Rugby’s Slam Dunk
The All Blacks have won their third Grand Slam and the inaugural Sir Edmund Hillary Shield beating England at Twickenham 32-6. In The Independent Hugh Godwin writes: “The clever clogs who got rid of…
Blog Archives
Masterful to the End
Dunedin-born professional chess player and writer Robert Wade has died in London, aged 87, bringing to an end a career which famously included a draw with Bobby Fischer at the Havana tournament in 1965,…
Top Spot for Tahrs
New Zealand is one of the world’s top hunting destinations according to Men’s Vogue, with New Zealand Wildlife Safaris the magazine’s featured tour company. Terry and Glad Pierson have operated Wildlife Safaris since 1978…
Educating the World
New Zealand’s international students industry is flourishing again after a recent downturn in numbers. Smart marketing strategies and the lower New Zealand dollar are luring overseas students back. Compared to offshore competitors, New Zealand…
BC Health Sector Move
New Zealand health administrator Nigel Murray has been in Canada this past year having taken up the position of CEO for British Columbia’s Fraser Health Authority, which delivers care to 1.5 million people and…
2008 Rugby League World Cup Haka
Take a look at the Haka from the 2008 Rugby League World Cup final.
With Loppers at the Ready
Conservation Volunteers New Zealand is joined by British gap-year blogger Ruth Holliday who writes about her time spent with the group in the Telegraph, “doing what is best described as heavy gardening in the…
An Astral Heritage
23 November 2008 – Tekapo’s Graeme Murray – director of Earth & Sky at Mt John Observatory – is the driving force behind obtaining UNESCO World Heritage Starlight Reserve status for the pristine skies…
Teaming up for culture
New Zealand and South Korea are forging an artistic alliance with a film co-production treaty signed in September 27 and the forthcoming New Zealand Cultural Diplomacy International Program which will be held over three…
Teaming Up for Culture
New Zealand and South Korea are forging an artistic alliance with a film co-production treaty signed in September 2007 and the forthcoming New Zealand Cultural Diplomacy International Program which will be held over three…
Fantasy in Spain
Auckland Elam School of Fine Arts graduate Hye Rim Lee has just returned to her base in New York after a solo exhibition of ëCrystal Cityí in M·laga, Spain. South Korean-born Lee ó who…
Definitely No Regrets
The Kiwis dismissed the sceptics and the Kangaroos to win the Rugby League World Cup in Brisbane, beating the Australians 34-20, their first ever World Cup win. Outside of the New Zealand camp, few…
Walking the Wet
Fiordland’s Hollyford Track “lacks the traffic of Milford Sound” according to The Sydney Morning Herald’s Jenny Tabakoff who tramps the Valley in a guided tour on a particularly damp three days. Delivered by…
Cambodian Stint Rewarded
World aerobics champion Botany Downs local Angela McMillan, 28, has been in Phnom Penh coaching the Cambodian men’s team ahead of December’s Asian Aerobic Gymnastics Championships in Bangkok. McMillan, who claimed the world title…
AB Supporters Take Heed
New Zealander and London-based publisher Martin Moodie was “probably one of only 500 in the 26,000 strong crowd” at Limerick’s Thomond Park when the All Blacks played Munster, “ and was honoured to be…
Parliamentary Melting Pot
Pansy Wong, 53, is New Zealand’s first Asian cabinet minister, having been named Minister for Ethnic Affairs and Minister of Women’s Affairs in the new government. Wong, who was born in Shanghai, said her…
With Grand Applause
Wellington-based author Eleanor Catton’s first novel The Rehearsal has been bought by US publisher Granta for a six-figure sum. Currently working on her MFA at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop as a 2008 Glenn Schaeffer…
Antarcticans Unite
Nearly every New Zealander, according to American author of The Entire Earth and Sky: Views on Antarctica, Leslie Carol Roberts “has some link to Antarctica – either they had been there, or someone they…
Te Rauparaha’s War Cry
The all-Maori team first performed a haka against Surrey in Richmond in 1888 where they, according to theIllustrated London News, “cavorted about in ostrich-feather capes and tassell’d caps in a device of novelty and…
Judd Mixes It Up
Chief winemaker at Cloudy Bay Kevin Judd’s 2008 sauvignon blanc has just hit British shelves and in an interview with the Daily Telegraph, Judd explains the complexities of blending wine. “In the old days…
Women’s Open Confirmed
Wellington golfer Sarah Nicholson and Aucklander Liz McKinnon will be two of 20 New Zealand and Australian players in a total field of 144 to appear at the inaugural New Zealand Women’s Open staged…
Easy Street in Rawene
New Zealand-based designer Lise Strathdee’s company Outpost Hokianga, located in Rawene, is a “hip concept store that mixes fashion, books, art and fine food,” according to Time magazine. The notion that fashionable shopping…
Collision with the big guns
Te Awamutu-born Crowded House frontman Neil Finn is Billboard’s featured artist, just ahead of a planned studio project with his son singer Liam Finn, UK band Radiohead and American rockers Wilco. In a sequel…
Looking Back to Black
Former All Black hooker Anton Oliver, 33, is now studying at Oxford University for an MSc in Biodiversity, Conservation and Management, but he’ll play “one more decent game” against Cambridge in the Nomura Varsity…
Waterborne Cars Are Go
16 November 2008 – New Zealand entrepreneur Alan Gibbs, 69, has opened an amphibious vehicle engineering and research centre for his firm, Gibbs Technologies in Auburn Hills, Michigan. Gibbs previewed two of his company’s…
New Zealander in Ink
Auckland tattooist Nikole Lowe, 36, is one of four London-based artists featured on the Discovery Channel’s six-part reality show London Ink, a series which delves into the world of tattooing. Lowe is interviewed in…
In all honesty
“The curry-scented streets of Pip Brown’s east-London neighbourhood Brick Lane are a far cry from her beginnings in New Zealand,” writes The Independent on Sunday’s Luiza Sauma in a frank interview with Brown, now…
Mail Man Has Role in US
Former New Zealand Post CEO and Royal Mail executive deputy chairman Elmar Toime has been appointed to American online postal service Earth Class Mail Corporation’s board of advisors. Toime – who also led the…
Thrive Wellington 08
Brian Sweeney’s speech at Thrive Wellington 08 – “Lets Talk Business”. (29 minutes)
The siege of Helengrad
Antony Green, election analyst with the Australian Broadcasting Commission, summed up Election 08 thus (abridged): “Whether New Zealanders wanted change or just a change of government is the mandate question that John Key will…
Celebrating Two Decades
For over 20 years, since A.J Hackett and Henry Van Asch’s first tandem leap of faith in 1988, bungee jumping has poured more than $1 billion into the New Zealand economy. On November 12,…
View From Olympus: John Psathas
An excerpt from the documentary made around the recording of John Psathas’ concerto, View From Olympus
Music to his ears
Associate professor in instrumental and vocal composition at The New Zealand School of Music Jack Body’s latest cross-cultural composition is a production called ‘The Seven Ages of Man’, which is a “multimedia music theatre”…
One Visitor at a Time
New Zealand has been judged to have the most responsible tourism practises on the planet at the Virgin Holidays Responsible Tourism Awards in London. The judges declared New Zealand the overall winner of 2008…
Fame from the field
Wellington-born Singer Will Martin, 24, is one of a number of classical crossover performers who, writes the Times Online, made their “big break” singing the national anthem at a sporting event. Martin first performed…
Rugby’s Poster Boy
All Black fly-half Dan Carter, who recently made number 11 on American network E! Entertainment channel’s list of the 25 Sexiest Men of the World, this week also featured in CNN’s Talk Asia series….
Key In Clark Out
8 November 2008 – National Party leader John Key, 47, has ousted Labour’s Helen Clark from office and a nine-year term, with a mantra of change. Prime Minister Helen Clark conceded defeat. Clark, 58,…
Legendary Cricketer
Former test-cricketer and left-arm spinner Aucklander Hedley Howarth has died, aged 64. Howarth claimed 86 wickets in 30 tests for New Zealand between 1969 and 1974, retiring from test cricket in 1977. He was…
Home with Benefits
New Zealand is the favoured country for British expatriates to live because of its low property prices, mild weather and favourable tax rates. Having the lowest average property price at £105,750, low fuel, food…
Awarded for Imagination
New Zealand mineral chemist Dr Alan Reid, 77, has won the Ian Wark Medal in acknowledgement for his outstanding contribution to Australia’s prosperity through the advancement of scientific knowledge. One of a number of…
Tidal promotion
Christchurch singer-songwriter Anika Moa’s third studio album ‘In Swings the Tide’ has been released in Australia, and with the release Moa, 28, will perform several promotional concerts in Melbourne ahead of shows supporting Crowded…
Rethinking Polar Power
Later this month, Meridian Energy will begin work on the most southernmost wind farm in the world, on Crater Hill, Ross Island in Antarctica. The turbines will provide renewable energy to New Zealand’s Scott…
Tama Heihei Kaki Maro
I start this blog on Labour Day. I’m just back at Waiohiki from a Black Power hui near Rotorua, including a challenge for the Gabe Tawhaiti – and I’ll come back to that in…
Southpaw Inducted
Carterton-born golfer Sir Bob Charles, 72, has been inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in the veterans category – the Hall of Fame’s first New Zealander, and its first left-hander. Charles won…
Lakeside Hedonism
Blanket Bay luxury lodge on the shores of Lake Wakatipu is the starting point for any adventure a guest can imagine, but it is also home to some very fine cuisine, according to The…
R.I.P Harry
Henry William Bourne Palin, British actor Michael Palin’s uncle, was a farmhand in New Zealand who at the outbreak of war in 1914 enlisted in the 1st battalion of the Canterbury Regiment of the…
The Wild Edge
New Zealand’s dramatic scenery is the backdrop for an 11-day “fall” fashion shoot in the latest issue of National Geographic Adventure, which takes the writer/photographer and his models from Auckland to Te Anau. “This…
Blondes make blog
Auckland singer Gin Wigmore, 21, and Wellington’s Ladyhawke are both plugged in Perez Hilton’s Hollywood gossip blog, who enthuses that if you are blonde and from New Zealand, he is: “LOVING you this week.”…
Green Light District
New Zealand’s “liberalisation” of the world’s oldest profession is, according to the Economist, a success story, where in 2003 the magazine writes, “that country decriminalised the sex trade with a boldness that exceeded that…
Better Late Than Never
30 October 2008 – For the first time in approximately two hundred years, a tuatara has been discovered nesting on the New Zealand mainland. The event happened at Wellington’s Karori Wildlife Sanctuary, where four…
Craved in Canada
Kathmandu founder and owner of design store Nood, or “New Objects of Desire”, Jan Cameron has opened four stores in British Columbia. Nood carries a range of household and personal products, including designer furniture…
Clay’s Reading Gift
New Zealand-developed remedial programme Reading Recovery, devised by the late educationalist Dame Marie Clay, is proving successful in the UK with 30,000 British children a year expected to take part by 21. Under the…
With eyes for art
New Zealander Jennifer Flay, artistic director of Fiac (Foire Internationale d’Art Contemporain), is heading a break-through at the contemporary Parisian art fair, a role she was appointed to in 2003. “While location is one…
With Comforts, Without Pack
Opened in 1992, the 71km Queen Charlotte Track is located between Queen Charlotte and Kenepuru Sound, and Los Angles Times’s reporter Amanda Jones ó who considers herself “an outdoorswoman” but for who the “appeal…
Newspaper Half Mast
A homage to Sir Edmund Hillary has won this year’s best newspaper advertisement at the 2008 Caxton Awards in Australia picking up the top prize, the Quinlivan Black Award. The Saatchi & Saatchi Australia…
