Blog Archives

New Zealand’s Warm Weather Patterns to Continue

New Zealand’s Warm Weather Patterns to Continue

The year 2013 was New Zealand’s second hottest year on record according to Auckland University climate scientist Dr Jim Salinger, with the winter season found to be the warmest and temperatures hitting 1.3 degrees…

Outdoor Leadership Adventure a Great Accomplishment for US Student

Outdoor Leadership Adventure a Great Accomplishment for US Student

Tramping with a heavy pack for the better part of a day is physically demanding, but doing so up the side of a mountain is exhausting. Bel Air university student Wendy Cirko found that…

New Zealand a Multicultural Model for the EU

New Zealand a Multicultural Model for the EU

January 13, 2014 – Multicultural policies, like those adopted by the immigrant countries of New Zealand and Canada, may be exactly what European Union countries need, according to journalist Kait Bolongaro, writing for Al…

Mockasin’s UK Tour Begins in Glasgow at King Tut’s

Mockasin’s UK Tour Begins in Glasgow at King Tut’s

New Zealand musician Connan Mockasin is kicking off his UK tour in Glasgow on 22 January at King Tut’s promoting Caramel, ahead of the February release of his second single from the album, Do…

London Investment Bank Chief has Never Lost Ties to NZ

London Investment Bank Chief has Never Lost Ties to NZ

Investment bank chief executive New Zealander Kent Gardner, who runs London-based Evans Randall, has been living in the United Kingdom for more than a decade and says he never lost ties to…

Make Your Customers a Promise Says Entrepreneur

Make Your Customers a Promise Says Entrepreneur

New Zealand-born business speaker and global entrepreneur Carl Bates was recently in Cape Town addressing business owners at a Business Partners seminar on the difference between product and promise in business. “My favourite example…

Evil Ernie the Undead Unleashed in All-Ages Book

Evil Ernie the Undead Unleashed in All-Ages Book

New Zealand-born writer-artist Roger Langridge, 46, who began his comic career with the popular Judge Dredd Magazine series The Straitjacket Fits, talks to Brandon Jerwa of BleedingCool.com website about the challenge of turning the…

Brooding Synth-Pop Makes Sadness Sound Lovely

Brooding Synth-Pop Makes Sadness Sound Lovely

Auckland brother-sister duo Broods, aka Georgia, 19, and Caleb Nott, 21, “make, ahem, brooding synth-pop that makes sadness sound quite lovely,” according to the Guardian’s Michael Cragg writing for the publication’s “New Music” blog. “

Debbie Hockley Inducted into Cricket Hall of Fame

Debbie Hockley Inducted into Cricket Hall of Fame

Debbie Hockley has become the first New Zealand women’s cricketer to be inducted into the International Cricket Council (ICC) Hall of Fame, and alongside Sir Richard Hadlee, the only other New Zealander to…

Mesmerising Stewart Island the Destination for 2014

Mesmerising Stewart Island the Destination for 2014

Thanks to a fast catamaran service and affordable air charters from the mainland, Stewart Island (known to Maori as Rakiura, “Land of the Glowing Skies”) is now attracting a new generation of hikers, kayakers…

Batsman Returns to NW England for Club Cricket

Batsman Returns to NW England for Club Cricket

New Zealand international Jamie How, 32, talks about his return to Kendal Cricket Club in Cumbria and his record-equalling domestic year with Westmorland Gazette sports reporter Ross McLean. Currently plying his trade on native soil…

Travelling the Inked Map of Her Father’s Life

Travelling the Inked Map of Her Father’s Life

A coloured butterfly, a pseudo-celtic armband, a giant spiral: the tattoos on New Zealander Nell Frizzell’s father are an inky historical record of his lifetime’s journey through continents, relationships, families, marriages and deaths. Ahead…

New Zealanders Living Life in Berlin

New Zealanders Living Life in Berlin

“When a German realises you’re a New Zealander … they often can’t quite seem to believe it, the implication of the questioning being ‘You’re from New Zealand! Why would you ever want to leave?…

Royal Bank of Scotland Head Gets Back to Basics

Royal Bank of Scotland Head Gets Back to Basics

Asked about possible job cuts for the 125,000 staff of the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), New Zealander Ross McEwan turns the question to what jobs are needed for the bank to better serve…

Orphans Gather for Alternative Melbourne Christmas

Orphans Gather for Alternative Melbourne Christmas

New Zealand-born jeweller Welfe Bowyer was one of a number of creative Melburnians the Age’s Kylie Northover interviewed this December who spent Christmas less traditionally, banishing baubles and putting holly on hold. “Being a Kiwi,…

Wellington Vampires Tell Their Story at Sundance

Wellington Vampires Tell Their Story at Sundance

New Zealand horror comedy film, the Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement-directed What We Do in the Shadows, will make its world premiere on 19 January in the Midnight section at the Sundance Film…

Walking with McCahon a 2013 Favourite

Walking with McCahon a 2013 Favourite

New Zealand author Martin Edmonds’s novel In Dark Night: Walking With McCahon is included in the Australian’s annual book of the year wrap-up, in which Australian and international authors and critics reveal their favourite…

Local Video Game Makers among Best in the World

Local Video Game Makers among Best in the World

New Zealand video game makers have been lauded in major international “Best of 2013” lists, with West Auckland-based Grinding Gear Games’ Path of Exile winning GameSpot’s PC Game of the Year Award and…

Tall Ships Medal for New Zealander Presented in Denmark

Tall Ships Medal for New Zealander Presented in Denmark

New Zealander Nigel Wright was presented with the Janka Bielak Medal for sailing training at the Annual International Sail Training & Tall Ships Conference last month in Aalborg, Denmark. The Janka Bielak Medal is awarded…

Plenty of Scope for More Art and Enterprise

Plenty of Scope for More Art and Enterprise

The disaster that reduced Christchurch to rubble has given rise to a spirit of art and enterprise, writes Tijana Jaksic for the Herald Sun, and the city is “embracing the change” she says. The

North to South Through the Hobbit’s Stomping Ground

North to South Through the Hobbit’s Stomping Ground

To take a walk in the footsteps of The Hobbit, the Huffington Post has published a guide to many of the locations where scenes from the movies were filmed, and where with the convenience…

Corey Anderson scores fastest century in ODI cricket history

Corey Anderson scores fastest century in ODI cricket history

23-year-old New Zealand batsman, Corey Anderson, has hit the fastest century in the history of one-day international cricket from just 36 balls. Playing on New Year’s Day against the West Indies in Queenstown, Anderson…

Enjoy Punchy Asian Flavour at Soho’s New House of Ho

Enjoy Punchy Asian Flavour at Soho’s New House of Ho

Already big in Vietnam, New Zealand-born chef-patron Bobby Chinn is making his London debut and looks set to spice up Soho, with The House of Ho, a modern Vietnamese restaurant on Old Compton Street. “Chinn…

Mutual Interest Means Increase in India-NZ Study Numbers

Mutual Interest Means Increase in India-NZ Study Numbers

Indian studies is attracting more and more students in New Zealand, where seven out of the eight universities offer these courses, according to Sekhar Bandyopadhyay, director of the New Zealand India Research Institute (NZIRI)…

Tree Traditions for a New Mexico Christmas

Tree Traditions for a New Mexico Christmas

New Zealander Aly Hyder lives in Arroyo Hondo, New Mexico and has a very different Christmas experience to the “barbeque Christmas” of the southern hemisphere. Hyder goes out to the forest for a Christmas tree…

Shooting a Secret Life with Ben Stiller

Shooting a Secret Life with Ben Stiller

New Zealand cinematographer Stuart Dryburgh’s latest project is actor-director Ben Stiller’s film The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, some of which was shot in mid-summer Manhattan, and the hardest aspect of that was not…

Living Museum is all Camera-Hogging Art Deco

Living Museum is all Camera-Hogging Art Deco

“It’s a near-cloudless afternoon, and I’ve spent the past hour weaving dreamily around dozens of sun-dappled, immaculately preserved 1930s buildings. Art deco was all the rage when these storefronts were erected; the streets are…

If You Love Nature New Zealand Was Made for You

If You Love Nature New Zealand Was Made for You

Eight days spent in Queenstown and at Lake Wanaka “were some of the best of my life”, writes Emily Dickinson for the Huffington Post. Dickinson recommends that if “you love nature, wonderfully friendly…

Shipwreck Find Could Alter Our History

Shipwreck Find Could Alter Our History

Timbers from a shipwreck found in Kaipara Harbour have been dated to some 70 years before Captain Cook, identified as having originated in Southeast Asia as early as 1700. Captain Cook’s Endeavour encountered New…

Raise a Glass to the Coach of the Year

Raise a Glass to the Coach of the Year

Wales and Lions head coach Warren Gatland has been named the BBC Coach of the Year at an awards ceremony in Leeds. The New Zealander “deserves his moment in the sun, as does the…

Simba Impresses in Sydney Lion King Production

Simba Impresses in Sydney Lion King Production

22 December 2013 – South Auckland-born Nick Afoa, 27, makes a “fine musical theatre debut as the adult Simba” in an Australian musical production of Disney’s The Lion King. Afoa, “moves with the exuberant…

One Small Step for New Plymouth Student

One Small Step for New Plymouth Student

New Plymouth engineering student Hamish Fagg, 21, is preparing to become the first New Zealander in space having won a prize organized by Unilever-owned men’s product LYNX and endorsed by the world’s most famous…

Strictly Star Sambas off to Sunderland

Strictly Star Sambas off to Sunderland

Strictly Come Dancing star New Zealander Brendan Cole, who is currently starring in the hit BBC show with celebrity dance partner Sophie Ellis Bextor, is taking his own show, Licence to Thrill to Sunderland…

Like a Weird Untitled Mixtape They Beguile

Like a Weird Untitled Mixtape They Beguile

The songwriting savant behind Unknown Mortal Orchestra, New Zealander Ruban Nielson, 33, spends many of his nocturnal hours locked away in the basement of his Portland, Oregon home, creating beguiling, hypnagogic psych-pop, the Guardian’s…

Treasuring Every Infinitesimal Bite

Treasuring Every Infinitesimal Bite

The food at New York’s Musket Room is “ambitious and meticulously detailed”, New York Times correspondent Ligaya Mishan writes in a review of the restaurant, which opened in Nolita in June. Owned by Aucklander…

All We Want for Christmas Is Bespoke Couture

All We Want for Christmas Is Bespoke Couture

Emilia Wickstead, having now secured her couture clientele (alongside Alexander McQueen, the New Zealander is one of the Duchess of Cambridge’s go-to designers for foreign visits), wanted to offer a service that was exclusive…

National Theatre Role from Morning to Midnight

National Theatre Role from Morning to Midnight

Auckland-born actress Gina Bellman – who played Sophie Devereaux in American television drama series Leverage – is currently starring in Britain’s National Theatre revival of Georg Kaiser’s expressionistic 1912 play From Morning…

Strong Brand and the Product’s the Real Deal

Strong Brand and the Product’s the Real Deal

Lewis Road Creamery, located at Green Valley Dairy, Mangatawhiri in the Waikato, is included in the “The Monocle 100” list as one of the “innovative minds behind global food production.” “Until last year, the…

Modern-Day Forager Launches Unique Catering Operation

Modern-Day Forager Launches Unique Catering Operation

When New Zealander Campbell Rowe is not harvesting lychee, green mango, lime and black sapote, or eggs from a small brood of free-range chooks at his New South Wales farm, he’s visiting farmers’ markets…

Lowe Is ENERGY Personified at BBC 1

Lowe Is ENERGY Personified at BBC 1

In the studio of the BBC’s Radio 1 station, the boisterous New Zealander Zane Lowe is a few minutes into his own show, Peter Robinson reports for the Guardian. “RIDICULOUS SOUND!” Lowe honks over…

Talent Pool Something to Write Home about

Talent Pool Something to Write Home about

From Lorde to Gin Wigmore, to chef Matt Lambert and model Ashleigh Good (pictured), New Zealand punches above its weight, writes fellow New Zealander Kirsten Matthew for the New York Post. It’s not just pop…

Decorated Lifetime of Service at Sea

Decorated Lifetime of Service at Sea

Rear-Admiral Ted Thorne, who has died aged 89, was a New Zealander who was on hand when female naval personnel suffered their greatest loss of the Second World War. Wellington-born Thorne was under training in…

Middle Earth’s Man Contemplates Doctor Who Offer

Middle Earth’s Man Contemplates Doctor Who Offer

Peter Jackson has confirmed reports that he has offered to direct an episode of Doctor Who. “I’m a Doctor Who fan, certainly. I’m of the generation that hid behind the sofa, and Patrick Troughton…

Dancing Her Dreams at Paris Opera Ballet

Dancing Her Dreams at Paris Opera Ballet

16 December 2013 – Twenty-year-old Auckland dancer Hannah O’Neill, who has a lifetime contract with the world’s pre-eminent academy, the Ballet de l’Opéra National de Paris, told the New Zealand Herald recently that…

On Set with Once Upon A Time’s Tinkerbell

On Set with Once Upon A Time’s Tinkerbell

Flying around in a harness playing Tinkerbell on the set of American fairy tale drama series Once Upon A Time has been “so much fun” for Auckland-born actress Rose McIver. “I am very aware of…

Casting Agent and Playwright a Tour de Force

Casting Agent and Playwright a Tour de Force

“To label Ann Brebner an instrumental force in Marin’s film and theatre scene is to undermine the breadth of her work,” writes Stephanie Powell for the Pacific Sun, a local newspaper based in Marin…

Oamaru-Made Gingerbread Cathedral Pleases Exeter Locals

Oamaru-Made Gingerbread Cathedral Pleases Exeter Locals

Owners of Oamaru’s Pen-y-bryn Lodge, James Glucksman and James Boussy have built a gingerbread Exeter Cathedral to commemorate the 125th anniversary of the lodge next year. Glucksman explains: “In a nutshell we always make a…

Take a Dream Drive off the Beaten Track

Take a Dream Drive off the Beaten Track

If you are looking for an alternative, and beautiful, route to travel New Zealand, News.com.au recommends 10 “different dream trips … to get you from landmark to landmark.” “More of a dream trip than any…

Table of Ugly Words Star of Feminist Militia Exhibit

Table of Ugly Words Star of Feminist Militia Exhibit

“I am sitting at a long antique wooden school table, burning capital letters onto the surface: ‘B****,’” the Independent’s Zoe Pilger describes from exhibition rooms HQ, London. “Other words swarm all over it: ‘Vagina…

State of the Art Voyage to the Deep

State of the Art Voyage to the Deep

New Zealand and Japanese scientists joined forces on a recent expedition to explore underwater mountains and volcanoes 1000km northeast of the country around the Louisville Seamount Chain and the Kermadec Arc. From the research…

Neill Content to Be in Two Worlds

Neill Content to Be in Two Worlds

In the latest of a series of opinion pieces for British political and cultural magazine the Spectator, actor and vigneron Sam Neill argues that “actors are allowed to do other things other than act.” “Increasingly…

Michelin Star for Stuttgart-based Chef

Michelin Star for Stuttgart-based Chef

Against all odds, Waikato-born head chef Russell Pirrit has earned a Michelin star for restaurant “5” in Stuttgart, Germany. Pirrit, who grew up in Te Kauwhata, suffers from severe dyslexia. Twelve years…

Mentoring Young Snowboarders on the Aspen Slopes

Mentoring Young Snowboarders on the Aspen Slopes

Snowboard coach with Aspen Valley Ski & Snowboard Club (AVSC), New Zealander Tim Ward, 33, talks about his role with the club and about his focus on developing the person first and the athlete…

Awe-Inspiring Film Documents Life on the Ice

Awe-Inspiring Film Documents Life on the Ice

One of those working year-round on Antarctica in a non-research role is New Zealander Anthony Powell who as well as maintaining communications networks for a living, is a “self-taught photographer and filmmaker”. His documentary…

Urban Plays Human Cop Patrolling Streets in 2048

Urban Plays Human Cop Patrolling Streets in 2048

New Zealand actor Karl Urban hits the beat in 2048 as “grizzled human” cop John Kennex, alongside Michael Ealy, who plays Urban’s “synthetic” partner Dorian in television sci-fi drama, Almost Human. Premiering this month on…

Movie-Making to Rival Lucas and Spielberg

Movie-Making to Rival Lucas and Spielberg

“Peter Jackson has picked up the pace … The Desolation of Smaug is a cheerfully entertaining and exhilarating adventure tale, a supercharged Saturday morning picture: it’s mysterious and strange and yet Jackson also effortlessly…