Huggies NZ just published a ‘helpful’ guide to toilet training for ‘girls‘ and ‘boys‘ and got a hell of a response to it. Angela Cuming hits back at the silly manual that seems like it’s straight out of the 1950s. Dear Huggies, I just wanted to drop you a line to say thank you for … Read more
Your aunty’s favourite show, Outlander, is returning exclusively to Lightbox September 11. Tara Ward watched the brand new trailer and had some thoughts. I was as happy as a tiny donkey trotting through the Scottish countryside when the official Outlander Season 3 trailer landed last week. It was Outlander D-Day, the beginning of the end: only … Read more
On June 21 the National MP for Clutha-Southland resigned his candidacy for re-election, in the wake of a scandal around alleged secret recording of staff. Todd Barclay remains on full pay and perks until September 23, however. What has he been up to? On the day he returns to parliament we scour the news and … Read more
Who doesn’t like a bracingly funny bit of satirical social politics? Who doesn’t admire an arts troupe that astounds its audience show after show? With the Film Festival upon us we asked filmmakers to choose a favourite movie from the lineup and also tell us about their own films in the festival. Here’s the fourth … Read more
Artist Sarah Smuts-Kennedy told Kim Hill on Saturday that she has been repeating a ritual used by Peruvian banana farmers in the 1980s to treat diseased kauri. Yes, we need more research, but leave the comment to the scientists, writes Cate Macinnis-Ng. Art can be a powerful tool for connecting and mobilising communities around scientific problems. Art … Read more
The ad says: “Born May 2013 at The Blue Breeze Inn – shamelessly copied ever since.” But it’s not true. Julian Liew-Young wonders why a restaurant would make such a demonstrably false claim. The pork buns at Ponsonby “tiki bar” The Blue Breeze Inn are famous, and fair enough. They taste great. They won the … Read more
Is it fair to say the 25-year-old former All Blacks midfielder never quite lived up to his potential? Jamie Wall looks back on an abbreviated career in New Zealand rugby. Full time blew on the Highlanders’ season on a wet and miserable Saturday night in Christchurch. The weather was so bad that the uncovered stands … Read more
The latest episode of Attitude Documentary series In My Mind focused on the mental health of mothers. For Spinoff Parents editor Emily Writes, watching it was both a draining, painful experience and a wake-up call about the epidemic of PND in New Zealand. Content warning: This post contains discussions and descriptions of mental health and … Read more
Sneaky speakeasies, insider tradie-trading, backstabbing, broken alliances and heaps of quality side-eyes peppered a very dramatic week four on The Block. It was Master Bedroom week, but also Masterstroke week as Ling and Zing set out to cut the twins down to size like a length of two-by-four. Aggrieved by Julia and Ali’s spoilt, bratty, … Read more
Herald police reporter Anna Leask takes a look inside women’s prisons, in this powerful excerpt from her new book Behind Bars. When they locked her up for the first time her baby girl wasn’t even two months old. The day she went to court for sentencing she couldn’t bear to bring her daughter with her. … Read more
Those who got a foot on Auckland’s property ladder in the nick of time have reaped the benefits since 2008. But has anything improved for the growing number of long-term renters? Kate Newton reports, as part of RNZ’s series Is this the Brighter Future?, which examines the government’s record since 2008. Gareth Shute remembers the … Read more
Stuff today released Black Hands, their first podcast series, in which leading David Bain authority and occasionally-terrible column writer Martin van Beynen draws on ten years of experience following the case to outline exactly why he believes Bain is guilty of murdering his family. Don Rowe spoke to van Beynen about the killings, the difficulty of … Read more
Want us to do more investigative journalism? Now you can help make that happen, writes Duncan Greive. The Spinoff was founded as an experiment in magazine journalism. An attempt to figure out if there was a way to fund it online without the torrent of empty calorie content which has been the hallmark of many news … Read more
Māori are the greatest victims of New Zealand’s war on drugs, but many Māori leaders are opposed to ideas of decriminalisation or legalisation. Professor Khylee Quince spoke to Simon Day about why tikanga Māori needs to be at the heart of drug reform. It’s a stat the needs to be repeated: although making up … Read more
Raiza Biza’s first full length album since 2012 is on the horizon. He talks to Simon Day about the local hip hop community, growing up black in New Zealand, and his upcoming all-ages gig – which we’re giving away tickets to. It’s been a complicated journey for Raiza Biza. His family left Rwanda when his … Read more
Over the weekend, US Ambassador Scott Brown had what he probably thought was an interview scheduled with Kim Hill. What actually ensued was a brilliantly shady media boxing match. Sam Brooks gives his play-by-play. My prevailing memory of Kim Hill is from something I once taped on One, back in the dark ages where you would … Read more
Remember the Parnell railway station fiasco? There’s another side to the story, writes Simon Wilson. They said it would be the third busiest station on the Auckland network. They said it would bring visitors and locals to shop in Parnell and tour the Auckland Museum. They said workers in lower Parnell – that industrial and … Read more
In the third of our series mining the truths from the political promos, Toby Manhire overthinks ‘Great Greens’. Already the Spinoff has turned its groundbreaking and vandalistic attention to the National Party’s “Let’s Get Together” and the Labour Party’s “Fresh Start”. Today it’s the turn of the Greens, whose first campaign ad was well ahead of … Read more
TVNZ 1’s Sunday Theatre is one of the oldest surviving timeslots in New Zealand television. Duncan Greive reviews the excellent Resolve, and looks at the lessons it contains for our struggling serial dramas. Through winter, for a while time now, some of the most expensive television we make has aired. On TVNZ 2 and Three that tends to … Read more
Compiling the best reading from your friendly local website. Lucy Kelly: I had an eating disorder, and To The Bone gets it almost completely wrong “Anorexia is not these gaunt girls looking like Kate Moss with dark eyeliner and baggy clothes; anorexia is not beautiful. It is not a phase, it’s not a diet gone too … Read more
It’s easy to dismiss a stray look or comment as simple rudeness, but often it’s more than that. Philip McKibbin (Ngāi Tahu) argues that casual racism is both endemic and more damaging than we give it credit. I keep thinking about the wink the bartender gave me. I didn’t know then that he had just insulted my … Read more
The largest collection of pinball machines in the country resides in a Pukekohe family home. Madeleine Chapman visited the Peck family to see it in the plastic flesh. I tried to look nonchalant as the small metal ball rolled around the bumpers, hit a spring, and shot right down the middle, missing both flappers and … Read more
The Spinoff and Spark proudly present Pod On The Couch, a weekly podcast exploring music and the people that make it. This episode: Henry Oliver talks to Kirin J Callinan about his new album, Bravado, and his debut acting role in Top of the Lake. Spinoff Music editor Henry Oliver talks to Australian music eccentric Kirin J Callinan about encores, … Read more
We asked filmmakers to choose a favourite from the Film Festival lineup and also tell us about their own films. This third instalment of the series features Gaylene Preston, Renae Maihi, Paul Oremland and Jackie van Beek. Gaylene Preston, director of My Year with Helen, recommends Faces Places Faces Places is the film I most want … Read more
On Wednesday Express magazine published an article about Paul Heard, confirming his resignation from the New Zealand Aids Foundation in the wake of a racist Facebook post. The community reaction was immediate, vitriolic and problematic, writes Sam Brooks. Paul Heard is a former owner of Urge bar and was until very recently community engagement manager for the New … Read more
Next up in Sam’s Celebrity Game Reviews is Sniper X with Jason Statham, in which Jason Statham problematically gets people to shoot other people with their phones. It would be an understatement to say that first person shooters are popular games. Your Calls of Duty, your Battlefield 1s, your Halos are the cultural behemoths among videogames. … Read more
In July 2018 Canada will become the second country in the world to universally legalise cannabis (Uruguay took the plunge earlier this year). Former Canadian deputy prime minister Anne McLellan, who led the task force advising the government on what a regulated marijuana market should look like, was in Wellington earlier this month to talk … Read more
Leaving the house when you have kids can be a nightmare of epic proportions. Anna Gowan has your back. Here’s her top six tips to get you to church (or the pub) on time. Forget waking up at the crack of dawn or making lunches the night before, these largely untested and questionable ideas will … Read more
Aaron Yap watches the new Scandi-crime drama Midnight Sun and finds it gross yet engrossing. Midnight Sun is as slick, engrossing and assured a cop procedural as I’ve seen since the dawn of the Nordic Noir boom. Its top-flight craft shouldn’t come as a surprise, given the creative force behind the show is the writing/directing duo of … Read more