September’s Best Track
Wellington-based musician Jon Lemmon’s “opus” Exodus I is the Guardian/Music Alliance Pact (MAP) New Zealand selection for September included in a list of best tracks from around the globe. Every month, 35…
Tag Archives: Guardian (The)
Almódovar’s Survivors
The autobiographies of New Zealand’s “greatest” author Janet Frame were part of an “esoteric selection of references” given to Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar’s new leading lady Elena Anaya in preparation for her role as…
Farewell to the White Mouse
New Zealand heroine and NZEdge hero Nancy Wake has passed away in England, three weeks shy of her 99th birthday. Born in Wellington in 1912, Wake moved to Australia with…
Absent From the Circus
Wellington has been home to British thriller writer Neil Cross for the past eight years since he moved away from the wearying “circus” of the UK and a 24 Booker nomination for his novel…
Diplomatic to the End
Wellington-born Beryl Smedley — who was a prominent figure in the Diplomatic Service Wives’ Association over several decades, and author of Partners in Diplomacy, an account of the changing role of British diplomatic wives…
Making Our Roads Safer
New Zealand has increased its minimum driving age from 15 to 16 in an effort to make its roads safer, as well as banning those under 2 drinking any amount of alcohol and then…
Live Action at Comic-Con
Animation/motion-capture combination enabled Steven Spielberg to ‘step in and film like a live-action film’, said Peter Jackson at Comic-Con, who was a surprise guest at…
In Love With His TV
Chief executive of Virgin Media New Zealander Neil Berkett has been placed at number 52 on the MediaGuardian annual top 1 guide to the most powerful people in television, radio, newspapers, magazines, digital media,…
Newspaper Man Takes Over
Since joining the Murdoch empire in 1991, native New Zealander Tom Mockridge — former economics editor of The Sydney Morning Herald and now Rebekah Brooks’s replacement as CEO at News International and in charge…
Getting Shirty
The New Zealand Rugby Union says it has no qualms with England wearing a black strip at this year’s Rugby World Cup. The Rugby Football Union said England will wear a black kit in…
Wide Awake and Charged
“It’s a tribute to the Royal New Zealand Ballet’s eclectic, open spirit that, once again, they visit the UK with a programme of work never seen here before,” Guardian reviewer Judith Mackrell writes. “In…
Internationally Eclectic
“The Royal New Zealand Ballet may be based a long way from the main centres of ballet, but the repertory for its UK tour is as international as it is eclectic,” Judith Mackrell writes…
D-Day Demons
New Zealand director Paul Campion’s debut feature film The Devil’s Rock is reviewed in the Guardian by Michael Hann. “ attempts to settle the type of question posed by bumptious schoolboys: which would be…
Cheeky Island Sentinels
The bohemian enclave of Waiheke Island has become a gallery-rich art destination; the Guardian’s Stephen Phelan’s first impressions are of bare bottoms, all brightly painted in tinges of lime green, lemon yellow, electric blue…
Parking up at Home
Native Parks is an ingenious scheme that lets you park up at the home of a regular New Zealand family, free of charge. The Guardian’s Jonathan Freedland writes: “The pitch might be…
Delicious Synth-Pop
Christchurch three-piece Sleepy Age’s “synth-heavy, European disco-inspired single Décor” has been selected by the Music Alliance Pact (MAP) as one of July’s best tracks from around the globe. “In 29, Sleepy Age…
Enough Room for Everyone
The New Zealand company behind Toyota people-carriers Spaceships — in the UK now for 18 months — is recommended by the Guardian in a travel feature about campervanning in Britain and mainland Europe. “The…
Relief for Christchurch Residents
Thousands of Christchurch home owners are breathing a sigh of relief following John Key’s announcement on the future of their properties. Entire suburbs of Christchurch are to be abandoned due to unstable ground following…
Return of the Warrior
The 1985 bombing of the Rainbow Warrior made the converted fishing trawler a campaigning icon. Now, in its 4th anniversary year, Greenpeace is launching its first purpose-built protest ship — one of…
Auckland in the Spotlight
Food writer Simon Farrell-Green is the Guardian’s tour guide about Auckland ahead of the Rugby World Cup. Auckland’s life is “all in the suburbs” according to writer Rachel Dixon. Dixon is recommended Little &…
Wellington in the Spotlight
Wellington journalist and blogger Nick Churchouse takes the Guardian about the capital on a culinary tour of where to find the best food and drink between Rugby World Cup games. Wellington is hosting…
Dunedin in the Spotlight
Dunedin tourist consultant James Hacon and iD Fashion Week organiser Merrin Bath show the Guardian round their favourite haunts in the city that is hosting three of England’s four Rugby World Cup…
Leonine Frontmen Like It Nice
“If there’s one thing the Phoenix Foundation won’t abide, it’s dicks,” The Guardian’s Toby Manhire writes. “When it comes to dealing with other bands, says Luke Buda, the leonine frontman for the…
Infectious Influence
Radio 1 DJ New Zealand-born Zane Lowe and British producer Clare Chadburn jointly take the No 29 spot in the The Guardian’s Music Power 1 list — “the people exercising…
Written Words Prevail
New Zealand author Craig Cliff has won the Commonwealth Writers Prize best first book award, worth £5000,, for his short story collection A Man Melting, which judges called “highly entertaining and thought-provoking”. Glasgow-born Aminatta…
All Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs
Auckland’s Naked and Famous are included in a Guardian list of “12 new bands you have to catch” at one of this summer’s UK music festivals. “ New Zealand five-piece make the…
Beauty in Clamorous Times
Tim Radford is the only person British writer Peter Forbes can think of who has been both literary and science editor of the Guardian. Forbes continues, in a review of Radford’s new…
Weathering the Storm
“This picture was taken on our way to Saint Arnaud, but it could have been the west coast of Ireland, as the weather kept changing from sun to lashing rain,” amateur photographer Arnaud Chevalier…
Jennings Keeps it Under Wraps
New Zealander Stephen Jennings’ Moscow-based company Renaissance Group is included in a Guardian list of 1 invisible corporate giants you probably haven’t heard of. “Renaissance Group has quietly emerged as one of the world’s…
It Will Probably Be a Smash
New Zealander Nico Evers-Swindell, who plays the role of Prince William in the forthcoming film William and Kate: The Movie, is “saddled” with some rather dubious lines according to Guardian reviewer Stephen Bates. “Evers-Swindell,…
Perkier Versions of the xx
“The Naked And Famous go one better than MGMT by having a girl in the band — the spectacularly named Alisa Xayalith, whose dreamy yelps combine with the hazy utterings of co-singer…
Bold, Courageous and Anarchic
Te Aroha-born actor and co-founder of London’s Common Stock theatre group Frank Whitten, who died in February at the age of 68, was “a giant beanpole of a man who only seemed to open…
Delicate Design Hangs in Berlin
New Zealand-born designer and ceramicist Jeremy Cole’s porcelain Aloe Blossom suspension lamp hangs in the living room of German writer and producer Peter Schlesselmann’s one-bedroom flat in Berlin’s Tiergarten. The lamp has…
Royal Visit Lifts City’s Spirits
The scale of damage caused to Christchurch by last month’s earthquake is “unbelievable” said Prince William when he visited the city at the start of a tour of New Zealand. The prince walked through…
One-of-a-kind Parrot
The kakapo, Strigops habroptilus, also known as the owl parrot, is the Guardian’s “Mystery Bird” this week. “This stunning but rare species is so unusual that it is the only member of its genus…
Man in the Running
Wellington author Craig Cliff’s debut short story collection, A Man Melting is in contention for this year’s Commonwealth £5, best first book award. Cliff is up against South African writer Cynthia Jele’s Happiness is…
Mysteries Remain
“Days after the quake, a friend returns home to the eeriness of a place that’s undergone incredible violence,” author Emily Perkins writes for an article in the Guardian. “Everything is upended, on its side,…
World Transformed
Author David Haywood describes the earthquake that destroyed his home and killed scores of New Zealanders in an eyewitness account for the Guardian. “The first jolt knocked me off my feet. A desktop computer…
Twitter Tourism
Scottish journalist Danny Wallace recently tweeted his way around New Zealand garnering valuable travel tips from locals on the way who suggested views from atop Auckland’s Mt Eden, a Guinness…
All Work for TNAF
The Naked and Famous are currently on tour in the UK and with their London performance feature in the Guardian’s weekly gig guide. The publication writes: “Essentially the project of Thom Powers and Alisa…
Migratory musings
Fleur Adcock’s Dragon Talk, her first poetry volume since 1997’s Looking Back — which explored “part of the poet’s wider enquiry into geographical and cultural displacement” — is reviewed by British poet Julian Stannard…
Reel treasure found
Unbeknownst to The New Zealand Film Archives, 75 early American films have been in its possession, including the sole copy known to exist of a silent film directed by cinema icon John Ford, who…
Ali plots his return
All Black lock Ali Williams, 29, “plots international comeback” from the east Midlands where he is “exorcising a few mental demons as well as playing his first rugby for nearly two seasons.” Having…
Sense of spaciousness
The Phoenix Foundation’s fourth album Buffalo is reviewed by the Guardian’s Dave Simpson who writes that “songwriting this good doesn’t come along often.” Like the xx — whose sense of spaciousness they share —…
Pastry headache cure
“Many a New Zealander knows a mince and cheese pie and chocolate milk works a treat” for curing a hangover, according to the Guardian’s Word of Mouth Blog. In a post entitled, ‘Hangover cures…
Auckland sees in NY
An NZPA photograph of the New Year firework display over Auckland was included in a Guardian gallery of New Year’s Eve celebrations around the world. ONE News reported that traffic in the CBD stopped…
Films advancing art
“The most exhilarating show of 2th-century art to be seen in this country right now is by the New Zealand artist Len Lye,” Laura Cummings writes in a Guardian review of the retrospective exhibition…
Classic reimagining
“Reports that Cate Blanchett and Orlando Bloom will reprise their Lord of the Rings roles in The Hobbit suggest Jackson’s two-part production may be more epic than its source material,” the Guardian’s Ben…
Defined by humour
The best way to understand another country is to get to grips with its sense of humour, says Guardian writer Joris Luyendijk. Included in a list of jokes told in various countries — generally…
Memorial for miners
More than 1, people attended a memorial service for the 29 men killed in the Pike River mine disaster, which was held at Greymouth’s Omoto Racecourse on December 2. Each man was remembered with…
Animating beauty
University of Canterbury philosophy lecturer Denis Dutton has collaborated with TEDTalks and animator Andrew Park creating a video illustrating the provocative argument about beauty — that art, music and other beautiful…
Death of an Iron Man
All Black prop Johnny Simpson, who played 33 matches including nine Tests for New Zealand in the late 1940s, has died in Wellington, aged 88. Know as the “Iron Man” for his strength and…
Kiwis in a League of their own
The Kiwis took an exhilarating victory from the Kangaroos at Brisbane’s Suncorp Stadium, winning the Rugby League Four Nations by four points in the game’s final minutes (with a spectacular final minute try and…
Tears over Billy
“I read a picture book called Billy by Kate De Goldi to my daughter a few nights ago, and one of my tear glands experienced a distinct tweak,” British award-winning novelist David Mitchell admits…
Emissions by the glass
New Zealand wine Mobius Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc will be the first in the world to display its carbon emissions by individual glass servings of 125ml. The carbon emissions, which are calculated to measure the…
