Blog Archives

ABs Beat Wallabies Again at Eden Park 37-10

ABs Beat Wallabies Again at Eden Park 37-10

Australia had the ball but New Zealand scored the tries as they set a new record for consecutive Test victories by a Tier 1 nation, reaching 18 but having come of age long before,…

Coloradan Finds Rugby Home Where the Sport Is King

Coloradan Finds Rugby Home Where the Sport Is King

Colorado native Chris Baumann, 29, has racked up plenty of miles over the last few years in his quest to play rugby. Now Baumann (pictured centre, tackling Eben Etzebeth of South Africa, 4) is…

Frances Harrison Recounts Flipside of French Dream

Frances Harrison Recounts Flipside of French Dream

Life in France is not always la belle vie that expats had hoped for when making the “dream move”. New Zealand-born Frances Harrison, English teacher and author of Follow My Heart: Risking it all…

Lawrence Arabia’s Breezy Absolute Truth

Lawrence Arabia’s Breezy Absolute Truth

Included in a roundup of the best Australian LPs that might have passed you by in the past months, (the Guardian includes a caveat) is Christchurch-born Lawrence Arabia’s latest, Absolute Truth. “The lyrics of musician

OK Tires’ Gurdeep Bains Helps Company Pull Ahead

OK Tires’ Gurdeep Bains Helps Company Pull Ahead

A Lamborghini Huracán zooms through the Mojave Desert, spinning sand in its wake, and though you might expect to find a professional racecar driver behind the wheel of this, the fastest Lamborghini yet, you’d…

Jazz Musician Matt Penman Rearranges Miles Davis

Jazz Musician Matt Penman Rearranges Miles Davis

The SFJAZZ Collective, a United States-based jazz ensemble, which originated in 2004, has thrived with shifting arrangements. The Collective, which includes New Zealand-born bassist Matt Penman (seated far left), has a lineup that has…

Connacht Rugby’s Pat Lam Earns Honorary Degree

Connacht Rugby’s Pat Lam Earns Honorary Degree

New Zealander Pat Lam, head coach of Connacht Rugby, and former rugby international has received an honorary degree from NUI Galway for his achievements, which have significantly enriched both Connacht and the wider community. Lam…

Helen Clark on Why You Should Never Have a Plan B

Helen Clark on Why You Should Never Have a Plan B

The greatest challenge for women is getting into leadership positions, not actually leading, says Helen Clark former Prime Minister of New Zealand and current head of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Clark outlines…

Tribal Huks Force Out Ngaruawahia Meth Dealers

Tribal Huks Force Out Ngaruawahia Meth Dealers

The ominous deadline set by the Tribal Huks gang for methamphetamine dealers to leave Ngaruawahia has expired and it showed with the streets left empty last week. Tattooed members of the notorious gang wearing…

Should We Stay Or Should We Go

Should We Stay Or Should We Go

For much of the past 50 years, Australia was the big, brash neighbour with so much to offer – and New Zealanders came in droves. But now it seems the tide is turning, author…

Wasps Jimmy Gopperth Player of the Month

Wasps Jimmy Gopperth Player of the Month

Wasps inside centre/fly-half New Plymouth-born Jimmy Gopperth, 33, has capped a stellar start to the new season by being named Aviva Premiership Rugby Player of the Month for September. Gopperth – who recently signed a…

Ohau We Love to Ski Here

Ohau We Love to Ski Here

The tiny Mackenzie High Country ski resort of Ohau has just one lift, but the snow in August and September is brilliant – and, if you pick your week, it can feel like your…

Laying His Mark on George Town Heritage Protection

Laying His Mark on George Town Heritage Protection

Co-founder of the George Town Heritage Action Group New Zealander Mark Lay is so dedicated to heritage conservation in the Malaysian city that he walks everywhere with a camera in hand, taking pictures of…

Tenor Simon O’Neill Sings Wagner’s Praises

Tenor Simon O’Neill Sings Wagner’s Praises

One word not often associated with Richard Wagner, the 19th-century composer of high romantic opera, is “cool” – yet this is the adjective repeatedly invoked by New Zealander Simon O’Neill, 44, who made his…

Meeting with Banker Ross McEwan

Meeting with Banker Ross McEwan

Three years ago Ross McEwan set a Kiwi cat among Irish pigeons when, as newly installed chief executive of the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), he ordered a review into the future of Ulster…

Tui Wordley Still Making Waves at 80

Tui Wordley Still Making Waves at 80

Tutanekai “Tui” Wordley should be an inspiration to every surfer. Not because of the size of the waves he rides or the latest overseas trip he’s made, but because, at 80, he’s still out…

This is the Antrim Coast Road that Andrea Drove

This is the Antrim Coast Road that Andrea Drove

For New Zealander Andrea Bald a recent journey along the Antrim Coast Road in Northern Ireland really was a momentous and breathtaking one as for the first time she got to see the road…

Author Joan Druett Conjures up the Seven Seas

Author Joan Druett Conjures up the Seven Seas

If you love stories of sailing, adventure, the vast Pacific, navigation, or other such things Marianas Variety writer B C Cook wants to introduce you to one of his favourite authors, New Zealand maritime…

Don’t Mess with Mary Quin

Don’t Mess with Mary Quin

After narrowly surviving being held hostage, former-Xerox executive, New Zealander Mary Quin tells 60 Minutes how she brought a radical British cleric to justice for his role in the kidnapping. A dual citizen of New…

Francis Upritchard’s Frieze Show a Tour de Force

Francis Upritchard’s Frieze Show a Tour de Force

New Zealand-born Francis Upritchard’s solo presentation at this year’s Art Frieze Fair in London at the booth of London dealer Kate MacGarry, was the “best and most absorbing” of the exhibits, according to the…

Thomston Making Unashamed Pop Music

Thomston Making Unashamed Pop Music

There’s a tendency for males making pop with any sort of prefix to skew themselves towards less mainstream channels. That’s exactly why 20-year-old New Zealander Thomston could be the next best popstar, according to…

Flying Nun History with Pictures

Flying Nun History with Pictures

Following a review of founder Roger Shepherd’s memoir In Love With These Times: My Life With Flying Nun Records, Wire magazine has published the stories behind some of the photographs included in the book. The…

Shifting Sands take Gorgeous Guitar Pop to US

Shifting Sands take Gorgeous Guitar Pop to US

Dunedin psychedelic pop trio The Shifting Sands were encouraged to tour the United States by a big fan, American singer-songwriter Sharon Van Etten. Etten said: “I fell in love with The Shifting Sands music a…

Why 2016’s Exciting New Americana is Antipodean

Why 2016’s Exciting New Americana is Antipodean

New Zealanders Nadia Reid and Marlon Williams are part of “a bold young Oceanic Americana cohort” according to the Guardian’s Laura Snapes. A new wave of young New Zealand and Australian-based artists are giving Nashville’s…

Kimbra’s New Single Sweet Relief Praised

Kimbra’s New Single Sweet Relief Praised

New Zealand pop singer Kimbra, 26, has released a new single, the first since the release of her sophomore album The Golden Echo in 2013. “Sweet Relief” is “bloody excellent,” according to online music…

Rebecca Taylor Talks Breezy Autumn Denim

Rebecca Taylor Talks Breezy Autumn Denim

New Zealand-born designer Rebecca Taylor, who recently launched her new Parisian-influenced line La Vie, talks with Stuart Magazine about the collection, a lot of denim, and her inspirations. “It’s been a long-term goal of mine…

Katherine Mansfield’s Inscrutability Intrigues

Katherine Mansfield’s Inscrutability Intrigues

In the acclaimed biography La Vida Breve di Katherine Mansfield, written by famed Italian literary critic and author Pietro Citati, the New Zealand-born writer’s stories are described as having the special quality of “distance”….

Elderly New Zealanders Building Their Own Caskets

Elderly New Zealanders Building Their Own Caskets

Quilting, lawn bowls and bridge it is not. Elderly people in New Zealand are enthusiastically embracing a new pastime: coffin construction, providing retirees with new friends and, ultimately, cheaper funerals, Eleanor Ainge Roy reports…

The Rehearsal Adaptation a Team Effort

The Rehearsal Adaptation a Team Effort

The spirit of collaboration runs deep in Alison Maclean’s The Rehearsal, the Canadian filmmaker’s often ambitious and hearteningly daring big screen adaptation of Man Booker Prize-winning author New Zealander Eleanor Catton’s first novel of…

Stephen Moore Completes Singapore Bike Quest

Stephen Moore Completes Singapore Bike Quest

A New Zealander who set out two years ago to pedal his bike on every Singapore road – save those where cycling is not allowed – has finally completed his quest. Stephen Moore, 49,…

No Caller ID Makes Hollywood’s Screamfest Lineup

No Caller ID Makes Hollywood’s Screamfest Lineup

Slasher film No Caller I.D., which was shot in one night and on a three-figure budget, has been accepted into Hollywood’s prestigious Screamfest Horror Film Festival. Best friends Guy Pigden and Harley Neville shot the…

Pumas No Match for Unstoppable All Blacks

Pumas No Match for Unstoppable All Blacks

Title-holders New Zealand have made it five bonus-point victories out of five in this year’s Rugby Championship beating Argentina 36-17 in Buenos Aires in front of a 50,000-strong home crowd, South Africa’s Independent Online…

Bali Dog Orphanage Volunteer loves Results

Bali Dog Orphanage Volunteer loves Results

Ten years ago, New Zealander Alanah Dalton was holidaying in Ubud when a poster outside a shop front that said “I Love Bali Dogs” caught her eye. “I love animals, so I stopped in…

Why Craig Cooper Invests in Adventure Sports

Why Craig Cooper Invests in Adventure Sports

When New Zealand-born venture capitalist Craig Cooper isn’t rock climbing, meditating or writing for his men’s health blog The New Prime, he’s looking for the next great product to invest in. As…

Actor Terence Bayler Was Brian and so Was His Wife

Actor Terence Bayler Was Brian and so Was His Wife

Whanganui-born film, stage and television actor Terence Bayler, known notably for his collaborations with the Monty Python team, has died aged 86. Bayler played Gregory (and other roles) in the controversial Life of Brian –…

Emilia Wickstead Shares Her Favourite Things

Emilia Wickstead Shares Her Favourite Things

London-based, New Zealand-born fashion designer Emilia Wickstead shares a few of her favourite things for the Telegraph’s “My Luxuries” column. Wickstead, who according to the Financial Times showed a “whimsical and poetic”…

Virgin’s Josh Bayliss Plugging Luxury Gyms

Virgin’s Josh Bayliss Plugging Luxury Gyms

Switzerland-based Virgin Group chief executive New Zealander Josh Bayliss was in Sydney recently to promote the company’s luxury gym arm The Collection, which will open its first gym in Australia next year. The gym business…

Fis Creating Eco-Conscious Electronics

Fis Creating Eco-Conscious Electronics

“Before I was producing music electronically I was a drummer, and I really loved just trying to stop thinking and just play rhythm,” New Zealand-born producer Oliver Peryman aka Fis tells The…

Paul Shanta Dealing to Sydney’s Graffiti

Paul Shanta Dealing to Sydney’s Graffiti

New Zealand-born artist Paul Shanta has come up with a colourful solution to the bad graffiti problem littering the streetscapes of Sydney suburb Campsie. Shanta is offering to stencil over the ugly graffiti with…

Kate Catalinac Keeping Her Eye on US Elections

Kate Catalinac Keeping Her Eye on US Elections

Creative director at San Francisco advertising agency Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, New Zealand-born Kate Catalinac is the co-creator of an “eye-opening” anti-Donald Trump video that juxtaposes the United States’ legacy of great accomplishments against…

Flying Nun History Recounted by Roger Shepherd

Flying Nun History Recounted by Roger Shepherd

“We forget, or don’t know, or don’t think about it – how difficult it used to be to release records if you weren’t signed to a major label, pre-digital download, pre-social media, pre-internet, never…

Grant Rawlinson to Row from Singapore to NZ

Grant Rawlinson to Row from Singapore to NZ

Adventurer New Zealander Grant Rawlinson, 42, continues to push the limits embarking on a 12,000km rowing and cycling journey from Singapore to New Zealand. The Singapore permanent resident, who is known as Axe to his…

What Fine Dining Means to Ben Shewry

What Fine Dining Means to Ben Shewry

American quarterly journal of food and writing Lucky Peach magazine features an article in the latest issue on the state of fine dining and talks to 18 of the world’s best chef’s, including New…

World-Class Creative Peter Jackson Says Dream

World-Class Creative Peter Jackson Says Dream

Seventeen-time Oscar winning director Peter Jackson spent some time recently with Forbes correspondent Brian Rashid to share his ideas about creativity, his processes, and mindset around being a world-class creative. “Jackson admittedly, does not consider…

The Naked and Famous Lay Low

The Naked and Famous Lay Low

“All The Naked And Famous do is deliver hits,” according to Boston-based online music magazine, Vanyaland. “The New Zealand-, Los Angeles-based electronic pop group first crashed our playlists with 2010’s incredible Passive Me, Aggressive…

Photographer Roger Shepherd Dreams of United Korea

Photographer Roger Shepherd Dreams of United Korea

New Zealander Roger Shepherd, who holds the record of being the first foreigner to walk in many of the remotest mountains of North Korea since at least the 1950-53 Korean War, dreams of the…

Apple’s Zane Lowe Securing the Big Interviews

Apple’s Zane Lowe Securing the Big Interviews

Apple’s super-DJ is the most powerful player in music – and the man who can bring Britney to London. New Zealander Zane Lowe tells the Evening Standard about working with Calvin Harris, Drake and…

Actor Michelle Langstone Getting on with It

Actor Michelle Langstone Getting on with It

From McLeod’s Daughters to Power Rangers and Legend of the Seeker, Sydney-based New Zealander Michelle Langstone, 37, is a quiet achiever of television, according to the Daily Telegraph. Most recently, she’s one of the stars…

How Andrew Dominik Relayed Nick Cave’s Trauma

How Andrew Dominik Relayed Nick Cave’s Trauma

New Zealand-born director Andrew Dominik said he made the Nick Cave documentary One More Time With Feeling, expecting viewers to see it only once, and not many viewers at that. The new album by Nick…

Marlon Williams Celebrates Where He’s From

Marlon Williams Celebrates Where He’s From

Marlon Williams’ renown started spreading outside of New Zealand in 2015 when the highly renowned Bloomington, Ind./Austin-based label Dead Oceans released his excellent, self-titled solo debut, Justin Joffe reports for the Observer. Williams, 25,…

Biofuel LanzaTech Partner with Virgin Atlantic

Biofuel LanzaTech Partner with Virgin Atlantic

LanzaTech, which was formed in New Zealand 11 years ago, has made an aviation biofuel breakthrough with partner airline Virgin Atlantic, producing nearly 5700 litres of low-carbon ethanol produced from waste gases for the…

New Generation of Maori Women Wearing Moko

New Generation of Maori Women Wearing Moko

For Maori women, the moko kauae, or traditional female chin tattoo, is considered a physical manifestation of their true identity. It is believed every Maori woman wears a moko on the inside, close to…

Lyall Bay’s Unique Time Cinema For Sale

Lyall Bay’s Unique Time Cinema For Sale

Movie buff John Bell has decided to sell up one of Wellington’s best kept secrets: the Time Cinema in the suburb of Lyall Bay, a fully fledged 38-seat picture theatre where he lovingly screens…

Helen Clark Rallies Caribbean in UN Bid

Helen Clark Rallies Caribbean in UN Bid

Former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark, the administrator for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) recently lobbied Caribbean Community (Caricom) countries as she seeks to replace Ban Ki-moon as the next…

Mikey McCleary Subtly Redefining Bollywood Music

Mikey McCleary Subtly Redefining Bollywood Music

Mumbai-based New Zealand composer and producer Mikey McCleary, 47, has been steadily changing the face of Bollywood soundtracks since he moved to India in 2007. His latest movie project is Aditya Chopra’s upcoming film, Befikre…

Crowded House to Be Inducted into ARIA Hall of Fame

Crowded House to Be Inducted into ARIA Hall of Fame

Cherished rock-folk group Crowded House will be inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame during the ARIA Awards in Sydney on 23 November. Crowded House’s induction has a touch of serendipity about it. This year,…