The Lion Doesn’t Sleep Tonight
‘If you must know, I woke up at two o’clock. My mind was racing. I tried to read for a bit, dropped off and woke again at four thirty. Mind racing again.” Lions coach kiwi Graham…
Tag Archives: Guardian (The)
Advice to Note
Icon of NZ music remembered. Composer Douglas Lilburn, 85, found a “distinctive voice from his native New Zealand.” The Guardian praises the “strong emotional appeal” of his music, noting that Lilburn took to heart…
Clean as a Whistle
New Zealand comes up smelling of roses, second equal behind Finland in the world anti-corruption rankings.
The Fox Boy
Comment on Peter Walker’s “fascinating” biography of William Fox Omahuru, the Maori boy abducted to be raised by Sir William Fox, future New Zealand PM. A tale of colonialism told with “doggedness, intelligence and…
Gentleman Amateur
Mourning the days when tennis players had urbanity and looked like professors, Howard Jacobson, first time Wimbledon-watcher turns to the past for solace: “Bored with it, I take a turn around the museum and spend…
The green-eyed monster
How does it feel when your pregnant girlfriend takes an acting role that breaks all the boundaries about sex on screen in serious, mainstream films? Kerry Fox’s boyfriend answers that question.
Milford Enchants
Beautiful scenery and dare-devil flying over “a serene sea-loch towered over by glossy, beech-clad pyramidal peaks”.
He Makes Me Lie Down in Green Pastures
“This New Zealand guy who came into my shop gave me the seeds. He was like the Jesus Christ of cannabis: long-haired, blue-eyed, a big healer. Fortunately, he told me the potential of the seeds. They…
And Why…
“There was a moment halfway up the Coromandel Peninsula, only a couple of hours out of Auckland, when I felt that this was as good as it gets. But there was plenty of competition for that…
Boyish Blair
Ex-Labourite, New Zealander Bryan Gould comments on the man who runs Britain: “When I see him on television now, he still seems very young to me – just as he was in 1983, refreshingly boyish, wet…
Don’t Bank on British Security
NZ is light years ahead of Britain for banking security. “I don’t want to sound like a homesick Antipodean”, writes Charlotte Denny, “but ever since I arrived here 10 years ago, the true awfulness of the British…
Lego-ality of Language Hi-jack?
Intellectual property Lawyer and “defender of Maori culture” Maui Solomon challenges the right of Danish toy-maker Lego to use Polynesian words in its new game Bionicle.
Britain’s Brain-drain
Young educated people are leaving Britain for the good life down under: “There’s both a pull of countries like Australia and New Zealand and a push from this country, where there are too many…
A day in the life
Margaret Mahy’s 24 Hours confirms her place among the “world’s best”. Her books for young adults “are not easy reads, but they are hugely rewarding, emotionally and intellectually”. Also, Mahy at The Hub…
Mahon’s Final Stroke
“Laconic, grizzled New Zealander” Harry Mahon, legendary international rowing coach dedicated to creating the perfect stroke, died of cancer aged 59. Mahon took team after team to the top, including the British gold medallist eight at Sydney…
Away Damn Spot!
Does a bottle of water keep the dogs at bay? A New Zealand man claims to have made it up to fool his aunty …
Pinot Edge
New Zealand “can and will” challenge the Cote d’Or for first place in the Pinot Noir stakes, with wineries like Felton Road, Ata Rangi and Palliser Estate producing complex, top-line drinking.
Green Tours
Gardening is sexy and the green-groupies flock to Christchurch, New Zealand’s Garden City.
Smell of Success
Ben Powell, STA student travel writer of the year, visits New Zealand as his prize. He samples the delights of Rotorua: the small, the spectacle and the zorb.
Shrek at Cannes
Kiwi Andrew Adamson is co-director of Dreamworks’ hit Shrek, the first animated movie to make competition at Cannes since Dumbo 50 years ago. Guardian picks it as a Cannes top ten. Shrek “deliciously…
Antelope Contagion
Professor Roger Morris of Massey University believes he has tracked down the source of the BSE epidemic – an antelope from a wildlife park, probably in south-west Britain. His paper on the subject will be published…
Abandoning “Captain Calamity”
Crew-member Rob Salvidge said goodbye to round-the-world challenger Tony Bullimore at “a late-night cook-up in a Maori taxi-drivers’ cafe in Wellington”.
The Tough Got Going
“Tough New Zealanders, adept at navigating the desert by the stars-and-sun compass,” formed a key part of David Lloyd Owen’s Long Range Desert Group, “regarded by some as one of the most cost-effective special forces…
Seven Worlds will Collide
“It’s like stumbling into your own birthday party – you don’t know where to look first. Centre stage is Neil Finn, hair greying but still a hint of that haphazard Crowded House quiff, a…
Curtain falls for Nyree Dawn Porter
“Forsyte sex symbol who conquered the world”, Kiwi-born and raised star of the 60’s TV show The Forsyte Saga (watched by 100 milllion people in 26 countries) remembered in The Telegraph, The Guardian and…
Travel Happy
What’s good about Greymouth? It’s close to captivating glaciers and the bottle shop sells fill-you-own beer, sherry and port.
Disappearing Visitors
“There are reputed to be certain towns in New Zealand and Australia where if you shout out a name in the street, someone will instinctively turn round, then nervously jerk their head away. They’ve briefly been drawn…
Strange Happenings in Rugby
“Somewhere in the depths of the very European Six Nations Championship, two New Zealanders have been having some pretty bizarre experiences.”
Public Interest
Once watched as the world’s greatest free-market experiment, New Zealand is leading the way in getting democracy out from under the corporate thumb says prominent intellectual Noreena Hertz.
Dream Catcher
New Zealand-born psychotherapist Helen McLean turns dreams into reality writing multiple books and creating work-place training based on what your brain does at night.
Doubtful Honour
Big Norm Hewitt’s in-yer-face rendition of the All Black haka and English hooker Richard ‘Cocky’ Cockerill’s gracious eyeball-to-eyeball acceptance makes the Guardian’s list of the “top-ten sporting feuds”.
Inside the Frame
Michael King’s biography of Janet Frame, “laureate of the musing inner-self,” is “elegantly written, densely researched and remorselessly long” – but does it over-expose its subject?
Take a Break
Lunch breaks are best – eating at your desk makes the office “sound like the boiling muds of New Zealand”.
Netjetters in New Zealand
Two of the Guardian’s globe-trotting “Netjetters” are lassoed by Aotearoa’s lures and both have trouble getting back on the plane. Sue jetboats in Queenstown, visits her first rodeo and is “very sorry to leave” and Milly finds…
Kiwi batter?
Will Russell Crowe step up to the crease for Somerset this season, or is it just that funny time of year?
Poker Philosophy
Did Wittgenstein threaten Popper with a red-hot poker in Cambridge 55 years ago? New Zealand academic Dr Peter Munz was there…
Clever Kea
The inhospitable alpine environment has caused the kea to develop “a very human-like curiosity and flexibility”.
Hot Lodge!
Old-world charm is losing out to “far-flung destinations favoured by the elite such as game lodges in South Africa, Caribbean idylls, palatial hotels in India and New Zealand lodges.
Best Oscar Hunter
The greatest winners of all time. For best actress: Vivien Leigh, Joan Crawford, Audrey Hepburn, Simone Signoret and Holly Hunter in The Piano.
Edge Eden
Cornwall’s bio-dome Eden Project houses vegetation from every part of the planet – including the edge.
Double life
UK Poet Charles Boyle’s The Age of Cardboard and String features “a poet who leads a double life in England and New Zealand”.
Travel Gets Edgy
Being on the edge means being “enroute to nowhere,” but good cocktails in hot bars, great views from hot baths, wine, alps, adrenaline and Auckland’s revolving restaurant “make this one you must go to sometime”. Also,
History revised?
Controversy and acclaim for edge-director Roger Donaldson’s nuke-spook Kennedy paean 13 Days.“Yet, despite these difficulties, the film works and ought to be essential viewing for those too young to have been around in October 1962,…
One Neil
Neil Finn tours the UK and Ireland later this year in support of his album One Nil. His current mini-tour is rarking it up in London: “This one-off gig felt like a party where…
Bird DNA
“The first ever functional genome sequences from an extinct species have been mapped by scientists at Oxford University. The mitochondrial DNA sequences were obtained from two giant moa and a Madagascan elephant-bird.”
Alas, No Elias
It’s time Britain had a female judge a la New Zealand Chief Justice Sian Elias, the conspicuous lone woman on the Privy Council.
Postcards from the Edge
“Dad,” revealed the postcard from New Zealand, “went paragliding”. All it takes is a break from routine.
Tops for Jumps
Guardian netjetter Sam “takes advantage of New Zealand’s position as tops for adrenaline holidays – he’s just done a bungy jump.”
Spence of the sixties
The house of Beehive-architect Sir Basil Spence is described as “the best 1960’s space in Great Britain”.
Ringing up the gold
Lord of the Rings has brought the gold into Wellington, the city of “tearooms and sea views”. View the New Zealand setting in the round at the official site.
