A pantheon of New Zealand politics watchers were asked to cast their minds over 2015, select their champs and their flops, their ups and their downs, and the issue or story to look out for in 2016. Today, Part Four: The Big Issue for 2016. We asked our glittering academy to gaze into their crystal … Read more
In September Lydia Ko won her first major. Duncan Greive spoke to Guy Wilson, her Auckland-based coach from the age of five until she went pro at 16, about the significance of her achievements. Guy Wilson first met Lydia Ko when she was just five years old. She walked into the pro shop of the … Read more
After the final of X Factor NZ, Joseph Harper creates an interactive game that promises to be more challenging, fun and have higher production values than the competition itself. It’s been a long season of losing judges, murderers and clear winners as X Factor NZ slowly disintegrated week to week. But finally – here’s something … Read more
In 2013, the New Zealand’s woman’s rafting team won their fifth world title on the rivers of the Bay of Plenty. Two years later, Don Rowe joins them for an early-morning training session ahead of the 2015 World Champs in Indonesia. The dark jade waters of the Kaituna River flow 50km from inland Bay of … Read more
Alex Casey watches UnREAL – a drama set behind-the-scenes of a Bachelor-esque reality show – with The Bachelor NZ runner-up Dani Robinson, who dishes the dirt on how real reality TV really is. Set behind-the-scenes of a Bachelor-style dating show, the fictional world of UnREAL hints at the dark methods used to construct reality TV. Co-created by Marti Noxon and … Read more
David Seymour rode to the rescue of publicans and pub-loving rugby fans a couple of months back when he introduced a bill enabling licensed premises to open for World Cup screenings in the early, very early and very, very early morning. Toby Manhire catches up with the one-man ACT caucus over breakfast, beer and All … Read more
Actress, presenter and cricket tragic Sonia Gray on the stealthy way the Blackcaps have adopted reverse sledging and “respect-shaming” as tactics. Today the cricketing world will look to the Adelaide Oval, waiting to see how the pink kookaburra holds up in the world’s first day/night test match – a task that it appears to have failed … Read more
When Funny Girls was still but a twinkle in her eye, Rose Matafeo sat down with Alex Casey to talk about her eclectic TV upbringing, getting toenails in the mail and becoming a television star. // Rose Matafeo has already lived many television lives. Just 23, but already a grizzled showbiz vet, having been on the … Read more
Beating Playstation’s notoriously difficult Super Meat Boy was one of the biggest achievements of Liam Maguren’s young life. So why didn’t anyone care? In 2010 a nasty lil’ bastard of a platformer called Super Meat Boy was released. Made, impressively, by only two dudes, the addictive indie game quickly gained a reputation for its incredibly … Read more
One of the true legends of rugby died in November. Scotty Stevenson reflected on the passing of the one and only Jonah Lomu. The most unstoppable man in the history of rugby was finally stopped today. He was just 40. Jonah Tali Lomu died unexpectedly in Auckland this morning after returning from the Rugby World … Read more
After Come Dine With Me limped to an unlamented end, Alex Casey (big fan) and Joseph Moore (official Come Dine With Me NZ joke writer) mercilessly ranked all 40 contestants from the first (and ultimately last) well-seasoned season. Story has officially made it to our screens, causing us to forget about Come Dine With Me NZ faster than … Read more
On a Sunday afternoon in November, Holly Holm shocked the world when she knocked out the undefeated, undisputed UFC women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey. Don Rowe was in Melbourne to watch the fight – here he discusses both the bout and the subsequent social media storm. On Tuesday morning Ronda Rousey left Melbourne Airport hidden behind … Read more
Revisiting Alex Casey’s piece about ‘crotchgate’, an issue which took over the internet, broke our website, and revealed some heavy truths about shock jocks, women’s bodies and rape culture in New Zealand. I have spent a very large chunk of 2015 floating on the choppy whitecaps of the MediaWorks reality TV sea. I’ve recapped and … Read more
Back in April, brave couch warrior José Barbosa journeyed 10 hours across the televisual seas to consume the first season of Spinoff sponsor Lightbox’s epic Norse saga Vikings in one sitting, accompanied only by meat soup and mead. This is his story. It’s an interesting feature of this amazing future amusement park we currently inhabit … Read more
Duncan Greive interviews Steve Braunias on the occasion of his new book, The Scene of the Crime. Steve Braunias is my favourite New Zealand writer. Maybe that makes me an imbecile, I don’t know. I haven’t read hardly any of our fiction, because I barely read fiction. There might be better people out there in other … Read more
After the terrifying tirade that made our top TV moment of 2015, we thought it would be fitting to revisit Don Rowe’s report from Auckland airport as he watched Willy Moon and Natalia Kills leave the country. Like great dark bats they swooped through Auckland International Airport. He wore leather and she sheltered beneath a … Read more
One World One world, Thinking with one mind, Thinking with no mind, Other than what they are told. Preach to me, Sell me new and old; Indoctrinate me, That I will do what I am told. Trace my every dollar, Trace my every step; Trace my every sentence, No privacy is left. … Read more
Hacking thriller Mr Robot was undoubtedly one of the most critically-acclaimed TV shows of 2015. Upon its release, José Barbosa tracked down the man who once ran the internet in New Zealand, and asked him to assess its realism. Listen below as a podcast, or read on for a text transcript of the package. So there’s this scene in a movie … Read more
MediaWorks launched gossip site Scout amid much fanfare in 2015. Duncan Greive spoke with a number of former Scout staff members and MediaWorks employees, and was given access to a large cache of correspondence, recordings, data and other documentation to create this portrait of a modern media debacle. On Wednesday September 16 of 2015, MediaWorks CEO Mark Weldon … Read more
Nicky Hager tells The Spinoff about his case in the High Court, Dirty Politics a year on, and his next book – “one of the most important projects that I could imagine”. Nicky Hager has been back in headlines lately after court documents revealed, among other things, that Westpac had provided his transaction statements to … Read more
Scotty Stevenson filed this match report from the Sky Sport studio in the moments following the All Blacks’ 34-17 Rugby World Cup final win over the Wallabies at Twickenham. A game of rugby union was played in London today, during which the greatest first five eighth in the history of the game finally got his … Read more
This year Pam Corkery had a crack at reality television – but she is by no means the first politician to dive in front of the camera. With the help of the internet and genius archivists NZ On Screen, Sarah Robson takes a look at five of the best appearances. In a time before she donned … Read more
Joseph Harper reviews a different game every week in a brand new column. First up: Neko Atsume. I started playing a new smartphone game this week. I’m probably the target market for these kind of things via vaguely addictive personality and enjoying the patronising simplicity of the kind of games that exist on this platform. I’ve … Read more
Greg Bruce, author of a masterful feature on Steve Williams, reviews the autobiography of a seething brat who is also undeniably the greatest caddy of all time. I wrote a feature about Steve Williams in Metro magazine early last year. It was a long process, begun in early 2013, when I sent him a handwritten letter, because … Read more
In July Aimie Cronin spent a maniacal week incessantly ruining TV shows for her nearest and dearest, and wrote it up hilariously. Spoiler alert: contains a very well-known Game of Thrones spoiler. When someone has been told the ending of the show they are watching before they have watched it, their face looks like those … Read more
Mark Hunt fought his way from the streets of South Auckland to the top of the world stage in a career spanning almost 20 years. Don Rowe speaks to co-author Ben Mckelvey about writing a book with the Super Samoan. Are fighters born or made? In Mark Hunt’s case the answer appears to be both. Perhaps the hardest puncher to … Read more
Homai Te Pakipaki has been a mainstay every Friday night on Māori Television, encouraging people from all walks to life to “bring your keyboard and your mates for a jam”. José Barbosa went behind the scenes during the Grand Final, before the karaoke show shuts down after nine glorious years. The first time I watched Homai Te … Read more
Josh Drummond of Bigpipe, our new Gaming section sponsor, on the fiendishly addictive and deceptively simple soccer/driving mashup, Rocket League. It goes like this: I’m in my second week at my new job at Bigpipe. Our product team – just three of us – are working on probably our most important project, and at the … Read more
Joseph Moore has been trapped inside The Wellington Phoenix for his entire adult life. Before this season began he presented a compelling five point argument in an attempt to get others to join him. (NB: one of the points is ‘Friendship’). Pre-season is hell. It’s been a few months since the mighty Wellington Phoenix last … Read more