All week this Christmas week we count down the best six books of 2017. Number five: the wild and exciting Milk Island, by Rhydian Thomas, described by reviewer Joseph Barbon as ‘teetering thrillingly on the brink of bad taste’. As well as being the most conspicuous absence from the recently-announced Ockham Prize longlist, Rhydian Thomas’s … Read more
School holidays have begun and everyone is tired. Here are some tips from Nicola Bond on supporting your kids when their behaviour is challenging you over the Christmas period. I wrote recently about what it’s like parenting a child with autism at Christmas and I find myself continuing to reflect on the challenges different families experience at … Read more
An incredible year, or the second half of it at least, for NZ politics. The Gone By Lunchtime bus parks up for one last time before going in to the garage, and settles all the matters. Jacinda Ardern! Bill English! Metiria Turei! Winston Peters! Those are the names of some people who were in the … Read more
China is the biggest beer market in the world and craft beer is a fast-rising category. Sam Gaskin looks at how China could become a multi-million dollar venture for local craft brewers in New Zealand. On a dark section of Shanghai’s Fahuazhen Road, a violently bright sign tells you when you’ve arrived at The Beer Lady. … Read more
All week this Christmas week we countdown the six best books of 2017. Number six: Naomi Alderman’s feminist sci-fi novel The Power, described by Andra Jenkin as a metaphor for the #MeToo movement. Naomi Alderman’s novel The Power has a fantastic premise: women are suddenly able to inflict pain and death at will. They can shoot … Read more
What is it with fights and the Logan Campbell Centre? Don Rowe attends Yelawolf and narrowly avoids a hiding. The jungles of South East Asia have nothing on the humidity inside the Logan Campbell Centre in early summer. Truly the place must be seasoned like an old wok with the accumulation of thousands of punters’ … Read more
At the end of every year, our columnist Aaron Yap wraps up his likes, dislikes and learnings from TV’s shifting media hellscape. Jeez, what a stinking hot mess. As 2017 thankfully draws to a close, reflecting on the year that’s been for TV has become quite the exercise in existential soul-searching – to couch it in the … Read more
There have been 15 numbered titles, it has sold 130 million copies worldwide, and it’s spawned countless spinoffs. On its 30th birthday, Sam Brooks reflects on Final Fantasy and what the series means to him. The series that made me realise that video games were more than just a silly pastime was the Final Fantasy series. The … Read more
There is a rising global movement towards responsible investing, but how can new KiwiSavers know how to invest without causing harm? Rebecca Stevenson caught up with Kiwi Wealth’s Steffan Berridge to discuss the ins and outs of ethical investing. First things first. What is responsible investing? And why should anyone care about it? Many Kiwis … Read more
In the first instalment of our annual year-end pundit-fest, we asked for the three chumps and the three flops of 2017. Then we sought a one-sentence summary of the year. Today, the question is this: What are the issues upon which 2018 is likely to hinge? Graham Cameron Climate Change. The clock has run out. We, … Read more
The current trans-Tasman tensions have nothing on the decades of covert and overt collaboration between the Liberals, National and the Crosby Textor strategists. After less than three months into the new government, Trans-Tasman relations seemed to have plunged to their lowest point in years. First, during the campaign, Labour MP Chris Hipkins, at the behest … Read more
Zoë Brock is one of six women who have launched legal action against Harvey Weinstein, arguing that the sexual misconduct by the mogul – who has repeatedly denied any illegality – is akin to organised crime. The New Zealander now speaks for the first time since the class-action lawsuit was filed last week: about her … Read more
Every week we ask a local business or product to introduce themselves in eight simple takes. This week we talk to Zoe Timbrell and Vaughan Rowsell of OMGTech!, the not-for-profit getting kids into coding and technology through a series of high-tech workshops. ONE: How did OMGTech! start and what was your inspiration for the project? Vaughan Rowsell … Read more
Bringing you the best weekly reading from your friendly local website. Simon Wilson and Madeleine Chapman: The rookie and the food critic head to KFC “I know a lot of people hate KFC. It’s the epitome of grease and Big Fast Food and very few people who eat it for the first time as adults … Read more
The fiery rhetoric of campaigns gone by has been replaced by a more pro-China stance in a recent speech. Despite expectations in some quarters that Winston Peters might take a harder line on China during his tenure as the new NZ Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, he firmly put that idea to bed last … Read more
It started as a fictional country on Reddit, and remains a fictional country on Reddit. But New Zanada has some really committed fans. The nicest country in the world is planning a renaissance. It’s not New Zealand. It’s also not Canada (sorry). Welcome to the Dominion of New Zanada: a fictional country borne of Reddit, sprouting from … Read more
NZ’s tradition of political summer camps stretches back to 1949. Organisers of an Ōtaki event in January explain why they’re reviving it. After the political chaos of 2017, a bunch of disparate individuals have come together to organise an event which will start the new year with an optimistic bang. Drawing on a long history … Read more
Jacinda Ardern has made an impressive start, leading a government of continuity. And for National, how serious is talk of a new conservative party springing up, asks former cabinet minister Wayne Mapp. Two months in shows a government, and in particular a prime minister starting to become more comfortable about the reality of governing. Without … Read more
NZ rugby needs to act, and act fast. While it is financially the most dominant code in New Zealand, it could lose the attention of potential athletes fast if they can see that there’s money to be made elsewhere. What will 2017 be remembered for by rugby fans? There’s a couple of strong narratives, neither … Read more
In order to be a good friend we don’t owe Australia our loyalty – we owe them honesty, writes Graham Cameron. The deputy prime minister of Australia, Barnaby Joyce, is grumpy with Jacinda Ardern because she offered a place to 150 of those refugees that Australia illegally imprisoned and then abandoned on Manus Island in … Read more
Fifteen politics watchers attempt the impossible. In part two of our politics year in review (part one, the champs and the flops, is here) we ask our pantheon of pundits: how would you describe the world in 2017, in one sentence? Graham Cameron Running screaming from climate change, wealth inequality and a worldwide refugee crisis, … Read more
Alex Casey watches the last episode of Seven Sharp with Mike Hosking and Toni Street at the helm, and witnesses something truly extraordinary. It began with Toni Street vomiting and fainting, and it finished with Mike Hosking crying while holding a Sol3 Mio Christmas CD. The Street/Hosko Seven Sharp era has come to an abrupt … Read more
Who’s going to replace Toni and Mike behind the Seven Sharp desk next year? Here are one hundred possible combinations. Tonight is our last chance to see Michael Noel James “Mike” Hosking IV slouched over the Seven Sharp desk in a snazzy blazer and pair of $1200 distressed denim jeans, talking shite to his long-suffering … Read more
New verse by Tayi Tibble, who was awarded the prestigious Adam Prize at Victoria University’s IIML this week. In the 1960s an Influx of Māori Women Move to Tinakori Road in their printed mini dresses. Grow flowers on white stone rooftops to put in their honeycomb vases. Dust the pussy-shaped ashtray their husbands … Read more
Last week, a Supreme Court decision awarded a woman $520,000 to make up for the fact that she gave up her career and potential income to look after the couple’s children and home. The Law Commission’s Stephen Day discusses the Property (Relationships) Act 1976 as it stands and what could be done to change it. This … Read more
The best-selling books at Unity Books in Auckland and Wellington. AUCKLAND UNITY 1 Mythos: A Retelling of the Myths of Ancient Greece by Stephen Fry (Michael Joseph, $37) Ugh. 2 La Belle Sauvage: The Book of Dust by Philip Pullman (David Fickling Books, $35) Please refer to the best books of the year at the Spinoff Review … Read more
The government yesterday introduced a new winter energy payment for everyone over 65, no matter how well off they are. If Jacinda Ardern and Grant Robertson are serious about alleviating hardship in New Zealand, this is the very last group they should be splashing cash on, argues Eric Crampton. According to every existing assessment of … Read more
It’s as predictable as your uncle saying something off-colour during Christmas lunch: the annual slew of scare stories about the risk of gaining a few kilos over the festive season. Let’s make a pact to ignore them all, suggests Kristin Hall. One of the last things I remember my mum saying to me before she … Read more
Thirteen months after it was shattered by an earthquake that ruptured more than 20 faults and triggered thousands of landslides, State Highway 1 is reopening north of Kaikōura. The fragility of the land has brought extraordinary challenges for the rebuild, writes Veronika Meduna Today is a big day for people north of Kaikōura – and … Read more