Unconventional Movement
New Zealander Grant Harrison, 44, Hutt Valley High School old boy and owner of American health benefits company Humana, one of the largest in the United States, is the man behind bike-share programme
News of New Zealanders via Global Media
Oriental’s Ohtel
Wellington’s latest accommodation option, the 10-room boutique Ohtel, is ‘Hotel of the Week’ in The Independent on Sunday. Situated on Oriental Parade, a wooden Victorian house was removed to give the Ohtel its central…
Record Without Air
Wellington architect Kathryn McPhee, 29, has broken a freediving world record by two metres swimming underwater without breath for 151 metres, in a time of 2mins 48sec. Freediving, also known as breath-hold or apnoea…
Figments of the imagination
Wellington author Elizabeth Knox’s Dreamhunter Duet is reviewed in Canadian newspaper The Star Phoenix. The two “intricate” fantasy titles are highly recommended for young adults, and are described as “intriguing” and “intelligent”. The first…
Montreal bound
New Plymouth-born actress Melanie Lynskey stars in the Anthony McCarten-directed Show of Hands, which has been selected for its world premiere at this year’s Montreal Film Festival. Show of Hands is based on McCarten’s…
Digging Up the Sandpit
Former Dunedin musterer Ed Mumm moved to Steamboat Springs, Colorado and in November 2007 opened the first earthmoving sandpit in the United States, Dig This, where enthusiasts pay top dollar to operate heavy machinery…
Ode to the Environment
Auckland choreographer Lemi Ponifasio and his 24-member dance troupe MAU performed ‘Requiem’ at New York’s Rose Theater as part of the city’s Mostly Mozart Festival – the company’s first ever US show. Commissioned by…
Capital Connections
Wellington’s green belt, its educated populace and diverse economy is comparable to an extent with Ottawa, Canada’s capital, in that both are ideal illustrations of “younger new-world” cities. “Wellington shares more with Ottawa than,…
Confronting history
Historian and media commentator Paul Moon’s latest book This Horrid Practice delves into the subject of Maori cannibalism, the author arguing that the amount of evidence of the action was “overwhelming” and “too important…
Kiwi-Pukapuka Relocate
Little Spotted Kiwi, the second rarest kiwi species, have been reintroduced onto Fiordland’s Chalky Island for the first time in a century. Sponsors of the transfer, South Island tour operators Real Journeys, joined iwi…
Travel award for editor
Taumarunui travel writer and publishing editor of Inside Tourism Nigel Coventry has been named the 2008 Pasific Asia Travel Association Travel Journalist of the Year. PATA president Peter de Jong said Coventry had been…
Bond Director’s Edge
Hastings-born film and television director Martin Campbell – most well-known for James Bond hits Casino Royale and GoldenEye – begins shooting his latest Hollywood feature, Edge of Darkness, this month. The film, which stars…
21st century renewal
Wellington’s Waitangi Park – transformed in a collaboration between landscape architects Wraight & Associates and Athfield Architects – combines environmentally-sound urban redevelopment with recreation, and includes water purifying ponds, man-made wetlands and a concrete…
On your marks, get set
Artist Daniel Crooks, who originally hails from Hastings, has won the Australian inaugural $100,000, Basil Sellers Art Prize for ‘Static no. 11 (man running)’, a computer-modified video of champion athlete Christopher Brown sprinting on…
Beauty in Cold
Winter in New Zealand is captured in seascape images by Independent photographer Hannah Bills, who travelled through Wellington and then south, taking shots in and around Christchurch, “the Oxford of the southern hemisphere.” “Intensely…
Imagination Roars to Life
Christchurch inventor Glenn Martin’s ultralight aircraft, the Martin Jetpack, a $100,000 “jetski for the sky” able to climb to heights of almost 2500m, has been launched at an aerospace show in Wisconsin. No more…
More than shelter
The “Mai Mai” house in Ponsonby (above) and the clubhouse at The Hills golf course in Queenstown (below), both designed by Auckland-based architects Patterson Associates, have been named finalists for October’s World…
Leave Your Hat On
The Christchurch-designed 2c Solar Light Cap is trialled by a Chicago Tribune reporter who dons the headgear for a camping trip on the Mississippi River. “Part of the appeal of sleeping in the woods…
From the gods in Paris
Maori art is part of an exhibition called ‘Pacific Encounters: Art and Divinity in Polynesia 1760-1860’ at the Musée du quai Branly in Paris; 250 objects from the “Polynesian Triangle” isles – New Zealand,…
Memories of Bledisloe
In 2000, in front of 109,874 spectators jammed into Sydney’s Stadium Australia, Jonah Lomu landed the tenth try in a nerve-racking Bledisloe match beating Australia 39-35. Swerving in towards his wing opponent, Andrew Walker,…
Sunshine Travels
Auckland band the Ruby Suns are fusing the sounds of the South Pacific and California, “bridging the gap between world music and pop.” Sole permanent member of the band, American Ryan McPhun permanently resettled…
Hart’s Net Worth
Auckland investor Graeme Hart, 53, owner of the world’s second-largest drink-carton maker, Alcoa Inc. has surpassed both Donald Trump and Sir Richard Branson in the wealth stakes, doubling his bank account over the past…
Te Reo Goes Google
Google Aotearoa has been launched to coincide with July’s Maori Language Week (Te Wiki O Te Reo Maori 2008), with more than 8750 words translated. Potaua Biasiny-Tule, 32, and his Puerto Rican wife Nikolasa,…
Dropping in on Europe
Wellington’s Fat Freddy’s Drop will tour Europe in November on the back of their latest release, the mammoth nine-minute track ‘The Camel’, which readers are offered free to download at the Times Online site….
Macchiato Marathon
The 182-strong New Zealand Olympic team will have flat whites and long blacks on tap in Beijing thanks to award-winning barista Julianne Frith, 21, from Auckland, who was selected by a panel of former…
With rapturous applause
Gisborne-born soprano Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, 64, “came, sang and conquered” with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at a Ravinia gala benefit concert. Looking every inch the beauteous diva in a stunning red-and-black ensemble, Te…
The American Dream
New Zealand is an enticing destination for American property developers and investors because the populace speaks English, there are minimal restrictions on ownership and land is still relatively cheap. There are also no property…
Toward NASCAR
Auckland speedway driver and Midget racer Michael Pickens, 25, is on the way to his dream of a NASCAR future getting stock car experience on paved tracks this summer in the ASA Late Model…
Introducing Tauwhitu
In a Kerikeri pub sometime in the 1980s, Boston author Christina Thompson met a group of Maori having pints after a day spent diving for crayfish and uses this first encounter with native New…
Must Have Di Stagione
Wellington design company Ataahua, owned by Bernadette Casey, has created a range of sustainable products made from repurposed coffee sacks, and Casey’s Cuban coffee roasters’ Trilby is gathering some fashionable followers. The hat is…
Snug as a Bug
Merino Kids founder Amie Nilsson designed the award-winning Cocooi Babywrap with biblical swaddling in mind, keeping babies safely on their back and asleep longer. Swaddling creates a slight pressure around the baby’s body that…
Boscombe Breaks
Raglan-based marine consultants ASR Limited have designed a £3 million artificial reef at Boscombe beach in Bournemouth; work will begin on the seabed project in the next few months with a completion date of…
A thirty year legacy
New Zealand drama teacher Ken Rea – who trained at Auckland’s Gil Cornwall academy and worked at Downstage and the Mercury Theatre – was honoured at London’s Guildhall School of Music and Drama for…
Lomu in Charity Match
Rugby World Cup’s top try-scorer Jonah Lomu, 33, will play for the International Select XV in a charity match called, ‘Help the Heroes’ at Twickenham in September. The fundraiser will be staged to help…
Against the Wind
Three-time world champion windsurfer Barbara Kendall is off to Beijing and her fifth Olympics. Conditions at the sailing venue in Qingdao would be difficult, Kendall said. “It’s just not a windy spot. If we’re…
Yacht Technology for Cars
Auckland property developer and yacht maker Jock Freemantle will launch a 2008 version of New Zealand’s first super car, the 550bhp BMW V8 Hulme named after New Zealand’s 1967 Formula One World Champion, Denny…
God Defend NZ
Of all the nations in the Anglosphere, New Zealand had the proudest and toughest military culture of the 20th Century according to Australian lawyer and author, Hal G. P. Colebatch. In an article in…
In love with Demant
Whakatane artist Rozi Demant has her international debut exhibition with ‘Lovebirds’ at Santa Monica’s Tarryn Teresa Gallery. Demant, who holds the rare and enviable position of having produced five sold-out solo exhibitions before reaching…
Joltin’ with the Jays
Aucklander Scott Campbell, 23, shook hands with Joe DiMaggio in 1995 as a New Zealand representative at the World Children’s Baseball Fair in Japan and this week, 13 years later, Campbell played Dimaggio’s Yankee…
Powered by Fruit
Kiwifruit rejected for damage or inferiority is used as cattle feed throughout New Zealand, but Crown Research Institute, Scion and ZESPRI Innovation scientists are reconsidering its use as a potential biogas able to generate…
NZ’s Cup of Joe
Pavlova and flat whites are on the menu in Washington D.C. thanks to American policy analyst Art Hauptman who opened Cassatt’s restaurant after holidaying in New Zealand. And for this Washington Post reviewer it…
Facing New Partnerships
New Zealand’s population makeup may one day number more Asians than Maori according to a new study called, ‘Asians in New Zealand: Implications of a Changing Demography’, launched in Auckland this month. Authored…
One of Five Doubles
Opunake-born middle-distance runner Peter Snell, who achieved the 800m and 1500m Olympic double, is included alongside other double victors, Dame Kelly Holmes and Albert Hill, on a BBC blog in a build-up to this…
Underwear wanderings
Christchurch travel writer and columnist Joe Bennett’s quest to find the origins of his five-pack of Chinese-manufactured underpants, took him to a remote western corner of China and the cotton fields of Xinjiang. Bennett’s…
Landing in Hospital
New Zealand company Medtral is attracting American medical tourists 7,000 miles across the globe searching for quality non-acute surgical procedures at cheaper rates than their own system is able to offer. Medtral says it…
Art’s urban sprawl
Christchurch hosts art biennale SCAPE 2008, a city-wide exhibition of new work by New Zealand and international artists all exploring the concept of cities as spaces reflective of social change, “constantly in flux.”…
With Unstudied Grace
New Zealand actor Jonno Roberts has the role of Stanley Kowalski in a Seattle production of A Streetcar Named Desire. It may seem a strange quirk, that someone from New Zealand has been given…
Vocal ambassador
Christchurch soprano Hayley Westenra, 21, performed with the US National Symphony Orchestra at the 28th annual broadcast of America’s popular 4th of July concert, Capitol Fourth before returning to the UK to continue a…
Diamond Crafted Illusions
Christchurch jeweller Jessica McCormack is recommended in July’s Harpers Bazaar magazine, which describes the London-based designer’s diamond creations as “strong and meticulous.” “Driven by a desire to make precious objects accessible and wearable with…
Sheep Farm Vogue
The Farm at Cape Kidnappers has made the third annual 2008 Travel + Leisure ‘It List’, one of 30 best new hotels in the world featuring alongside “Europe’s most stylish recent opening” J.K. Place…
Maori Treasure in Ireland
The extensive Maori art collection – part of a larger ethnological collection of exotic Pacific art – at Dublin’s National Museum includes, the Meyler collection, pieces Captain James Cook acquired on his voyages and…
Adventure at Speed
Christchurch endurance athlete and orienteering champion Chris Forne, 31, has navigated Team Nike to first place in America’s 10-day adventure race, Primal Quest Montana 2008. Over 800km and up heights of more than 30,000m,…
Between Continents
At low tide in June on the Firth of Thames in Auckland, American traveller Eric Wagner looks for the bar-tailed godwit amongst thousands of waterbirds flocking to feed on uncovered shellfish. Wagner describes the…
Cooking from Scratch
Bridal Falls provides a spectacular setting, and outdoor market, for chef Charles Royal’s Maori feast made with bush asparagus-flavoured pikopiko fern, horopito and supple jack vine. On Royal’s food tour, which he offers from…
Campbell’s Beginnings
Hawera-born, Brighton-based golfer Michael Campbell is eating bacon sandwiches at the Royal Ashdown Forest clubhouse in Sussex where he explains his golfing initiation in Taranaki. “I started playing on a local course where you…
Piercing Revelation
Janet Frame’s 1963 novel, Towards Another Summer, written in London and first published posthumously in New Zealand in 2007, is considered by Guardian reviewer Rachel Cooke. Towards Another Summer is based on a weekend…
