Century and a Win
Black Cap Kane Williamson, 22, finished unbeaten on 145 from 136 balls before New Zealand fielded their way to a 27-run victory over South Africa in Kimberley. New Zealand secured their first series victory…
Blog Archives
From the Top and On Fire
New Zealander Victoria Ransom is chief executive of Wildfire, a provider of social media marketing software, which was acquired by Google last year. In an interview with Adam Bryant of The…
Secrets of the Mask
New Zealand stuntwoman and actress Zoë Bell, 34, who recently starred as the mysterious masked tracker in Quentin Tarentino’s Django: Unchained, also appears as the Tall Witch in this year’s release Hansel and Gretel:…
Half a Century of Legend
Fifty years ago, New Zealander Bruce McLaren launched a company that has gone on to become one of the greats of world motorsport and on 2 September this year, McLaren…
Rocky Horror Turns Forty
New Zealand-raised actor Richard O’Brien, 70, writer of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, talks about family shame over working class roots, being transgender, the difficulty of born- again Christians, wanting to be a fairy…
Scary Script Tops US Box Office
Horror film Mama, co-written by Wellington-based novelist and scriptwriter Neil Cross, recently took the top spot at the North American box office. Mama earned $28.1 million from Friday through to Sunday at…
Cat-free Isles?
Prominent New Zealand economist and environmentalist Gareth Morgan wants his country 100 per cent cat-free and he’s willing to go extraordinary lengths to make it a reality. Cats are a “friendly neighborhood serial killer”…
Networked Lab Rats
New Zealanders have become the Internet’s most beloved lab rats, according to Bloomberg Businessweek writer Ashlee Vance. New Zealand has a large enough population to adequately test products, and the population is self-contained. Last…
Touring about Canvases
Queenstown artist Alice Blackley runs Art Adventures, a tour company that takes visitors about the resort town’s galleries and studios. The Washington Post’s Michael Kaminer joins in for a day out. “A…
Home in the Clouds
Choreographer and former Footnote dancer Lisa Densem returns to New Zealand from Berlin, where she has been based for over a decade, to collaborate with the company on a new work called, Cloud In…
Shopping at Sundance
Feature debut from New Zealand filmmakers Mark Albiston and Louis Sutherland, Shopping, which has premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, deals with the troubled home life of two half-Samoan brothers against a backdrop of…
Futures in the Public Sector
New Zealand’s State Services Commissioner Iain Rennie has called on civil servants across the world to remember to think ahead in addition to addressing short-term challenges. Rennie, speaking as part of the Guardian’s Global…
Dotcom Goes MEGA
From his home north of Auckland, former hacker and internet cult hero Kim Dotcom, tells the Guardian his eyes have been opened to US tactics after his Megaupload site was shut down last year….
Yes He Can
Mosgiel man Dean O’Brien, 34, a former radio presenter, has topped the United Kingdom iTunes children’s chart this week with, The Yes I Can Club, an album created to make children feel…
Students Give Cyclone Relief
New Zealand volunteers “joined hands” with locals and other foreign aid workers to help Fiji get back on its feet after recent Tropical Cyclone Evan, the biggest such storm in 20 years. High School…
Touring Dance Thrills
Professional New Zealand Strictly Come Dancing star Brendan Cole, 36, who has appeared in all ten series of one of Britain’s longest running television programmes, has built up a following of his…
Letting in the Light
New Zealander, Huxley Somerville, 52, a managing director at Fitch Ratings in New York, bought a run-down Upper West Side brownstone apartment in 1994 and set about converting the space into “four separate living…
Whale Attracts Curious
Hundreds of people gathered to take a look at the remains of a 15-metre, 45-tonne sperm whale, which washed up on Paraparaumu Beach this week. This image featured in the Guardian daily series, ‘Best…
Biking Africa for Acumen
Twenty-four-year-old New Zealander Phillip English has been making his way by bicycle from Egypt to Cape Town, travelling for the past 10 months over some 15,000km through Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi,…
Cycling Holidays Transformed
By the end of 2012, 10 of the 20 tracks making up the 2340km New Zealand Cycle Trail were open to riders, with the remainder scheduled for completion by the end of 2013. Veteran…
Clark Pleads Complexity
Administrator of the United Nations’ Development program Helen Clark is in a philosophical and operational stoush with her governing board over approaches to global poverty reduction. The UNDP board issued a report…
Bevan’s Gold Win
Queenstown-born film producer Tim Bevan (standing left in picture) took the stage with fellow cast and crew at the 70th Golden Globes Awards for Best Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy for Les Misérables. The…
Outdoing the Big Guns
“Even when New Zealand isn’t top of the list, they’re outranking and outperforming the United States on just about any index you want to consider,” contributor Nonny Mouse writes for political blog Crooks and…
Weaving the Threads of Life
New Zealander Cassandra Ellis, a quiltmaker who has settled in London, believes a quilt is a great way to mark an occasion, from a birth to a death to a marriage or…
Everyone’ll be Here Next Year
Waiheke Island is included in the prestigious New York Times’ “46 Places to Go in 2013”, featuring at No 35 under the title, “A homegrown arts scene beckons from down under”. “Long home to…
Tackling Teen Angst
New Zealand director Andrew Niccol’s film The Host is one of several films to be released over the next three months targeting “voracious” teen movie goers. In his quest to adapt Stephenie…
From the Streets of Aleppo
Cairo-based New Zealand journalist Glen Johnson writes from the Free Syrian Army-occupied streets of Aleppo. “What began as a series of protests early 2011, demanding human rights and democratic reform, is…
Home in the Desert
Moving to Las Vegas was a dream come true for New Zealander Jennifer Scott, a former journalist and magazine editor. Scott said she has had an obsession with the city since she…
TEDxAuckland: Peter Young
Documentary film-maker Paul Young discusses his latest work, The Last Ocean at TEDxAuckland 2012.
TEDxAuckland: Matthew Simmons
Matthew Simmons – co-founder of Arvus Group – shares his passion for sound during his presentation ‘Saving Lives with the World’s Largest Subwoofer’ at…
Strange Volcanic Goings-On
A peculiar lava spine between 20 and 30m across has appeared in the crater of White Island. Wired’s Eric Klemetti is “not even sure how to describe it.” “The lava forming it has to…
TEDxAuckland: Mobileeye
Aakash Polra and Jade Tan from technology start-up Mobileeye speak at TEDxAuckland 2012 about using smartphones to give sight to the blind.
TEDxAuckland: Philip Patston
Comedian, entertainer and social change agent Philip Patston presents his talk, The Label Libel, at TEDxAuckland 2012.
TEDxAuckland: David Krofcheck
Professor David Krofcheck speaks about New Zealand’s involvement in the search for the Higgs Boson particle at TEDxAuckland 2012.
TEDxAuckland: Alistair Knott
Alistair Knott speaks at TEDxAuckland 2012 about teaching computers to talk.
TEDxAuckland: Paul Cameron
Booktrack founder and CEO Paul Cameron explains the future of reading in his talk, Reinventing Reading, at TEDxAuckland 2012.
Prince Charles and Camilla Arrive in New Zealand
Prince Charles and Camilla arrive in New Zealand as part of their tour celebrating the Queen’s Golden Jubilee.
TEDxAuckland: Andrew Patterson
Internationally recognised architect Andrew Patterson presents his talk, Rebuilding Architecture from the Ground Up, at TEDxAuckland 2012.
TEDxAuckland: Pip Hall
Award-winning playwriter Pip Hall shares her presentation – Wet Hot Beauties – at TEDxAuckland 2012.
TEDxAuckland: John Windsor
Professor John Windsor talks about advancements in fighting organ failure at TEDxAuckland 2012.
TEDxAuckland: Emma Rogan
Emma Rogan shares insights from New Zealand’s 100 Days Project at TEDxAuckland 2012.
TEDxAuckland: Assil Russell
Dentist and ICARE founder Assil Russell shares her presentation, Changing Lives in Iraq, at TEDXAuckland 2012.
Jackson’s Capital Effect
“No part of New Zealand has been more changed by Jackson’s movies, and by the growing film-production industry they sparked here, than the city of Wellington,” Michael Joseph Gross writes in the December…
It’s About Flying People
Air New Zealand chief executive Rob Fyfe is one of 20 people profiled in this month’s Monocle, in a feature which explores who “would be ideal collaborators.” “Make sure you know who to call…
Once Was Gangman Styles
As I approach my 60th year (next month) I’m increasingly reflecting on times past and what the hell I intend to do with the time…
Banking on Dancing Colours
Christchurch-born Len Lye’s “deliriously jazzy 1930s animation for the Post Office Savings Bank shows public information films needn’t be dull,” Judith Mackrell writes for the Guardian. “The colours might look late-60s-psychedelic; some of the…
Collected Stories of Our Time
Auckland University has launched the first anthology of New Zealand literature bringing together fiction and non-fiction, poetry and prose into one volume. The 1184-page Anthology of New Zealand Literature was edited by Jane Stafford…
Nebraska’s Prize Prospect
Huskers point guard prospect New Zealander Tai Webster is considered the prize of Nebraska coach Tim Miles’ first recruiting class. ESPN.com rates Webster as a four-star recruit with the following summation: “Webster is a…
Coral Sea Island Undiscovered
Pictorial librarian at Auckland Museum Shaun Higgins has identified the origin of a cartographic error, as a 19th-century whaling ship, which first ‘spotted’ the non-existent Sandy Island in 1876. It was a remarkable story:…
Activist Paddling
New Zealand-born Billabong surfer Dave “Rasta” Rastovich, 32, has paddled 350km from Taranaki to Piha to raise awareness about seabed mining off New Zealand’s coast. Rastovich, who lives in Australia, has been drumming up…
Mementoes of Freedom
Auckland-born photographer Paul Nathan’s new book Generation Ink: Williamsburg, Brooklyn, was launched at Saatchi & Saatchi in New York on 29 November. Generation Ink features 55 images of a “generation of 20-somethings…
Murdoch Memorialised
Before taking care of business in Wales, the All Blacks made a pilgrimage to the hotel where one of their own went down fighting before disappearing without trace, the Daily Mail reports. They went…
Fans Flock to Spot the Stars
One hundred thousand Hobbit fans descended on Wellington’s Courtenay Place to catch a glimpse of their favourite Tolkien character strutting the 500m-long red carpet ahead of the world premiere first installment of the trilogy,…
Our Inimitable All Black Captain
Captain “fantastic” Richie McCaw has led the “all-conquering All Blacks” to a 20th successive match without defeat beating Wales 33-10 at the Millenium Stadium in Cardiff. No player in world rugby is better in…
