January 2009 Archives

Pursuits of Happiness

Pursuits of Happiness

“Beyond the wild, raw landscapes, another New Zealand beckons: one of sophisticated restaurants, silvery olive groves, and the most lush, grape-heavy vineyards this side of Bordeaux” writes Condé Nast writer Chang-rae Lee, who spent…

A Paddler’s Paradise

A Paddler’s Paradise

Abel Tasman Park on the northern coast of the South Island is a veritable kayaking nirvana, offering up pristine coastlines of granite headlands, tiny coves of golden sand, and voluptuous hills cloaked in emerald…

Dream Covered

Dream Covered

Auckland-based designers Stolen Girlfriend’s Club — a pop culture label co-founded by Marc Moore, Luke Harwood and Dan Gosling — are represented on the cover of Nylon Japan’s latest issue, with Japanese singer and…

Phase Five

Phase Five

The Phase Five Program, led by NZ On Air’s Mike McClung and Brendan Smyth, is exposing international audiences to up and coming New Zealand bands. The Program pairs a Phase Five…

Not So Drowned Continent

Not So Drowned Continent

Fossils of an 18 million year old ancestor to the tuatara have been found outside of Saint Bathans, Otago, filling a huge void in the fossil record, and casting doubt on a widely held…

Looking at both sides

Looking at both sides

New Zealand’s health sector is giving a few lessons to its British Columbia counterpart, which sent delegates out in November 2008 to learn about the country’s co-payment system, drug policy and its emphasis on…

Is it or isn’t it

Is it or isn’t it

29 January 2009 – University of Canterbury professor of philosophy Denis Dutton’s latest book The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure, and Human Evolution – which supposes that art appreciation stems first from evolutionary adaptions made during…

Strange Brew Debut

Strange Brew Debut

  Cambridge rockers The Datsuns will play Galway, Ireland on February 5 promoting their latest album Head Stunts, which was recently recorded in Sweden. Formed in 1997 under the name Trinket, The Datsuns have drawn…

Southern Adventures

Southern Adventures

Queenstown is a land made for thrill seekers and adrenaline junkies, with canyon swings, bungee jumping from bridges, G-force acrobatic flights, and paragliding, just for starters. Say you’re an average mountain biker and you’ll…

NZ’s film bonanza

NZ’s film bonanza

Wellington’s Weta Digital will develop the effects for upcoming 3D motion-capture trilogy, The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn, the sequel of which Peter Jackson will direct in New Zealand. Recently announced is…

Courting Comparison

Courting Comparison

New Zealand netball is the “main ‘girl’s game'” and has a “‘World Championships’ that only Australia and New Zealand can realistically win,” writes Frank Shanly in a profile about the sport in Indiana daily…

Walking on thin ice

Walking on thin ice

New Zealand’s best known trompe l’oeil muralist Marc Spijkerbosch was recently commissioned by ad agency Ogilvy to paint five images promoting pedestrian safety on pavements around Auckland for the city’s council. The images portray…

Not Very Boring

Not Very Boring

Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie of the Flight of the Conchords discuss silly songs, the sweet tooth of success and why Australians are always in the cross hairs, with CNN reporter Shanon Cook. Asked…

Small Surprises At the Zoo

Small Surprises At the Zoo

Four two-week-old Kunekune-cross piglets are the newest attraction at Five Sisters Zoo near Polbeth in West Lothian, Scotland. A cross between New Zealand and Vietnamese pot-bellied pigs, they originate from Asia, and are now…

Speed Demon’s Dream

Speed Demon’s Dream

Wellington entrepreneur Richard Nowland is the man behind the only jet-powered car ever designed and built in New Zealand. Nowland purchased a Rolls-Royce Avon 206 turbojet engine and intends to transform it into New…

Fresh sense

Fresh sense

Supermarket giant Tesco has signed on to use fruit labeling technology developed by New Zealand packaging specialists ripeSense. The color-coded labels let shoppers know how ripe a fruit is by responding to aromas released…

Australasian Citizenship

Australasian Citizenship

Wellington-born David Kirk, former All Black captain and chief executive of Fairfax, is now an Australian citizen. Kirk, skipper of the World Cup winners in the inaugural 1987 tournament, confirmed he would always…

Henry’s Heyday

Henry’s Heyday

A 111-year-old tuatara named Henry has successfully sewn his seed after over fifteen years in solitary confinement. Henry, who lives at the Southland Museum and Art Gallery, was assumed over the hill and kept…

Nomination for Brown

Nomination for Brown

Ladyhawke continues to make entertainment headlines with a 2009 Shockwaves NME Award nomination for Best Solo Artist, alongside Laura Marling, Lightspeed Champion, Jay-Z and Pete Doherty. The Awards will be announced…

Viva Vettori

Viva Vettori

At 30, Black Caps captain Daniel Vettori is “a veteran among the greats” according to International Herald Tribune writer Huw Richards, “and like Joe DiMaggio in baseball and the Australian rugby players David Campese…

Perchance for professor

Perchance for professor

Auckland-born poet Fleur Adcock is one of eight names being discussed by the Oxford University English faculty to take up the position of professor of poetry when current incumbent Christopher Ricks comes to the…

In town for love

In town for love

Auckland actor Martin Henderson, 34, who is based in Venice Beach, Los Angeles, is back in New Zealand filming Home by Christmas, a World War II love story directed by Gaylene Preston due for…

Above the Mountains

Above the Mountains

New Zealand’s Maori namesake, Aotearoa, is captured at sunset in digital by photographer Chris Picking in the form of a lenticular cloud swirling above the Tararua Ranges. Picking said: “The picture was taken in…

Speed Demoness

Speed Demoness

New Zealand racing star Christina Orr will be competing in this year’s Bathurst 12 Hour Race, driving for Jim Hunter Motorsport. The 2008 Bruce McLaren New Zealand Driver of the Year will be teaming…

Into the bazaar

Into the bazaar

New Zealand Herald columnist and travel writer Jill Worrall is interviewed by Iranian freelance journalist Kourosh Ziabari for The Moderate Voice, a widely-read independent political news blog, on the topic: ‘Iran – the most…

Region of the Perpendicular

Region of the Perpendicular

The Milford Track – “what Americans call a trail” – is free of mammals and snakes, explains New York Times writer Robert Hershey, but watch out for the “large and brazen New Zealand parrot,…

Medals From the Velodrome

Medals From the Velodrome

Christchurch omnium champion Hayden Godfrey, 30, has won gold at the Beijing UCI Track Cycling World Cup Classic series. Godfrey beat Great Britain’s Chris Newton in the men’s 60-lap, 15km scratch race final. New…

Robot rock

Robot rock

Hamilton based rock band the Trons are appreciating a rapid ascent, despite the noted absence of any actual human members. The Hamilton based four-part robot rock band consists of Ham on vocals, Fifi on…

Slippery Subjects

Slippery Subjects

Maori eel catching methods are related in a new book about migratory animals by American artist and author James Prosek, who spent time in New Zealand studying the fish. Bird, Butterfly, Eel is designed…

Thriller crashes onto shelves

Thriller crashes onto shelves

Wellington author New York-based John Wareham’s latest book The President’s Therapist and the Secret Intervention to Treat the Alcoholism of George Bush hits US stores on January 20, Inauguration Day. The  President’s Therapist is…

Out of the dark

Out of the dark

January 17, 2009 – Auckland writer CK Stead’s Collected Poems 1951-2006 is reviewed this week in the Guardian. “The main stylistic influence on Stead is probably Ezra Pound, from whom he has inherited a…

Altered stories

Altered stories

“New Zealand remains a comfortably social democratic society, less dynamic but also less brash or polarised than Australia,” writes Guardian political blogger Michael White in a posting which looks at the reintegration of Chinese…

Teddy’s triumph

Teddy’s triumph

Baritone Teddy Tahu Rhodes plays Antony in New York City Opera’s presentation of Samuel Barber’s Antony and Cleopatra, in a performance the New York Times critic Anthony Tommasini calls “fervent and sensitive,” “the best…

Evolution of the Artist

Evolution of the Artist

Denis Dutton, philosophy of art professor at The University of Canterbury, has published a book building off his standard-bearing art theory website Arts & Letters Daily. The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure, and Human Evolution…

Return of the Poker Face

Return of the Poker Face

Flight of the Conchords “is finally back” on American television screens for a second season. The Los Angeles Times reviews the series opener on HBO: “Mixing the ironic whimsicality of ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ with…

Facebook’em

Facebook’em

Queenstown police have caught a burglar by posting footage of a man trying to break into a safe on the social networking site Facebook. The burglar broke into the Franklin Tavern in Queenstown and…

Truly Awesome Victory

Truly Awesome Victory

Lower Hutt-raised Hollywood starlet Anna Paquin, 26, has won a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Television Drama, awarded for her performance as Sookie Starkhouse in HBO’s vampire series True Blood, beating A-list…

Pre-Human New Zealand

Pre-Human New Zealand

Paleontology researchers from the University of Adelaide, University of Otago, and the NZDEC have begun to paint a picture of ancient life on the New Zealand islands by investigating the feces of the giant…

Hot pasties on demand

Hot pasties on demand

Gisborne butcher Heath Raggett, 39, owns a shop on Bow Street, near Aberystwyth in Wales where he sells lamb reared on the hills above Cardigan Bay, encouraging locals to eat locally-produced meats. Raggett has…

Back to Her Roots

Back to Her Roots

Christchurch-born musician Bic Runga, 32, has been in Kuala Lumpur performing at the launch of the new BMW 7 Series, having just completed an album for Oxfam with Neil Finn, Radiohead and Wilco. “I’m…

Killer Waves

Killer Waves

A New Zealand man spent one recent Saturday surfing alongside three orcas near a beach on the Taranaki coast, enjoying the perfect waves. Craig Hunter, who has been surfing off the North Island for…

Trailer: An Angel at My Table

Trailer: An Angel at My Table

Burt Munro: Rare Photographs

Burt Munro: Rare Photographs

For all Burt Munro fans, here’s a short video featuring rare images of the legend himself.

Tickled pink

Tickled pink

New Zealand advertising agency DDB, creators of the pink hugging monster for Pink Batts insulation, has been rated the world’s best agency in the 6th annual Bestadsontv.com rankings; New Zealand agencies Colenso and Saatchi…

Enchantment for sharing

Enchantment for sharing

Children’s writer Margaret Mahy, recipient of the Carnegie Medal for Children’s Literature, the Hans Christian Andersen Medal and a host of other awards, says the shared experience of a parent reading to a child…

Carb Addict

Carb Addict

Dr. Simon Thornly, of the Auckland Regional Public Health Service, has published a recent study claiming that foods high in refined sugars have the same addictive qualities as tobacco. According to Thornley, heavily processed…

Vettori one of the best

Vettori one of the best

Black Caps captain Daniel Vettori, 29, is ranked amongst the top International bowlers on the ICC Player Rankings for One Day International bowlers. The left-arm spinner took six wickets at an impressive average of 12.33 in the…

Madonna’s mad for it

Madonna’s mad for it

Wellington-based company “Phil & Ted changed my life,” writes Examiner.com’s Kate Byrd of the New Zealand “stroller gurus”, going on to give ten reasons why she loves her buggy. “I researched double strollers for months….

Effervescent Bargains

Effervescent Bargains

New Zealand sparkling wines Cloudy Bay Pelorus and Lindauer were top sellers over the Christmas period in the UK according to the chief executive of Britain’s biggest wine warehouse chain Majestic Wine – Steve…

Making Space With Light

Making Space With Light

New Zealand-born architect David Hovey discusses the designs of his 30-year-old Chicago-based business Optima Inc., which he says are influenced by an appreciation of the outdoors. A trace of an accent reveals his roots….

Raskolnikov reincarnate

Raskolnikov reincarnate

New Zealand author Neil Cross discusses his latest novel The Burial in UK publication Metro. “I’ve always been fascinated by guilt,” says the 39-year-old, who divides his time between producing fiction and writing for…

Bush’s Pacific Monument

Bush’s Pacific Monument

Large areas in the Pacific near New Zealand territory have been designated as American national monuments by outgoing U.S. President George Bush. The areas include the Mariana Trench and northern Mariana Islands, a chain…

Open up and say ah

Open up and say ah

The New Zealand Department of Conservation will perform a two-hour necropsy on a 10ft female great white shark at the Auckland Museum in a live operation streamed online, reminiscent of that performed on the…

2000: All Blacks vs Wallabies

2000: All Blacks vs Wallabies

See why this match was described by many as ‘the best game of rugby ever played’.

World’s Best Walk

World’s Best Walk

The Tongariro Northern Circuit and Heaphy Track are two of the world’s best unknown treks, an 82-mile “one-two punch that delivers the full range of Kiwi highlights in nine perfect days — and without…

Seven and Rising

Seven and Rising

Auckland model Zippora Seven, 17, who has been lauded as the fashion industry’s new Kate Moss, is the new face of Swedish clothing label H&M’s spring/summer 2009 campaign. A topless shoot of the teenager…