News of New Zealanders via Global Media

On a Whirlwind of Promotion in the UK

On a Whirlwind of Promotion in the UK

Author Eleanor Catton, who is currently on a book tour in the UK, tells the Scotsman that when she won the Man Booker prize last October with The Luminaries, fellow winner, Life of Pi…

Business Is Booming in Made-to-Measure

Business Is Booming in Made-to-Measure

When Kate Middleton first started stepping out in New Zealander Emilia Wickstead’s ladylike pastel concoctions, it’s fair to say that most of the fashion world’s reaction was: “Emilia … who?” the National’s Libby Banks…

Golf needs people like Tiger, says Campbell

Golf needs people like Tiger, says Campbell

Former US Open champion New Zealander Michael Campbell, 45, who famously defeated Tiger Woods by two strokes to win the 2005 US Open, is co-hosting four studio review shows with FOX Sports in Singapore…

Ten Foot Tall and Bullet Proof: The Dream Behind Loveblock Wine

Ten Foot Tall and Bullet Proof: The Dream Behind Loveblock Wine

There’s no reason why Erica and Kim Crawford had to do Loveblock. Having already found huge success with their eponymous Kim Crawford label – America’s top-selling wine from New Zealand – they could have…

Dreamliner Flying in the Face of Convention

Dreamliner Flying in the Face of Convention

16 April 2014 – The newly painted, and “stunning”, black Air New Zealand 787-9 is literally flying in the face of convention, according to Los Angeles Times travel editor Catharine Hamm. “The Dreamliner,…

Innovative Auckland Food Businesses Meet the Criteria

Innovative Auckland Food Businesses Meet the Criteria

Auckland’s Hip Group and Farro Fresh feature in Monocle’s first ever  “Retail Survey – Top 25” with the former taking the No 11 spot as “Best local bistro chain” and Farro No 16, as…

Nirvana Collaboration Masterful Stroke of Musicianship

Nirvana Collaboration Masterful Stroke of Musicianship

Lorde, who performed Nirvana’s All Apologies at the band’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction, may not have seemed like an immediate choice for the evening, but then Ella Yelich-O’Connor is not your…

Darby’s Sexy Leg Confuses Variety

Darby’s Sexy Leg Confuses Variety

Rhys Darby’s new eight-episode mockumentary Short Poppies is being praised for its “whimsical and winsome” charms ahead of its debut on American screens on Netflix. The LA Times’ Robert Lloyd describes the series as…

Kiwi Powers Oxford to Biggest Victory in 40 Years

Kiwi Powers Oxford to Biggest Victory in 40 Years

One of Southland’s finest, world champion and Olympic medallist Storm Uru, has played a critical role in continuing Oxford University’s domination of Cambridge University in their hotly contested annual boat race this month. Oxford…

Novel Inspired by a Real Woman’s Escape

Novel Inspired by a Real Woman’s Escape

New Zealand author Dixie Carlton’s first novel Margaret – A Song out of Time was inspired by a real woman Carlton first met as Elsie Margaret May McKenzie. She was then in her mid-70s…

Hargreaves Is Still Playing with His Food

Hargreaves Is Still Playing with His Food

14 April 2014 – New Zealand-born photographer Henry Hargreaves’ images of “deep fried gadgets (yep, iPhones in batter), bacon alphabet and rainbow-coloured food” are “marvelled” over in the Skinny this month. “Jelly becomes a series…

People Come and Go but Te Wahipounamu Endures

People Come and Go but Te Wahipounamu Endures

“Te Wahipounamu, the place of jade. Since 1990 this southwestern edge of New Zealand has enjoyed World Heritage recognition for its four national parks and interconnecting tracts of conservation land,” Kennedy Warne writes for…

Indie Star Moves Cross Country to LA

Indie Star Moves Cross Country to LA

Musician (and occasional actor) New Zealand-born Dean Wareham moved to Los Angeles last year after nearly a quarter-century in New York. Wareham, a permanent fixture in the indie rock scene, “informed a generation of…

Famed US Business Thinker Lauds NZ Anchor Company

Famed US Business Thinker Lauds NZ Anchor Company

Fourth generation family sea anchor business WA Coppins, a Port of Nelson-based company, has made a big splash with one of the world’s most influential business thinkers, American author Tom Peters. Peters, author…

New Zealand’s Meteorites a Worthy Subject

New Zealand’s Meteorites a Worthy Subject

Fine art photographer Casey Moore travels the world documenting meteorites using his large-format Sinar camera, with much of his work centring around reconnecting with New Zealand, his country of origin. In the course of his…

Twigg Sets Season Benchmark Beating World Champ

Twigg Sets Season Benchmark Beating World Champ

Upset by fast-finishing New Zealand rival Emma Twigg in a thrilling Sydney International Rowing Regatta final, sculling world champion England’s Kim Crow says she’ll become a smarter tactician. Crow looked set to cruise to her…

Royal Visit Shines Global Light on Maori Traditions

Royal Visit Shines Global Light on Maori Traditions

News outlets worldwide have lately been splashing a bare bottom on their front pages – but it’s not what you think. Upon their arrival to New Zealand the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge received…

Signing up as Finance Director at Bank of Scotland

Signing up as Finance Director at Bank of Scotland

The Royal Bank of Scotland has hired New Zealander Ewen Stevenson, of Credit Suisse, as its new finance director, to help restore the health of the part-nationalised bank, which lost 8.2 billion pounds last…

Irreversibly Changed Though Creatively Reborn

Irreversibly Changed Though Creatively Reborn

Like many entrepreneurs, artists, designers and other hardy residents who have chosen to stay in the city after the February 2011 earthquake, the owner of C1 Espresso Sam Crofskey was determined to…

How Do You Go about Kayaking the Cook Strait

How Do You Go about Kayaking the Cook Strait

In order to kayak across the 22km stretch of the Cook Strait, considered one of the most dangerous waters in the world, general manager at Wellington’s Fergs Kayaks Dave Annear says you’ll need a…

Australian Film Industry Pioneer a Mentor to Many

Australian Film Industry Pioneer a Mentor to Many

New Zealand-born filmmaker David Hannay, who has died aged 74, will be remembered as one of the pioneers of the modern Australian film industry, a passionate cinephile, mentor and loyal friend. Hannay entered the film…

Olympic Rower Takes on the Cambridge Team

Olympic Rower Takes on the Cambridge Team

Olympic bronze medal-winner and Oxford student, Invercargill-born Storm Uru, 29, says the stress of the Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race is the fun side of getting his MBA. Uru was ready for a break from…

Lamingtons Are Ours Beyond Doubt

Lamingtons Are Ours Beyond Doubt

Lamingtons are definitively of New Zealand origin, with an 1888 watercolour painting by New Zealand landscape artist JR Smythe showing that the coconut covered cake is not really Australian and only an imitation of…

Cardboard Cathedral Architect Wins Pritzker Prize

Cardboard Cathedral Architect Wins Pritzker Prize

The designer of Christchurch’s Cardboard Cathedral, Japanese architect Shigeru Ban, has been named the winner of this year’s Pritzker Architecture Prize, largely because of his work designing shelters after natural disasters in…

Remembering Sixties Country Star Houston Wells

Remembering Sixties Country Star Houston Wells

The life of Houston Wells, sixties country singer, is celebrated in the Independent this month. Wells, born Andrew Smith in 1932 north of Newcastle upon Tyne, lived on the shores of Lake Taupo until…

Vibrancy of Kuala Lumpur Fascinates Former Aucklander

Vibrancy of Kuala Lumpur Fascinates Former Aucklander

Managing director at Kuala Lumpur-based Orchan Consulting, Craig Selby, 40, is fascinated by the changes taking place in Malaysia since he moved there nine years ago. “The places near where I live have become a…

Interior Designer Joins NY’s Fabergé Egg Hunt

Interior Designer Joins NY’s Fabergé Egg Hunt

New Zealand-born interior designer Sandra Nunnerley is participating in this year’s Fabergé Big Egg Hunt held throughout New York’s five boroughs through April 26. The Fabergé Big Egg Hunt is a fundraising initiative…

Wipster Launches Video Software at SXSW Festival

Wipster Launches Video Software at SXSW Festival

Wellington-based start-up Wipster has launched its video sharing software platform globally, just over a year after being founded by New Zealand filmmaker Rollo Wenlock. Wipster allows editors to share their…

Baritone Thriving in San Francisco Opera Scene

Baritone Thriving in San Francisco Opera Scene

Baritone Hadleigh Adams, New Zealand’s first San Francisco Opera Adler Fellowship recipient, talks with the Huffington Post’s cultural critic Sean Martinfield about his latest performance, in American composer Gabriel Kahane’s The Memory Palace, an…

NZ Ranked #1 for Social Progress

NZ Ranked #1 for Social Progress

A Washington-based think-tank has found that New Zealand is the most socially advanced country in the world. US-based non-profit The Social Progress Imperative, whose advisory board is led by Harvard economist Professor Michael…

Crowe Impressively Grounded as Enigmatic Noah

Crowe Impressively Grounded as Enigmatic Noah

Russell Crowe’s performance in Noah alongside Jennifer Connelly in Darren Aronofsky’s “audacious adaptation of one of the Bible’s best-known but still enigmatic chapters,” is “impressively grounded” and “powerful,” according to Washington Post reviewer Ann…

Peter Thiel Invests Big in POS Software Provider Vend

Peter Thiel Invests Big in POS Software Provider Vend

New Zealand point of sale, cloud-based software provider Vend has new investors – Peter Thiel, the PayPal cofounder and the first outside investor in Facebook, is among a group that has agreed…

New Zealand’s Dusty Landscapes Explain Ice Age Cooling

New Zealand’s Dusty Landscapes Explain Ice Age Cooling

3 April 2014 – New Zealand’s iron-rich dust is helping scientists explain how the Earth cooled after the last Ice Age. Scientists travelled to the Southern Alps in an expedition to gather dust samples…

New Zealand Speak Clarified

New Zealand Speak Clarified

Australians are carrying around a dark secret according to the Australian’s Ben Groundwater, and that is that they actually like New Zealanders. And Groundwater, “at least, kinda loves them.” “Forget the forced sibling rivalry, most…

Star-Studded Everest Film Re-Treks Fatal Expedition

Star-Studded Everest Film Re-Treks Fatal Expedition

The story of Christchurch mountaineer Rob Hall’s tragic 1996 Everest expedition in which he, a fellow guide, and two clients perished, is being made into a film by director Baltasar Kormakur, and will star…

Farmers Uprooting to Tasmanian Dairy Paddocks

Farmers Uprooting to Tasmanian Dairy Paddocks

A wave of New Zealand farmers are being wooed to Tasmania’s dairy scene, where milk production is rising helped by a record price from processor Fonterra of $6.64 a kilogram for milk solids this…

All Blacks Celebrate Hong Kong Sevens Title with Haka in Thunderstorm

All Blacks Celebrate Hong Kong Sevens Title with Haka in Thunderstorm

After knocking England out of the Hong Kong Sevens with an impressive 26-7 score line, the All Blacks Sevens stripped off their shirts and performed a poignant haka in the pouring rain, which…

For the Times We Live in, NZ the Best Country to Be

For the Times We Live in, NZ the Best Country to Be

New Zealand “is absolutely the best country in the world for the times we’re living in”, according to former Seattleite, speculator and business consultant Chris Eyerman. When Eyerman, his wife Kelly, and their young twins…

Trademark Taylor Encompasses All Seasons

Trademark Taylor Encompasses All Seasons

“Rebecca Taylor, the hip New Zealand-born designer whose collections appeal to a young, fashion-forward customer, is among the designers who are turning upside down the notion of what to wear when”, Clifford Pugh writes…

New Guernsey Energy Role for New Zealander

New Guernsey Energy Role for New Zealander

Guernsey-based New Zealander Paul Wright, who has lived on the island for the past 17 years, has been hired as finance director of Guernsey Gas, Jersey Gas and Manx Gas and will be involved…

Music Man Reunites with the Muppets

Music Man Reunites with the Muppets

Having worked on the 2011 film The Muppets (winning an Oscar for his soul-searching power ballad Man or Muppet), 37-year-old New Zealander Bret McKenzie was signed up for the follow-up, a crime caper called…

Talking to an Angel for Start-Up Investment Tips

Talking to an Angel for Start-Up Investment Tips

Award-winning angel investor, New Zealand-born technology entrepreneur Dale Murray talks to British publication Director magazine about the best path to take in order to secure start-up investment or to fund the crucial…

Diligent Coach Instills Winning Culture in Ireland

Diligent Coach Instills Winning Culture in Ireland

For those who have played under New Zealander Joe Schmidt, it was no surprise that his first campaign in charge of Ireland’s national team ended on such a high. Schmidt led the Irish to…

On the Hippie Trail with Lonely Planet’s Founders

On the Hippie Trail with Lonely Planet’s Founders

The journey that spawned publishing empire, Lonely Planet founders Tony and Maureen Wheeler’s trek from London to Australia via the hippy trail in 1972, has taken the first step on a new odyssey –…

Setting up Practice in a Nice Part of the World

Setting up Practice in a Nice Part of the World

New Zealand veterinarian Allan Rapley, 63, moved to North London’s Highgate Village in 2012 to transform an antiquarian bookshop into his own live-in practice “in a nice part of the world”. The father-of-five and his…

Knittable Sensor Could Revolutionise Bandages

Knittable Sensor Could Revolutionise Bandages

Simon McMaster, a New Zealand-born inventor and chemist, has developed a new knittable, wearable sensor, which could lead to the creation of bandages that measure their own tightness. The sensor will be demonstrated for…

Public Response to Climate Engineering Tested

Public Response to Climate Engineering Tested

Averting mass economic and social upheaval from looming climate change will likely require forms of climate engineering to supplement existing energy efficiency and emissions control programs. Climate engineering is the…

What the Royals Are Taking in on Their NZ Tour

What the Royals Are Taking in on Their NZ Tour

As Prince William, Kate Middleton – and Prince George – head to New Zealand on an official tour, the Telegraph looks at all the places they are visiting asking their own experts, as well…

Our Three Greatest Male Triathletes of All Time

Our Three Greatest Male Triathletes of All Time

A trio of New Zealanders are named in an elite “25 Greatest Male Triathletes of All Time” list, with Auckland-born Hamish Carter (pictured), 42, taking the No 10 spot on Triathlete Europe’s lineup which,…

Teen Environmental Animation Premiers at US Festival

Teen Environmental Animation Premiers at US Festival

A short film by 16-year-old Nastasha Bishop has had its US premier at the prestigious Environmental Film Festival in Washington DC at the weekend. As the Washington Post notes, the festival is misnamed. These…

Fabric Store from NZ a Natural Fit in LA

Fabric Store from NZ a Natural Fit in LA

The Los Angeles location for The Fabric Store, a New Zealand-based business that also has four retail stores in its native country and three in Australia, offers “a more edgy, fashiony focus…

The Female Punchline: Don’t Ask that Question

The Female Punchline: Don’t Ask that Question

A little bit of comedian Michele A’Court dies when she is asked this question: Are women funny? A’Court is asked this question so often that deep inside her, nestled somewhere near her heart, is…

Another Win for Smith Ahead of London Marathon

Another Win for Smith Ahead of London Marathon

New Zealander Kim Smith, 32, has won the 37th New Bedford Half Marathon, her third victory in as many tries. Smith won the same race in 2011 and 2010. Smith, the three-time winner of what…

Interest Mounting in Abandoning Playground Rules

Interest Mounting in Abandoning Playground Rules

Swanson School principal Bruce McLachlan’s unconventional approach to playground rules is making waves around the world with school administrators and parents as far away as the United States and the United Kingdom asking how…

Guess What Al Pitcher Saw on the Way to His Show

Guess What Al Pitcher Saw on the Way to His Show

New Zealand comedian Al Pitcher performs his improvised stand-up slide show, the Al Pitcher Picture Show, as part of the Format Photographic Festival on 29 March in Derby. Now based in Stockholm,

Tinkerbell Now Brain-Eating Med Student in Zombie Series

Tinkerbell Now Brain-Eating Med Student in Zombie Series

24 March 2014 – Star of American series Once Upon A Time New Zealander Rose McIver, who played Tinkerbell in the show, has been cast in the lead role of medical student Liv in…