The Legend of Steve Williams
Tiger’s clubs net the “amiable Kiwi” over $1 million – making Williams an international top-dollar caddy. Also, will Williams bring Tiger down under?
News of New Zealanders via Global Media
Spotte-y Research
Prolific writer Stephen Spotte’s latest collection ranges from “academia to the Maori cannibals of New Zealand and everywhere in between”.
Bye-bye Brierley
New Zealand business legend Sir Ron Brierley steps down as director of the eponymous Brierley Investments.
Cup Buzz
The City of Sails is still high on the America’s Cup – and not showing any signs of slowing down before the next one.
Directory of Excellence
Every entry in a New Zealand winery guide has one thing in common: “passion for excellence in their field”.
Fashioning the Seams
“My work always tends to be about throwing extremes together,” says edge-designer Karen Walker. “I always find that the most exciting thing is when you take a $5 T-shirt and elevate it into something…
Kidnappers couldn’t take me
Russell Crowe laughs off kidnap threat: “Quite frankly, if they had to spend that much time in a small room with me… one of them might end up saying, ‘Look, pass the hat around,…
Dishy
Sam Neill transmits tension in The Dish, the story of how Neill Armstrong came to be broadcast from a giant dish in the middle of the Australian desert.
Breaking in Privacy?
Will new anti-hacking laws breach the bill of rights? Parliament tries to walk the tightrope between security and invasion.
ATC in Manila
German-based lolli-pop group ATC, including Kiwi member Joe, hit Manila with their Europop/R&B blend.
Everywhere you go…
Neil Finn, international star and “nice guy” of New Zealand pop, has invited a few friends to perform his “unmistakable” sound in Auckland.
Musical extravaganza
“The concept for these shows is to invite friends whose music I admire to collaborate with me in presenting a week-long musical extravaganza which I optimistically expect to be a blast.”
Reel Pianos
The Piano, Jane Campion’s “hard to ignore” and “genuinely strange” masterpiece is the star in Jerusalem’s Festival of piano-films – celebrating the filmic attraction of tormented pianists.
Mega-Catch
New Zealand Envirosafe Technologies’ mega-catch mosquito trap looks like a “harmless, black plastic birdcage”, but, to a mosquito, it looks and smells exactly like a juicy human target.
Whey Better
New Zealand investment and technology turns Israeli cheese run-off from environmental hazard to valuable protein supplement.
Clean Fingers
European consumers can’t wait to get their hands on sustainably fished New Zealand hoki fish-fingers, but some groups strongly dispute the fishery’s right to the “sustainable” label.
Sock it to Him
Returning from Britain, Agricultural Minister Jim Sutton handed in his shoes for decontamination – accidentally also handing in a pair of dirty socks. These were also “decontaminated” by customs, returning to the minister freshly washed.
Gourmet high
“Air New Zealand announces a culinary partnership with Chef Katsuo “Suki” Sugiura of the legendary Polo Lounge at The Beverly Hills Hotel.”
Singing High
New Zealand soprano soloist Rebecca Ryan sings world premier of re-discovered Handel work.
Right on NZ
Come to New Zealand, one American’s all-huntin’, no (school) shootin’ right-wing paradise.
Writer’s birthday
The 13 of March is the birthday of novelist, Sir Hugh Walpole, born in Auckland in 1884.
Rock Face
“New Zealand is one of the few places on earth where a novice can partake in the wild and woolly sport known as canyoning: an odd combination of hiking and rock climbing.”
Restitution Advance
The New Zealand Maori Council became the executors of the estate of a long-dead ancestor, enabling them to regain his head for burial, and opening a legal channel for other groups to claim remains from museums…
Kiwi Burger?
“If you were in a position where every family could eat kiwi for lunch, then you would have solved the problem, wouldn’t you,” says John Wamsley, head of the private Environmental Sanctuaries group. But, “our aim…
Garageland USA
Jeremy Eade, lead singer of New Zealand peppy-punkers Garageland, tours the US doing acoustic from latest release Do What You Want.
Strenuous Endeavour
“How a poor Yorkshire farm boy became a saltwater giant is an incredible tale. Formally speaking, 4-year-old Cook wasn’t even a captain when, over considerable objection, he was appointed master of a naval ship…
Edge Eden
Cornwall’s bio-dome Eden Project houses vegetation from every part of the planet – including the edge.
Trek Milford
The Milford Track is one of the world’s top ten walks – up there with Kilimanjaro, Tanzania and Snow Lake, Pakistan.
Rower Cola
University of Otago scientists says caffeine consumption prior to exercise boosts output, making you rower faster, run further and jump higher without even realising it.
Properly Done
New Zealand designers Ashley and Wende Fogel know how to get it right for this season’s “lean and proper” look.
Elegant Astelia
A New Zealand silver astelia adds elegance to Irish garden designer Dominick Murphy’s small garden.
…you take Finn with you
One Nil is the result of a musician “looking for collaborative work, where someone else is bringing something to the table”, but it’s still vintage Finn: still “rooted in the form and structure of…
Sexy Collette
Wellington-trained Aus-based designer Collette Dinnigan’s international reputation makes her Australasia’s most prolific fashion designer, conjuring for all shapes and sizes “unashamedly feminine, decorative and sexy creations that hug your body and delight your spirit”…
Wahine Remembered
March 10 was the thirty-third anniversary of the day the ferry Wahine ran aground on Barrett’s reef.
Cold Daring
What better guide through the frozen continent that “a New Zealander who, in younger days, had driven motorcycles across the ice pack and sampled the 80-year-old cocoa from the stores left in the hut of the…
Double life
UK Poet Charles Boyle’s The Age of Cardboard and String features “a poet who leads a double life in England and New Zealand”.
Peaceful PM
PM Helen Clark sat on the selection committee for the Millennium Peace Prize for Women, alongside writer Alice Walker and Nobel Peace Prize winner Jose Ramos Horta.
In From the Cold
Former New Zealand PM, now WTO-head Mike Moore plans to see China a WTO member in time for the November meeting in Qatar.
High Brag Value
New Zealand’s rise in popularity with Indian tourists has two sources: massive exposure as background in Bollywood films and exclusivity: New Zealand has “high brag value” once you’re back home.
“Foreign Britain”
“And then there is my ridiculous fantasy that if we are to become a foreign land it might be New Zealand, where, unlike our own benighted Scotland, they know how to play rugby. (Big Hint to…
“I Will Herd Sheep”
“Never doubt you can accomplish the task given to you,” says Canadian film-maker Sean Buckley. “I had barely been on a horse before, but there I was in New Zealand, needing a job. I…
Happily.Married
Wellingtonians Rob and Liz Flavhive.Hill say ditch the hyphen – the dot is so much more 2001.
Furry Good Idea
The fur is soft, warm and stylish. The leather feels so good you can wear it as underwear; Tiger Woods refuses to play with a glove made of anything else. It’s true: the best…
Throwing Down the Gimlett
Terroir – it’s French for “good wine grows here”. Gimlett Gravels in the Hawkes Bay, a patch of gravelly soil that supports 34 wineries, is New Zealand’s first venture into this elite area of wine marketing….
Rating Well
Standard and Poors lifts New Zealand’s long-term foreign currency credit rating to stable on the back of a government surplus and declining debt burden.
Co-operation
The time is right for co-operation between India and New Zealand on food processing, IT and forestry, says Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Phil Goff.
I’m Looking for a Holy Man: Green, Short, Talks Kinda Funny?
The full force of the law is against them: despite attempts to have Jedi registered as an official religion on this year’s census form, it won’t happen unless adherents can produce solid evidence the religion exists. …
Bored? Zorb!
“Over the years, Kiwis apparently have become bored counting sheep and have amused themselves by coming up with some extreme sporting activities. They pioneered bungee jumping and zorbing (literally rolling down a hill strapped inside a ball). Also,…
Use the Force
The force of email is being tested by a New Zealand group attempting to get Jedi recognised as an official religion.
Awesome Dame
New Zealand thoroughbred superpower Sunline receives “spine-tingling” farewell from Sydney. “She is the best horse I will ever train,” states trainer Trevor McKee.
Travel Gets Edgy
Being on the edge means being “enroute to nowhere,” but good cocktails in hot bars, great views from hot baths, wine, alps, adrenaline and Auckland’s revolving restaurant “make this one you must go to sometime”. Also,
History revised?
Controversy and acclaim for edge-director Roger Donaldson’s nuke-spook Kennedy paean 13 Days.“Yet, despite these difficulties, the film works and ought to be essential viewing for those too young to have been around in October 1962,…
