Edge Message #117 from Brian Sweeney, producer NZEDGE.COM
Pictured: Lynda and Jools Topp, Alistair Te Ariki Campbell, Mahe Drysdale, Tall Blacks’ Lindsay Tait and Kirk Penney, Zöe Bell
NEW ZEALANDERS IN GLOBAL HEADLINES
New Zealand headlines in this week’s sampling of global media appearing in Nylon, Toronto Star, USA Today, BBC News, Financial Director, Financial Times, Examiner.com, Guardian, Times Online, Philippine Star, Vogue Australia, Daily Mail, The Sydney Morning Herald, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Telegraph, Nhân Dân and Wall Street Journal include:
• Topp Twins, singers, yodelers, Untouchable Girls film plays Toronto Film Festival Sunday
• Alistair Te Ariki Campbell, poet of South Pacific complexities, dies, 84 – Guardian*
• Mahe Drysdale, 31, unbeatable in Poland; 4th single-skulls title – USA Today
• Tall Blacks thump Boomers 100–78; earn spot at 2010 World Champs – USA Today
• Zöe Bell, “stuntmaster turned actor of the moment” in Angel of Death – Examiner.com
• Fonterra’s secret weapon, vast areas of clean grass; competitive advantage – Philippine Star
• Meridian Energy buy US solar facility to explore potential in NZ – Wall Street Journal
• Emirates Team NZ “back to their best” winning back-to-back regattas – Telegraph
• New Zealand wine, favourite for Australians; exports up by 31% – Sydney Morning Herald
• Rob McCallum, veteran polar explorer, leads search for Amundsen’s plane – BBC
• Kevin Hayes, London-based Man Group’s FD and hedge fund maestro– Financial Director
• Jan Nye, development advisor, Dili, 59, cycles inaugural Tour de Timor – Voice of America
• Anna Paquin aka Sookie Stackhouse, who “has an Oscar and a cool accent”, talks to Nylon
• Judy Millar, Auckland artist, “at home where the world ceases to exist” – Financial Times
• University of Otago study shows boys perform best in single-sex schools – Reuters
• Neil Finn, Liam, Elroy, brother Tim, Wilco create album of “real gems” – Times Online
• Jane Campion’s ’93 film The Piano “seminal moment in Australian cinema” – Vogue Australia
• Mark Blumsky, former mayor, on Slippers: Service and Selling – Sydney Morning Herald
• Kiri Te Kanawa no “elitist”; opera sung by people from “ordinary backgrounds” – Guardian
• Ian Yeoman, travel futurologist, predicts robot service, space tourism, indoor ski – Daily Mail
• Dave Murray one of four NZers in grueling two-week 1000km Mongol Derby
• Rachel Reid, 17, wins US scholarship, and time to be with ill sister – Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
• Jossi Wells, 19, Wanaka skier, silver at NZ Winter Games, “big news overseas”
• James Kember, ambassador to Vietnam, earns medal for peace, friendship – Nhân Dân
• Shane Bond, 34, back to international cricket after two-year hiatus – Reuters India
* In Wellington Alistair Campbell associated with a rebellious set of young writers who became known as the Wellington Group and published his first book of poetry, Mine Eyes Dazzle (1950), which was hailed by the New Zealand poet James K Baxter as “one of the defining events of recent New Zealand poetry”. Its greatest poem, Elegy, memorialises a friend killed in a mountaineering accident: “The shattered cliff’s sheer/ Face spurts myriads/ Of waterfalls, like tears/ From some deep-bowed head/ Whose colossal grief is stone.” (Guardian)
Here are the Top 10 titles for August:
- Flare – A Ski Trip, NFU short film 1977 – Funky promotional doco featuring snow ‘ski ballet’
- A Haunting We Will Go, TV series 1980 – Debut of milk-loving vampire Count Homognized
- Revolution – Fortress NZ, doco 1996 – Series mapping late 80s economic reforms
- Trio At The Top, doco 2001 – NZ motor-racing legends McLaren, Hulme and Amon
- Play School, TV series 1975–1990 – Iconic educational programme for preschoolers
- Top Town, TV series 1977– Town against town, long-running light-entertainment gold
- Billy T James – Live, TV series 1990 – Swansong for much-loved, non-pc comedian
- Ten Guitars, doco 1996 – Doco exploring the unlikely “national anthem of Patea”
- It’s In The Bag, TV Series 1973–1990 – Selwyn Toogood’s popular travelling TV quiz show
- Patu!, feature film 1983 – Merata Mita’s startling doco about the 1981 Springbok tour
Top image and above: Raumati South. Thumbnail, Palliser Bay, Wairarapa,
New Zealand, 2003. More pictures at www.paradiseroad.com. Fern symbol via www.nzflag.com.
