Steven Adams was considered a risky choice when the Oklahoma City Thunder selected him with the 12th pick of the 2013 NBA draft. Now he’s a pivotal player in their ongoing Western Conference finals series against the Golden State Warriors. Ben Stanley drove seven hours for five minutes with New Zealand’s rising basketball superstar. “Raindrop!” … Read more
Comedian and celebrant Penny Ashton pulls back the veil on Married at First Sight. “So are you going to fuck him?” was, let’s face it, the classy question on everyone’s minds. It was 25-year-old retail manager Erin’s wedding night. She was beautiful, he was hot, so why wouldn’t he march up her aisle? Sure, her … Read more
Workplace equality still has a long way to go in this country. But while we fight on, let’s celebrate the businesswomen who are already crushing it says Laura Platts, author of a career advice blog for young women. The New Zealand Herald recently revealed the pay packets of the CEOs of our top 50 publicly … Read more
Former world champion kickboxer ‘Lightning’ Mike Angove will be in the best seat in the house tomorrow night when he calls Parker vs Takam. Here he provides an exclusive preview and breakdown of the richest fight in New Zealand history. Kiwi heavyweight hope Joseph Parker has skipped a year in his boxing education in an attempt at graduating … Read more
New verse by Catherine Vidler, inspired by dear old Saucepan, a character from the Enid Blyton series The Faraway Tree. Saucepan To any of us he is still Old Saucepan. Dear everybody, he is still. He could stay because he says yesterday. Can he put things right? Will you come? … Read more
Believe it or not, it is possible that Helen Clark is both the best option for the job of Secretary General, and that she is an important candidate because she is female The first thing I heard on Tuesday morning: “Helen Clark is not running to be Secretary General of the UN because she is … Read more
A new weekly feature at the Spinoff Review of Books: the best-selling books at the Auckland and Wellington stores of Unity Books. THE BEST–SELLER CHART FOR THE WEEK JUST ENDED: May 20 UNITY BOOKS AUCKLAND 1. A Little Life ($35) by Hanya Yanagihara The best book of 2015; love and a great many characters in a big, … Read more
‘Business is Boring’ is a new weekly podcast series presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Host Simon Pound will speak with innovators and commentators focused on the future of New Zealand, with the interview available as both audio and text. This week: career specialist and eParachute co-founder Gary Bolles. Failure. Disruption. Start-up. Portfolio. … Read more
Sophie Smith discovers a feminist firestarter in Buffy Summers of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and shares how her own life has since been influenced by the cult ’90s icon. Despite being a feminist killjoy and enthusiast of most things Joss Whedon, it was only this year that I finally sought out the cult classic Buffy the … Read more
Opinion: An illicit market has emerged for on-selling plane tickets, but instead of suffocating the idea, the airlines should be running it themselves, writes Wellington student Jack Close. My time as a student away from home at the University of Otago can be summarised simply: $500 return flights. Motivated by the “beauty of the price … Read more
Fingerless gloves. Those distinctive mitt-warmers were once the height of rugby haute couture. Then they inexplicably vanished without a trace. Can Aaron Smith work his magic, and bring them back? The biggest story out of Super Rugby over the last couple of weeks wasn’t the Highlanders’ timely return to form, with wins over the Chiefs and Crusaders. Rather, … Read more
Holly Walker reviews the working-class white New Zealand fuck-ups, suicides and predators in Tracey Slaughter’s amazing new story collection deleted scenes for lovers. “It is possible to say it,” says one of Tracey Slaughter’s narrators in deleted scenes for lovers, steeling herself to name the cancer that is eating her body from the inside. She … Read more
Sarah Robson reminisces with National MP Nikki Kaye about her time on Fish Out of Water, the reality show that was dumping people on an island years before Survivor. In 1996, before the term “reality TV” entered our everyday lexicon, TV3 decided to strand six Auckland teenagers on Rakitu Island in the Hauraki Gulf. They were … Read more
Elspeth Sandys reviews Barkskin, the enormously long and also deeply profound novel by Brokeback Mountain author Annie Proulx. Before Eleanor Catton wrote The Luminaries I would have said that the Americans were to blame for the new vogue for long – very long! – books. Three of Jonathan Franzen’s novels are all over 500 pages long. … Read more
With more television shows than we have time to watch, Laura Vincent searches for the rare on screen couples that are worth looking up to. “They have their problems, but they always work it out by the end of the episode” I was casually catching up with my two best friends, the three of us … Read more
Everybody wants to be like The Rock but what happens when you actually try and live like him? Madeleine Chapman was foolish enough to find out. Gym, movie set, movie set, gym, throwback Thursday, movie set, gym. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s Instagram page is both inspiring and extremely repetitive. Whether it’s his known work ethic … Read more
We didn’t know what to do about the Comedy Festival, so convened a motley trio of know-nothing punters to talk about it. Host Alex Casey is joined by Spinoff editor Duncan Greive and internet sensation Paul Williams to discuss the final week of the New Zealand Comedy Festival. We look at the Billy T nominees we weren’t … Read more
On the final day of the Tripartite Economic Summit, Tim Murphy discovers how a talk fest can get real-world results – and gets a lesson in American-style positive thinking. Read Tim’s recap of day one of the summit here. The United States Ambassador to New Zealand, His Excellency Mark Gilbert, has a three word family … Read more
Nick Smith was totally right to crack down on a politician who pandered to his rich, elderly voting base at the expense of sensible housing policy. Now, about National pandering to its rich, elderly voting base at the expense of sensible housing policy. Nick Smith, a sentient turnip acting undercover as New Zealand’s Housing Minister, launched … Read more
RNZ needs to do some serious soul-searching about its decision to give a platform to non-scientific nonsense, writes Dr Siouxsie Wiles As I write my blood is boiling. I’m in a rage. There is a measles outbreak going on in the Waikato region, with over 20 confirmed cases. It looks as though the virus has … Read more
With Survivor NZ set to begin its debut season, Joseph Harper puts host Matt Chisholm through the ringer to see if he has what it takes to lead the world’s most challenging reality television series. Survivor fever is most certainly sweeping the nation, with an unpredictable finale of Survivor: Kaoh Rong almost ready to be illegally streamed and … Read more
New Zealand is rightly proud of the multi-ethnic and -cultural society it’s growing into. But while Māori and Pacific representation has improved since the ’80s, our exploding Asian population remains near-invisible. In part one of a two-part series, Sonia Gray tries to find out why. Lately, I’ve been looking at the people around me and … Read more
Rosemary McLeod reviews I Will Find You: A Reporter Investigates the Life of the Man Who Raped Her (Fourth Estate, $34.99) by Joanna Connors. Women used to read romantic fiction, the kind in which everyone lived happily ever after, following tribulations such as which dress to wear, and whether or not to surrender to a masterful … Read more
It sounds like a bureaucratic bore, but Auckland’s Tripartite Economic Summit, with guests including a British YouTube superstar and an American political “rock star”, is the hottest ticket in town. Tim Murphy reports from day one. YouTuber Tom Cassell – who is globally famous as Syndicate Tom – has been walking and talking around Auckland, … Read more
Tara Ward brings you her Shortland Street Power Rankings for last week, including a tomato sauce surplus, Finn’s on-point point and Rachel’s pill popping. If only every Shortland Street episode was filled with rambunctious pool parties and hysterical urine-drinking hijinks. Imagine the hilarity! Alas, the past week in Ferndale was a long, hard slog, where … Read more
Highlanders fans’ campaign of bullying against Scotty Stevenson finally pays off with a top ranking in the latest Super Rugby power rankings. 1. Highlanders Rd 12: 34-26 v Crusaders Last week: 2 (up 1)) Okay, okay! Here’s why everyone loves the Highlanders: every time they have the ball, they think they can score a try. I blame Tony Brown … Read more
Our resident Outlander fanatic Tara Ward shares her thoughts from the much-anticipated return of time-travel romance series. Contains spoilers. And smoulders. There was so much plotting and conspiracy in this week’s episode of Outlander that Jamie Fraser officially changed his name by deed poll to ‘Schemey MacSchemeface’. Charles Stuart schemed with Jamie, Jamie schemed against the … Read more
Fair to describe Buster Stiggs as a legend. He was in New Zealand’s first punk band, Suburban Reptiles, and then joined his old schoolmate Phil Judd in The Swingers, who created maybe the greatest song in NZ rock history – ‘Counting The Beat’. He recently penned the first part of a memoir in the autumn … Read more
Michael Field, whose book The Catch helped expose the labour and human rights abuses in New Zealand’s fishing industry, says a report out today reveals a decades-long abuse of our much-vaunted quota system, with more than twice as many fish caught as declared. New Zealanders know the power of national utterances; we live by “clean and green” … Read more