Y2K a Decade On

University of Canterbury professor of philosophy, Arts & Letter Daily founder and author of The Art Instinct Denis Dutton writes a New York Times op-ed about the turn of…

In Father’s Strokes

New Zealand adventurer Shaun Quincey, 25, hopes to follow his father Colin Quincey into the history books by becoming the second person to row solo the 2200km from Australia…

Record Over Ice

Twizel adventurer Kylie Wakelin and six other women who made up the Kaspersky Commonwealth Antarctic Expedition have made it to the South Pole, cross-country skiing 900km over 38 days…

Knighthood for Jackson

Director Peter Jackson was among five New Zealanders to become knights or dames after a return to New Year’s honours. Former Prime Minister Helen Clark — who axed British…

Tough cherub

Auckland singer Gin Wigmore, 23, is included alongside Little Boots, Peaches and Megan Washington in Australian magazine Yen, in an article called ‘All the Single Ladies’ , which says:…

Dishy Beef Cakes

Wellington waiters Strip-of-Meat are a company with “a dress code that involves a lot of skin” writes website Inventorspot. “Yes, we’ve seen plenty of businesses of this sort lately,…

Bond Leaves Test cricket

Christchurch-born paceman Shane Bond, 34, has retired from Test cricket and though he played just 18 Tests after making his debut in 2001, he claimed 87 wickets at an…

Understanding Terroir

Auckland University scientists are working with winemakers attempting to solve the puzzle of terroir by researching yeast varieties indigenous to West Auckland vineyard Kumeu River Estate. The study has…

Liddell to Detroit

General Motors, #4 on the Fortune 500 and now US-government-owned following a 30 year decline, has named Chris Liddell as Chief Financial Officer at possibly the most critical time in…

Manhire made happy

Director of Victoria University’s International Institute of Modern Letters and New Zealand’s inaugural poet laureate Bill Manhire has had a poem — My Childhood In Ireland — published in…

Banning the Bomb

New Zealand has voted to unanimously to ban cluster munitions. New Zealand’s Cluster Munitions Prohibition Bill bans the use, development, production and stockpiling of cluster munitions in the country…

Peter Snell Knighted

New Zealand three-time Olympic gold medalist Dr Peter Snell, who is based in Dallas, was honoured twice this year for his athletic career. Snell was knighted in August and…

Controversy in the Hay

Auckland’s St Matthew-in-the-City church has ignited controversy with a billboard depicting Mary and Joseph lying partially nude beneath the sheets. In an unorthodox take on the Christmas tale, the…

Luxury Lodge World’s Best

Rotorua’s luxury Lake Okareka Lodge has been voted the world’s best luxury country lodge at the Luxury Hotel Awards held in Thailand. The five-year-old lodge has three double bedrooms,…

Perfectly Picturesque

New Zealand’s “countryside is stunning (no wonder The Lord of the Rings was filmed there); the people are charming — like happy Britons; and the food and drink can…

Success at boiling point

Fahrenheit 212 co-founder and CEO Geoff Vuleta leans back in his chair and muses thoughtfully about his native New Zealand. “There’s a lawn at Oxford with a sign on…

Butter on Ice

The world’s oldest block of butter — believed to have come from the Canterbury Central Co-operative Dairy Company, formed in the 1890s and based in Christchurch — has been…

Marriage Good for You

University of Otago clinical psychologist Kate Scott led a study of the effects of marriage on 34,493 people across 15 countries finding that it really is good for you…

Palpable Landscapes

Winemaker and international landscape photographer Kevin Judd’s book The Landscape of New Zealand Wine is one of seven of the “best wine reading on offer this year” according to…

Christmas and Cows

New Plymouth physical education teacher Tracey Dravitzki explained New Zealand Christmas celebrations to a York News-Times journalist while stopping off in the American country town to participate in a…

Two Globe Nominations

New Zealand-raised actress Anna Paquin has been nominated for two best actress Golden Globes in her roles as Sookie Stackhouse in True Blood and playing the lead in made-for-TV…

House of Pallets

Auckland sculptor Aaron McConchie’s Chep pallet installation “c” is on display at Manukau City’s Highbrook Business Park through January 9. The exhibit consists of nine pyramid-like structures that resembles…

Defining Experience

“The New Zealand lodge is almost a travel genre in its own right; and, like the safari lodge, the ranch and the spa resort, it comes with a set…

Hatchery to Home

In the last eight years, 89 chicks have been returned to the wild by the Whakatane Kiwi Project, and on a recent holiday to New Zealand, Vancouver-based freelancer Jennifer…

Working to Live

New Zealander Michelle Clark-Smith, 32, who is now based in Durango, Colorado, is “building a semi-professional ski career for herself in tandem with her partner-in-crime and husband, longtime local…

Return to self

Flight of the Conchords duo Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement have ended their HBO series after two seasons. On their website, the pair said: “We’re very proud of the…

Quality Not Quantity

New Zealand’s wineries are “fighting to preserve their reputation as premium wine producers, even as bumper harvests and thrifty drinkers pull them in the opposite direction,” writes Alexandra Harney…

Icy Conundrum

New Zealand is one of the dozen founding members of the Antarctic Treaty, along with the United States, Russia, Britain and others, and is among those leading the push…

Gimblett Amongst the Best

“New Zealand has been one of the great success stories of the Noughties,” writes the Telegraph’s Jonathan Ray in a wine trend review of the decade. “It’s a country…

Revered Geochemist

Port Chalmers-born Smithsonian scientist Brian Harold Mason, who was internationally known for his study of meteorites and moon rocks and who was the first to discover that a rock…

Eastern Tastes Approve

Many newcomers drawn to New Zealand’s quality of life are of Asian descent observes Ming Wong writing for the Chinese publication Global Times. “This explains why cities such as…

Boondigga takes on US

Wellington band Fat Freddy’s Drop recently played three sell-out shows on the West Coast of the United States. The seven-piece dub outfit has been together for nearly a decade,…

Smooth operator

New Zealand-based bus manufacturer DesignLine, which already has three 37-seater vehicles valued at $784,000 operating as part of a pilot scheme in New York City, may be joined by 87…

Picking Up the Protocol

“New Zealand may be best known for adventure tourism including sky diving, bungee jumping, gliding and ‘Zorbing’ ó rolling downhill in a 10-foot-tall inflatable sphere cushioned with water.” Yet…

Meeting of minds

New Zealanders director Jane Campion, 55, and actress Kerry Fox, 43, tell The Independent on Sunday how they both came to meet. Fox recalls: “I walked into the audition…

O’Brien to Middlesex

Black Caps seamer Iain O’Brien, 33, has retired from international cricket and joined Middlesex as their overseas player for 2010 having spent last season at Leicestershire. The right-armer, who is also…

Chain Reaction

New Zealand-invented coffee the flat white will now be offered to British Starbucks customers from December 7, the first new type of coffee the company has offered to British…

Model of all things

“People do not decide to become extraordinary. They decide to accomplish extraordinary things.” So said the mountaineer Sir Edmund Hillary. In the pursuit of the extraordinary, the dean of private…

Aotearoa soul infectious

“There’s a place far from Jamaica where old-school reggae still rules: New Zealand,” writes Cary Darling for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. “Such traditionalists as Katchafire and the Black Seeds,…

Pinot pleases

New Zealand pinot noir Craggy Range is surpassing its American equivalents in blind tastings for critics. This autumn, at New York restaurant Eleven Madison, six top pinot noirs from…

Watch Out for Laulala

New Zealand centre Casey Laulala, 27, signed with the Cardiff Blues in July, having turned down Magners League champions Munster. Samoan-born Laulala is described by many as one of…

Place for NZ in Chile

The New Zealand government has gifted the Chilean capital Santiago a new plaza in the municipality of Providencia. Plaza Nueva Zelandia aims to represent New Zealand culture, landscape, flora…

Pricey Contest

A New Zealand sauvignon blanc was the biggest selling wine in Australia last year, with three out of the five top selling wines coming from this country. New Zealand…

Watch out for Laulala

New Zealand centre Casey Laulala, 27, signed with the Cardiff Blues in July, having turned down Magners League champions Munster. Samoan-born Laulala is described by many as one of the hardest…

Dispelling The Dark

An exhibition featuring New Zealand designers Nom*D, Doris De Pont, World and Zambesi is on now at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne. The exhibition, entitled, Together Alone:…

Home to Rest

Wallabies coach Robbie Deans heads home to Christchurch for some jet boating and a family catch-up having been at the helm of the Australian team for two seasons. Deans…

Angelic sequel

Wellington author Elizabeth Knox’s latest – a sequel to her 1998 prize-winner The Vintner’s Luck entitled The Angel’s Cut – has been “published to strong praise” writes the Courier…

Planet Earth is blue

From Great Mercury Island, 18km off the Coromandel Peninsula, Mark Rocket and Peter Beck of privately-owned company Rocket Lab successfully launched the 6-metre rocke Atea-1 into space. The rocket, which was…

Bevan Honoured in NY

Queenstown-born, London-based Academy Award-nominated film producer Tim Bevan will be presented with a career tribute at the 19th annual Gotham Independent Film Awards in New York on November 30….

Top 50 title for Wright

Ghost Dance, the 2004 memoir by dancer and choreographer Douglas Wright, has been selected in Richard Canning’s Fifty Gay & Lesbian Books Everybody Must Read (Alyson Books,…

Pursuing World Domination

The Christchurch-designed YikeBike has been named one of Time magazine’s 50 Best Inventions of 2009, making the cover of the publication’s Asia edition. “It’s like getting your first Big Wheel all…

Together in recovery

Stroke: Songs for Chris Knox, a benefit compilation for the Auckland musician who suffered a debilitating stroke in June, has been released in New Zealand on Knox’s own A…

In living memory

“Three decades ago, New Zealand was a mass of tears. The country suffered its worst air tragedy ever when, on November 28, 1979, an Air New Zealand plane on…

Catton shortlisted

Wellington author Eleanor Catton, shortlisted for the 2009 Guardian first book award for her debut novel The Rehearsal, talks to the newspaper about the book’s beginnings, its inspiration…

No hope for French

The All Blacks “overwhelmed” France 39–12 at Stade Velodrome in Marseille completing their four-test campaign in Europe without conceding a try. A rampant All Blacks wearing white jerseys to…

Return to Form (Momentarily)

Christchurch fast bowler Shane Bond’s return to Test cricket has seen the Black Caps score a 32-run win over Pakistan in the first Test at Dunedin’s University Oval. Bond, 34, took…