Critique of Pure Fay
Fay Weldon’s autobiography (up to year 32) continues to entertain. The Guardian is seduced by the lure of biography: “her fiction suddenly seems a whole lot less peculiar … much of the work…
Tag Archives: Guardian (The)
OE to Go UN
Kiwis will have plenty of fellow travellers when they travel to the UK for the two year woring holiday scheme. In the past, 96% of applicants came from New Zealand, Australia and South Africa,…
Postcard-spotting?
Lynn Barber leaves the trains at home and follows the postcard route through godzone, finds it to be “truly paradise” but also close to 100% boring. “To appreciate NZ you need to be all the things…
Best Haul
Ironically for Lynn, NZ was once again voted “Best Long Haul Country” over Australia, Cuba, Japan, Thailand et al by Guardian and Observer readers – they must have got off the bus and visited at…
Young Man and the River
Fly-fishing enthusiast Andy Pietrasik raved about his recent trip to the rivers of the South Island. Following his guide up the river in search of fish made him feel like “Ernest Hemingway’s shadow,” so perhaps…
Mount Taranakiyama
Taranaki’s eponymous mountain is a suitable double for Mount Fuji, or so thinks Edward Zwick (Glory, Legends of the Fall) who will direct Tom Cruise in The Last Samurai later this year. New Zealand’s…
On the Edge of Your … Chair
Following in the Popstars tradition of grand contributions to global pop culture NZ’s gift to the gameshow format has former tennis star John McEnroe signed on with the BBC to front a ten-series run…
Life and Loves …
NZEdged author Fay Weldon traverses a contradictory, but never dull life, in her autobiography Auto de Fay and finds her muse in the edge: “Always! Yes, always! I wanted to see more, it was…
David Low – Century’s Best Cartoonist – On Show
David Low, the New Zealand master satirist “with an outsider’s perspective” and acclaimed as the Twentieth Century’s greatest cartoonist has his work revisited (including his most famous caricature Colonel Blimp) in a major exhibition…
Karl Popper’s NZEdged Legacy
Roger James in the The Guardian ponders the centenary of the birth of one of the C20th most original (and controversial) thinkers, philosopher Karl Popper. In an affirmation of edge theory Popper’s most influential…
AB Old Boy’s Coaching Club: JK, Buck, Gatland
All Black legend, winger John Kirwan, to take over as coach of the Italian national team from NZer Brad Johnstone – this includes touring Italy through his homeland where playing for the ABs he scored…
Bacchic and Bucolic: Les Vins de Sam
The Guardian spends the day with actor/winemaker Sam Neill, who is back home in NZ for 6 months working his three Central Otago vineyards. “I love coming here. I think it’s a great place”, comments…
Bryan Drake Remembered
New Zealand-born baritone Bryan Drake has died in London aged 76. A “fine musician with an equable temperament and warm personality”, Drake will be particularly remembered for his long association with Benjamin Britten and his…
Munster Monster of ABs makes Top-10 Sporting Shocks
Irish club side Munster’s shut-out 12-0 defeat of the 1978 All Blacks proclaimed by Observer Sport Monthly as the tenth greatest shock in sport’s history. Munster playwright James Breen (Alone It Stands – about the events surrounding…
Bacchic and Bucolic in NZ #2
The Guardian’s ‘Superplonk’ column discovers the flavour of New Zealand in a six-week wine tasting trip. Highlights include the “superb, tannic tenacity and layered fruit” of Delegat’s Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon 1999, and the “racy, complex, finely textured…
Best Supporting Landmass
Tourists lured by LotR: “Too bad they don’t give Oscars for ‘best supporting landmass’. If they did New Zealand’s role in Lord of the Rings would have swept that award”, reports travel editor Anne…
Paul Leads Sevens Revival
Under question marks as to his ability to cope with the code switch from league to union, Henry Paul answers his critics with a “series of virtuoso performances” in England’s Hong Kong Cup Sevens victory. “He was…
Tuatara: Taking it Easy?
BBC News features research undertaken by Victoria University Tuatara Research Group (Professor Charles Daugherty and student Nicola Nelson) into the habitat of New Zealand’s “living fossil”, the tuatara. “They’ve been around since the time of the dinosaurs, so…
Wanderlust: On the Beaten Track
A British lecturer has been funded to back-pack around NZ in the name of academic enquiry as the twentysomething MTV generation hit the road with wanderlust in their eyes: “Research done so far suggests that backpacking is…
This is Our Youth
“Highly talented” 19-year-old Anna Paquin combines “prim formality of speech with an argumentative sexual ardour” as she stars alongside Hayden Christensen and Jake Gyllenhaal in the London staging of This is Our…
Shadow play
The allure of the artistic life, “the journey towards the light” is the central concern of Maurice Gee’s “thoughtful” new novel Ellie and the Shadow Man, reviewed by Nicola Walker.
The Response: “Anything But Dull”
Ellie’s provocations do not go unanswered with fans and citizens coming to the defence of the land and people. NZ enthusiast Marianne Curphey: “What makes this country different is that it doesn’t regard wildness as something…
Stephenson wins UK Book of the Year Award
Not the Nine O Clock News comedian turned psychotherapist turned biographer, NZ-Edged Pamela Stephenson wins the book of the year prize at the British Book Awards for her “frank and often harrowing” account of…
This is Not the New Zealand Edge
Guardian Netjetter Ellie finds Godzone = dullzone, writing that you may need a thesaurus to do New Zealand’s beauty justice, but unfortunately that doesn’t make the country any more interesting: “One of the most frequently heard compliments…
NZ Founding Father of British Anthropology
Sir Raymond Firth, one of the world’s most prominent anthropologists, emeritus professor at London University, Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit, and recipient of first Leverhulme medal (given to scholars of exceptional…
Bafta – Remembered Gold
Lord of the Rings is ready to cast its spell on the Oscars after bewitching the Baftas with five awards, including best film and best director, for Peter Jackson: “I wanted to make films…
“Sweet As”
Next stop Queenstown – “an adrenalin-fuelled, hyperactive, big scream of a town where tourists go for one of two reasons: either to jump from a plane, mountain or bridge, or to watch others do…
University Challenge
Roger Barnard, chairman of linguistics at University of Waikato, argues in The Guardian that sharp increases in enrollments of Chinese students at NZ universities and polytechnics requires an urgent response by staff and administrators to meet the…
89 All Out!
“England were routed by an undeniably better team”, proclaims The Guardian, as New Zealand dismisses the poms for their second lowest one-day score ever (80) in the 2nd ODI in Wellington. Meanwhile Stephen…
Kiwi Resourcefulness
The Guardian takes time out from the New Zealand – England cricket series to talk up World Cup preparations: “England are on the way although they have a way to go, but it would be in…
Earlier Ellie: “Sweet As”
Ellie finds down under dialect quirks and more: “At the Polynesian Spa I soaked in the thermal pools overlooking Lake Rotorua…I don’t know whether it was the ylang ylang, the lavender, the sandalwood or…
Intellectually Challenged NZ
Record numbers of NZ scholars, researchers, and graduates continue to leave antipodean pastures in search of work overseas notwithstanding another dose of local official hoopla, this time heard at the Innovate Conference in Christchurch. “New Zealand has…
“Give Me Red Wine, the Kind That Makes Me Feel Fine”
Two NZ Pinot Noirs – Gibbston Valley’s 1999 Nevis Bluff Pinot Noir and Wither Hills’ Pinot Noir (2000) – are included in Guardian Top 5 “seduction wine” list for Valentine’s Day. “Like love itself, the fickleness…
Rugby Great
Grant Fox is named by The Guardian’s Eddie Butler as one of the ten greatest fly-halves in the history of rugby union.
Stand and Deliver
NZ Post held up as successful post-liberalisation model which British Post could try to emulate. As a “beacon of public service in a privatised world”, NZ Post has remained dominant because, “it has the…
“Fair-dinkum” Kiwi tops the pops
NZ-born musician Daniel Bedingfield, 21, tops the UK pop charts with Gotta Get Thru This – recorded on rudimentary equipment and a computer in his south London bedroom. “The track is absurdly brilliant, as…
“Cook Me Some Eggs James”
NZ-born Lee Tamahori, is charged with the license to uphold pop-cultural iconography, as he undertakes the directorship of the 20th James Bond installment, taking over from another Kiwi Martin Campbell. “To me the Bond film is…
Fans Flock to Tolkien Trail
“Thanks to a bunch of elves, orcs and hobbits”, New Zealand is “one of this year’s most fashionable tourist destinations”. Experts believe the trilogy will boost NZ’s tourist industry by a third. On the edge we’ve always…
Irish Rugby Miracle
Alone it Stands, a heart-warming and hilarious re-enactment of Irish club side Munsters’ defeat of the All Blacks in 1978, plays to its 100,000th person. “Beating the All Blacks is the ultimate dream of anyone who…
Heavenly Creatures
“Director Peter Jackson knew something Hollywood did not. He knew that his home country was more than a match for the imaginative breadth of Tolkien’s vision. The Lord of the Rings blows the secret – there is…
Lord of the Screen
“The Lord of the Rings is easily the best film of the year” – The Times. “Peter Jackson’s adaptation of the fantasy classic is as near to perfection as makes no difference” -…
Floored by the Rings
“The real star of The Lord of the Rings is New Zealand. The scenery, ranging from snowbound mountain passes to rolling grasslands, has a beauty of jaw-dropping quality and it is all lovingly captured…
NZ Rugby Back at #1
You might not know it from the reaction of local fans, but the All Blacks are No.1, at least according to French Centre Thomas Castaignede in the Guardian. “They have the perfect mix.” With England No.2 the Aussies…
More than Mansfield in Bloomsbury Group
Liz Calder, the NZedged head of Bloomsbury publishing (publishers of such literary luminaries as Michael Ondaatje, Will Self and John Irving), talks to The Guardian about the touted blockbuster battle, book and film drawn…
Lego Abandons Maori Names
Danish toymaker Lego is to stop making a multi-million-dollar range of toys after protests from New Zealand Maori groups, claiming the company had appropriated their language and images for the toy range. “Future launches of Bionicle sets…
“Gale From the Sea” Laid to Rest
More than 6ft tall, handsome and with the build of a rugby lock forward (which he was), John Platts-Mills blew into the English House of Commons as Labour MP in 1945 “like a gale…
Green Party Turns Red
The Green Party briefly turns red after the party swallows a report posing as part of a campaign to ban the substance Dihydrogen Monoxide (DHMO). Convinced it was genuine the party responds enthusiastically requesting more information to…
“For You to See Our World the Right Way Round”
Allen Curnow, one of New Zealand’s great 20th-century writers and poets, has died in Auckland. Daily Telegraph: “regarded by many as New Zealand’s greatest poet” Curnow helped define a separate NZ identity in verse,…
Publishing Gem
Author Fay Weldon, who spent her childhood in New Zealand, has divided the literary world with her latest novel, The Bulgari Connection. It’s sponsored by the Italian jewellery company in what Weldon describes as…
Wading In
Robert Wade, Professor at the London School of Economics, gave NZ a “developing” status at the Knowledge Wave Conference. “The comparative position of New Zealand today is more serious than many think,” Dr Wade said, adding that…
Kiwi Temps
New Zealanders on the big OE are staffing London’s offices: “They usually have stable work histories and excellent IT skills, great interpersonal skills, confidence, and a good work ethic”.
Underground S&M
Q&A with Emily Perkins, including her worst fear – “it’s a tie between black-water rafting and those SM zip masks. So I guess being on a black-water raft with everyone wearing those masks would…
Tour That Divided the Nation
It was twenty years ago that New Zealand heaved into violence as 150,000 New Zealanders took to the streets to stop the Springbok tour. A time when “New Zealander turned against New Zealander” in…
Perkins short cuts to praise
The Guardian Review draws comparisons between Perkins’s tale of small town angst and the American master of the form: “Perkins has wonderfully light touch; she is a master of dialogue and plain speech, a…
Schuster, Stoppard, Sauvignon
The 1999 Montana Reserve Sauvignon Blanc (“my homage to Michael Schuster”) is a current favorite of British women’s-health guru Dr Miriam Stoppard. This New Zealand example is ‘fresh and rich and slightly oaky with a really lovely…
