Tag Archives: Spectator (The)

Reappraising Unjustly Neglected James Courage

Reappraising Unjustly Neglected James Courage

“New Zealand-born James Courage is one of those fine writers who, though he enjoyed considerable success in his lifetime, has now more or less slipped from view. None of the eight novels he published…

Paul Ewen’s Francis Plug Saviour of Comic Fiction

Paul Ewen’s Francis Plug Saviour of Comic Fiction

New Zealand-born author Paul Ewen’s creation Francis Plug, sociopathic stalker of literary celebrities, returns in, Francis Plug: Writer in Residence. Ben Myers reviews the book for The Spectator. “Plug first appeared as the unhinged narrator of 2014’s…

Corpses and Clues in Ngaio Marsh’s Posthumous Novel

Corpses and Clues in Ngaio Marsh’s Posthumous Novel

“Roderick Alleyn, the ineffably posh Scotland Yard detective created by Dame Ngaio Marsh, returns for a posthumous outing with the help of Stella Duffy, herself a distinguished crime writer,” Andrew Taylor writes…

John Key “Played Hand Of Fate Exceptionally Well”

John Key “Played Hand Of Fate Exceptionally Well”

“Imagine a Tory Prime Minister stepping down after nearly ten years at the top on his own terms. The budget was back in surplus, troublesome referendum results had been quickly forgotten, and the PM…

Chatting up Katharine Mansfield

Chatting up Katharine Mansfield

“I like the New Zealand writer Katherine Mansfield, who according to Virginia Woolf smelt like a civet cat and had a hard, cheap face, and who was the only contemporary writer of whom she…

There Is More to the World than Australia, There’s NZ

There Is More to the World than Australia, There’s NZ

Even the weeds in New Zealand are beautiful, says bewitched Australian journalist and television host Andrew Bolt in an article describing his trip throughout this “amiable” country for the Spectator. “There are just 4.4 million…

Neill Content to Be in Two Worlds

Neill Content to Be in Two Worlds

In the latest of a series of opinion pieces for British political and cultural magazine the Spectator, actor and vigneron Sam Neill argues that “actors are allowed to do other things other than act.” “Increasingly…

Keeping Up With the Kiwis 2

Keeping Up With the Kiwis 2

Meanwhile on a different page …”What do Australians think about New Zealand? Not very much and not very often. ‘We think about New Zealand like we think about Tasmania,’ one Australian tells me with…

Right on NZ

Right on NZ

Come to New Zealand, one American’s all-huntin’, no (school) shootin’ right-wing paradise.