The Spinoff produced four web series in 2019. Here is the cream of the crop. Scratched: Ruia Morrison’s unlikely tennis journey from Rotorua to Wimbledon Meet Ruia Morrison, the first New Zealand woman and first Māori tennis player to compete at Wimbledon. Raised on the courts of Te Koutu in the 1940s, Morrison quickly dominated … Read more
Summer journeys: FOMO drove Kristin Hall to join her adventurous partner on a road trip from Ireland to South Africa, wending their way through the back blocks of some of the least explored countries in the world. The Spinoff Summer Journey series is entirely funded by The Spinoff Members. For more about becoming a member … Read more
Catch up on On the Rag. Based on the podcast of the same name, Alex Casey, Michele A’Court and Leonie Hayden set out to jelly wrestle with every issue under the sun. The hilarious, stressful, hidden world of menstruation Hold onto your tampon strings, the first episode of the On the Rag webseries is here! … Read more
Summer reissue: Dragon tears, meteorites, or just plain shit – ambergris is an olfactory miracle of the deep. Sought after for thousands of years, and worth upwards of $10,000/kg today, ambergris washes up on beaches across New Zealand all year long. Don Rowe goes looking for it. This story originally ran in Barker’s 1972 magazine. … Read more
Summer journeys: In the first of a special summer travel series, Linda Burgess looks back on the not-so-glamorous New Zealand holidays of her youth. The Spinoff Summer Journey series is entirely funded by The Spinoff Members. For more about becoming a member and supporting The Spinoff’s journalism, click here. American girls, in their early teens, … Read more
Why do so many dogs in New Zealand end up with the same name? And is there anything that explains the remarkable continued popularity of big bounding labradors? Radio NZ’s Kate Newton investigates. Our dogs are diversifying as rapidly as we are, and greyhounds, schnauzers and shih tzus are all on the rise. But clinging … Read more
The Weird Old Guy with a ponytail who no one really knows, and 11 more oddly specific characters you’ll probably encounter this Christmas. There’s no hiding from it. Tomorrow you will attempt to bring many and varied family members together in total peace and harmony to enjoy each other’s company, assisted by nothing more than … Read more
Fruit are ovaries, and when Wā Collective founder and executive menstruator Olie Body asked Michelle O to feel her cherries the former first lady dived right in. Who would have thought I’d meet Michelle Obama in my old yoga pants, the ones I’ve sewn up at the crotch multiple times, the ones with some pink … Read more
If we started seeing it as a process of becoming more and more ourselves, would we find more value in ageing? For the first 15 years of my life, I desperately wanted to be older. Then came a period of about the same length during which I enjoyed being young. In my fourth decade, I’ve … Read more
With fast fashion impacting both feminism and the climate crisis, Alex Casey goes on the hunt for a solution in our climate emergency episode of On the Rag. Watch episode one of On the Rag: ‘Periods’ here Watch episode two of On the Rag: ‘Body hair’ here Watch episode three of On the Rag: ‘Being online’ here Watch … Read more
Thirty per cent of the Swedish population live in public housing. New Zealand could learn a lot from their system, argues a former Auckland renter. After many years living in rented flats in Wellington and Auckland, I’ve found myself living in public housing in Gothenburg, Sweden. I’m writing home to tell the tale of a … Read more
OPINION: Flick Electric CEO Steve O’Connor explains why the independent power retailers are calling out the major gentailers. When we started Flick Electric Co. back in 2014, we had a dream in mind: an Aotearoa backed by a reliable electricity industry, where our most vulnerable communities can afford the cost of power, and where our … Read more
*Yes it is. But in the latest episode of On The Rag, based on the podcast of the same name, Michele, Alex and Leonie go looking for all the reasons we have to be a little bit hopeful. In this end-of-year, possibly end-of-world episode, Michele does the unthinkable on behalf of all boomers, Alex discovers … Read more
It’s the holidays! We’re all stressed, and we can all be kind of on edge. So here’s a few easy tips to not being a dick to those around you, and also not being a dick to yourself. Was there ever a point in time where the end of the year didn’t bring stress? And … Read more
The Side Eye is a monthly non-fiction comic by Toby Morris, supported by NZ On Air. Read the rest of the series here.
Madeleine Chapman looks back at ten years of global migration from the real world to the online world. Nothing has changed humanity and how we navigate it more than the internet in the 2010s. In 2010, the world had the internet. In 2019, the world is Online. The internet at the start of the decade … Read more
A big win for the Conservative Party ushers in another five years of the same environmental policy for Britain, and England especially, which conceives of the natural world as a collection of resources to incorporate into the economy. Aotearoa is brave enough to go another way, writes Carys Goodwin In a deafening election, a handful … Read more
The medical professionals at Family Planning New Zealand are uniquely qualified on the subject of things that go in and out of vaginas, so please listen to them when they tell you to stop putting these things up there. It’s 2019, friends, and we wish we didn’t have to say this, but as an organisation … Read more
Even on a subject that can generate pearl-clutching, good policy-making wouldn’t be complete without a discussion of the benefits, writes Jenesa Jeram When I was a kid, I was the last of my friends to learn what a BJ stood for. Of course, I pretended I knew, because that’s what kids do. It’s quite possible … Read more
From New Zealand’s biggest band selling out Western Springs to a landmark moment for Pasifika women onstage, these are the live events that shaped New Zealand this decade. An anchor in the middle of the deep blue sea: Daffodils, 2014 “Daffodils should play all over the country. It should play all over the world. It resonates … Read more
For a lot of people, there’s not much joy to be found at Christmas. Emily Writes spoke to Dr Sarah Bell-Booth and Gwendoline Smith about how to deal with the hard stuff in the face of all that relentless holiday cheer. Despite my anxiety, I generally enjoy Christmas now that I can do it on … Read more
NZ Herald and many other media outlets ran a story on a man whose farts could repel mosquitos, despite the story coming from a satire news site and not being verified in any way, writes Dan Satherly for Newshub. “Man’s farts so deadly he kills mosquitoes in a 6m radius” is a headline difficult to … Read more
The success stories of people with extra struggles may not get awards and trophies, but they’re worth celebrating all the same, says Jai Breitnauer. It’s the time of year for awards assemblies and prize-givings, for clubs and teams handing out certificates and trophies. It’s traditional, as we approach Christmas and the end of the school … Read more
In this hard-hitting episode of current affairs show OTR 24/7, lady journalist Leonie Hayden comes face to face with one of society’s most elusive figures. “Hey baby, show us ya [insert weird word for body part here]!” To many women and non-binary folks this is a common greeting, usually delivered with great pizzazz by a … Read more
Last year, we published the anonymous account of a Koru Club member who was denied their mandated birthright entry into the Koru Club. This Koru Club member returns to give us their harrowing, haunting account of the day the Koru Lounge went dry. “Bye, bye miss American Pie. Drove the Chevy to the levee but … Read more
The fatal eruption on Whakaari on Monday may force the tourism industry to review its current rules, writes tourism professor Michael Lueck. The official death toll is six and eight people are still missing, presumed to have died, in Monday’s volcanic eruption at Whakaari/White Island. The people on the island were tourists and tour guides, … Read more
Sending in armed police is exactly how not to defuse a situation where a person is highly distressed and suicidal, writes someone who has been in a similar situation herself. Last week a man was shot by police. There’d been a call for help – he was suicidal, had a weapon – the police responded, … Read more
Cindy Baxter is at COP25 – her 17th climate change conference – and for the first time, New Zealand is one of the good guys. But are we? As we head into the second week of the climate talks in Madrid, I’ve been reflecting over the first week, and the strange position many of us … Read more
We may be called fuckwits. We may be called idiots. But the optimism keeps on, writes Chris Cessford. As spring lurches into summer, Wellington wakes up to another day of a crazy-making gusty northerly gale. Or, as we cyclists in the southern suburbs call it, a head wind. I fasten my helmet tightly and grit … Read more