Tot Takes a Punt
Stanmore Bay three-year-old Pipi Quinlan purchased a full-size excavating digger on auction site TradeMe for $20,000 while the rest of his family slept. “The first I knew of it was when I came down…
Tag Archives: Guardian (The)
Eruption Earns Bafta
Visual effects producer Marie Jones, formerly of Invercargill, has won a Bafta for her special effects work on BBC1’s sci-fi drama Doctor Who in an episode called Fires of Pompeii, as part of London…
Cannes call to arms
From this year’s Cannes Film Festival, director Jane Campion urged her female counterparts — which number only 6 per cent — to “put on their coats of armour” and take on the “old boys’…
Dunedin’s Sound
“There’s something about the antipodes that irritates Britain,” reckons Chills’ frontman Martin Phillipps, on the phone from Dunedin to the Guardian’s Martin Aston. Phillipps tries to explain why New Zealand’s 1980s music scene, one…
Rotten Rants on Butter
Former Sex Pistol John Lydon is reminding British dairy consumers that “Anchor’s From New Zealand!” preferring UK-produced Country Life butter. Lydon is stirring up trouble with his straplines in an advertisement that attacks the…
To Osaka and Kintetsu
Crusaders fullback Blenheim-born Leon MacDonald has signed a two-year deal with the Kintetsu Liners Club in Japan. The 31-year-old said he had signed a deal with Kintetsu and will join the Osaka-based club in…
Snapping Up Sauvignon
New Zealand wines are in high demand in the UK and at low prices are preferable to their EU equivalents. The greater value for money of New Zealand wines has created a stir in…
Hartley Gets Wings
New Zealander Brendon Hartley, 19, has been granted his motor racing super-licence and will join Red Bull as a reserve driver, the Formula One team said. The former Palmerston North Boys’ High School student,…
Writing from abroad
New Zealand-born, Bryan Gould’s latest column for The Guardian Newspaper identifies governments as the only organisations in a position to take the necessary long-term approach needed to stimulate the global economy and counter the…
Money in bank
Billionaire investor and philanthropist Richard Chandler, who heads Singapore-based investment fund Orient Global, has bought a 3 per cent stake in Russian commercial bank Sberbank for $430 million, reports The Guardian. Chandler’s Sovereign Global…
Commonwealth win
Auckland author Mo Zhi Hong has won Best First Book Prize for South East Asia and the South Pacific at the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize 2009 in London for his debut novel The Year of…
Scaling nature
New Zealander Paul McCathie is a former arborist who in 2005 founded Goodleaf Tree Climbing Adventures on the Isle Of Wight. McCathie “works with only one tree, a 60ft ancient oak, and in two…
No with Black
A protest against Section 92a, an amendment to New Zealand’s copyright law due to come into force from February 28*, has resulted in an “internet blackout”, part of a political protest against the law…
Writings of here and there
Author Kapka Kassabova moved to New Zealand from Bulgaria in 1992 at the age of 17 “having suffered the full experience of ‘Socialism with a Human Face’ that was the notional premise behind the…
Perchance for professor
Auckland-born poet Fleur Adcock is one of eight names being discussed by the Oxford University English faculty to take up the position of professor of poetry when current incumbent Christopher Ricks comes to the…
Out of the dark
January 17, 2009 – Auckland writer CK Stead’s Collected Poems 1951-2006 is reviewed this week in the Guardian. “The main stylistic influence on Stead is probably Ezra Pound, from whom he has inherited a…
Altered stories
“New Zealand remains a comfortably social democratic society, less dynamic but also less brash or polarised than Australia,” writes Guardian political blogger Michael White in a posting which looks at the reintegration of Chinese…
Vettori one of the best
Black Caps captain Daniel Vettori, 29, is ranked amongst the top International bowlers on the ICC Player Rankings for One Day International bowlers. The left-arm spinner took six wickets at an impressive average of 12.33 in the…
Minnie Dean Memorialised
Infamous Winton baby-farmer Minnie Dean, the first and last woman to be hanged in New Zealand, will soon have a headstone erected on her unmarked grave in the Winton Cemetery. Dean’s Scottish great-great-nephew Martin…
Neill’s canine enactment
Sam Neill, 61, plays the title role of Edwardian clergyman the Dean in Paramount Pictures film Dean Spanley, which opens in UK cinemas on December 12. In a Guardian interview Neill discusses…
Pouhaki Relocated
In 1920, Maori carver Tene Waitere gifted Prince Edward an eight-metre pouhaki, or flagpole, carved from a single tree trunk. The Prince then bequeathed the pole to Portsmouth Naval Base, where for the…
Te Rauparaha’s War Cry
The all-Maori team first performed a haka against Surrey in Richmond in 1888 where they, according to theIllustrated London News, “cavorted about in ostrich-feather capes and tassell’d caps in a device of novelty and…
Influence from the inside
New Zealand filmmaker Justin Pemberton has won the world’s longest running environmental film festival, Cinemambiente for his feature-length documentary Nuclear Comeback, parts of which were filmed in Chernobyl’s abandoned radioactive control room and core….
Thinking about art
New Zealand sculptor, London-based Francis Upritchard says she wants to be an old lady making art and that art collectors should buy art for its meaning rather than its market value. Upritchard, 32, who…
Imagination live
Auckland comedian Rhys Darby — who plays Jim Carrey’s boss Norman in Yes Man, which will be released in the US in December — has launched his first live stand-up DVD, entitled Imagine That….
From dusk till dawn
Ladyhawke’s self-titled debut album has been released in the UK where the former-Wellingtonian is touring through October ahead of dates in the United States and Europe. In this Guardian review: “Not many budding pop…
Into the Crystal Ball
Mark Todd, voted Rider of the Century 20th by the International Equestrian Centre, is hoping to compete next at the World Championships in Kentucky in 2010 and is not ruling out the London 2012…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Coolest Boat in the World
New Zealand Earthrace skipper Pete Bethune has circumnavigated the globe in record-breaking time, 11 minutes short of 61 days in a £3 million 24m tri-hull wavepiercer powered on cooking oil. “I am elated,” Bethune…
Juniors Bag Victory
New Zealand has won the world junior rugby under-20 championships in Swansea, Wales, beating England 38-3 in a four-try match. The young All Blacks may have been the overwhelming favourites from the start of…
Drawing Comparisons
Masterton-born indie pop rocker Pip Brown, 28, otherwise known as Ladyhawke, is garnering enthusiastic reviews in London – the Guardian dubbing Brown’s sound “exquisitely distracted insouciance over fabulous machine melody.” Her second release ‘Paris…
Double Victory
New Zealanders Bevan Docherty and Samantha Warriner each made podium finishes in the triathlon world championships in Vancouver, Docherty taking second place in the men’s elite and Warriner third in the women’s. New Zealand-born…
Chip off the Old Block
Jeremy Coney, as announcer on Sky TV’s ‘Test Match Special’, is “cricket’s answer to the poet and critic Tom Paulin”, according to Guardian sports blogger Rob Bagchi. A guest on TMS for the last 20 years,…
Flaming Britches
James Watson, head of Massey University’s school of history, philosophy and politics in Palmerston North and author of agricultural study, ‘The Significance of Mr Richard Buckley’s Exploding Trousers’, won an Ig Nobel prize…
Enigma funds school
Though New Zealand tycoon Christopher Chandler keeps a reclusive profile, he has invested $50 million in a business school for students from developing countries in Boston. Chandler, a beekeeper’s son from Matangi who has…
An Intelligence Question
James Flynn, Emeritus Professor of Political Studies at the University of Otago and moral philosopher, says human intelligence has improved over the last century, rather than declined as was widely thought. “But,” Flynn…
Out of the Shade
Sir Richard Hadlee and his father, Walter are probably one of the most successful father-son sporting combinations according to the Guardian’s Will Buckley, but this son doesn’t want to be compared. Richard Hadlee,…
Economic Hardware
In 1949, New Zealand engineer and economist Professor William “Bill” Phillips astonished the London School of Economics revealing his “do-it-yourself” creation: an analogue computer model of the workings of the British economy. The Monetary…
Bond Says It Like It Is
Shane Bond, ex-Black Cap fast bowler and now in the money at the Indian Cricket League’s Delhi Giants, says the decision to go to India is a “no brainer“. Though he will double his income,…
Two Hobbits of a Kind
Peter Jackson is joining forces with Mexican director Guillermo Del Toro to make the two back-to-back film adaptations of JRR Tolkien’s The Hobbit. Jackson will co-produce the film with fellow director Fran…
Thank Goodness for Spreadable
One of the greatest inventions of all time, according to the New Zealand Post, is New Zealand’s spreadable butter, and the Telegraph’s Bee Wilson agrees. “If it weren’t for the New Zealand Dairy Research…
First Knight Memorialised
Sir Edmund Hillary was honoured by the Queen at a ceremony in St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle. To a full congregation, Sarah, his daughter, read Allen Curnow’s elegiac poem You Will Know When You…
Gold in Manchester
New Zealander Hayden Godfrey has won the men’s omnium title at the track cycling world championships in Manchester. The omnium was introduced at world championship level last year and includes five events: the…
In London cinemas
Duncan Sarkies’ 2006 movie Out of the Blue – a dramatic reconstruction of the 1990 Aramoana massacre – is showing in London this week and continues to receive favourable reviews. The Guardian…
Tour of Auckland
The Flight of the Conchord’s manager Murray Hewitt, Aucklander Rhys Darby, introduces the Guardian‘s Sarah Bourn to New Zealand’s largest city and his favourite place, One Tree Hill. “I used to go there a…
Virgin’s Cable Guy
Neil Berkett has been promoted to a permanent role as chief executive at Virgin Media. Berkett took on the job at the cable company as acting chief executive in August last year when Steve…
Snell’s Still Running
Olympic champion and New Zealand’s greatest athlete of the 20th century Peter Snell looks back over the last 70 years and discusses, age, Auckland and Arthur Lydiard. Now based in Dallas and…
Brown the New Nobilo
Wellington golfer Mark Brown has had a successful week in India, winning first the Asian Tour’s SAIL Open then clinching the US$2.5 million Johnnie Walker Classic, making him one of only six New…
Tastebuds Will Travel
Guardian reporter Emma Johns and friend spent a two-week culinary tour of New Zealand “exploring the local flavours before attempting to recreate them ourselves.” From fine-dining in Wellington to cooking lamb fillet off a…
Written on the Edge
Duncan Fallowell’s latest travel book Going As far As I Can about a trip to New Zealand, is a candid account of three months spent in the country in 2004. And though many…
Campion on Frame
Jane Campion writes about her encounters with creative compatriot Janet Frame in The Guardian this month. The NZ-born filmmaker brought Frame’s life story to an international audience with her acclaimed film An Angel at…
Aquaflow Ahead of the Curve
A Blenheim-based company could hold the key to the world’s energy crisis, according to a recent Guardian article. Aquaflow Bionomic Corporation has patented a cleansing process known as bio-remediation that extracts biofuel from…
Round Two Record Attempt
NZ speedboat Earthrace will begin its second attempt to break the world circumnavigation record in March 2008. Earthrace is using the record attempt to raise awareness for environmentally friendly biofuel. “The record is just a small…
