Godzone/Godawful?
Australian-based Kiwi Bernard Lagan trashes New Zealand’s health, wealth and spirit. Helen Clark exercises the right of reply.
News of New Zealanders via Global Media
Woolly Coincidence
Was it morphic resonance that caused New Zealand sheep to start rolling across cattle girds at the same time as their Welsh cousins? Could a similar force be affecting sisterly novelists?
Power Dressing #2
Dress for Success provides smart clothes for UK, US and NZ women looking for jobs. “This isn’t about ‘ladies who lunch’ sprinkling love and charity on the poor. The Dress for Success thing is…
Milk Flows South
Kiwi Milk, one of New Zealand’s big dairy players, has swallowed Kaikoura Co-operative Dairy Co. The merger will “assist with increased milk flows”.
O’Donnell’s limit
“As star of the (Kiwi-directed) mountain-climbing epic Vertical Limit Chris O’Donnell had been helicoptered to the edge of a jagged rock formation in New Zealand’s rugged Southern Alps and deposited to “hang out” for…
Location location
New Zealand is hot property, drawing location scouts who scour the planet looking for the perfect waterfall or mountain stream.
Tuna Tussle
How much is too much? New Zealand, Australia and Japan have brought in independent scientific experts to settle the row over tuna quotas.
Counting Crowe
Amazon keeps count of DVD pre-orders. Gladiator gores Perfect Storm 80 000 to 30 0000 . Also due out on DVD is Crowe’s “breakthrough performance” in Romper Stomper.
Thar’ She Blows!
The Kaikoura whale-boom is part of one of the world’s fastest-growing tourism opportunities, worth over US $1billion world-wide.
Kosher Washer
Dishdrawers by Fisher & Paykel are taking the American Jewish market by storm. The separate compartments make them the kosher washer of choice according to New Zealand sources close to the Paykel family.
Wave Action
A South Pacific-style reef in Bournemouth is the brain child of Prof Kerry Black of Waikato University. The big waves will help turn the resort into the next “coolest city in the universe”.
Whale of an Appetite
Whales eat up to five times as much fish as humans, therefore protecting them is absurd, according to Dan Goodman of the Japan Institute of Cetacean Research, speaking at a whaling conference in New Zealand. …
Geeks Downunder
“Geeks have a great chance Down Under” states the Economic Times. This, and other such headlines, are drawing high-skill immigrants to New Zealand where “living conditions are definitely better than elsewhere”.
Location #2
“As globalisation impacts mainstream Indian cinema, one of the early fall-outs is a flight of locations, with Indian film-makers snapping up every excuse in the book to shoot everywhere – from Alaska to New…
Horsemen of the Edge
“New Zealand horsemen have arrived in the village. They have taken over a surplus cowshed just behind the blacksmith’s. I visit and discover that, having seen better days, the shed is being converted with vast energy…
Versatile Machine
Pakistani engineers have developed a “bed shaper cum seed drill”, and are exporting the all-purpose agri-tool to Uzbekistan thanks to New Zealand sponsorship.
Sauvignon Temptation
Former Scots Rugby rep Rob Wainwright recalls a New Zealand tour run along the lines of a temperance society outing. The players escaped the coach for a day of deep-sea fishing, which swiftly “degenerated into deep…
Green-edged Canada
“The Green Party is part of an international movement of environment-centred parties that began in New Zealand in 1972.” – Values Party perhaps?
Squash Title
World #1 Leilani Joyce was narrowly beaten in the final round of the World Women’s Open by Auckland-based Australian Carol Owens, who has indicated she’d like a place on the New Zealand squad in the future….
Milford Magic
“Awesome!” screams Eric Forseter, 23. “The sheer power of being under a natural phenomenon like that is unbelievable.” Milford Sound, “a virtual catalogue of natural wonders of the Southern Hemisphere,” awes and exhilarates visitors.
Burmese Campaign
From New Zealand to Burma, and then into prison for playing pro-democracy songs. Londoner James Mawdsley used his OE to fight SLORC.
A&LD rave
“Ever find yourself overwhelmed by the mass of information the net makes available?” Make like those in the know and head to New Zealand (and the web’s) hottest site, Arts and Letters Daily.
Role-model Winslet
As well as being every New Zealand director’s actress of choice, Kate Winslet can handle a baby.
Ice and Cannibals
Alan Gurney details three mid-nineteenth century voyages to Antarctica. Included is a “grisly description by a New Zealand missionary of the cannibalistic Maoris’ method of creating shrunken human heads.”
Howzat?
John Wright gets personal on his new job as coach of the Indian cricket team: “One of the challenges of the job is to communicate with people. You have to be sensitive about it.”…
Xena kills jiggle TV
“Is it the end of the Baywatch phenomenon? In place of the silicon- enhanced charms of David Hasselhof’s babes is the well-toned New Zealander who yells yi-yi-yi-yi when vanquishing an opponent, leaps through the…
Stadium award
“The trend has finally swung away from the exaggeration of post-modernism … Buildings are now plain, restrained and professional.” Capturing the mood, Wellington’s WestpacTrust Stadium picked up the international section at the Australian National…
Balibo Five
Investigations are being renewed into the killing of five journalists (including New Zealander Gary Cunningham) during Indonesian’s invasion of East Timor twenty-five years ago.
Blinding Brilliance
Blind cricket is played with wicker balls, footballs and cricket balls, all with rattles inside so the players can hear where to hit. The New Zealand team are bowled over by England at the World Cup,…
Special League
The New Zealand team “ran out of juice” in the final, according to Frank Endacott, but they received praise from England’s coach for their semi-final performance: “I thought New Zealand were a bit special,” said John Kear….
Global Peddlers
250 bike-riding globe-circumnavigators are on their way to New Zealand as part of Odyssey 2000, an official Millennium event.
Ideas on IQ
1994’s The Bell Curve suggested that Black Americans have a lower average IQ than other groups – a suggestion that appalled Waikato academic James Flynn. Flynn suggests IQ tests reflect environment as much inherent “intelligence”, calculating that…
One Love
Bob Brett used to correct Boris Becker’s backhand. Now he’s formed a Paris academy to coach young stars, including fourteen-year-old New Zealander Eden Marama.
Hrithik era
Indian tourists are awarding New Zealand an Oscar. Visitor numbers have shot up on the back of a high-profile film starring mega-hunk Hrithik Roshan and New Zealand as the backdrop.
Southern Travail
“The temperature will drop as low as minus 10 degrees, waves will be as high as 4 meters and the wind will be as strong as 40 knots.” None of which deterred winning home team Propeller…
Slightly Missed
“Aaron Slight worked very hard for the team in the seven years he was with us and everyone at Castrol Honda is very appreciative of that. He played an important part in the development of the…
Whitewash
Maori cut from crowd scenes in Her Majesty, US-funded feature film set in New Zealand c.1953-54. Producer Walter Coblenz (All the President’s Men), said historical accuracy motivated the cutting.
Art Mock
Global Conceptualism: Points of Origin 1950s-1980s, currently showing at MIT’s List Center, includes a mocking 1961 work by New Zealander Billy Apple (nee Barrie Bates) – a painted reproduction of the application form for…
Unsubsidised Exuberance
New Zealand farmers are spreading the anti-subsidy word to Canuks: “We were regarded as leeches in society. Now we take our place. We’ve earned the respect of society,” says Fed. Famers’ Pres. Alistair Polson in Ottawa.
New Zealandese?
“‘They’re fighting the 300-pound gorilla. Good on them,’ said Mark de Frere, a marketing manager for Advanced Micro Devices, using the New Zealand phrase equivalent to ‘godspeed’.”
Jet #2
easyJet CEO, Kiwi Ray Webster owns around £2m in easyJet stock after the company floated on the London Exchange.
INXS Movie
Kiwi singer Jon Stevens will feature in parts of the upcoming band bio-pic. Stevens replaced the late Hutchence, the only line-up change in fifteen years.
Security or Spying?
Activist Nicky Hager sees proposed anti-hacking laws as spying – Minister Paul Swain defends them as essential cyber-security.
Popstar export
Put it up there with kiwifruit and spreadable butter – the Popstars formula has become a unique New Zealand export success. Pop-packager extraordinaire David Foster will be involved in the US edition.
NZ-edged NuTech
Matt Michalewicz, 24, founder and CEO of NuTech Solutions Inc fled to New Zealand from his native Poland at age six. He became “the only student I know of who drove to class every day in a…
New Zealand Pride
Not as bursting with hubris as the Algerians, don’t think we’re as great as the Greeks, not as frank in our appreciation as the French, but we’re in the top twenty countries that inspire pride in their…
Tractor Attention
Helen and Clyde Berkshire run the world’s only Harvester tractor museum, in Indiana. New Zealanders have a special interest in the display.
Connection made
New Zealand is on one end of the Southern Cross cable, the longest and largest fibre optic cable ever. The cable provides 120X the capacity of the 1992 vintage PacRim, but is expected to…
Relative Connection
“Groove is a Windows application that lets you swap ideas and information in the same way that Napster lets you swap songs … if you could get your cousins in New Zealand to use it, staying in…
It’s a Wrap
Lord of the Rings is due to wrap three days before Christmas, right on schedule. Director Peter Jackson notes the authenticity index has climbed during filming: “way back at the beginning we thought there…
PC Lost World
New Zealand will host BBC’s dinosaur/sci-fi classic The Lost World. Offensive passages, referring to “sub-humans noted for their savage behaviour and low intellects” will be removed, cutting down the number of politicians moonlighting as…
Kiwi Cannibal Hookers
“We were shocked. The male would come ashore, grab the pup, swim out 5 or 1 metres with it, shake it around, kill it, and then bite off chunks and limbs and eat them,” said Dr…
Jeans #2
Labour MP John Tamihere wore a pair of ‘dress jeans’ to work. When National’s Bill English complained, Aucklander Tamihere called him “a hillbilly from Clutha”.
Hula hello
American Frances Price does Maori, Hawaiian and Tahitian dance. “The Polynesian dancers were a real hit at our wedding,” said Diane Szymanski Dorcey who created a Hawaiian style wedding in Brighton last month. “We…
Riff-Raff lives
New Zealander Richard O’Brien’s as-yet unnamed Rocky Horror Picture Show #2 will premier on the London stage in 2001.
