Bringing you the best weekly reading from your friendly local website. Daniel Couch: Why aspiring National leader Mark Mitchell’s war-for-profit past matters “In several countries, such as the United States of America, it is commonplace for former soldiers to serve in the highest positions of elected office. In most of these instances that armed service has … Read more
Bringing you the best weekly reading from your friendly local website. Rebecca Stevenson: The rise and fall of CricHQ, the star-backed ‘Facebook for cricket’ With Stephen Fleming and Brendon McCullum among its founders, CricHQ capitalised on global interest in both cricket and cloud-based internet startups. It attracted a star-studded lineup of investors and seemed hugely successful, … Read more
Bringing you the best weekly reading from your friendly local website. Jacinda Ardern: ‘I want to be able to tell my child I have earned the right to stand here “And if we value that about ourselves as a nation 364 days of the year, why would we not value it here at Waitangi. I will … Read more
Bringing you the best weekly reading from your friendly local website. Leigh Hart: An open letter from Screaming Reels to our confused Australian neighbours “Many Australian viewers are suggesting that the broadcaster 7 Mate has mistakenly scheduled the programme at the wrong time, a time normally reserved for serious educational documentary programming. As far as … Read more
Bringing you the best weekly reading from your friendly local website. Annabelle Lee: Why Jacinda Ardern’s decision to spend five days at Waitangi is a really big deal “Every Waitangi it’s the same. The lack of gratitude shown by Māori at being among the poorest, sickest, most unemployed and incarcerated people in Aotearoa is an ongoing … Read more
Bringing you the best weekly reading from your friendly local website. James Roque: Think the racist menu is OK? Fine! Just know you’re making others feel like shit “Now, before I smash my head into my keyboard out of sheer frustration and exhaustion at having to deal with stuff like this, let’s get one thing … Read more
Bringing you the best weekly reading from your friendly local website. Louisa Woods: How to talk to your children about Logan Paul’s suicide video “I’m not going to debate whether or not the video should have been posted. It should not. Apart from the utter disrespect shown to the man and his family, the lack … Read more
It may surprise you to hear that not every article published on the Spinoff is read by tens of thousands of discerning punters. Here are some of the (relatively) neglected crop that we think warranted more click-love in no particular order. 1. The Art of the Thiel Super-wealthy internet tycoon, Trump-booster and ordinary Kiwi geezer … Read more
Clicks and content, content and clicks: these are the videos that attracted the most eyeballs on friendly fledgling website ‘the Spinoff’ this year. 10 The original MacGyver is a stone-cold 80s classic, with a likeably earnest hero and a lot of heart. The reboot, which started screening on Prime all the way back in January? … Read more
Clicks and content, content and clicks: these are the posts that attracted the most eyeballs on friendly fledgling website ‘The Spinoff’ this year. 20 Parents in low income families are always being told that they’re making bad choices in the supermarket; many wealthy or comfortable families seem to believe they’d be better able to survive … Read more
Bringing you the best weekly reading from your friendly local website. Simon Wilson and Madeleine Chapman: The rookie and the food critic head to KFC “I know a lot of people hate KFC. It’s the epitome of grease and Big Fast Food and very few people who eat it for the first time as adults … Read more
Bringing you the best weekly reading from your friendly local website. Sam Brooks: A play-by-play of Kim Hill’s medium rare roasting of Don Brash “When it was announced that Don Brash was going to be interviewed by Kim Hill on Saturday Morning, I was both excited and dismayed. Excited because I knew that it wasn’t going … Read more
Bringing you the best weekly reading from your friendly local website. Madeleine Holden: Why is Sky bringing Tony Veitch back to our screens? “It’s an odd indictment of New Zealand’s insular culture that in a global climate in which high-profile abusers are being outed and ousted from public life, we are instead choosing to reward … Read more
Bring you the best weekly reading from your friendly local website. Alex Casey: Turns out Andrew from MAFSNZ was an absolute pig on Tinder “Andrew Jury, a participant on Married at First Sight NZ, sent abusive messages to a woman on Tinder, calling her a “whore” after she refused his request to “satisfy my Asian fetish.” Jury … Read more
Bringing you the best weekly reading from your friendly local website. The Spinoff: MAXCLUSIVE! Max Key* destroys Eminem career in diss track The National Party lost a lot this year. An election, a fiscal hole, a Winston Peters, and now a healthy sum of $600,000 to Eight Mile Style for using a sound-alike of Eminem’s … Read more
Bringing you the best weekly reading from your friendly local website. Emmaline Matagi: How to dress your Pākehā child up as Maui or Moana without appropriating Pasifika culture Disney’s Moana has been a smash hit in New Zealand. Children everywhere want to dress up as characters from the movie. So how do you let your child … Read more
Bringing you the best weekly reading from your friendly local website. Simon Wilson: 10 things Auckland desperately needs from the new government Is Auckland in crisis over transport, housing, schools, you name it, or are we heading in the right direction? The answer, says Simon Wilson, is yes. Here’s what the city really needs from … Read more
Compiling the best reading from your friendly local website. Alex Casey: Review: Married at First Sight NZ will melt your stone cold heart “As social psychology expert Pani Farvid says, nodding emphatically, more New Zealanders are single in 2017 than ever before. Haydn is done with the small talk. Angel is sick of ‘sticking in … Read more
Compiling the best reading from your friendly local website. Hayden Donnell: All the people I’m extremely mad at after the election There’s been a lot of sober, informative analysis following Saturday’s election. Spinoff public transport tsar Simon Wilson explained the things we learned from the vote, and the delicate dance of democracy both major parties are … Read more
Compiling the best reading from your friendly local website. Jane Yee: I was there when The Block NZ shat itself “As the season recap and Block Party footage played I started to get excited about the auction. I’d watched 54 hours of the show over the last three months and was giddy with the thought of liberty. … Read more
Compiling the best reading from your friendly local website. Chris McDowall: A visual history of the New Zealand parliament “For months I’ve followed news about New Zealand’s upcoming general election. Revelations! Resignations! Leadership changes! Bold policy promises! Shock poll results! In this heightened political moment, I found myself wondering about the past. How does this … Read more
Compiling the best reading from your friendly local website. Emily Writes: Putting to bed bad advice about infant and toddler sleep “Let me start by saying I’ve tried every single thing possible to get my children to sleep at night. Now, aged two and four – they mostly sleep. Usually for about five hours straight. Which … Read more
Compiling the best reading from your friendly local website. Kiki Van Newtown: What it’s like to grow up poor in New Zealand “The thing about being poor is that nobody ever intends to end up that way. My family were always working class, but I was about seven when I realised we were actually poor, … Read more
Compiling the best reading from your friendly local website. Toby Manhire: Jacinda Ardern and Kelvin Davis: why this is terrible for Labour, and why it is brilliant “At her first press conference as leader of the Labour Party, Jacinda Ardern has promised to run “the campaign of our lives”. She and new deputy Kelvin Davis, who … Read more
Compiling the best reading from your friendly local website. Lucy Kelly: I had an eating disorder, and To The Bone gets it almost completely wrong “Anorexia is not these gaunt girls looking like Kate Moss with dark eyeliner and baggy clothes; anorexia is not beautiful. It is not a phase, it’s not a diet gone too … Read more
Compiling the best reading from your friendly local website. Harriet Gale: What the hell went wrong with Parnell Station? “[Parnell Station] will always be out of the way and down the hill, tucked away via a warren of dog-leg back alleys. It’s hard to find, physically hard to walk to and so deserted it’s a little … Read more
Compiling the best reading from your friendly local website. Carlene Newall de Jesus: When rugby brings out the worst “The level of inappropriateness was shocking. These were not catcalls, these were the sounds of lions preying on the vulnerable. Literally. Ninety percent of the harassment came from men wearing the recognisable red and white Lions … Read more
Compiling the best reading from your friendly local website. Tara Ward: What the hell has happened to Lily from the Big Save Furniture ads? You’ll need to sit down on your corner lounge suite for this one, because Lily’s legendary Big Save Furniture ads are no more. Gone is the wide-eyed glee, the over-enthusiastic shouting, … Read more
Compiling the best reading from your friendly local website. Sam Brooks: A one-act play about ‘The Louvre’ from Lorde’s new album Melodrama “There are Kettle crisps at Lou’s party. There are RTDs that Marty’s creepy older boyfriend he met on Tinder bought for everybody. But they’re disgusting so Aroha is mixing them with her dad’s … Read more