On fire and hope and this time last year. Extracted from Living With the Climate Crisis: Voices from Aotearoa, a BWB Text anthology edited by Tom Doig. The city below us looked nothing like Melbourne. Wreathed in thick brown smoke, it resembled some post-apocalyptic ghost town, an End Times vision from a science fiction film. … Read more
We did it, folks. This hell year is finally over. Emily Writes has some suggestions for celebrating 2020’s departure the way it deserves. It has been a year of highs and lows, but mostly lows. A lot of lows. Fire, pandemic, enforced family team – it’s been dramatic. So this New Year I am exorcising … Read more
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin’s 2020 Year in News Quiz. Merry Christmas. It’s back again – The Bulletin’s Christmas Day Year in News Quiz is here, due to popular demand following last year’s edition. If you look around your Christmas gathering this year and remember which of your beloved family got more answers … Read more
Pour yourself some eggnog and join the hosts of The Spinoff’s podcast network for our annual Superpod. Once a year delegates from Gone By Lunchtime, Dietary Requirements, The Real Pod, Papercuts, The Fold and On The Rag gather around some microphones to discuss the key events, issues, heroes and villains of the previous 12 months. … Read more
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington. Today’s charts cover the whole of 2020, up until the end of Sunday, December 20. A note on Auē – we’re pretty … Read more
The contents list is nearing completion, and the location options are coming together nicely. Last week we announced our plan to literally encapsulate the year 2020, and literally to bury it: a time capsule. A bit futuristic, a bit nostalgic, and a convenient alternative to reviewing the year by staring helplessly into the endless void. … Read more
At the end of the relatively normal year 2019, The Spinoff asked a dozen pundits to give us their wildest prediction for the political year to come. Nobody comes out of this looking good, writes Alex Braae. Punditry is challenging at the best of times. The random nature of events often leaves the most insightful … Read more
The year 2020 is about to burn itself out and we can all put it behind us. Despite its terribleness, José Barbosa argues 2020 will be remembered as the ultimate fork in the road. In the last 12 months we’ve all been witness to some remarkable things. I needn’t go over them all here, but … Read more
The Spinoff launched a plan to bury a time capsule containing the epitome of this hell year before working out where we were going to plant the thing. Josie Adams was tasked with finding somewhere suitable. So, you want to bury a time capsule. First, stop. Does the future need this? Historians in a century … Read more
They’re under parliament buildings, in opera houses, even floating through space. And now The Spinoff is about to bury one for 2020. While stashing stuff for future humans to unearth has been a tradition for thousands of years, when did ‘time capsules’ become a thing? At the beginning of high school, it is these days … Read more
This has been a year of amazement and endurance. Let’s bury it together. How do you tell a story like 2020? The lockdown year. The bubble year. The suppurating mouth ulcer year. As with just about every media operation around this infectious planet, we’ve been wondering how to sum up such a terrible and cacophonous … Read more
The Spinoff Members enjoy many benefits, including a special treat in their inbox every Thursday – the Bulletin World Weekly, an international news round-up focusing on the best journalism from around the globe. As a festive bonus, we’re sharing the final one of the year with all our readers. In the last Bulletin World Weekly … Read more
James Borrowdale learns the stories behind the images nominated for the New Zealand Geographic Photographer of the Year. The room is crowded, cramped with the memories and resonances of a life. “A simple life lived, and a hard life lived,” photographer Nathan Secker said of his entry, a finalist in the Lumix Society category of … Read more
The winner of the Taite Music Prize for 2020 is Troy Kingi, for his reggae album Holy Colony Burning Acres. Troy Kingi and the Upperclass have won the Taite Music Prize, an award for artistic and creative excellence in New Zealand music. Holy Colony Burning Acres is the third instalment of Kingi’s 10-year plan: 10 … Read more
Good morning, and welcome to the last Bulletin of 2019. Here’s a collection of some of the people and issues who will shape the news in 2020. It’s the end of another year. I’ve got a few thoughts further down the page on that, but to start with, today’s Bulletin will be about looking ahead. Like … Read more