Whether making Somali sauces or Nepali dumplings, former refugees are providing income for their families and delicious food for the rest of us. New Zealanders who have arrived here as refugees make up an ever-increasing part of the food scene in Aotearoa. Thank goodness! Can you imagine eating only the foods of your home culture … Read more
Good morning, and welcome the The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Low growth in the Māori roll, property managers slammed for their memes, and a big cash injection for the billion trees programme. The Māori electoral roll has grown, but not by all that many voters. The option to change between the Māori and the general roll opens … Read more
Better Call Saul is dropping weekly on Lightbox right now – and it’s slowly catching up with the start of Breaking Bad. While we wait, here are four fanservicey ways the new show could tip its hat to the old one. Better Call Saul, the often-prequel sometimes-sequel series to Breaking Bad, is back with its fourth … Read more
The conveners and judges of this year’s Best Design Awards nominations are overwhelmingly male. And in the past 20 years, its top award has only been awarded to three women. Designer Catherine Griffiths responds with – what else? – design. Each year the Designers Institute of New Zealand awards two Black Pins, its supreme award. For … Read more
New kids’ media platform HEIHEI has some great stuff (as well as a few missable overseas imports). Today, with the help of her six-year-old son, Thalia Kehoe Rowden gives us the inside word on the very best shows for your older kids and teens. The science of poo, tips on how to make a bivvy … Read more
Al Nisbet’s loudest detractor bids farewell to the controversial cartoon slinger. Today dawned like any other. My cat jumped on the bed and started coughing up a hairball. I forgot to get a new towel before jumping in the shower and had to do the hallway streak of shame. I wore odd socks for the … Read more
Alex Casey spoke to Alley Miller about finding the courage to get on a motorbike for the first time, and how this led her to her tribe. Alley Miller can recall the most magical moment of her entire life without a moment’s pause. It happened one afternoon when she was heading home on her motorbike. … Read more
Quinovic property management have embraced their stereotype of crusty rich people by sharing terrible memes as ads. Madeleine Chapman discovers they’ve been doing it for years. First published 13 August 2018 Mark Richardson explained memes to the eight contestants on The Block NZ last night. “The meme has become very on-trend in the world of … Read more
With the announcement that The Walking Dead‘s Negan is joining Tekken 7, it’s clear that absolutely anybody can be a Tekken character. Matthew Codd has a few more suggestions. Last week, Tekken creator Katsuhiro Harada surprised everyone with the announcement that Negan (who?) from The Walking Dead would be coming to Tekken 7. The game already … Read more
The Spinoff’s trap correspondent, Tekashi09, reviews one of the biggest albums of the month, Travis Scott’s Astroworld. Esskeetit!
It’s an eternal argument: which of the two versions of The Office reigns supreme, the original brutal UK version or its heartfelt US spinoff? The Spinoff staff finally weighs in. Alex Casey, senior writer The Office UK is coded into my DNA unlike any other show. I bought the boxset for a bargain $20 from … Read more
In this powerful extract from her new book, Chessie Henry interviews her father – a Kaikōura doctor who was caught up in the terrible drama of the Christchurch earthquakes. Dad recounted this story to me on February 14, 2017, nearly six years after the Canterbury earthquake which claimed 185 lives. For some reason we were … Read more
Defects are ‘currently underdiagnosed and may consequently be left untreated at a staggering rate’, says one of a number of experts calling for more information to be provided to women. A little-known complication of caesarean sections is causing infertility in a small minority of women worldwide. Experts say the evidence is now strong enough that … Read more
Experts have told the Spinoff that there is sufficient evidence about cases in which c-section can lead to infertility that women should be given more information. Catherine Woulfe addresses the key questions. Read Catherine Woulfe’s investigation into the connection between c-section scar defects and fertility here. I’ve had a c-section (or I’m about to) and … Read more
For a select few women, this could be the difference between a baby, and not. I’ll say it again: C-sections can cause infertility. Catherine Woulfe writes. This feature was made possible thanks to reader contributions via the Spinoff Longform Fund. Click here to support our investigative journalism. In October 2014 I had the kind of … Read more
‘Too much of anything is bad, but too much champagne is just right,’ according to Mark Twain. Simon Day has a cleansing glass of bubbles (or three) to go with a history lesson on champagne. Champagne and fried chicken make surprisingly good tablemates. The sharp, cleansing effervescence of the wine cuts through the rich fattiness … Read more
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Major US decision on weedkiller has NZ implications, ACT wants to abolish the Māori seats, and NZ and Saudi Arabia strengthen trade ties. Here’s a story from overseas that could have big implications for New Zealand. A jury in California has awarded a former school groundskeeper $289 … Read more
Misinformation will always be with us. If we use innovative tools smartly, we can ensure it stays on the edges of our democratic process, writes Jess Berenston-Shaw, author of the newly published A Matter of Fact We have heard a lot about free-speech recently. Two Canadians turned up to share what I regard as racist and sexist … Read more
Bringing you the best weekly reading from your friendly local website. Duncan Greive: I send my kid to the cold equivalent of a prison-yard most days and I’m fine with it “Deobrah Hill Cone’s column yesterday was a devastating indictment of an institution that many of us use every day. The whole thing dripped with concern, … Read more
The ACT Party wants to abolish the Māori seats, and lower the number of MPs wholesale. Do they have any chance of getting it through? At the 2017 election, out of about 13,000 party votes the ACT Party picked up nationwide, 239 came from Māori seats. It’s fair to say from those numbers that the … Read more
In our reviewers’ final sweep of the NZ Film Festival splendour, titles include a David Attenborough documentary without David Attenborough and a Nick Hornby adaptation Happy As Lazzaro Chalk one up for strategic ignorance. I’ve had mixed results this year with my favourite film selection method, the one where if I loved a director’s previous films … Read more
Research shows we think young people have a lot more sex than they do in reality – and men have a particularly skewed view of the sex lives of young women. As part of research institute Ipsos’ long-running studies on misperceptions, to be released in a new book, The Perils of Perception, we asked people … Read more
There are major barriers for disabled people who want to pursue sex and relationships. They are real and deeply felt. Yet the stigmatising tone of public conversation makes me wary, writes Henrietta Bollinger “Um … advice? From me? Yes, we can,” was my cautious, then tongue-in-cheek answer. “As Obama would say!” The others laughed. It … Read more
No blender required, says south Taranaki iwi-owned enterprise Kaitahi, whose frozen smoothie drops using Māori ingredients have tapped into the convenient ‘superfoods’ market. Jihee Junn talks to business development manager Leonie Matoe about how Kaitahi’s innovative drops are reviving the use (and growth) of indigenous ingredients. Fossil fuels have long powered Taranaki’s economic engine. But … Read more
In the fifth part of the new podcast series Venus Envy, Colleen Smith and Emma Espiner discuss raising feminists. Like mother, like daughter, Emma Espiner grew up protesting. When other kids had the day off school because teachers were on strike Espiner joined her mum Colleen Smith demonstrating for pay parity. In this episode of … Read more
Funny slapstick comedy about a wild dog trying to eat a bird or a treatise on the meaningless of all human pursuits? Sam Brooks watches some Wile E. Coyote cartoons. Straight up: I had never seen a single second of Looney Tunes until this week. I was the kind of child who watched Absolutely Fabulous and … Read more
We’ve largely moved beyond moral panics about teens’ consumption of books, television and movies, but worries about the effects of online pornography remain. But are we concerned about the wrong things? Throughout history, the regulation of children’s access to violent and sexualised media has been a startlingly consistent social concern. Over the course of the … Read more
The week’s biggest selling books at the Unity stores in Willis St, Wellington, and Hight St, Auckland. WELLINGTON 1 Poūkahangatus by Tayi Tibble (Text Publishing, $37) Ashleigh Young, speaking at the book launch: “Hinemoana Baker has said that Tayi’s poems have a liquid quality in the way they rush through time and the way their form … Read more
New verse by Wellington writer Helen Heath. That’s it We kiss goodbye in the morning – a peck on the cheek and that’s it. Then the phone call, like a bad movie. The next time I kiss you goodbye you are cold and still, and that’s it. Afterwards it’s mostly paperwork – the … Read more