Tag Archives: Guardian (The)

Steeped in Melancholy

Steeped in Melancholy

Former New Zealand-based author Kapka Kassabova’s latest “odyssey” Twelve Minutes of Love begins “in the enthusiastic, though limited, tango scene in Auckland” continuing across “three continents in search of the perfect dance (or ‘tangasm’).”…

In the Mood for China Girl

In the Mood for China Girl

The Guardian recommends David Bowie’s China Girl video, featuring New Zealand model Geeling Ng, as one of seven music video recommendations “for every mood.” “Ng plays the China girl in scenes that toy with…

Inspirational Outlook

Inspirational Outlook

American novelist David Vann’s desktop picture is a view from his land in New Zealand. “We rented a place in Taupo Bay in 2009, for nine weeks, and that’s where I wrote the first…

Saving the Arctic at all Costs

Saving the Arctic at all Costs

New Zealand-born actress Lucy Lawless, who was recently in Rio de Janeiro to launch Greenpeace’s Save the Arctic campaign alongside Sir Richard Branson, talks to the Guardian’s Susanna Rustin about her latest…

Mr Fix-it in the Running

Mr Fix-it in the Running

Arguably the best-placed candidate to head News Corporation’s new publishing company is New Zealander Tom Mockridge, the safe pair of hands that Rupert Murdoch parachuted in to lead News International out of the phone-hacking…

He Makes Stuff You Want

He Makes Stuff You Want

Professor of mechatronics at Massey University in Auckland Olaf Diegel’s bespoke nylon-bodied guitars are attracting interest from all over the world. An exponent of 3D printing, Diegel’s zany guitar bodies are created using computer-aided…

Connecting the Health System

Connecting the Health System

General manager for planning and funding with Canterbury District Health Board Carolyn Gullery explains how the city’s healthcare workers responded so quickly and effectively to last year’s devastating earthquake. “The transition towards a more…

Prize for Elegance and Economy

Prize for Elegance and Economy

Wellington author Emma Martin has won the £5,000 Commonwealth short story prize for Two Girls in a Boat, which chair of judges Bernardine Evaristo described as “gorgeous, elegant and spare”. The story was chosen,…

Not for Children

Not for Children

Aucklander Chelsea Nikkel a.k.a. pianist and vocalist Princess Chelsea, is the Guardian’s recommended ‘New Band’ for 1 June. “Princess Chelsea is the solo project of Nikkel, a classically trained pianist and former…

Hall’s Racy Debut Feature

Hall’s Racy Debut Feature

New Zealander Regan Hall is the director and producer of Fast Girls, a new film about the UK athletics team. Directing his first feature film, Hall was determined to find young actresses…

Super Image of Cosmic Lunar Event

Super Image of Cosmic Lunar Event

Auckland photographer Simon Runting captured this once-a-year cosmic event which lit up the New Zealand night sky as the full moon passed at its closest point to Earth, making it appear 14 per cent…

Introducing a Guardian Fan

Introducing a Guardian Fan

New Zealander Roger Cowell, a UK-based freelance writer and registered nurse, features in the Guardian’s reader series, ‘Good to Meet You’. “In 1974, aged 23, I came to the UK from New Zealand and…

Headrushing Pop Fusion

Headrushing Pop Fusion

Ladyhawke’s May concert at the Ruby Lounge in Manchester is reviewed in the Guardian by Dave Simpson who says that “the verdict from the front row is a shouted: ‘This is good…

Short Sequence, Sharp Response

Short Sequence, Sharp Response

A 10-minute sequence from Peter Jackson’s forthcoming two-part Lord of the Rings prequel The Hobbit has been shown to conference goers at the annual CinemaCon in Las Vegas. The conference featured a presentation from…

Mad for it in Wellington

Mad for it in Wellington

Wellington’s St James Theatre heaving with a full-capacity crowd features in the Guardian’s ‘24 Hours in Pictures’ as One Direction fans watch the British boy band perform. One Direction’s 2012 tour of New Zealand…

Recommended Listening

Recommended Listening

The release of Ladyhawke’s second album Anxiety is one of Guardian reviewer’s Alex Petridis’ “top picks of the spring.” Petridis writes: “The second album by this self-styled ‘pop superwoman creating radio-friendly songs with a single bound’ — aka…

Challenge of Mandarin Libretto

Challenge of Mandarin Libretto

Dunedin-born opera singer Jonathan Lemalu, 36, tells the Guardian how he learnt to sing in Mandarin for the New Zealand International Festival of the Arts premiere of Three Poems by Mu Xin, which he and the New Zealand…

Final Leap Beneath Blue

Final Leap Beneath Blue

Teenager Alex Colvin features in the Guardian’s regular gallery ‘24 Hours in Pictures’, competing in the under-17 men’s long jump final on day one of the 2012 New Zealand National Athletics Championships…

Betty Fondly Remembered

Betty Fondly Remembered

New Zealand freshwater algae expert Dr Elizabeth Flint, known as Betty, who was still at the wheel of her 1958 Ford Consul in her 90s, has died, aged 102. Flint’s friend Catherine Haines writes…

Worth The Wait

Worth The Wait

Ladyhawke, a.k.a. Pip Brown, 32, features in the Guardian’s ‘The Week in Music — in pictures’ gallery performing a free in-store gig at Rough Trade, east London. The release of Brown’s highly-anticipated second album Anxiety has been postponed…

Coney Lights Up The Stage

Coney Lights Up The Stage

Ex-New Zealand cricket captain and stage lighting designer Wellington-born Jeremy Coney, 59, lights up a London production of The Leisure Society, starring former British model Agyness Dean. “An air of glamour surrounds this French-Canadian import…

More Tintin Adventures

More Tintin Adventures

Peter Jackson will direct the second film in the planned Tintin trilogy, following the success of the first film in the series, The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn. Director Steven Spielberg said…

Celebrating Women Top Chefs

Celebrating Women Top Chefs

New Zealander Anna Hansen, 42, chef-owner of the highly lauded Clerkenwell restaurant The Modern Pantry, is a participant in next month’s inaugural Girls’ Night Out — three evenings in London designed to celebrate…

Anxiety Android App Out

Anxiety Android App Out

Ahead of the March release of her second album Anxiety, Masterton-born musician Ladyhawke has an app out in advance to promote it available on Android and iPhones. Guardian weekly apps review column writes: “Besides news, tweets and…

Test Of Willpower

Test Of Willpower

In a “remarkable” long-term study undertaken over 32 years in New Zealand, a team of international researchers tracked 1000 people in 1972 or 1973 from the age of three, rating their observed and reported…

Why We’re Mad On Knitwear

Why We’re Mad On Knitwear

Six movers and shakers from the booming New Zealand fashion industry, including communications director at Post Adam Bryce, share their knitwear passions. “When it comes to dressing for weather that can include snow, sun…

Fortunately For Paul

Fortunately For Paul

In his spare time, when not drumming for Canadian singer Feist, New Zealand-born musician Lucky Paul “makes densely hypnotic, drum-heavy dream-pop for label somethinksounds.” “Elephant Island, the follow-up to last year’s well-received The Slow…

It’s Gone To His Head

It’s Gone To His Head

Bret McKenzie celebrated his Oscar nomination for best song with some Vegemite and toast. McKenzie, who wrote the meta-power ballad ‘Man or Muppet’ for The Muppets, is up against ‘Real in Rio’ from Rio: The Movie,…

Mega Auckland Police Sting

Mega Auckland Police Sting

New Zealand police arrested four of seven file-sharing firm Megaupload executives, including founder Kim Dotcom, 37, in an early morning sting at his $30 million rented mansion in Coatesville, 30km north of Auckland. The…

Twin Imaginings

Twin Imaginings

As well as remembering things differently, siblings often fight over ownership of the same memory writes the Guardian’s Charles Fernyhough in an article about shared memories and the problems they cause. “A study by Mercedes Sheen…

Justice Reserved For

Justice Reserved For

Justice is the name most often refused by New Zealand registrars in the past ten years, with 49 sets of parents prevented from doing so according to the department for internal affairs. Next on…

Tracing A Seabird Legacy

Tracing A Seabird Legacy

Dunedin-born author and photographer Neville Peat’s latest book Seabird Genius: The Story of L.E. Richdale, the Royal Albatross, and the Yellow-eyed Penguin, is included in the Guardian’s Christmas ‘Birdbooker Report’. “ the first biography…

Pupils Staying Strong

Pupils Staying Strong

Students from Fendalton Open-Air School in Christchurch are the first group members — calling themselves Faultline Fiction — of the Guardian site to vividly recount what happened when earthquakes struck their city, changing their…

Unreal Festive Spirit

Unreal Festive Spirit

“After 14 attempts I am still unable to reconcile Christmas Day with the hot sunshine of the north-east New Zealand city of Gisborne,” Guardian reader John Darkin writes for the publication’s weekly series ‘Letter from.’ “The…

More Penguins Return Home

More Penguins Return Home

A photograph of a blue penguin moving toward the sea after being released by wildlife workers in Tauranga is included in theGuardian’s ‘24 hours in pictures’ series for 9 December. The penguins were among those…

Challenging Classroom Prejudice

Challenging Classroom Prejudice

New Zealand-born teacher Suran Dickson, 34, felt moved enough to leave her job and launch Diversity Role Models, a charity which tackles the worrying incidence of homophobic bullying in British schools, where terms…

Crooning Retro Sass

Crooning Retro Sass

Wellington-born 21-year-old Willy Moon is “dressed up to the nines in a black wool coat, white suit, pale blue shirt and tie, hair greased and parted with precision — the spitting image of a…

Spellbound On Tiritiri Matangi

Spellbound On Tiritiri Matangi

New Zealand bellbird, Anthornis melanura was the Guardian’s ‘Mystery Bird’ on 24 November. “This bird is named for its gorgeous song, which consists of three distinct sounds that resemble the chiming of distant bells,” evolutionary…

Home Is Where The Boom Is

Home Is Where The Boom Is

New Zealanders and Australians once flocked to the UK for the opportunity to gain experience and return home with some valuable pounds, but the booming Australian economy and a sharp appreciation in the New…

Antipodean McCartneys

Antipodean McCartneys

Message to My Girl is a “latter-day classic from Split Enz” and “the missing link between I Got You and Crowded House’s Don’t Dream It’s Over according to the Guardian’s Russell Cunningham writing for…

True Technie Tonic

True Technie Tonic

“Geeks will love the stereoscopic cameras and 3D methods” on Peter Jackson’s fourth video blog and “most people wouldn’t care if it was shot on a hand-held,” according to Guardian film blogger Ben Child….

Deconsecrating Deconstruction

Deconsecrating Deconstruction

Christchurch’s most famous landmark, the 19th-century ChristChurch Cathedral, is to be deconsecrated and partially demolished after February’s devastating 6.3 magnitude earthquake toppled the steeple. Church and government representatives have announced that sections of the…

Open-minded Visionary

Open-minded Visionary

New Zealand-born psychoanalyst Joyce McDougall, who made significant contributions to the understanding of perversions, psychosomatic symptoms, female sexuality, creativity and addictions, has died aged 91. Her clinical insights, theoretical originality, open-mindedness and lack of…

Semi-Final of Brutal Beauty

Semi-Final of Brutal Beauty

“This was the All Blacks as they would love the world to see them: tough, mean, committed and ruthless in every department,” the Guardian’s Robert Kitson wrote after New Zealand smashed Australia with “brutal…

Danger for Native Dolphins

Danger for Native Dolphins

New Zealand’s Hector’s dolphin population has fallen from 30,000 to around 7000 since nylon gillnets came into use in the 1970s while subspecies Maui’s dolphin is seriously threatened with numbers falling to fewer than…

Whimsical Wannabe Snat

Whimsical Wannabe Snat

“Behind the tomfoolery, the chap who appears to have stumbled off the set of Withnail and I is making some of this year’s boldest music,” Guardian reviewer Dave Simpson writes about Connan Mockasin’s Manchester…

Eyeballing for Laughs

Eyeballing for Laughs

New Zealand award-winning comedian Sam Wills, 32, has drawn comparisons with Harpo Marx and Mr Bean, “though he is grungier and livelier than both” according to the Guardian’s Brian Logan who interviews Wills about…

Wondering About Kaitangata

Wondering About Kaitangata

Margaret Mahy’s Kaitangata Twitch is reviewed on the Guardian’s children’s book site, a site “by kids, for kids”. “The Kaitangata Twitch is an earthquake that happens regularly,” Bookworm 88 writes. “The island of Kaitangata…

Revelling in Rugby Fervour

Revelling in Rugby Fervour

“International commentators have revelled in New Zealand’s embracing of the , calling for the small nation to get a chance to host again — regardless of the financial drawbacks for the International…

Masterpiece Rereleased

Masterpiece Rereleased

Peter Jackson’s “masterpiece” Heavenly Creatures has been reissued on DVD and Blu-ray and is re-reviewed by the Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw who says watching Jackson’s “masterly, formally daring, and superbly acted drama” was again, a…

Rather Unsettling Logic

Rather Unsettling Logic

“Twentysomething” New Zealand musician Connan Mockasin is on tour in the United Kingdom playing gigs in Glasgow, Manchester, Sheffield, Bristol and Brighton. The Guardian includes London-based Mockasin in its website’s ‘This week in live…

Great Things Take Seasons

Great Things Take Seasons

New Zealander Mark Burry is executive architect of the Basilica and Expiatory Church of the Holy Family in Barcelona and part of a project that needs no completion date according to the Guardian’s Jonathan…

Worldwide Audience Wowed

Worldwide Audience Wowed

“New Zealand were impressive in spots as they got their Rugby World Cup off to a winning start,” according to the Guardian’s Barry Glendenning who gives an in-depth minute-by-minute analysis of the All Blacks…

Elements Emblazoned

Elements Emblazoned

Its beauty is dazzling enough by day, but when the sun goes down New Zealand’s seas, caves and starlit skies are another world Jonathan Freedland describes in a Guardian travel article. On an overnight…

Gulls Lift Off Over St Clair

Gulls Lift Off Over St Clair

Seagulls take off in the early at morning St Clair Beach in a photograph included in the Guardian’s ’24 hours in pictures’ series. St Clair Beach, located ten minutes from Dunedin’s city centre, is…

London Alternative Realm

London Alternative Realm

New Zealand-born artist Francis Upritchard presents a solo exhibition of her recent works through 8 October at the Kate MacGarry gallery in London. The Guardian describes the exhibition: “ recent works — rainbow-hued figures…