Blog Archives

More Women Needed in Politics Says Ardern

More Women Needed in Politics Says Ardern

This has been a year dominated by women speaking out and fighting back. The Financial Times spotlight those who have made waves this year, from prime ministers (including New Zealander Jacinda Ardern) to World…

Lorde Lands No 1 Guardian Spot for Green Light

Lorde Lands No 1 Guardian Spot for Green Light

England’s Guardian collates a list of the 100 best songs of 2017 as voted for by its critics, which Auckland-born singing sensation Lorde tops, with the single Green Light from her award-winning second album,…

Meet the World’s First Virtual Politician

Meet the World’s First Virtual Politician

Politicians in New Zealand might want to watch their backs, as they could soon face stiff competition in the form of a virtual bot, Shibali Best reports for the Daily Mail. Created by Marlborough…

Maggie Marilyn Runs a Model Millennial Brand

Maggie Marilyn Runs a Model Millennial Brand

According to Vogue magazine, New Zealander Maggie Marilyn Hewitt, 23, “is a card-carrying member of the generation, but her qualifications extend beyond age factor.” “For one, she’s entrepreneurial, disrupting the traditional fashion system with…

Forget About the Quenelle Warns Chef Peter Gunn

Forget About the Quenelle Warns Chef Peter Gunn

“Quenelle. You wouldn’t think that such an elegant word (apparently derived from the less fancy German word knoedel) could strike fear in the heart of a chef. But standing in front of my heroes…

Top of the Lake Creators Get Together for a Laugh

Top of the Lake Creators Get Together for a Laugh

The team behind Top of the Lake: China Girl plunges into prostitution, illegal surrogacy, motherhood – and humour. New Zealander Jane Campion and Australian collaborators co-creator Gerard Lee and co-director Ariel Kleiman discuss the show in…

Former MP Maurice Williamson a Gay Icon in Japan

Former MP Maurice Williamson a Gay Icon in Japan

Former MP Maurice Williamson’s rising popularity as a gay icon among many Japanese people is thanks to a video of a speech he made during the third reading and vote on the Marriage Equality…

Vines Village Café Irish Chef Thriving in NZ

Vines Village Café Irish Chef Thriving in NZ

As part of Food Month at The Irish Times, Irish chefs working abroad tell us about their jobs. Francis Nolan, from Baltinglass, County Wicklow, is head chef at Vines Village Café in Blenheim, Marlborough. Dublin-trained…

Tape Face to Perform at Norfolk’s Attucks Theatre

Tape Face to Perform at Norfolk’s Attucks Theatre

America’s Got Talent sensation Tape Face will be performing at the Attucks Theatre in Norfolk, UK on 20 February 2018. Sam Wills is a 39-year-old New Zealander who lives in Lincolnshire but as his…

Graeme Sait Discusses a Chemical-Free World

Graeme Sait Discusses a Chemical-Free World

Educator and writer Graeme Sait’s mission in life is creating a new agricultural paradigm for the world to improve human health. Soil health and nutrition farming is what the New Zealander imparts and India,…

Neville Crichton Back at the Helm to Hobart

Neville Crichton Back at the Helm to Hobart

New Zealand-born businessman and sailor Neville Crichton, 72, will skipper this year’s Sydney to Hobart yacht race in perennial favourite and nine-time winner Wild Oats XI, the 2015 winner Comanche. Crichton, the founder of…

Formula E Driver Mitch Evans an Exceptional Talent

Formula E Driver Mitch Evans an Exceptional Talent

Sitting in a business suite at the Mandarin Oriental hotel in Hong Kong, 23-year-old Formula E driver, New Zealander Mitch Evans is soft-spoken and unassuming. But you need only ask Evans’ Panasonic Jaguar Racing team…

Benefits of Foreign Owned Property Debated

Benefits of Foreign Owned Property Debated

New Zealand, famous for the mountains that formed the dramatic backdrop to the film The Lord of the Rings, is now known for something else among the super rich: as a possible safe haven…

Luke Willis Thompson Shortlisted for Deutsche Börse

Luke Willis Thompson Shortlisted for Deutsche Börse

New Zealander Luke Willis Thompson, 29, is one of four to make the shortlist for the prestigious 2018 Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize. It’s the 21st year of the prize, and this year the shortlisted…

Courageous Soldier Melanie Childs Awarded

Courageous Soldier Melanie Childs Awarded

Lieutenant Colonel Melanie Childs, who took charge of soldiers and police to lead refugees to safety through a battle zone in South Sudan, has been named the New Zealand Defence Force Person of the…

Tidbits From the Late Great John Clarke

Tidbits From the Late Great John Clarke

Photographing birds and tinkering with words were two of the late John Clarke’s favourite pastimes. In a Guardian article, they come together in excerpts from a new book showcasing the New Zealander’s body of…

“New Zealand the Greatest Country on Earth”

“New Zealand the Greatest Country on Earth”

“The greatest country on Earth? According to the 87,220 readers who voted in this year’s Telegraph Travel Awards, it’s a reassuringly familiar place where sheep graze on rolling green hills, there are cricket pitches…

Kimbra Returns on Top of the World

Kimbra Returns on Top of the World

New Zealand singer Kimbra’s lastest single Top of the World, which will be included on her upcoming album Primal Heart, is reviewed in The Michigan Daily. “Kimbra is growing with her music, and the music…

Chantelle Nicholson’s Ultimate Vegan Christmas

Chantelle Nicholson’s Ultimate Vegan Christmas

Chantelle Nicholson, the New Zealand-born former lawyer-turned-chef at Marcus Wareing’s London restaurant Tredwells, may be an omnivore but she’s passionate about plant-based food. The numbers of full-time vegans increased four-fold in the last ten years…

Dedicated Pen Pals Look Back over 70 Years

Dedicated Pen Pals Look Back over 70 Years

After thousands of air miles, reams of paper and a lifetime of stories, Oxfordshire woman Barbara Finch is marking seven decades of writing to her pen pal Elizabeth Martin, 84, (pictured) on the other…

The Glasshouse is a Luxurious Retreat for Two

The Glasshouse is a Luxurious Retreat for Two

“A romantic New Zealand retreat for two that feels every inch the private island without leaving dry land, The Glasshouse affords stunning coastal views from a little peninsula jutting into…

Peak Time to Visit New Zealand

Peak Time to Visit New Zealand

“Nowhere does scenery better than New Zealand and it doesn’t get more dramatic than the South Island’s ruggedly beautiful Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park, where I’ve stumbled on a postcard perspective of the country’s highest…

How Wayne Pivac Transformed the Scarlets

How Wayne Pivac Transformed the Scarlets

There were moments early on in Wayne Pivac’s time at the Scarlets when he wondered if he had made the right choice in leaving behind his Auckland world to head to west Wales. “There…

Sean Seamer is New Supercars CEO

Sean Seamer is New Supercars CEO

Top advertising executive New Zealand-born Sean Seamer has landed the role of Supercars CEO and will take up the position in Australia next year. Seamer joins the series following a 15-year stint with Mediacom,…

SUP Annabel Anderson Tahiti Airline Ambassador

SUP Annabel Anderson Tahiti Airline Ambassador

Champion standup paddler Annabel Anderson, who is originally from Wanaka, is the latest sports star to join Air Tahiti Nui’s ambassador ranks with the New Zealander looking forward to further finessing her sport in…

Music Producer Fis Experiments With Saplings

Music Producer Fis Experiments With Saplings

Experimental producer New Zealander Fis, aka Oliver Peryman, has been challenging the restrictive structures of drum & bass since 2011, channelling the genre’s gut-churning low-end and collapsing rhythms into bizarre and brilliant new spaces….

Andrew Parker Flying High for the Kids

Andrew Parker Flying High for the Kids

For the past four years, New Zealander Andrew Parker has been travelling the world with his hot air balloon as part of the inspiring project Flying High for Kids, that aims to spread cultural…

Beats 1 DJ Zane Lowe Broadcasts from Sydney

Beats 1 DJ Zane Lowe Broadcasts from Sydney

New Zealand and Australian musical artists will be showcased to the world when DJ and tastemaker Zane Lowe broadcasts his global Beats 1 radio show from Sydney this week. Sydney soul/hip hop act Winston Surfshirt,…

Matthew Couper Paints Vegas Iconography

Matthew Couper Paints Vegas Iconography

Hastings-born artist Matthew Couper’s From Dust to Water, at Rise gallery, Holsum Lofts in Las Vegas, and on until 30 November, “is a beautiful, strange and disarming show that does something rare in fine…

NME Names Lorde’s Melodrama No 1 Album of 2017

NME Names Lorde’s Melodrama No 1 Album of 2017

“2017 has been a bad year for silly things like international relations and basic human decency,” according to NME. “It’s been a good year, though, for really important things like albums.” Lorde’s Melodrama is the…

New Zealand Women Thrash England in World Cup Semis

New Zealand Women Thrash England in World Cup Semis

England’s women were beaten 52-4 by New Zealand in the 2017 Rugby League World Cup semi-finals at the Southern Cross Group Stadium in Sydney. Tara-Jane Stanley ran over England’s only try in the 21st minute…

All Blacks Inflict More Pain on Wales

All Blacks Inflict More Pain on Wales

“There was little solace to be found around the streets of Cardiff as the city’s population set about anaesthetising painful memories of yet another valiant loss to the All Blacks,” Irish Independent sports reporter…

Brent Williams Writes Himself Out of the Darkness

Brent Williams Writes Himself Out of the Darkness

Graphic novel, Out of the Woods: A Journey through Depression and Anxiety, by New Zealand writer Brent Williams and Turkish illustrator Korkut Öztekin, is an account of Williams’ catastrophic experience of depression and anxiety…

Christchurch is Quietly Reinventing Itself

Christchurch is Quietly Reinventing Itself

“No one knew there were fault lines under Christchurch – not until it was too late. Now, six years after the earthquake that left 186 dead and destroyed huge swathes of this most British…

Harvard’s Richard Thomas Charts Bob Dylan’s Odyssey

Harvard’s Richard Thomas Charts Bob Dylan’s Odyssey

He mentions Dylan in the same breath as Ovid, Virgil and Dante. The Guardian’s Zoe Williams meets New Zealander Richard Thomas, the classics professor who has spent half a century decoding Bob Dylan’s imagery,…

Iain Hewitson’s YouTube Recipes for One

Iain Hewitson’s YouTube Recipes for One

The shift to communal tables has seen a rise in solo diners, especially at breakfast. And with a smartphone, no one is ever truly eating alone. He was a fixture on Australian television screens…

Coffee Whisperer Marco Costantini’s Beijing Best

Coffee Whisperer Marco Costantini’s Beijing Best

Italian-New Zealander Marco Costantini is the founder of Black White Filter, a new online guide to independent cafés in Beijing, featuring stories about the people that make the scene. Costantini, who moved to Beijing in…

Niki Caro Discusses Sexual Harassment in Hollywood

Niki Caro Discusses Sexual Harassment in Hollywood

Sharing stories about the bad behaviour of powerful men in Hollywood has long been a perverse practice in the film industry, according to Wellington-born film director Niki Caro (pictured second from right), speaking to…

New Zealand Getting Left off World Maps

New Zealand Getting Left off World Maps

“Last time you looked at a map, it very well could have been missing an entire country. Poor New Zealand,” Cassie Shortsleeve writes in a Condé Nast Traveler piece. “A sub-Reddit thread with more than…

Watch Fit for Burt Munro

Watch Fit for Burt Munro

The Burt Munro tribute watch by Baume & Mercier honours the New Zealander who spent more than four decades working on a 1920 Indian Scout and in 1967, at age…

Climate Refugees to Be Welcomed in New Zealand

Climate Refugees to Be Welcomed in New Zealand

New Zealand has announced it will create a special refugee visa for Pacific Islanders displaced by rising seas. The country says it is preparing for the possibility of a larger evacuation of island residents…

Chocolate Factory Saved by the Community

Chocolate Factory Saved by the Community

New Zealanders have pledged $2m in just over 24 hours to keep the century-old tradition of chocolate-making alive in Dunedin, after Mondelez International announced in February it planned to close its 80-year-old Dunedin Cadbury…

Tokyo Exhibition Petzel Includes Simon Denny

Tokyo Exhibition Petzel Includes Simon Denny

Works by New Zealand artist Simon Denny will feature as part of group exhibition Petzel at Nanzuka in Tokyo. The Berlin-based contemporary artist, who exhibited his first solo show in Asia earlier this year at…

Roger Corbin’s Daughters Salute Their Dad the Hero

Roger Corbin’s Daughters Salute Their Dad the Hero

To his daughters, Roger Corbin was Dad. But to many, the New Zealand-born helicopter pilot was a hero. His 11-year-old twin girls have been inundated with support since their dad’s sudden and tragic death in…

Tax Reform New Zealand Style

Tax Reform New Zealand Style

“With tax-law revision now before the US Congress, matters of revenue, efficiency and fairness again occupy American minds. But as one of that country’s most celebrated political writers, T.R. Reid, notes in this passage…

Karen Walker’s Business of Fashion

Karen Walker’s Business of Fashion

Renowned New Zealand designer Karen Walker, 47, has once again made the prestigious annual Business of Fashion 500 list. The BoF 500 is the definitive professional index of the people shaping the $2.4 trillion fashion…

Maori Moana Soundtrack Released by Disney

Maori Moana Soundtrack Released by Disney

After the animated musical-adventure Moana was translated into Maori and screened for free in 30 theatres across New Zealand in September, Disney has since released the Maori version of the soundtrack. “The film’s best…

New Zealand’s Alternative to Sexiest Man Alive

New Zealand’s Alternative to Sexiest Man Alive

“You don’t have to be a Hemsworth brother or a famously stylish soccer icon to – at least on our list.” In lieu of People’s 2017 choice of country…

Scots Impress But NZ Class Tells

Scots Impress But NZ Class Tells

“A moment of New Zealand magic denied Scotland a famous victory in a pulsating contest” at Edinburgh’s Murrayfield Stadium with the All Blacks narrowly winning 22-17, The Scotsman reports. “With the game firmly in the…

Marlon Williams Makes Way for Love

Marlon Williams Makes Way for Love

New Zealand singer-songwriter Marlon Williams, 26, has followed up his self-titled debut announcing a headlining tour supporting new album Make Way For Love. Make Way For Love, according to Paste Magazine, is an album that…

Winemaker Sam Connew’s Blazing Trail

Winemaker Sam Connew’s Blazing Trail

“Can-do Connew, that’s my nickname for one of Australia’s most accomplished winemakers, , a trail-blazing show judge, a great role model for women in wine and creator of the acclaimed Tasmanian…

Riverdale’s KJ Apa Dresses Up and Down

Riverdale’s KJ Apa Dresses Up and Down

“KJ Apa is the comic book hero next door. (But you already knew that.) As Archie in the surprise-hit series Riverdale, the New Zealand-born actor manages to strike a balance between the wholesome source…

MasterChef Monica Galetti Returns to TV Screens

MasterChef Monica Galetti Returns to TV Screens

If you thought the heat in the kitchen was intense on MasterChef, it’s arguably hotter in its spin-off, MasterChef: The Professionals. The UK’s Daily Express reports. Called TV’s cruellest reality show, the contest challenges real-life…

Grey’s Anatomy Star Martin Henderson Exits Series

Grey’s Anatomy Star Martin Henderson Exits Series

Another doctor has left the building on ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy. New Zealander Martin Henderson was written out of the drama, following a two-season-plus run as a series regular. Auckland-born Henderson, 43, joined Grey’s as a…

Eddie Muliaumaseali’i Finds His Voice in Melbourne

Eddie Muliaumaseali’i Finds His Voice in Melbourne

Melbourne’s CBD is home to seasoned opera singer Auckland-born, Samoan Eddie Muliaumaseali’i, whose new musical comedy Jack of Two Trades received critical acclaim last month. Muliaumaseali’i has been singing in operas, musicals and plays and…

Margot Henderson’s Art for Eats’ Sake

Margot Henderson’s Art for Eats’ Sake

Resolving to treat art lovers to their particular take on simple British fare, east London’s Rochelle Canteen, co-owned by New Zealander Margot Henderson, has just opened its second outlet at the Institute of Contemporary…