February 2012 Archives

Anxiety Android App Out

Anxiety Android App Out

Ahead of the March release of her second album Anxiety, Masterton-born musician Ladyhawke has an app out in advance to promote it available on Android and iPhones. Guardian weekly apps review column writes: “Besides news, tweets and…

All In A Day’s Work

All In A Day’s Work

Hahei diver Rhys Cochrane, 20, rescued an orca he found entangled in a fisherman’s rope attached to a crayfish trap several hundred metres off the coast of Coromandel Peninsula. Cochrane said the whale did…

Gibbs Farm Unprecedented

Gibbs Farm Unprecedented

“On a recent trip to New Zealand I was forced to meditate on the term ‘A Big Fish in a Small Sea,’” award-winning Sydney-based architect and designer Jon King writes. “For one I caught…

Test Of Willpower

Test Of Willpower

In a “remarkable” long-term study undertaken over 32 years in New Zealand, a team of international researchers tracked 1000 people in 1972 or 1973 from the age of three, rating their observed and reported…

Tasmanian timber investment

Tasmanian timber investment

New Zealand-born businessman Richard Chandler will inject $194 million into Tasmanian-based timber company Gunns. The investment is likely to wipe out a significant portion of the company’s debt, positioning it to build the $2.3…

Netting A Place In Black Caps

Netting A Place In Black Caps

It was a “rare distinction” for Tharun Nethula, a 28-year-old leg-spinner originally from Hyderabad, India, to be picked to represent New Zealand for the one-day series against Zimbabwe. From St. John’s Coaching Foundation in…

Bret McKenzie Nominated for Oscar

Bret McKenzie Nominated for Oscar

Bret McKenzie speaks to Conan about his Oscar nomination and acting in Lord of the Rings.

Magical Getaway With Birds

Magical Getaway With Birds

Lochmara Lodge in Queen Charlotte Sound captured the magic of New Zealand for Penn Live blogger Ann Witmer. “One-time paua diver Shayne Olsen started the lodge to house backpackers tramping the 71km Queen…

Thinking About The Moment

Thinking About The Moment

New Zealand sound recordist Rob Mayes who divides his time between Christchurch and Tokyo, recently worked on the Ridley Scott-produced Don’t Think, a Chemical Brothers feature film shot at the Fuji Rock Festival,…

On Track For Tenth Crown

On Track For Tenth Crown

New Zealand has won the fourth leg of the IRB Sevens World Series beating arch-rivals Fiji 24-7 in Wellington. The withering burst of 24 unanswered points in five minutes gave New Zealand a victory…

Why We’re Mad On Knitwear

Why We’re Mad On Knitwear

Six movers and shakers from the booming New Zealand fashion industry, including communications director at Post Adam Bryce, share their knitwear passions. “When it comes to dressing for weather that can include snow, sun…

Ruminating On A Skirmish

Ruminating On A Skirmish

While stand-up paddling above a grey stingray languishing in the tidal shallows of Golden Bay, Gadling’s Kyle Ellison ruminates on the violent history of the waters and its former name. “An expedition from the…

Innovative From Back To Back

Innovative From Back To Back

New Zealand band The Renderers’ new record A Rocket into Nothing is reviewed on music site Pop Matters. “Even among the angular, bizarre likes of the Clean and the 3Ds, the Renderers have always been outliers….

Memories Of Travel To The Sea

Memories Of Travel To The Sea

Auckland-born DJ and BBC Radio 1 presenter Zane Lowe describes his life in travel with the Independent. Lowe’s first holiday memory is driving to the Bay of Islands. “I remember being packed into my dad’s…

Dubai Strut For Top Model

Dubai Strut For Top Model

New Zealand’s Next Top Model’s newest winner Brigette Thomas made an appearance at Dubai Fashion’s Longest Catwalk on 3 February. The event featured 100 models walking a ramp at The Dubai Mall showcasing the…

Trench Living Makes Big

Trench Living Makes Big

A ‘supergiant’ crustacean measuring 34cm has been found 7km deep in the Kermadec Trench north off the coast of New Zealand. Seven specimens, of which usually measure between 2-3cm, were caught in a trap…

Piece Of Hollywood In Wairarapa

Piece Of Hollywood In Wairarapa

Titanic and Avatar director James Cameron has spent $20 million buying more than 1000ha of farmland in South Wairarapa. According to application documents, Cameron and his family “intend to reside indefinitely in New Zealand and are acquiring the…

Monster Trout Down South

Monster Trout Down South

New Zealand trout dwarf their Californian relatives writes American fisherman Alistair Bland for the Marin Independent Journal. “Indeed, to raise a New Zealander’s eyebrows one must catch an eight- or 10-pounder,” Bland says. “Suffice…

Fortunately For Paul

Fortunately For Paul

In his spare time, when not drumming for Canadian singer Feist, New Zealand-born musician Lucky Paul “makes densely hypnotic, drum-heavy dream-pop for label somethinksounds.” “Elephant Island, the follow-up to last year’s well-received The Slow…

Supergiant Amphipod Discovered in Kermadec Trench

Supergiant Amphipod Discovered in Kermadec Trench

Scientists have discovered a ‘supergiant’ amphipod in waters north of New Zealand which dwarfs the Antarctic ‘giant’.

Hot Premiere Signing

Hot Premiere Signing

New Zealander Ryan Nelsen, 34, who led the All Whites at the World Cup in South Africa in 2010, has signed with Tottenham Hotspur. Ryan was released by Blackburn after the club agreed to…

Miramar’s Awakening

Miramar’s Awakening

“Until Sir Peter Jackson and his producer Jamie Selkirk made films in Miramar in the 1990s, the Wellington suburb was sleepy,” David Burton writes for Monocle. “‘There was tumbleweed, rolling down the street,’ jokes…

Reflecting Life Of The Beach

Reflecting Life Of The Beach

Piha’s Butler Beach House designed by Herbst Architects is the company’s “most ambitious project to date,” according to Monocle. “Herbst Architects is renowned in New Zealand for its signature remodeling of the classic Kiwi bach….

Seattle Rowing Appointment

Seattle Rowing Appointment

New Zealand rowing coach Richard Parr, 49, has been hired by the Vashon Island Rowing Club (VIRC) in Seattle. He comes to Vashon from the University of Otago, where he spent the past 15…

Record Exports Into UAE

Record Exports Into UAE

New Zealand Natural premium ice cream chain is one of a number of local businesses fuelling a record volume of exports from the country into United Arab Emirates (UAE). Last year, the value of…

Believe In Oyster Bay

Believe In Oyster Bay

“Hawke’s Bay is producing some of the world’s greatest red wines at the moment,” according to the Leader-Post’s James Romanow. “Enormously fine, well structured wines that will go the distance, they are tremendous in every sense…