Trail Running Trend Speeds Up
“It is the perfect new year challenge – a week’s journey on foot and at speed through New Zealand’s fairytale valleys,” The Financial Times’ Jonathan Thompson writes. “It is, to put it mildly, a…
News of New Zealanders via Global Media
New Look Cathedral Unveiled
Christchurch’s new cathedral, which will be made of cardboard and will house 700 people, is due for completion in April next year. The city’s magnificent Gothic revival cathedral hewn from local basalt was irreparably…
Memorial To A Friend
A sculpture in memorial to pioneering New Zealand plastic surgeon Archibald McIndoe will be created by Martin Jennings, whose war hero father was one of McIndoe’s grateful guinea pigs. Jenning’s own father was one…
Wave To End The War
During the Second World War, New Zealand and the United States conducted secret tests of a “tsunami bomb” designed to destroy coastal cities by using underwater blasts to trigger massive tidal waves. The tests…
Extraordinary Talent Sorely Missed
Oscar-winning sound editor New Zealander Mike Hopkins, 53, who worked on the Lord of the Rings trilogy and other blockbusters, has died in a rafting accident on the Waiohine River in the Tararua Range….
Rethinking Team Rankings
Economist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, New Zealander Niven Winchester, who studies sports rankings as a hobby, argues that The National Football League (NFL) should rank teams more the way rugby does. Winchester calculates…
Dishing Up Comfort Food
Peter Gordon’s 2012-published Peter Gordon Everyday is one of Catherine Phipp’s ‘Best Food Books of the Year’. “Flashes of trademark fusion sit with more personal dishes from New Zealand childhood,” Phipps…
Quigley’s Own Heroic Symphony
New Zealand author Sarah Quigley’s novel The Conductor is a “vivid evocation” of winter in Leningrad during the years 1941-42. “As the German army besieged the city, her citizens starved, corpses clogged the snowy…
Through A Child’s Eyes
In Sailing the Unknown: Around the World With Captain Cook, American poet Michael J. Rosen imagines the journal of the real-life 11-year-old Nicholas Young, the youngest sailor aboard Captain Cook’s Endeavour. “We know very…
Role Of The Year
New Zealand actress Melanie Lynskey’s role as depressed twentysomething divorcée in Hello I Must Be Going is one of Paste magazine’s ‘25 Best Movie Performances of 2012’. “Most recognizable for her recurring role on…
Home in the Desert
Moving to Las Vegas was a dream come true for New Zealander Jennifer Scott, a former journalist and magazine editor. Scott said she has had an obsession with the city since she…
Surprise Involvement
When the premiere of West of Memphis was first announced for the Sundance Film Festival this year, the participation of Oscar-winning Lord of the Rings filmmaker Peter Jackson was something of a surprise, not…
Outsider Looking In
“This smart and sophisticated novel by prolific New Zealand writer C.K. Stead surveys the atrocities of our time – the attacks on the US on September 11, 2001, the Balkan and Iraq wars, the…
Librarians Confer
Under a new five-year Arrangement on Cooperation agreement signed by the National Library of New Zealand and the National Library of China, the two institutions will share knowledge and information in joint…
What Could Be Better
The New Zealand specialty bacon and egg pie features in The New York Times’ ‘Diner’s Journal’ weekly column and video. “I got the inspiration to make a bacon and egg pie from an article…
American Deal For Angels
Wellington company Angel Delivery, owned by Becs Cass, has struck a US partnership that will see the four-year-old freshly made meal and treat delivery service enter the New York market. Partnering with…
Brilliant Ideas Remain
Gifted Wellington-born academic Amanda Rohloff, who has died aged 30, is fondly remembered by her friend, Philippa Chandler in a Guardian obituary. “She grew up in Karori, excelled at hockey as a teenager and…
Must See On The West End
Everyone should see New Zealander Sam Wills in The Boy with Tape on His Face, writes Telegraph reviewer Dominic Cavendish. “But not everyone should sit near the front or close to the aisles,” Cavendish…
Review Of Whimsy
Magazine illustrator New Zealander Peter Campbell’s work is collected in Artwork and describes his 30-year career as art director, contributor (writing more than 300 articles) and, from 1993, cover artist of the…
Look At That
Auckland-born Academy Award-nominated director Andrew Adamson – of Shrek and The Chronicles of Narnia fame – returns to the realm of the fantastic with Cirque du Soleil: Worlds Away, a film that captures eye-popping…
Speed Demon Wins In US
New Zealand Paralympic skier Adam Hall, 25, was at Copper Mountain, Colorado for the 2012-13 IPC Nor-Am Cup, where he won two silver medals in the men’s standing competition. Dunedin-born Hall says he likes…
Not Just Any Caravan
New Zealand architectural and interior design firm W2 have designed a fold-out luxury caravan “unlike anything we’ve come across before,” Gizmag’s Loz Blain writes. “The Romotow looks a bit like a high-tech…
Big Ears Of The Insect World
The iconic New Zealand weta has ears similar to those of a whale, researchers at the University of Auckland have found. The ears of this 8cm-long Auckland tree weta are the white disks that…
Woman Alone
“A mythic quest involving fellowship and solitude; the startling beauty, by turns lush and austere, of a wild land: if you now have visions of The Hobbit floating in your heads, please banish them,”…
Retro Ads Bank On Paradise
Five vintage New Zealand travel advertisements feature in Jaunted this week. Among them the ‘Fly TEAL’ ad, which “pushes the airline’s popular Coral Route, which once flew passengers to the tropical South Pacific Islands…
Bond Gets Nastier
Researchers from the University of Otago have analysed 22 James Bond films and discovered that violent acts in the films have more than doubled since Dr No in 1962. In the first 007 film,…
Lord of the Rings was Perfect
“The Lord of the Rings was the work of a filmmaker perfectly in tune with his source material. Its too-muchness — the encyclopedic detail, the pseudoscholarly exposition, the soaring allegory, the punishing length —…
Get Out The Velvet
Fashion blogger New Zealander Laura Allard-Fleischl’s take on velvet makes her one of MTV Style’s ‘Bloggers of the Week’. “, is getting back to velvet’s roots in her dark…
Discerning Types
Melanie Lynskey, 35, is one of ten Indie actors on the verge of mainstream, according to Loren DiBlasi writing for Highbrow Magazine. “In 1994, the New Zealand native won raves for her performance alongside…
Long Line Of Macs
New Zealander John McIntosh can trace his family lineage to the inventor of the raincoat, Charles MacKintosh and to John Mackintosh, the inventor of Mackintosh’s Toffee. McIntosh is now following the path of McIntoshes…
Home On The Range
A Queenstown detached home with “views of the mountains, deer roaming nearby, and hills that change colour with the seasons,” is the Wall Street Journal’s ‘House of the Day’. On the market for NZ$4.35…
Made From Milk Honey
Broken Shed vodka, which is distilled from whey, is “vodka for the vodka haters”, according to one of the Huffington Post’s editors. “When we caught wind of a vodka being made from…
Distinguished Man Of Figures
Wellington-born applied mathematician Professor Bruce Morton has died in Melbourne aged 86. Under his leadership, Monash, where he worked for 25 years, became the leading university for its atmospheric science program in Australia. Professor…
Strange Volcanic Goings-On
A peculiar lava spine between 20 and 30m across has appeared in the crater of White Island. Wired’s Eric Klemetti is “not even sure how to describe it.” “The lava forming it has to…
Holding It In For A World Record
Free divers, like New Zealander William Trubridge, 32, are taking extreme sports to new depths, while ever mindful of not being shark bait, reports The Sydney Morning Herald’s Emma Partridge. Trubridge continues to hold…
Improvising Love In NY
New Zealand filmmaker Florian Habicht, 30, lets the people direct his tale of romance in the Big Apple. In New York he fell in love every few minutes, Habicht says. “Like with life, with…
Knock Out For Life
New Zealand All Black and kickboxer, Hastings-born Hika Elliot, 26, unbeaten in 62 fights, will square off against Australian league player Paul Gallen in the Fight For Life boxing charity event in Auckland on…
Where Do We Come From
A two-year study, called “The longest journey — from Africa to Aotearoa”, could provide a snapshot of the lineage of all human history, according to biological anthropologist Lisa Matisoo-Smith, who is leading the research…
Cooking Stones With The Force
Hangi rocks could reveal the magnetic history of the Earth going back hundreds of years, new research from Victoria University suggests. The findings, which were presented at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical…
Boyens’ Cinematic Adventure
Asked one day in 1997 if, as a fan of J.R.R. Tolkien, she might have any interest in helping out friends and fellow New Zealanders Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh adapt The Lord of…
Hong Kong’s Fashion Heroine
New Zealand-born fashion writer Jasmine Webster, 29, who is based in Hong Kong and is the face of Dress Me blog, talks to the South China Morning Post about her obsession with dressing up…
Everyday Finery
Designer Karen Walker caught up with Vogue Australia to talk about her new Diamond jewellery collection. “The inspiration behind all our jewellery designs is jewellery for modern occasions,” Walker said. “Karen Walker Jewellery…
Capital Freebie Tourism Activities
“Whether you’re a fan making a pilgrimage to the city where the films were made, or you have no interest whatsoever in dwarfs and goblins, there’s plenty to do in Wellington. For free,”…
Super Plan Most Innovative
The New Zealand Superannuation Fund has been named the world’s most innovative sovereign fund, winning the prestigious Sovereign Wealth Fund category in the 2012 aiCIO Industry Innovation Awards in New York. Chairman Gavin…
Canines Take To The Wheel
Dogs rescued by the SPCA are being taught to drive in a campaign to show how intelligent canines, and even those abandoned, really are. Astonishingly, it took three dogs just eight weeks to master…
Player Of The Year
All Black Dan Carter has been named player of the year in London at the 2012 International Rugby Board (IRB) awards, with Steve Hansen winning coach of the year and the All Blacks the…
Very Clean At The Helm
New Zealand is the least corrupt country on earth, says Germany-based Transparency International. Overall, the top spots are occupied mostly by European countries, with the exception of New Zealand, Singapore at No 5…
Balance In The Workplace
“YWCA Auckland and DDB New Zealand lay out the ridiculousness of the gender pay gap reality with a straightforward TV spot that shows you how absurd it is for people to be treated differently,…
Neighbours Row On Whereabouts
If a New Zealander is called an Australian, is it a racial insult, ponders The Atlantic’s Conor Friedersdorf. “As an outsider, I won’t pretend a sophisticated understanding of the cultural relationship between Australia and…
Jackson Our Resident Wonka
“With his first of three Hobbit films, An Unexpected Journey, Peter Jackson daringly attempts the same manoeuvre , aspiring to capture the essence of his…
Jackson’s Capital Effect
“No part of New Zealand has been more changed by Jackson’s movies, and by the growing film-production industry they sparked here, than the city of Wellington,” Michael Joseph Gross writes in the December…
It’s About Flying People
Air New Zealand chief executive Rob Fyfe is one of 20 people profiled in this month’s Monocle, in a feature which explores who “would be ideal collaborators.” “Make sure you know who to call…
Foiled By Fourth Best
New Zealand, the world’s No 1-ranked side, was defeated by England 38-21 at Twickenham, bringing the All Blacks’ unbeaten run of 20 back-to-back wins to an end. It was England’s first win over New…
Banking on Dancing Colours
Christchurch-born Len Lye’s “deliriously jazzy 1930s animation for the Post Office Savings Bank shows public information films needn’t be dull,” Judith Mackrell writes for the Guardian. “The colours might look late-60s-psychedelic; some of the…
Collected Stories of Our Time
Auckland University has launched the first anthology of New Zealand literature bringing together fiction and non-fiction, poetry and prose into one volume. The 1184-page Anthology of New Zealand Literature was edited by Jane Stafford…
Nebraska’s Prize Prospect
Huskers point guard prospect New Zealander Tai Webster is considered the prize of Nebraska coach Tim Miles’ first recruiting class. ESPN.com rates Webster as a four-star recruit with the following summation: “Webster is a…
