival, explores Fiji’s infamous 2001 murders of Red Cross boss John Scott and his partner. “The facts are known about…

Global Positioning Sleuths

Global Positioning Sleuths

Rotorua has always been famous for its geothermal activity, now another ‘geo-‘ is making its mark around the city, less the sulphur. It’s the sport of geocaching, a kind of outdoor treasure-hunt practised worldwide….

Maori Role Models

Maori Role Models

New Zealand is a model for Canada in improving its relations with indigenous populations. By adopting lessons from the Maori experience, a report by the Winnipeg-based Frontier Centre for Public Policy is urging a…

Tiki Taane: Always On My Mind

Tiki Taane: Always On My Mind

The music video for Tiki Taane’s much loved song, Always On My Mind.

The Mutton Birds: Nature

The Mutton Birds: Nature

The video for the Mutton Birds hit song, Nature.

Scaling the Opera Ladder

Scaling the Opera Ladder

New Zealand tenor Geoffrey Knight is a versatile individual, a former member of motorbike gang Highway 61, a stuntman, actor and deep sea trawlerman, Knight is currently performing Gilbert & Sullivan’s operetta Utopia Limited…

The Mutton Birds: Anchor Me

The Mutton Birds: Anchor Me

The original Mutton Bird’s version of Anchor Me.

The Mutton Birds: Dominion Road

The Mutton Birds: Dominion Road

The video for Dominion Rd by the Mutton Birds.

Lucky Dagg at the Logies

Lucky Dagg at the Logies

Comedian and writer John Clarke, born in Palmerston North and famous for creating the “elegantly dressed” farmer Fred Dagg and his seven sons, all Trevors, will be inducted into the Australian Logies Hall of…

Art of Ice

Art of Ice

New Zealand artist David Trubridge features at San Francisco’s Natural World Museum in an exhibition entitled Melting Ice: A Hot Topic, which addresses the theme of climate change from a global perspective. Trubridge’s…

Surfing Rhapsody

Surfing Rhapsody

Raglan may be home to “one of the world’s best left-hand surf breaks”, but the town is also garnering international interest for its relaxed isolation and its arts scene. “Bohemian” Raglan writes the Lonely…

WOWed by India

WOWed by India

Wellington’s annual Montana Wearable Arts Awards continues to entice greater number of international participants to enter in the “ultimate arts competition”. A recent preview of this year’s competitors saw the final design entries from…

Thank Goodness for Spreadable

Thank Goodness for Spreadable

One of the greatest inventions of all time, according to the New Zealand Post, is New Zealand’s spreadable butter, and the Telegraph’s Bee Wilson agrees. “If it weren’t for the New Zealand Dairy Research…

Keoghan the Sportsman

Keoghan the Sportsman

New Zealand television presenter Phil Keoghan donned a kilt, picked up a 7 iron and hit a golf ball across Scotland. As host of The Amazing Race, Keoghan has travelled the world and done…

Dame Kiri’s festival circuit

Dame Kiri’s festival circuit

Soprano Dame Kiri te Kanawa is to perform at three North American summer music festivals – Washington D.C.’s Wolf Trap, Chicago’s Ravinia and the famous Ontario Elora Festival on July 13. Elora artistic director…

Together at Arms

Together at Arms

A new sculpture of a New Zealand digger will be unveiled on the Anzac Bridge in Sydney. The digger will stand guard on the other side of the road, opposite its Australian equivalent, thus…

#97 WW2 Labyrinth Opens

#97 WW2 Labyrinth Opens

Edge Message #97 from Brian Sweeney, producer NZEDGE.COM   New Zealanders in…

Worth the Air Miles

Worth the Air Miles

New Zealand could be the most “luxurious destination of all” according to Canadian newspaper The Vancouver Sun in an article which promotes Rotorua’s Treetops Lodge and Estate, Waiheke Island and Peter Gordon’s Dine. “In…

Masterpieces in Ink

Masterpieces in Ink

Ta moko is more than aesthetics, it is writes the Los Angeles Times, a solemn declaration of Maori identity and dignity. With a little ink, some stinging pain and a helping hand from the…

Opshop: One Day

Opshop: One Day

The third single of Opshop’s debut album Second Hand Planet, One Day.

At Large in Sydney

At Large in Sydney

New Zealand is well represented at this month’s Australian Fashion Week with thirteen fashion designers joining together to create a formidable showroom line-up. These include Kate Sylvester, Cybele, Lonely Hearts and Stitch…

Potentially Pinot

Potentially Pinot

Though Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc continues its global popularity – sales grew nearly 29 per cent last year – New Zealand winemakers seek a new viticulture challenge. This challenge is Pinot Noir. The winemakers’ excitement…

Anti-nuke Politician Remembered

Anti-nuke Politician Remembered

New Zealand politician Fraser Colman, remembered for travelling to Mururoa Atoll in 1973 to draw attention to French nuclear testing in the Pacific has died, aged 83. Colman sailed on board the…

Seaweed Means Fuel

Seaweed Means Fuel

Aquaflow Bionomic Corporation, a New Zealand-based company, is likely to be the first of its kind to produce biofuel from large quantities of wild algae. Aquaflow’s chairman Barrie Leay said his company had successfully…

Just to Say Thank You

Just to Say Thank You

Forty years after the Wahine capsized near Steeple Rock in Wellington Harbour, Queenstown artist Kate Watson, née McGibbon, still searched for the man who rescued her, only to discover he died five years ago….

At the Helm of Harrod’s

At the Helm of Harrod’s

Former Wellington business man James McArthur, 48, has been appointed chief executive officer and Group chief of Harrod’s, reporting to chairman Mohamed Al Fayed. A 12-year Gucci Group veteran, McArthur was most recently president…

Sir Geoffrey’s TV Legacy

Sir Geoffrey’s TV Legacy

Celebrated New Zealand journalist and soldier Sir Geoffrey Cox has died in Britain, aged 97. As editor-in-chief of Britain’s ITN from 1956 to 1968, Sir Geoffrey built the foundations of 50 years of popular…

Beijing Pact Signed

Beijing Pact Signed

New Zealand is the world’s first developed country to sign a free-trade deal with China. “It’s a bit like getting the first date with the best-looking girl on the block,” says Stuart Ferguson, chairman…

Rogue takes orders

Rogue takes orders

Wellington actress Anna Paquin, 25, will star as Sookie Stackhouse in HBO drama True Blood, to air in the US in September. Paquin, who won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in Jane…

First Knight Memorialised

First Knight Memorialised

Sir Edmund Hillary was honoured by the Queen at a ceremony in St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle. To a full congregation, Sarah, his daughter, read Allen Curnow’s elegiac poem You Will Know When You…

NZ’s Hottest Beaches

NZ’s Hottest Beaches

New Zealand’s four most “sizzling” beaches feature in a Forbes Traveler’s ‘Sexy Beaches Downunder’ slide show. These are: Piha, Hot Water Beach, Onetangi Bay, and Abel Tasman National Park, which receives a “’10’ rating…

A Model Ambassador

A Model Ambassador

Auckland model Anna Fitzpatrick, is an official ambassador for the newly established Princess Charlotte Alopecia Foundation in Australia, named for the daughter of Penrith Panthers assistant coach Mathew Adamson. Fitzpatrick, like Charlotte Adamson,…

#96 NZ Ventures into Robotics

#96 NZ Ventures into Robotics

Edge Message #96 from Brian Sweeney, producer NZEDGE.COM New Zealanders…

Arthur Lydiard Visits Michigan

Arthur Lydiard Visits Michigan

Arthur Lydiard spoke in Michigan in 2004 to a crowd including the ‘who’s who’ of Michigan’s running world.

Easter Edge

Easter Edge

So, that was Easter. What a buzz all round. The stone at the sepulchre door has been shifted, and an impossible calendar of commitments has been …

Rose’s Web Comeback

Rose’s Web Comeback

Mt Maunganui former lonelygirl15, Jessica Rose, returns soon to Web-only-TV in a US-made horror-thriller Blood Cell. The show follows Rose’s character, Julia, as she contends with an unseen murderer who will talk to her…

Peter Jackson step aside

Peter Jackson step aside

Christchurch video production company Gorilla Pictures is making a zombie film “better than most indie stuff cranked out on the cheap” in the US, according to horror film aficionados Dread Central. Director Logan…

Hawaiian Hunt

Hawaiian Hunt

New Zealand hunting specialist Prohunt has been hired by The Nature Conservancy of Hawaii to help stem the destruction of the island’s native forest by marauding wild pigs and goats. Prohunt is conducting research…