Pleasantville 2002: Deep Impact
The release of NZ company Deep Video Imaging’s new ActualDepth 3-D monitor is being likened to the dawn of colour television in the 1950s, with Deep Video aiming to be to the monitor what Dolby was to…
Tag Archives: New Zealand
Colonial Post
New Zealand beat England for the first time at home in 18 years as the series finishes 1-1. “New Zealand are a very resilient side and they are very hard to break down”, says England captain…
Land of Milk and Honey
The Scotman reports on New Zealand’s “white gold rush” – the scramble by milk producers to find new dairying land as world prices continue to rise, and further impetus given to the industry with…
Journey to Middle Earth
Following in the tradition of cine-tourism success prompted by such films as A Passage to India, Out of Africa, and Crocodile Dundee, New Zealand is enjoying its busiest ever summer tourism season, due in part…
Boondoggle Playtime
Featured in the April edition of Fortune magazine’s ‘boondoggle’ section: Wall Street billionaire Julian Robertson has built Kauri Cliffs, a “remote, lush getaway on more than 5,000 acres at the northern tip of New Zealand.” “Three private…
Give ’em a Taste Of…
The “dramatic” Crossings Sauvignon Blanc 2001 out of Marlborough’s Awatere Valley “blazes across the palate with concentrated, uncomprimising flavours of pear, herbs, juniper and – dare I say – kiwi” and the New York Post finds…
Paralympics Gold
New Zealand’s only representatives at the Paralympic Winter Games in Salt Lake City, Rachael Battersby and Steve Bayley, do their country proud winning four gold and two bronze medals between them. “We didn’t have too many expectations”,…
Job with Perks
“A champion no one knew. A finish no one can forget.” In New Zealand’s greatest golfing moment since Bob Charles won the British Open in 1963 Craig Perks shot a stunning final round to clinch the Players’…
Runs in the Family
“I might have more than 5,000 test runs – but he makes 40 million bucks a movie!”, proclaims Kiwi cricket legend Martin Crowe about cousin Russell.
School of Hard Knocks
England casts envious eyes on Lincoln’s NZ Cricket High Performance Centre: “An opera singer and a former primary school headmaster have much to do with New Zealand’s present official ranking as the fifth-best team…
Kakapo’s Getting It On
The world’s “rarest, heaviest, and only nocturnal and flightless” parrot, NZ’s native kakapo, enjoys a record breeding season with 22 chicks hatching on Whenua Hou, a small island off Stewart Island. Thanks to the bumper brood, kakapo…
Wanderlust: On the Beaten Track
A British lecturer has been funded to back-pack around NZ in the name of academic enquiry as the twentysomething MTV generation hit the road with wanderlust in their eyes: “Research done so far suggests that backpacking is…
Edge-zone
“One of the greatest ever test innings … unbelievable savagery”. Nathan Astle produced the most astounding display of cricketing artistry in hitting the fastest double-century in test cricketing history in the first test against England, reaching 200 off…
The Response: “Anything But Dull”
Ellie’s provocations do not go unanswered with fans and citizens coming to the defence of the land and people. NZ enthusiast Marianne Curphey: “What makes this country different is that it doesn’t regard wildness as something…
Diabetes Breakthrough #2
New Zealand biotechnology company Diatranz will run clinical trials, in the Cook Islands, of an experimental diabetes treatment which once in place start making diabetes-curing insulin. The controversial treatment involves transplanting cells from pigs…
Riding On
Maz Quinn proves he’s no grommet as New Zealand’s first representative on surfing’s elite World Championship Tour and sets the pace during the opening round on Australia’s Gold Coast. “I’m stoked to get through, I’m flying…
This is Not the New Zealand Edge
Guardian Netjetter Ellie finds Godzone = dullzone, writing that you may need a thesaurus to do New Zealand’s beauty justice, but unfortunately that doesn’t make the country any more interesting: “One of the most frequently heard compliments…
Oxford, Sorbonne, Harvard … Multiversity?
A radical new education model is questioning the relevance of Western/colonial education system and the university model of higher learning. The project is called “Multiversity” and will focus on those supposedly excluded from First World education, Asia,…
The Milligan Side-step
Revered and irreverent icon of comedy ex-Goon and Bad Jelly author Spike Milligan passed away on 26 Feb. A huge rugby fan with many NZ connections, he never got his biggest rugby wish: to have Willie…
“Come Together”
Wearing a traditional Maori cloak of native bird feathers, the Queen calls on New Zealanders to work together to resolve lingering differences between indigenous Maori and the Government. Elizabeth II was on her 10th tour of…
NZ: Stroppy Sheilas & Mana Wahines
Hauling a caravan behind a vintage Valiant, the Adventure Divas crew do New Zealand. Along the way they shoot pool with young film-maker Sima Urale, chill in Wellington with documentarian Gaylene Preston, are welcomed into the…
Cometh the Hour
Nathan Astle comes to play with “a superb and dominating” unbeaten 122 for the Black Caps to help them take the series 3-2 over “plucky losers” England and deservedly finish the summer with a trophy. Hitting the…
NZ Founding Father of British Anthropology
Sir Raymond Firth, one of the world’s most prominent anthropologists, emeritus professor at London University, Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit, and recipient of first Leverhulme medal (given to scholars of exceptional…
“Sweet As”
Next stop Queenstown – “an adrenalin-fuelled, hyperactive, big scream of a town where tourists go for one of two reasons: either to jump from a plane, mountain or bridge, or to watch others do…
Kevin Smith Farewelled
One of New Zealand’s best loved screen stars, Kevin Smith, dies aged 38, in a Beijing Hospital. Best known for playing Ares in the hit series Xena:Warrior Princess, Smith suffered head injuries in a…
89 All Out!
“England were routed by an undeniably better team”, proclaims The Guardian, as New Zealand dismisses the poms for their second lowest one-day score ever (80) in the 2nd ODI in Wellington. Meanwhile Stephen…
Wheel World Road Trip
SMH’s Kendall Hill goes Campervanning in NZ. She jokes that she was looking forward to a “wucked trip” but, “the pursuit of puns and funny thungs gave way to the pure enjoyment of exploring this remarkable…
Deep Video Tech
New Zealand company Deep Video Imaging throws away the wacky red and blue desktop monitor capable of displaying several layers of information. The first clients will be in the gambling industry, seducing casino customers with the glitziest…
Kiwi Resourcefulness
The Guardian takes time out from the New Zealand – England cricket series to talk up World Cup preparations: “England are on the way although they have a way to go, but it would be in…
Most Valuable Harry
“Chris Harris is the bald bloke who must have been in the New Zealand team since they started playing cricket. He hangs around at backward point taking spectacular catches, bats irritatingly in the lower middle order…
Paradise Found
The Southern Alps. The Tongariro volcanoes. The Fiordland rain forest. “There is something archetypal about the scenery here, as though someone copied the planet’s most distinctive landscapes and jammed them all on two islands….New Zealand is the…
“Give Me Red Wine, the Kind That Makes Me Feel Fine”
Two NZ Pinot Noirs – Gibbston Valley’s 1999 Nevis Bluff Pinot Noir and Wither Hills’ Pinot Noir (2000) – are included in Guardian Top 5 “seduction wine” list for Valentine’s Day. “Like love itself, the fickleness…
A Pub Crawler’s Guide to Philosophy? Yeah Right.
US tour New Zealand “via its breweries, pubs and hard-case taverns”, finding barmaids who “pour the purge with a scowl that could compete with the hog trophies on the walls”, and brewers who freely offer insight into…
Man of the Series
Kiwi paceman Shane Bond wins Player of the Cricket World Series, taking an astonishing 21 wickets against Australia and South Africa. Sir Richard Hadlee rates him “the quickest bowler New Zealand has ever produced providing the…
The B-list of Baaad Has an Axis to Grind
International relations satire: bitter after being snubbed for membership in the “Axis of Evil”, peer-conscious nations rush to gain triumvirate status in what becomes a game of geopolitical chairs: “Spain, Scotland and New Zealand established the…
“Names Will Never Hurt Me?”
Deputy PM Jim Anderton tells the Australian Government to stop its “insults”, after Aussie Defence Minister Robert Hill dubs New Zealand “Tasmania”. “For God’s sake”, Anderton says,”we’re the closest neighbours to each other, so we need to…
These Limbs Were Made for Climbing
Kiwi mountaineer Mark Inglis successfully completes the journey to NZ’s highest peak, Mt Cook, without a piece of kit he’d come to take for granted on all previous expeditions – his legs. “With my artificial limbs…
Hem Femme
“She may be the most successful designer New Zealand has ever produced”. NYNZer Rebecca Taylor featured in extensive portrait in Vogue (Australia). Click here. And acclaimed in an emerging designers post-Sept 11 fashion…
Love Trolley Champ
Competing on an indoor erg (affectionately known as the ‘love trolley) Georgina Evers-Swindell wins the Crash-B World Indoor Rowing Championship with a time 0.6 sec off her world record. The win caps off a huge year…
Man with the Hook
NZ-born Sam Chisholm, the man who spent more time in the boxing ring than class room at King’s College, who then went on to become deal maker and right hand man for both Kerry Packer and Rupert…
Record Tourism Numbers
“Despite the global downturn New Zealand still welcomed a record number of international visitors for the 2010 1,909,391 people visited, a 6.9 percent increase from the previous year”.
NZ Schoolboys Take England to the Wall
“No one can decide who is the best rugby team in the world at present, largely because the two main contenders, England and NZ, circle each other without actually engaging On the evidence at Twickenham…
Wading into a Globalisation Debate
Prospect (“Britain’s intelligent conversation”) hosts a debate between prominent LSE economist NZer Robert Wade and Martin Wolf over whether global inequality and poverty are actually getting worse. Wade: “At the heart of our disagreement, I think, is…
Taste Sensation
Award winning vineyard – Goldwater Estate – Praised for its 2001 Dog Point Sauvignon Blanc: “This impeccably crafted wine offers a complexity and excitement equal to the finest Sancerre of the Loire Valley, but with a flavour…
Diabetes Breakthrough
Diatranz of Auckland claims it has conducted a successful trial that could eventually provide a cure for 15 million people around the world with type 1 diabetes who currently need daily injections of insulin. The Mexican…
I See Red
A New Zealand company, Knights of NZ, wins the contract to make the Australian Olympic team’s opening ceremony coats for the upcoming Winter Olympics. Worth more than $3000 each, the coats are made from 100 per…
South Sea’s Start-up
Stephen “Warehouse” Tindall, (Forbes: “the Sam Walton of the South Pacific”) backs NZ technology innovation in Red Herring. Citing do-it-yourself Kiwi advances in biotech, multimedia and software (the world’s leading agricultural bio-tech research and the…
Values Party – BYO
Don’t miss Marlborough’s “tangy, medium-bodied, cranberry-dried” Saint Clair 2000 Doctor’s Creek Pinot Noir. “Perfect with poultry or perhaps salmon, it epitomizes the remarkable values coming out of New Zealand”.
Master Blasters
Explosive all-rounder Chris Cairns plays “one of the great one-day international innings in the 22-year history of the game When he is on song, no oval in the world is big enough to contain him”….
The Peoples’ Choice
“New Zealand’s most revered sportsman”, Michael Campbell, finishes a gallant second at the NZ Golf Open, five strokes ahead of world No 1 Tiger Woods. Back in the clubhouse, Campbell announces he will allocate to children’s charities…
Lessons From the Kiwi Experience
The Scotsman praises “small, proud” New Zealand – “the more the government intervenes in industry the less enterprise and boldness there is. By rolling back the frontiers of the state New Zealand has discovered enormous energy and…
Asian Free Trade Zone
Japan is keen to envelop New Zealand and Australia into its vision for an Asian free-trade zone in both trade and investment, and beyond into technology, education and tourism.
One Love
Anna Kournikova, “the tennis temptress whose courtships tend to garner more attention than her shot selection”, completes her 99th WTA tour singles event – the Auckland Classic – in the same way she ended the previous…
Fans Flock to Tolkien Trail
“Thanks to a bunch of elves, orcs and hobbits”, New Zealand is “one of this year’s most fashionable tourist destinations”. Experts believe the trilogy will boost NZ’s tourist industry by a third. On the edge we’ve always…
Counting Down and Counting Up
The 31st America’s Cup is 13 months away, but the Hauraki Gulf is already a hive of activity as 1 syndicates prepare to battle for the Auld Mug. And Government puffs up Team NZ’s sails with…
