Golf’s Rising Star
Rotorua schoolboy Danny Lee, 18, has the golfing world at his feet after becoming the youngest player ever to win the US Amateur championship, held at the Pinehurst club in North Carolina last week….
News of New Zealanders via Global Media
Hill Moves into the US
Michael Hill International (MHI) has purchased 17 stores in the American cities of Chicago and Missouri for a sum of US$5.5 million (NZ$8.1 million). “Chicago is a good market for a newly arrived retailer,…
On Board for Gold
World champion Auckland windsurfer Tom Ashley, 24, sailed past his rivals, to claim first place in the men’s competition and a gold medal, the third won by the New Zealand Olympic contingent in Beijing….
From Within the Soul
Lower Hutt runner Nick Willis surged forward in the final moments of the men’s 1500m for third place, in a race Willis’ University of Michigan coach Ron Warhurst said the 25-year-old “always had the…
Cocktails After Angkor
Former Radio New Zealand reporter Dean Williams has turned his talents to the world of hospitality in Cambodia’s popular tourist destination, Siem Reap. According to The Phnom Penh Post: “In September, Williams will open…
Releasing Expectations
Auckland-based band Cut Off Your Hands are described as a “vicious and vibrant foursome” and frontman Nick Johnston, “the new Iggy Pop of the New Zealand pop-punk pioneers” on a British news website. The…
Fraser’s film premiere
New Zealand film director Toa Fraser’s latest feature, Dean Spanley, is to have its world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival on September 6. The film is part of the ‘gala programme’ which is…
In Search of a History
New Zealand film producer and public speaker Anna Wilding is now writing regularly for the TennisGrandStand site, and in her first column, as the US Open approaches, she writes about her great uncle, tennis…
Four Years Pays Off
Athens silver medallist triathlete Bevan Docherty, 31, took third place and a bronze medal in the men’s triathlon at the Beijing Olympics and is determined to try for the gold in four years time….
Telepathic in Louisiana
Anna Paquin, 26, is mind-reading Southern waitress Sookie Starkhouse in the HBO vampire series True Blood, which starts September 7 in the United States. Paquin chats with Women’s Wear Daily about going blonde…
Caged Art Debut
Auckland artist Sharon Finn is illuminating Sydney’s Simmer on the Bay with her first exhibition, ‘The Gilded Cage’, a collection of bejewelled chandeliers and bodiced mannequins, one adorned with antique watchfaces . For the…
Sea Urchin Reef Concert
Auckland University marine biologists Craig Radford and Andrew Jeffs have discovered that sea urchins are behind loud noises emanating from underwater around New Zealand reefs. The 20- to 30-decibel sound is caused by the…
Medal Haul in Beijing
Hastings twins Caroline and Georgina Evers-Swindell took gold medals in the double skulls beating their German rivals by 0.01 sec, the win on the same day Mahe Drysdale won a bronze in the single skulls and…
Screen Australia hires Harley
New Zealander Ruth Harley – currently CEO of the New Zealand Film Commission – has been appointed chief executive of the newly formed national film agency, Screen Australia. Dr Harley begins the position in…
Gold in the Bird’s Nest
Auckland athlete Valerie Vili, 23, has won a gold medal in shot put at the Beijing Olympics, the first for New Zealand in track and field since John Walker’s gold in the 1500m at…
Clement’s Celestial Chevalier
Wellington Conchord Jemaine Clement takes on the role of fantasy novelist Dr Ronald Chevalier in teen comedy Gentlemen Broncos, a film created by Napolean Dynamite’s Jared Hess to be released in 2009. According…
Cooking by Numbers
Wellingtonian Matt Moss, 36, left New Zealand 16 years ago to play rugby in Britain, Germany and the United States winding up in Beijing working for catering company, Aramark as operations manager at the…
Into the Crystal Ball
Mark Todd, voted Rider of the Century 20th by the International Equestrian Centre, is hoping to compete next at the World Championships in Kentucky in 2010 and is not ruling out the London 2012…
Science made funny
Auckland’s Indian Ink Theatre Company – with co-founder Jacob Rajan in the starring role – performed The Candlestickmaker to Australian audiences at Brisbane’s Cremorne Theatre. Rajan, who wrote the play with the other half…
Unconventional Movement
New Zealander Grant Harrison, 44, Hutt Valley High School old boy and owner of American health benefits company Humana, one of the largest in the United States, is the man behind bike-share programme
Oriental’s Ohtel
Wellington’s latest accommodation option, the 10-room boutique Ohtel, is ‘Hotel of the Week’ in The Independent on Sunday. Situated on Oriental Parade, a wooden Victorian house was removed to give the Ohtel its central…
Figments of the imagination
Wellington author Elizabeth Knox’s Dreamhunter Duet is reviewed in Canadian newspaper The Star Phoenix. The two “intricate” fantasy titles are highly recommended for young adults, and are described as “intriguing” and “intelligent”. The first…
Record Without Air
Wellington architect Kathryn McPhee, 29, has broken a freediving world record by two metres swimming underwater without breath for 151 metres, in a time of 2mins 48sec. Freediving, also known as breath-hold or apnoea…
Montreal bound
New Plymouth-born actress Melanie Lynskey stars in the Anthony McCarten-directed Show of Hands, which has been selected for its world premiere at this year’s Montreal Film Festival. Show of Hands is based on McCarten’s…
Digging Up the Sandpit
Former Dunedin musterer Ed Mumm moved to Steamboat Springs, Colorado and in November 2007 opened the first earthmoving sandpit in the United States, Dig This, where enthusiasts pay top dollar to operate heavy machinery…
Ode to the Environment
Auckland choreographer Lemi Ponifasio and his 24-member dance troupe MAU performed ‘Requiem’ at New York’s Rose Theater as part of the city’s Mostly Mozart Festival – the company’s first ever US show. Commissioned by…
Capital Connections
Wellington’s green belt, its educated populace and diverse economy is comparable to an extent with Ottawa, Canada’s capital, in that both are ideal illustrations of “younger new-world” cities. “Wellington shares more with Ottawa than,…
Confronting history
Historian and media commentator Paul Moon’s latest book This Horrid Practice delves into the subject of Maori cannibalism, the author arguing that the amount of evidence of the action was “overwhelming” and “too important…
Kiwi-Pukapuka Relocate
Little Spotted Kiwi, the second rarest kiwi species, have been reintroduced onto Fiordland’s Chalky Island for the first time in a century. Sponsors of the transfer, South Island tour operators Real Journeys, joined iwi…
Travel award for editor
Taumarunui travel writer and publishing editor of Inside Tourism Nigel Coventry has been named the 2008 Pasific Asia Travel Association Travel Journalist of the Year. PATA president Peter de Jong said Coventry had been…
Bond Director’s Edge
Hastings-born film and television director Martin Campbell – most well-known for James Bond hits Casino Royale and GoldenEye – begins shooting his latest Hollywood feature, Edge of Darkness, this month. The film, which stars…
21st century renewal
Wellington’s Waitangi Park – transformed in a collaboration between landscape architects Wraight & Associates and Athfield Architects – combines environmentally-sound urban redevelopment with recreation, and includes water purifying ponds, man-made wetlands and a concrete…
On your marks, get set
Artist Daniel Crooks, who originally hails from Hastings, has won the Australian inaugural $100,000, Basil Sellers Art Prize for ‘Static no. 11 (man running)’, a computer-modified video of champion athlete Christopher Brown sprinting on…
Beauty in Cold
Winter in New Zealand is captured in seascape images by Independent photographer Hannah Bills, who travelled through Wellington and then south, taking shots in and around Christchurch, “the Oxford of the southern hemisphere.” “Intensely…
More than shelter
The “Mai Mai” house in Ponsonby (above) and the clubhouse at The Hills golf course in Queenstown (below), both designed by Auckland-based architects Patterson Associates, have been named finalists for October’s World…
Imagination Roars to Life
Christchurch inventor Glenn Martin’s ultralight aircraft, the Martin Jetpack, a $100,000 “jetski for the sky” able to climb to heights of almost 2500m, has been launched at an aerospace show in Wisconsin. No more…
From the gods in Paris
Maori art is part of an exhibition called ‘Pacific Encounters: Art and Divinity in Polynesia 1760-1860’ at the Musée du quai Branly in Paris; 250 objects from the “Polynesian Triangle” isles – New Zealand,…
Leave Your Hat On
The Christchurch-designed 2c Solar Light Cap is trialled by a Chicago Tribune reporter who dons the headgear for a camping trip on the Mississippi River. “Part of the appeal of sleeping in the woods…
Memories of Bledisloe
In 2000, in front of 109,874 spectators jammed into Sydney’s Stadium Australia, Jonah Lomu landed the tenth try in a nerve-racking Bledisloe match beating Australia 39-35. Swerving in towards his wing opponent, Andrew Walker,…
Sunshine Travels
Auckland band the Ruby Suns are fusing the sounds of the South Pacific and California, “bridging the gap between world music and pop.” Sole permanent member of the band, American Ryan McPhun permanently resettled…
Hart’s Net Worth
Auckland investor Graeme Hart, 53, owner of the world’s second-largest drink-carton maker, Alcoa Inc. has surpassed both Donald Trump and Sir Richard Branson in the wealth stakes, doubling his bank account over the past…
Te Reo Goes Google
Google Aotearoa has been launched to coincide with July’s Maori Language Week (Te Wiki O Te Reo Maori 2008), with more than 8750 words translated. Potaua Biasiny-Tule, 32, and his Puerto Rican wife Nikolasa,…
Dropping in on Europe
Wellington’s Fat Freddy’s Drop will tour Europe in November on the back of their latest release, the mammoth nine-minute track ‘The Camel’, which readers are offered free to download at the Times Online site….
Macchiato Marathon
The 182-strong New Zealand Olympic team will have flat whites and long blacks on tap in Beijing thanks to award-winning barista Julianne Frith, 21, from Auckland, who was selected by a panel of former…
The American Dream
New Zealand is an enticing destination for American property developers and investors because the populace speaks English, there are minimal restrictions on ownership and land is still relatively cheap. There are also no property…
With rapturous applause
Gisborne-born soprano Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, 64, “came, sang and conquered” with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at a Ravinia gala benefit concert. Looking every inch the beauteous diva in a stunning red-and-black ensemble, Te…
Toward NASCAR
Auckland speedway driver and Midget racer Michael Pickens, 25, is on the way to his dream of a NASCAR future getting stock car experience on paved tracks this summer in the ASA Late Model…
Introducing Tauwhitu
In a Kerikeri pub sometime in the 1980s, Boston author Christina Thompson met a group of Maori having pints after a day spent diving for crayfish and uses this first encounter with native New…
Must Have Di Stagione
Wellington design company Ataahua, owned by Bernadette Casey, has created a range of sustainable products made from repurposed coffee sacks, and Casey’s Cuban coffee roasters’ Trilby is gathering some fashionable followers. The hat is…
Snug as a Bug
Merino Kids founder Amie Nilsson designed the award-winning Cocooi Babywrap with biblical swaddling in mind, keeping babies safely on their back and asleep longer. Swaddling creates a slight pressure around the baby’s body that…
Boscombe Breaks
Raglan-based marine consultants ASR Limited have designed a £3 million artificial reef at Boscombe beach in Bournemouth; work will begin on the seabed project in the next few months with a completion date of…
A thirty year legacy
New Zealand drama teacher Ken Rea – who trained at Auckland’s Gil Cornwall academy and worked at Downstage and the Mercury Theatre – was honoured at London’s Guildhall School of Music and Drama for…
Yacht Technology for Cars
Auckland property developer and yacht maker Jock Freemantle will launch a 2008 version of New Zealand’s first super car, the 550bhp BMW V8 Hulme named after New Zealand’s 1967 Formula One World Champion, Denny…
Lomu in Charity Match
Rugby World Cup’s top try-scorer Jonah Lomu, 33, will play for the International Select XV in a charity match called, ‘Help the Heroes’ at Twickenham in September. The fundraiser will be staged to help…
Against the Wind
Three-time world champion windsurfer Barbara Kendall is off to Beijing and her fifth Olympics. Conditions at the sailing venue in Qingdao would be difficult, Kendall said. “It’s just not a windy spot. If we’re…
God Defend NZ
Of all the nations in the Anglosphere, New Zealand had the proudest and toughest military culture of the 20th Century according to Australian lawyer and author, Hal G. P. Colebatch. In an article in…
