Abroad and Home
"Obviously London didn't want to go with Brexit, it seems ghastly, but it's happening," I asked Tze Ming Mok in the opening part of Sunday's Orcon IRL. "Is it as bad as it seems from this far away?" ¶ "Yes," she…
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News Memories 2: The Twitter thread
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The Declaration of the Independence of Corporations
[With apologies to John Perry Barlow] ¶ Governments of the Industrial World, you toothless ogres of laws and taxation, we come from Cyberspace, the new home of global corporations. On behalf of our shareholders, we ask you of the past to…
Memories of the news
"What was the first major news story you remember as a child?" read the meme a journalist friend posted on Facebook yesterday. ¶ The responses were intriguing to watch, and tended to have the effect of reminding me that I've been…
Music Extra: "Is not a perfect pop song the closest thing to the goal?"
In its survey of media coverage around the All Whites' World Cup qualifier in Peru this week, RNZ Mediawatch found something notable: a thinkpiece about the underdogs that focuses not on football but on Flying Nun. ¶ Francisco Blaha has kindly…
#OrconIRL: The runsheet and live stream
Kia ora koutou! Today is the final Orcon IRL event for the year and we'll be looking at 2017 – and forward at what's to come – from 4pm at Golden Dawn. ¶ RSVPs are all full up, but drop me a line…
Friday Music: Deep cuts from Aotearoa
If you like a bit of funk and disco – and more especially, if you're a DJ – the reality is that you won't find many local classics to fill your crates. That's not to say there's no gold to be had,…
Powerstation II: It's complicated
My +1 came down sick shortly before Lorde's Powerstation show last night, which meant I was standing at the pickup desk at 8.30pm with a spare ticket to a hot gig. ¶ "What should I do with it?" I asked the…
Too Sexy for Your Site
Ever since the election, I’ve been pondering writing a column about the changes that would need to happen to MSD for us to be treating all our people like actual people. It goes much further than removing “excessive sanctions”. Thing…
#OrconIRL: That was 2017
Kia ora! We have one more Orcon IRL event for the year, and it's on Sunday, November 19, from 4-7pm at The Golden Dawn in Ponsonby. ¶ Our guests include RNZ Sunday mornings host Wallace Chapman, who will talk about making…
Lorde, the council and the Powerstation shambles
Two weeks ago, Unesco, the UN cultural agency, announced that it had approved a joint application by Auckland Council, Recorded Music NZ and Apra for Auckland to be named an international city of music, alongside the likes of Glasgow and…
How harm happens
During the election campaign, I was working on a feature looking at how New Zealand arrived at a synthetic cannabinoid crisis that had seemed to come out of nowhere – and what I was finding was making me angry. ¶ The story…
Bullshit and pigeon shit: inside a "tourist tannery"
The Tuesday morning sun spills over large stone walls into a courtyard of circular dye vats slowly illuminating them like giant pots of paint. Abdul strips down to his shorts and lowers himself into a fermenting cocktail of cold water,…
Despite Simon Bridges' idiocy, does he have a point on overall (subject) select committee membership?
National’s new shadow leader of the House, Simon Bridges, is in the Herald this morning, expressing concern about select committee assignments for the new Parliament (or rather subject select committee assignments – this is only about the 12 select committees with…
And so it begins ...
In a bracing analysis for Lawfare Blog, Susan Hennessy characterises Special Counsel Robert Mueller's first round of indictments in his investigation into Russian interference in last year's US Presidential election as "a remarkable show of strength" on the prosecutor's part.…
Communications breakdown
About 5am yesterday, I got out of bed to fetch a drink of water from the tap and noticed that there was not much water to be had. "Bugger," I thought, watching a thin stream trickle into the glass, then…
Very Vintage
Hello. Long time, no photos. Yada yada. Life, be in it. ¶ Spring is passing by, and I've lacked the inspiration for the usual petal show, although those in the know will see I'm still instagramming plenty of floral arrangements. ¶ This…
Friday Music: Springs Eternal
One of the interesting – and challenging – things about urban music festivals is the way they interpret their environments. Promoters have to consider not only where people goes, but where sound goes. And then they have to get the whole lot…
What we learned yesterday about the cannabis referendum
Given the sheer number of issues canvassed in the twin media conferences that accompanied the signing of the new government's coalition and support agreements, it's understandable that the cannabis referendum and drug law reform in general haven't had a lot…
Media Take: The Future
Normally on a Tuesday morning, I wouldn't be here at my screen. I'd be at the table at Top Shelf Productions for the weekly editorial meeting where we work out what we'll do for the next week's Media Take. But…
The climate changed
Yesterday was not only the day a new government was announced. It was also the day that a new stocktake compiled by the Ministry for the Environment and Statistics New Zealand laid out the challenges posed to New Zealand by…
All Change
New Zealand's not-really-all-that-lengthy coalition negotiations were conducted with a degree of discretion that meant there were few tidbits for an increasingly frazzled press gallery to bring to a probably less frazzled public. But one thing we did learn was significant:…
Friday Music: Staying Okay
One of the more welcome developments in the local music business in recent years has been a better focus on the welfare of people who work in it. That focus was given form a year ago when the New Zealand…
Out of sight, out of mind: how we forgot about synthetics
Update: This week's Media Take looks at and compares the twin news stories of synthetic cannabis and "methamphetamine contamination" with social activist Denis O'Reilly, public health expert Papa Nahi, journalists Tony Wall and Baz Macdonald, treament professional Kohe Pene and…
An Indian, a Pakistani & a Broadcaster Walk into a Kmart
A guy walks into a Kmart to buy some underwear on a Wednesday morning. His underwear is on the verge of critical collapse - why else would you buy new underwear, amirite? But the line is massive. It takes ten…