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‘So,” a colleague recently asked, “who were your family?” A weird question, you might think. But it’s actually even weirder than it sounds. And in fact, in Germany, it could even be considered mildly menacing. Why did she ask that? the discomforted questionee worried. What does she want to know? The unease stems from World War II, which ended for Germany with surrender 78 years ago this month, and the country’s culture of “Vergangenheitsbewältigung”, which translates roughly to “dealing with the past”. That awkward question actually means something along the lines of, what did your grandfather do during the war? Was your granny a Nazi Party member? Were your relatives victims, bystanders or perpetrators? Germany is often praised for the way it has dealt with its horrific history. But, as one local historian, Oliver von…

It’s time we stopped making excuses for the appalling deaths on our roads. It’s not because of bad weather, bad roads, old cars, “bloody tourists” or the Covid vaccine turning drivers blind. If we drove well, the previous factors would be taken care of, but instead we choose to drive badly. (Not you and me, of course; our driving is exemplary. It’s the other couple of million who are the problem.) This attitude is demonstrated by a recent online exchange I saw where an individual announced that it was fine for drivers like him to tailgate others because of their “superior driving ability”. Maybe if Sir Lewis Hamilton had moved to Warkworth and changed his name to Brent, there would be some truth in this, but it seems unlikely. It appears most…

It was more than 30 years ago that, as a recruit at the Sydney Morning Herald, I was told a wild story by a knockabout, cocky bloke in a faded jean jacket and lefty T-shirt from inside the central Sydney headquarters of the Australian Labor Party (ALP). Anthony Albanese was then a 26-year-old assistant secretary for the Left faction in the party’s avowedly right-wing headquarters; the future prime minister was a warrior for social justice while the Zegna suits of the dominant Right lunched power and influence with Sydney’s moneyed movers. Albanese thought them spivs. The loathing was mutual. Right-faction operatives rifled through his desk, and had instructed receptionists not to put calls through to him. A Right leader threatened that anyone who seconded a motion by Albanese would be expelled from…

SATURDAY MAY 27 PLAYMOBIL: THE MOVIE Lego: the cash-in Whakaata Māori, 7.00pm It featured the voices of Anya Taylor-Joy and Daniel Radcliffe among others but this French animated attempt to do to the German toy franchise what Hollywood had done for Dutch Lego didn’t even make for a decent commercial for the toys it was based on. (2019) THE BOURNE IDENTITY The thrill ride begins TVNZ 2, 7.30pm Starting tonight’s double feature is Matt Damon’s great first outing as Jason Bourne, the amnesiac agent from Robert Ludlum’s novels. It set the bar for what was a terrific original trilogy and became something of a game-changer in the action movie business. (2002) PUNCH Above its weight class Rialto, 8.30pm Auckland director Welby Ings deftly combines sports drama and a teenage coming-out story in his debut feature. It’s a dreamy, curiously timeless melodrama in…

We live in Nelson. A few months ago, my partner and I went out on a Sunday afternoon and came back to find our house had been red-stickered. In an instant, our regular routines ground to a halt. Our plans for the future, which we previously measured in years, immediately shrank to days. We were able to make temporary arrangements, but anything after Christmas is a total void. Despite this fear and insecurity, a part of me felt more alive, shaken out of my humdrum life. I had to appreciate the present, because that was all there was. The gaping void I spent so much time ignoring while I brushed my teeth, watched TV and ate my meals could not be ignored. I came closer to seeing the real me; not…

After starring in the 1980s television adaptation of Colleen McCullough’s The Thorn Birds, English-born actress Rachel Ward married her co-star Bryan Brown and moved to Australia, where they raised their three children. Over the years, Ward has moved away from acting in favour of directing, writing and activism. Most recently, she has turned her hand to agriculture, transforming her rural New South Wales property into a regenerative farm, a transition she documents in the feature-length film Rachel’s Farm, playing at the upcoming Doc Edge Festival. Your lineage goes back to Henry VIII. What was childhood like for a posh kid in the Cotswolds? I was sent to boarding school when I was 10, which meant I became independent really quickly. Being away from my family was no problem for me, and I…

Cutting the throat of a sheep with a knife was once a coming of age for Kiwi blokes, and it was certainly for almost a century an essential first step in one of the country’s most important sources of wealth – the export of refrigerated lamb and mutton to the United Kingdom. This trade began on December 6, 1881, when six butchers at Tōtara Estate, near Ōamaru in North Otago, began slaughtering sheep. Some of these knives, imported from Sheffield, the great British home of knife-making, were used to kill the sheep, skin them, disembowel them, behead them, and finally cut away the surplus fat. It was a highly skilled job and the butchers prepared about 40 sheep each day, making a daily total of 240. The carcasses were then taken…

THE CHAOS OF UPHEAVAL CAN CREATE OPPORTUNITY. Take the dawning EV revolution, which has already seen a startup car company rocket past century-old competitors to become the most valuable automaker on earth. In the latest upset, a Korean brand best known for low prices, long warranties, and liberal financing has created a machine with performance that rivals the most revered Germans. In nomenclature, the difference between the Kia EV6 GT and the lesser EV6 GT-Line models is slight. That Kia denotes the top-performing version of its mid-size EV by reducing rather than adding to the nameplate is something of an undersell, but the GT’s hardware shows the intensity of this effort. The headline achievement is the powertrain. Other dual-motor, all-wheel-drive EV6 models serve up 320 total horsepower; the GT, presumably after downing a…

CHRISTMAS EVE SATURDAY DECEMBER 24 CHRISTMAS AT CASTLE HOWARD; CHRISTMAS AT CHATSWORTH HOUSE; CHRISTMAS AT HOLKHAM HALL A festive heritage binge Screening: TVNZ 1, 7.00pm, 8.05pm and 9.05pm Streaming: TVNZ+ A three-episode serving from a Channel 4 series about Christmas preparations at Britain’s stately homes, whose owners will have welcomed the chance to pitch to the paying visitors who fund their continued existence. Fans of Bridgerton and Brideshead Revisited should tune in for the episode featuring Yorkshire’s Castle Howard, which starred in both shows. Chatsworth House is even more of a feature of popular culture, having been employed in Pride and Prejudice, Barry Lyndon, The Bounty, The Crown and many more. Holkham Hall, completed in 1764, is notable for its art collection – the financial recklessness of its original owner, Thomas Coke, the first Earl…

SATURDAY APRIL 29 BRIDGE TO TERABITHIA A world of our own Three, 7.00pm A decent made-in-NZ and unusually sad American fantasy flick based on the 1977 story by Katherine Paterson, with a script by her son. It starred AnnaSophia Robb and Josh Hutcherson as two pre-teens who discover a Narnia-like world that they use as escape from their real lives. (2007) FAST & FURIOUS PRESENTS HOBBS & SHAW Super-sized sideshow TVNZ 2, 7.30pm Enjoyably outlandish action franchise spinoff that has Dwayne Johnson’s agent Luke Hobbs teaming up with former enemy Jason Statham’s Deckard Shaw and his sister (Vanessa Kirby) against Idris Elba’s seemingly superhuman villain. He chases them all the way to Samoa, where Hobbs’ extended family includes Cliff Curtis and John Tui. (2019) 20TH CENTURY WOMEN Mother knows best Eden 8.30pm From Mike Mills a poignant coming-of-age film of sorts with…

The Tavistock Centre is a mental health trust located a couple of minutes’ walk from the Freud Museum, where Sigmund Freud lived and his daughter Anna practised. Set in the Hampstead foothills, it’s a leafy corner of North London renowned for its psychotherapeutic history and illustrious connections. Carl Jung gave lectures at the Tavistock in one of its early incarnations and over the years the clinic has established an international reputation for expertise in medical psychology. But in the past two decades, its image has increasingly become synonymous with one particular department within the centre, the Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS). The service, which has treated thousands of young people suffering from gender dysphoria (discomfort with their born gender), has found itself at the centre of the dispute about the nature…

I first learned about Michèle Mouton when I was in my early 20s, just about the same age she was when she first got in a race car in 1973, the inaugural year of the World Rally Championship. The race was the famously difficult Monte Carlo Rally, and Mouton was navigating for a friend. She said she had no idea what she was getting into: “When he first asked me if I wanted to co-drive for a rally, I said, ‘What’s rally?’” I was working at a motorcycle shop and had also never heard of rally racing. One of the mechanics told me I looked like “that French lady driver.” I didn’t, but I did wear my dark hair in long braids and had a habit of glaring at people—so, close…

The schedule of what constitutes a modern, social faux pas has just grown by the entire catalogue of Carl Linnaeus. The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) says it’s time we stopped being disrespectful to weeds. It would rather we not use the discriminatory “w” word any more for unwanted plants. In solidarity, the influential Chelsea Flower Show is again to feature what we’re being re-educated to call “resilient plants” and “rewilding” – which to a traditional gardener has always been understood as simple laziness. Though casting centuries of gardening practice into disrepute, this new approach has a lot going for it besides happier knees and less back pain. Weeds feed and house wild life, and a straggly swathe of buttercup is just as good for the environment, carbon-sink-wise, as the prized garden plants whose…

SATURDAY DECEMBER 4 ACTION: ALEX RIDER (TVNZ OnDemand). Last year’s first season of the series adapted from Anthony Horovitz’s teen espionage novels was terrific in how it married 007-inspired escapism to a plausible, non-sanitised adolescent world. It also captured the spirit of the books without feeling beholden to them. Hopefully, that’s the case with the second series, which adapts the fourth book, Eagle Strike, and its story involving gaming billionaire Damian Cray, a dangerous hacker and a global plot that has Rider caught between his MI6 minders and the CIA. Otto Farrant returns to the lead role in a cast that also brings back Vicky McClure (Line of Duty) and Stephen Dillane (Vigil). Playing Cray is Toby Stephens, who has some previous form: he played villain Gustav Graves in 2002 Bond…

After the shock of Wuhan, China closed its borders in early 2020, locked down Covid-infected areas, and tested, tracked and traced domestic travellers. For two years, China has been largely Covid-free, demonstrating the effectiveness of its zero-tolerance policy, which probably saved hundreds of thousands of lives and enabled continued strong economic growth. The Omicron variant is now challenging that strategy. An outbreak in Shanghai has affected more than 300,000 people, and at least 190 died last month alone. Anotheroutbreak in Beijing sparked panic buying. Many residents of Shanghai are claiming that Beijing’s prevention and containment measures are deadlier than the disease. Citizens are frustrated and angry after being locked down for weeks, facing shortages of food and medicines. Many with acute illnesses unrelated to Covid have died, as hospitals are ostensibly closed to…

SINOSTAN: CHINA’S INADVERTENT EMPIRE, by Raffaello Pantucci and Alexandros Petersen (Oxford University Press, £20) News broke in April that China and the Solomon Islands had signed a security pact. In return, last month the US and allies, including New Zealand, launched “Partners in the Blue Pacific” (PBP). Great Power competition had reached our waters. But what could a Chinese Pacific venture look like? A new book examining Chinese expansion along the old Silk Road into the neighbouring Central Asia region offers at least some clues. Political philosophers Raffaello Pantucci and Alexandros Petersen began visiting and researching China in the region of the “stans” in 2012. Two years later, Petersen was killed in a bomb attack on a restaurant in Kabul, Afghanistan. But Pantucci, a researcher in terrorism and security, has carried on. The…

I am a lifelong reader of newspapers. We still get the printed edition of the Washington Post, mostly because, at my age, if I don’t go out and get the newspaper after starting the coffee how the hell am I supposed to know my day has begun? These days, however, one must approach the Post with eyes narrowed to a slit lest you see the front page in its entirety, and the comprehensive awfulness of it sends you racing back to bed. Even a careless glance at a rarely visited section can ruin your day. Like this morning, when in the process of delicately removing the sports section – still the safest spot in the paper, though horrors have lurked in its pages all too regularly of late – the business…

King Charles’ coronation had people the world over debating many unexpected things, from the palatability of broad beans to the inability of nobles to deploy mothballs. By the time people got around to asking, “And what the heck is Nick Cave doing there?”, the supposedly burning question, whither the monarchy, barely got a look-in. Avowed and lofty republicans swarmed from afar for the crowning glory, none exactly underdressed. Equally oddly, broad beans, which feature in the official coronation dish, were the perfect double metaphor for the occasion. They taste horribly bitter to many people and this can only be ameliorated by double-podding. This is an absolute faff, unless one has the staff to do this for one. Happily, when one’s new gig is kinging, one absolutely has. Republicans were disappointed no toffs appeared…

The most difficult thing about urban design improvements, former Dunedin mayor Aaron Hawkins told me recently, “is that you have to make the case for them as an abstraction. And humans don’t do abstraction well, as a general rule.” Any proposal for change creates a vacuum: detailed design can’t be done until funding is secured. Until that stage, Hawkins said, “The conservative voices can just wave their arms around and say, ‘Nobody will be able to access the city centre ever again. Crime will skyrocket. It must be stopped!’ So, of course, people sign a petition saying, ‘Please don’t do what conservative politicians say you’re going to do.’” He was referring to the controversy over an upgrade of Dunedin’s main retail strip, George St, which undoubtedly played a role in Hawkins, who…

Here at Lush Places, the bunting has come down. Actually, it never went up. But I did make a quiche to celebrate the coronation. That is also a lie. I made a quiche because we, unlike the odious British Tory Jacob Rees-Mogg, like a quiche. He said: “I don’t like quiche, it’s disgusting, I wouldn’t dream of having it.” This seemed to be a good enough reason to indulge in a quiche. The coronation of King Charlie was quite the spectacle. Watching it was very strange, a time warp, akin to being transported back in time 700 years. But it will mostly be remembered as the dividing of a kingdom over a quiche. Only the English could get their Marks and Sparks knickers in such a twist over a bit of…

1st Daughters Lorina (11) and Isabella (9) unload mum Christine’s new Chesterfield sofa, using dad MANFRED KROPF’S 2.2 TDCi Defender 130 to carry it right to the door of their hilltop home in Ratten, Austria. We’re sure Mum and Dad stepped in to help at some point… ‘A nicely staged family shot from Manfred, with that beautiful sofa almost stealing the limelight from the equally beautiful 130.’ NEIL WATTERSON, EDITOR‘I feel like I need a stiff drink just looking at this amazing photo. Well done, Anthony!’NEIL WATTERSON, EDITOR WIN! gear in the next issue of LRO To browse the full range of gear, go to exmoortrim.co.uk 1st PRIZE Exmoor Trim T-shirt, mug, coffee cup, flask and keyring worth £50.99 2nd PRIZE Exmoor Trim T-shirt and mug worth £27.99 Send pics to wolr@LRO.com. Include a description of the vehicle and…

Anyone who has ever visited a nursing home will have seen them, trapped in their recliners, mouths open and eyes blank, being fed liquids from sippy cups: elderly people who are entirely dependent on their carers. Some look close to death; arguably, their quality of life is so diminished they may as well be. It can be difficult to see these people. None of us want to envisage ourselves spending our final years that way. But we ought to be envisaging it, says Canadian-American doctor and longevity expert Peter Attia. He believes we should be spending more time with those who are in their final 10 years – what he terms “the marginal decade” – and thinking about what we want for that time in our own lives. We need to…

FOSTER’S RECORD 66.7 % wins 16 wins 1 Draw 7 defeats Historic series loss to Ireland First loss to Argentina ‘THE HORSE HAD CANS THROWN AT HIM. HE’D DONE NOTHING WRONG. THE POOR HORSE DIDN’T KNOW WE’D LOST THE WORLD CUP.”’ John Hart was spat on. His horse had beer cans thrown at it. Wayne Smith once had a human turd left in his letter box with a note suggesting it reflected his coaching ability. And Ian Foster was abused getting off the team bus after the second test loss to Ireland in Dunedin. Blaming the coach is a national sport and Foster would be advised to stay away from social media as he is being eviscerated there after the historic series defeat to Ireland. It’s left his coaching tenure hanging by a thread - and rightly so - but his fellow…

Humans burn about 2000-3000 calories a day, no matter how much exercise they do. Herman Pontzer, an associate professor of evolutionary anthropology at Duke University, North Carolina, published these findings in his recent book, Burn, after delving into the lives of hunter-gatherer tribes in East Africa and exploring why they don’t burn more calories than sedentary office workers in New York. Over a decade, Pontzer and colleagues discovered that exercise doesn’t increase our metabolism. The majority of calories are burnt in the process of keeping us alive – in breathing and digestion, for example – while only a small percentage is expended on exercise. “Our metabolic engines were not crafted by millions of years of evolution to guarantee a beach-ready bikini body,” Pontzer says. “Rather, our metabolism has been primed to pack…

‘Kia ora,” I said. June the postie gave me a look. “Kia ora,” she said, and smiled. Then: “Kei te pēhea koe?” It was my turn to give a look. “Er, sorry, ‘kia ora’ is about as far as my Māori goes,” I mumbled. We gave each other more looks. What she could see was me going as red as a sunburnt bum. What I could see was her smiling at me as I went as red as a sunburnt bum. “‘Kei te pēhea koe?’ means ‘how are you?’” June continued, as if speaking to a slightly dim child, which, by this time, felt about right. “What should I say in return?” I ventured. “You should say ‘Kei te pai’, ‘I’m good’.” “Kei te …” “Kei te pai,” June repeated, then “Eat the pie!” She hooted…

It would be hard to find a more impressive-sounding organisation than the Institute for Pure and Applied Knowledge. It publishes the Public Health Policy Journal, which has a list of distinguished board members. There are neurosurgeons and university professors, experts in paediatrics and ophthalmology: a lot of impressive titles. If you were a respected academic, wouldn’t you want to be in that company? Certainly, Dr Simon Thornley of the University of Auckland must have thought so. Thornley, a senior lecturer in epidemiology, jointly authored a controversial paper that was published by the journal as peer reviewed. It called for withdrawing the Covid vaccine roll-out to all children, pregnant women, and people of “child-bearing age”. The paper has now been withdrawn — there are multiple studies showing the vaccines are safe during pregnancy — but…

Anyone who’s ever had a child, dog, or recalcitrant Roomba knows that without the ability to dole out consequences, domestic tranquillity is as elusive as a balanced diet in Willy Wonkaland. Imagine for a moment a home with kids, pets and other wilful creatures where there are no consequences, no matter how obnoxious the behaviour, then quickly dash the image from your mind, as it will haunt you, I promise. Sadly, that’s pretty much where US politics lives right now. The latest and most egregious example involves Kevin McCarthy, minority leader of the House of Representatives and one of Donald Trump’s most treasured sycophants. The New York Times recently reported that McCarthy, shortly after the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol, told fellow Republicans he’d “had it with this guy”,…

Max.Adams@haymarket.com DID YOU PREFER the Snickers bar when it was called a Marathon? Think Opal Fruits were tastier than Starburst? Sometimes changing a product’s brand name can influence buyers’ preferences, even when there’s no difference under the wrapper. And now the Subaru Solterra, which is virtually identical to the Toyota bZ4X, is here to test that theory. This isn’t the first time the two brands have teamed up; Subaru’s BR-Z sports car was the twin of Toyota’s GT86, and it made sense to tie up again in the lucrative electric SUV field. The biggest difference between the Solterra and bZX4 is that the former forgoes the latter’s cheaper 198bhp front-wheel-drive option; it’s available only in more potent four-wheel-drive form, with one electric motor driving the front wheels and another for the rears. RIVALS Kia…

NOBODY LOOKS forward to shuffling through a sluggish customs line when traveling. Now imagine gaining entry to another country within 15 seconds, no human interaction or physical documents required. This hypothetical already exists with the Smart Tunnel, which uses biometrics along with facial- and iris-recognition technology to verify passengers’ identities with 80 cameras, and then processes that data using artificial intelligence. Dubai International Airport piloted the Smart Tunnel in 2018 — the world’s first technology of its kind. Many travelers have probably already undergone some sort of biometric screening process in U.S. airports. After the 9/11 attacks, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its interior agencies ramped up security measures to confirm travelers’ identities and snuff out potential terrorist threats. In 2003, U.S. airports began screening the faces and fingerprints…

In New Zealand, the Ministry of Health is reviewing evidence on the safety and reversibility of puberty blockers, in line with the UK, Sweden, Norway and other countries, and a report is expected later this month. Previous advice on Te Whatu Ora Health New Zealand’s website that the drugs were safe and fully reversible has been removed. Epidemiologist Charlotte Paul says health professionals are divided on the issue, but she’s pleased the ministry seems to be moving towards a more cautious approach. Rates of young people taking puberty blockers are many times higher than in England and Wales, the emeritus professor from the University of Otago says. According to drug agency Pharmac, the number of under-18-year-olds being prescribed puberty blockers has jumped from 137 in 2012 to 771 in 2022. But veteran GP…

SATURDAY JANUARY 14 DORA AND THE LOST CITY OF GOLD Backpacking in Peru Three, 7.00pm An inspired, self-aware live-action adaptation of the Dora the Explorer kids’ cartoon series, with the teenage heroine on a mission to rescue her parents from a hidden Inca city. (2019) WATERSHIP DOWN Oma rāpeti Whakaata Māori, 7.00pm There was a Netflix/BBC remake a few years back, but this first animated feature of Richard Adams’ best-selling bunny saga is still the stuff of nightmares. Even before Art Garfunkel starts singing Bright Eyes. (1978) JOHNNY ENGLISH Bean meets Bond TVNZ 2, 8.00pm The first and arguably the worst of Rowan Atkinson’s three spy spoofs, this one involved some nonsense about stealing the Crown Jewels and John Malkovich’s French villain claiming the throne from QEII by threatening her corgis. (2003) THE ACCOUNTANT Rain Man meets hitman Eden, 8.30pm Sleek and enjoyably ludicrous action-thriller starring…

SATURDAY JANUARY 22 JURASSIC PARK III (TVNZ 2, 7.00pm). After sitting out the first sequel, Sam Neill’s Dr Alan Grant returned for this patchy Steven Spielberg-free instalment. Still, it had its moments – like the one involving the dwindling human survivors discovering the rope bridge they’re on is in an aviary of bloodthirsty … hold on, I’ll just google it … pteranodons. (2001) 17 AGAIN (Three, 7.00pm). Divorced dad Matthew Perry gets a chance to make amends to his ex and his kids by regressing into 17-year-old Zac Efron in a body-swap comedy that reminds how pretty Efron once was and how much Perry is so not him just a few decades later. (2009) THE FURNACE (Rialto, 8.30pm). Intriguing revisionist Aussie outback western about a wounded bushman (David Wenham), who, having liberated some…

HOUSE OF THE DRAGON, from Monday, August 22, Sky SoHo, 1.00pm and 8.30pm; and Neon. Game of Thrones, the television series based on the books of George RR Martin, ran for eight seasons while winning 59 Emmys along the way. Its viewership ballooned after its 2011 debut, with some estimates of as many as 100 million viewers in 200 countries watching its final series in 2019. It proved to be the biggest show of the 21st century, one that left its mark on pop culture and changed the landscape for television drama – and one that was frequently criticised for its depictions of sexual violence and treatment of its female characters. For maker HBO, the end of GoT brought questions such as: one-off or spin-off? And having successfully wrestled a series of doorstop…

Thank you, Andrew Anthony, for your intelligent article “Transition alley” (May 13), where you look at Hannah Barnes’ book Time to Think on the Gender Identity Development Service at the Tavistock Centre, London. Also, thank you for calling Posie Parker a “women’s rights campaigner” and the protests “claims of transphobia”. Such simple discriminations make a world of difference when so few seem to be able to see that there is more than one side to this fraught debate around gender. Sadly, the realistic fear of condemnation and cancellation, in NZ as well as overseas, makes it hard for concerned voices to be heard and so little thoughtful debate is possible. While there is a lot of focus on male-to-female self-identification, in reality, there is a huge rise in the number of…

A riddle: when is a waka jump not a waka jump? Apparently, when former Labour MP, now Te Pāti Māori MP, Meka Whaitiri does the leaping. Speaker of the House Adrian Rurawhe has decreed that her resignation email did not meet the criteria for what, under the so-called waka-jumping law, ought to have forced her to give up her Ikaroa-Rāwhiti seat. He hasn’t released her email, if indeed there is an email, although apparently there is no legal reason he can’t. He said: “I think it would be a dangerous situation for the Speaker of the House to start interpreting things that are clearly not being officially submitted to me. Now, as I began my ruling, members can say whatever they like outside of this House but unless they inform me…

Danyl McLauchlan’s excellent “Bees & honey” feature (May 13) highlighted public money wasted on consultants. For any particular client ministry, the consultant is aware of the answer its client wants. Repeat business depends on pleasing the client. Yet public policy based on incorrect facts is likely to be harmful. One report I read left me convinced the client had required the consultants to show the conversion of sheep and beef farms to forestry in a favourable light. It made forestry look good by including high-country farms. These have very low-employment density, but are on iconic landscapes few want to see planted. The report used StatsNZ data but did not count thousands of sheep and beef support workers who, in the original data, appear in a wider agricultural category. Forestry support workers were easy…

Hospice is grassroots. It was founded in the 1960s by UK palliative care pioneer Dame Cicely Saunders, who believed everyone deserved to die well after she witnessed undignified and painful deaths in hospital. The first hospice was set up in New Zealand in 1979, with more following in the early 1980s, set up by passionate people who saw a need for this type of care here, too. Hospice has remained at the heart of communities across Aotearoa since then. Our philosophy of care looks at the whole person, not just their disease or symptoms. Everyone is treated as an individual. What matters to them matters to us, and through this approach, we explore and support all aspects of a person – their physical, emotional, social and spiritual needs. We help people…

In the wee hours of the morning, five days a week, the alarm clock beeps on Nathan Rarere’s phone at 3.10am. He hits the snooze button, and dozes for 10 more precious minutes until the next round of beeps gets him out of bed. It’s off to work he must go, leaving his wife, their two daughters and four cats snuggled up in the sleepy warmth of their West Auckland home. His mission, as host of Radio New Zealand’s 5am First Up show, is to help listeners enjoy waking up, too. Over the past two years, Rarere and his team have built First Up into a brisk mix of news and interviews that make you more engaged in what’s going on in the world, even if you’re only half-awake. It’s also deliciously eccentric. When…

The catchphrase of the famously melancholic movie The Sixth Sense was “I see dead people”, but the punchline was, “They don’t know they’re dead.” So it is that many ex-politicians roam the Earth believing themselves immortally potent on the basis that a few people – often out of mere politeness – still seem to recognise them. This has always been a feature of politics, as Nasagrade egos and impregnable hides are fabrics of the craft. But the continuing viability of former United States president Donald Trump, who has survived more brushes with extinction than Road Runner, risks putting new lead into the most broken of pencils. Far from being downhearted that a court has found him guilty of sexual assault, he now reckons he could personally stop the Ukraine invasion inside a…

Last month, as Britain went through its preparations for the lavish jamboree celebrating the coronation of King Charles, Huw Pill, the chief economist of the Bank of England, suggested that Britons “need to accept they’re worse off”. Instead of trying to get wage rises that will maintain high inflation, he explained, we should all just come to terms with the fact that we are poorer. In other words, shut up and enjoy the ceremony. No politician would ever have said such a thing, because in politics, the promise is always of better times ahead. But the truth is that hasn’t been the case for 15 years, since the banks went bust and Britain went into hock bailing them out. Brexit and then Covid only made a bad situation worse. Whatever the chief economist…

Where I live, the police drive some heavy-duty machinery. There’s the odd Ford Taurus hanging in there, but mainly it’s Chevy Tahoes, Dodge Durangos, and Ford Explorers, with a healthy smattering of V-8 Dodge Chargers. One day, while I was day-dreaming about municipal budgets (as I am wont to do), I wondered: Would cops drive something smaller and more efficient if they got to share in the savings from a lower purchase price? And if so, what would that number need to be? If I were a cop, I’d think $1000 could persuade me to drive an Escape patrol car. But I am not a cop—I had to turn in my badge because I play by nobody’s rules but my own—so I asked some police to join me in this…

It’s a night Jeff Wilson can’t forget. He’d like to, but there are too many people happy to remind him. “I don’t need to see it,” Wilson says, waving his hand to add emphasis. He’s talking about a photo that shows him losing the ball forward in what would have been a match winning try had it not been for a remarkable tackle by Wallabies halfback George Gregan. There are two different clips on Youtube with the shorter version viewed almost 300,000 times and a longer edit nudging 200,000. “Nothing,” is Wilson’s succinct answer when asked what his memories are of the night. “That was the start of my poor memory,” he laughs. “It’s easier as a sportsman to have a poor memory because you remember the bad days a lot more than…

This column has taken a short break from London, in composition if not content. I’m writing in an idyllic setting, on the terrace of a charming villa surrounded by bougainvillea and perched on a pine-filled Croatian hillside above the translucent waters of the Adriatic. Back home, the news is almost unremittingly of the pessimistic kind – inflation is up, productivity down, transport strikes are everywhere, flights cancelled, with a prime minister so deeply mired in his lies and indulgences that even his own ethics adviser has quit. But here, the big issue is whether to swim in the pool or walk down to the sea. On the surface, there is an obvious disconnect between the cloudless beauty of my family holiday and the darkening reality of life in the UK that, by…

New Zealanders justifiably anxious about the country’s fight against Covid are right to be perplexed: what’s the point of the Government and the Ministry of Health having new powers to contain the virus if they’re not used? The recent revelations that border and isolation facility workers could dodge Covid tests without consequences or records being kept were a shock. So, too, was the lack of contrition or sense of urgency from officialdom. Kiwis assumed those most at risk of catching and transmitting Covid would be scrupulously tested in a verified process. Yet when Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield was asked why this wasn’t always enforced, he gave a staggering response: he “would have hoped” all workers were having their regular tests by now. Hope is not a strategy. This is…

Despite many people calling for a boycott of the event, I went to Doha to watch some of the Football World Cup. I realise this could leave me open to a charge of hypocrisy, because I decided to put my love of sport above the way I like my countries to behave. But as it happens, I had a great time, which begs the question of whether I was brain-washed by the Qataris’ charm offensive or I’ve become more understanding of another nation’s behaviour through temporary immersion in their culture. I’ll let you decide. Sportswashing is the idea that autocratic states set out to gain international acceptance by hosting large sports events. For example, Hitler’s Germany hosted the 1936 Olympics and Putin’s Russia held the 2018 Football World Cup. These events…

EMPIRE CITY: WELLINGTON BECOMES THE CAPITAL OF NEW ZEALAND, by John E Martin (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $70 hb) It’s often the small, least significant things that shift the tides of history. Consider the decision to make Wellington the seat of government and capital of New Zealand. In this account of the first decades of Wellington’s European settlement, John Martin suggests the final decision may have been a mixture of luck and astute marketing. In the early 1860s, parliamentary sittings continued to seesaw between Auckland and Wellington but the question remained a controversial issue. In 1863, southern members of parliament successfully engineered a capital move to the Cook Strait area with the final location placed in the hands of three independent Australian commissioners. In 1864, the Australians arrived in Auckland to…

The other day, my computer was giving me a problem or 10, so I took it to a techie in the Christchurch suburb of Halswell. His abode was in a relatively new housing development with the grandiose name of Country Palms. The thing is, post earthquakes, that area’s gone from being “country adjacent” to one of the First Four Ships Town’s largest suburbs. So, it’s not in the country and there aren’t palms. At least, there aren’t palms plural. There is one solitary palm, singular, which must have given someone quite a bit of grief nurturing it to maturity through the Canterbury winter. But calling the area Suburban Palm wouldn’t have appealed to any developer. No, they like a grand name to get cut-through and compete with all the other developers,…

In the not-too-distant future, babies may have their whole genomes sequenced at birth to provide the health information that will guide a lifetime of care. As a result, rare disorders will be picked up earlier and more easily, screening for genetic cancers will be personalised and doctors will be better equipped to prescribe the most effective medication for every patient. This brave new world of healthcare may be just decades away. In fact, in the UK, the government has already announced a research pilot, the Newborn Genomes Programme, which aims to sequence the genomes of up to 200,000 babies and look for genetic conditions that appear early in life and can be treated with existing therapies. Although there are ethical and privacy issues to be tackled, the potential benefits make it worthwhile,…

AS A BOY AT A TYPICAL 1970S’ SCHOOL uniform-wearing, single-sex, sports-mad, culturally ignorant high school, in a then typically insular region that was happily demolishing its art deco heritage, I visited a touring exhibition by Austrian artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser.1 His work, like the art room haven I was discovering at school, was full of light, colour and energy. Hundertwasser’s work and that art room2 were both retreats from the reality of our dreary built environment and windows into a wider world of what could be. We all dreamed of fabulous possibilities in our youth but, of course, a lot of that is beaten out of us by schools and practice and life in general as we become human resource units in the service of capitalism. But I still have a…

It was perhaps one of Apple’s most anticipated product refreshes of all time, and at its Spring Loaded event, the Cupertino company did not disappoint. Apple’s iconic all-in-one desktop computer has been overhauled from the ground up, sparking a new era for the Mac. AN ALL-NEW DESIGN At last year’s Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple confirmed plans to transition away from third-party computer chips towards its own custom-designed silicon. Fast-forward six months, and the first M1 Macs were born, with the Mac mini, MacBook, and MacBook Pro given new leases of life with record-breaking internals, taking the Mac into a new direction. Speaking of the M1 chip ahead of its launch, Apple’s CEO Tim Cook said that “Apple silicon will make the Mac stronger and more capable than ever. I’ve never been more…

SATURDAY MAY 14 WALLACE & GROMIT: THE CURSE OF THE WERE-RABBIT “Oh ho ho, cracking job, Gromit!” TVNZ 2, 7.00pm The first and so far only feature-length Wallace & Gromit film from Aardman Animations showed all of the imagination and slapstick wonder of its predecessors, with the pair taking on pestcontrol duties for the good folk of Tottington, whose prize vegetables are threatened by rabbits. A delightfully bonkers concoction with allusions to King Kong, Hammer horror films and Top Gun. (2005) BEGIN AGAIN Once more with feeling Eden, 8.30pm Musician and film-maker John Carney followed his breakthrough hit Once with this sad and sweet redemption story about a failing New York music executive Dan (Mark Ruffalo) who discovers a new singer-songwriter, Gretta (Keira Knightley). Knightley sings well but it’s a little contrived. (2013) LITTLE FISH Pandemic love story Rialto, 8.30pm Intriguing and…

SATURDAY DECEMBER 4 BIG MOMMA’S HOUSE; BIG MOMMA’S HOUSE 2 (TVNZ 2, 7.00pm & 8.55pm). Fans of Martin Lawrence’s crossdressing comedies, it appears all your Christmases have come at once. (2000, 2006) THE GREEN MILE (Three, 8.30pm). Shawshank Redemption director Frank Darabont adapted another allegorical Stephen King jail tale set mostly on death row in a 1930s Louisiana prison in which Tom Hanks is a guard who discovers an inmate (Michael Clarke Duncan) has special healing powers. Originally more than three hours long, it’s an overwrought mystical melodrama. (1999) HIGH GROUND (Rialto, 8.30pm). Outback western with a tale of conflict between white colonial forces and indigenous Australians in the 1920s. Simon Baker plays a former cop turned bounty hunter who recruits mission-raised indigenous teenager Gutjuk in his search for a tribe attacking white…