The weekly best-seller chart at Unity stores in Wellington and Auckland, for the week just ended: October 28 WELLINGTON STORE 1 Murdoch: The Political Cartoons of Sharon Murdoch (Potton & Burton, $40) by Sharon Murdoch The smash-hit cartoon book by the 2016 Canon Media Awards cartoonist of the year who was born in Invercargill, worked … Read more
Shit got real on Bake Off this week. Forget American Horror Story or Scream Queens, the real horror this Halloween was found in a marquee in the English countryside. Tara Ward witnessed it all fall apart. Tuesday’s episode of Great British Bake Off served up the stuff of nightmares: possible sabotage, irrational behaviour, and terrifying meltdowns. Plus … Read more
The LoL Worlds Semifinals has wrapped up and it’s safe to say it’s been dramatic. Worlds correspondent Eugenia Woo summarises the action for your eyeballs. (Eugenia’s previous weekly recaps can all be read here.) Worlds’ month-long run is slowly coming to a close – the Finals will be on the 30th of October and like … Read more
The Spinoff presents TGI Funny Girls, an exclusive look at a brand new Funny Girls sketch every Friday. In the age of iMessage and Snapchat, late-night booty calls and texts have become a part of modern language. They’re short, yet vague, and always romantic. Laura Daniels presents a heartfelt summer anthem to celebrate the greatest … Read more
We wanted to better understand the changing New Zealand economy, and who better to explain it than superstar economist Shamubeel Eaqub. Below, the first of six short videos featuring Shamubeel giving it to us straight while sitting comfortably in a classic Kiwi chair. First up: the pros and cons of globalisation. This video is part of … Read more
Is globalisation good or bad? What will a job look like in 10 years time? And is tech coming to kill us all? We’re answering those questions and more in our new pop-up section looking at the changing New Zealand economy. Spinoff editor Duncan Greive explains what it’s all about. Today we launch ‘The New … Read more
Becoming a single parent can be scary and confusing. Ben Tafau shares his lessons from his journey as a solo dad in the hopes that it might help other fathers going through the same thing. Becoming a single dad was by far the biggest challenge I’ve faced to date. Separation can be a devastating event … Read more
Donald Trump may be enveloping the US in his godforsaken embrace, but is he also ruining New Zealand? Hayden Donnell talks to Tayyaba Khan about being a Muslim in the age of Trump. Most of us are living in fear of a Donald Trump presidency. If you don’t inhabit one of the Republican states imprisoned … Read more
Today we launch ‘The New Economy’, a pop-up section sponsored by Kiwibank, which will be home to a series of videos starring economist Shamubeel Eaqub. Here, Kiwibank CEO Paul Brock introduces the series and explains why investing locally has big rewards for us all. Let’s talk about the economy. In an age of increasing global … Read more
According to Matthew Codd the creative enterprise that best captures the pain of schoolyard love is a free phone game from the Philippines. Matthew explores the angst and talks to the game’s teenage developer. A few weeks ago, while falling down a rabbit hole of “similar apps” links on Google Play, I stumbled upon a game … Read more
On Wednesday, Simon Wilson said goodbye to Metro, where he had worked for nine years, five as editor, and to the magazine’s publisher Bauer Media, which last month made him redundant. This was his farewell speech. “They all laughed at Christopher Columbus, when he said the world was round. They all laughed when Edison recorded … Read more
Was Squirt a weird collective cheese dream or did it actually happen? River Lin revisits a favourite childhood show, and takes a walk down memory lane with the key players. As a kid, I devoted most of my Saturday mornings to watching Squirt. It had the best cartoons. The penguin, Spike, was the height of … Read more
As the goalposts are taken down and cricket pitches mowed across the country, Scotty Stevenson reflects on the continued importance of provincial rugby in New Zealand. A lad had a question for me this morning. He asked: “How do we make provincial rugby important again?” I looked at it and sighed. I sighed for two … Read more
Steve Braunias writes about Lucky, the unlucky dog of Mercer, in a new anthology of writing about dogs – dogs as pets, dogs as farm animals, dogs as meals, and other kinds of mutts. The graveyard was across the road from the school, and over the fence from a three-bedroom house on the edge of … Read more
Giving birth can be a traumatic experience for some women and when that happens recovery can take a long time. Dana Chandler-Brown writes about her personal experience of birth trauma, and why we should be doing more to support mothers going through it. This post talks about birth trauma, a very real issue in New … Read more
The weather at North Harbour Stadium on Wednesday afternoon was almost as bleak as the Wallaroos’ first performance against the Black Ferns at Eden Park – a 67-3 hammering that would have sent a lesser team packing. But a four-day break makes a massive difference it seems, and the home side were made to work … Read more
There’s a revolution underway. Deep within the Auckland Viaduct lurks the beginnings of our own tiny Silicon Valley. At GridAKL, more than 50 startups, in industries as diverse as medicine, robotics and augmented reality, are running the entrepreneurial gauntlet looking to build a high-growth business – or at least a get a second funding round. In On … Read more
Targeting people who attended a euthanasia advocacy group meeting under the guise of a road safety operation is deeply disturbing. The police minister needs to condemn it immediately, writes Toby Manhire Breath-testing checkpoints have these days become a staple of the New Zealand driving experience, as reliably familiar and cheering/infuriating as flocks of sheep being … Read more
With dozens of new television shows being aired every month, it’s hard to keep up. Aaron Yap finally got around to seeing The Flash and found it to be everything he’d ever dreamed of. It’s increasingly rare to stumble onto a TV show by accident. You’re either scrambling to keep up with the latest social media-trending phenomenon, … Read more
The first step in tackling racism in New Zealand: stop telling people to ‘get over it’ and start actually acknowledging their experiences, says Ally McCrow-Young. I’ve never felt more like a Kiwi until I moved almost 20,000 kilometres away from home, to Sweden. When I arrived three years ago in Malmö, in the south of … Read more
As we near Halloween, Alex Casey recommends American Horror Story to deliver frights, freaks and full on costumes. Since its debut, The American Horror Story franchise has morphed like a shapeshifting demon, changing location, time period and introducing new horrifying characters to deliver a fresh nightmare with every season. Like witches? Check out Coven. Fan of … Read more
What really made the pugnacious Wallabies coach lose his rag after the Bledisloe Cup loss to the All Blacks on Saturday? Surely it can’t have just been that cartoon. Guy Montgomery investigates. It has now been four sleeps since the All Blacks set a new world record for consecutive test match wins by beating the … Read more
The housing crisis has dominated the news cycles this year, but there’s still a lot we don’t know. Professor John Tookey is an expert in the area and is ready to answer your questions. Housing makes me money. Take it easy though. I’m not a property investor or a builder. In fact, I only own … Read more
Charlotte Grimshaw on the selfie novels of acclaimed English writer Rachel Cusk. Rachel Cusk’s previous novel, Outline, was a narrative experiment that followed her divorce memoir Aftermath. The author’s voice – her world view – was so strident and solipsistic in Aftermath that she was accused of being a “brittle little narcissist.” In Outline, Cusk … Read more
‘Have you tried…?’ It’s the call of unsolicited advice-givers everywhere. Dr Jess Berentson-Shaw tackles the science (or the lack thereof) behind the latest fad treatments for babies – including those damn amber beads. The Krakatoa eruption had nothing on this. I watched in horror as a voluminous fountain of precious breast milk blasted high into … Read more
Pacific nations have been upbraided for failing to make advances on LGBTI rights. But too many overlook the impact of colonisation, the stranglehold of the church and alternate conceptions of gender identity, writes Patrick Thomsen As Australia flip-flopped over its same-sex marriage vote, retired Australian High Court Judge Michael Kirby earlier this month accused Pacific … Read more
Orchestras around the world are desperately seeking new audiences. They’ve tried shorter concerts and even half-arse t-shirts, but one of the initiatives most successful at luring new concert goers is a series of shows with orchestras playing music from video games. Final Symphony, featuring the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra and the music of the Final Fantasy series, played recently … Read more
It started with Stuff, was adopted with gusto by the NZ Herald, and now clickbait content is infecting 1News Now, the online news arm of TVNZ. It’s yet more proof that the state broadcaster is no different from other commercial media organisation, says Jack Close – so isn’t it time we abandoned the pretense it … Read more
Are unions in New Zealand dwindling? With unions trending towards older workers, they may very well be.