New Zealand Listener

As a Canterbury resident, I found the article on defying age ironic (“Stopping the clock”, February 13). New Zealand has one of the highest rates of colorectal cancer in the world, and Canterbury and South Canterbury have one of the highest rates of

“There seems to be a feeling that anything that is natural is good. Strychnine is natural.” – Isaac Asimov “Nature abhors a lot of things, including vacuums, ships called the Mary Celeste and the chuck keys for electric drills.” – Terry Pratchett “Ag

Who is faster, Usain Bolt or a fly? Usain Bolt is the fastest human ever. He could run 100m in just 9.58s, with a top speed of almost 45kph. If Bolt raced against a fly, his success would depend on the species of his opponent, as top speeds vary betw

What a time to be alive. Some cosmic Jerry Seinfeld seems to be writing the script of our lives. New Zealand is being widely mocked for declaring an Auckland lockdown for just three new cases of Covid, where other countries haven’t blinked before six

Editor-in-Chief PAMELA STIRLING Art Director DEREK WARD Chief Sub-editor GEOFF CUMMING Political Columnist JANE CLIFTON Books Editor MARK BROATCH Entertainment & Arts Editor RUSSELL BAILLIE Assistant Art Director SHANE KELLY Senior Designer RICHARD K

Caz Davis, the lead character in groundbreaking new film Rūrangi, faces a myriad of problems as he returns to his rural New Zealand hometown. After 10 years away, the town hasn’t changed much but Caz has – “she” is now “he” and even his father doesn’

1. Which of these is a term sometimes associated with a tennis match? ❑ Bacon❑ Sausage❑ Bagel❑ Kipper 2. The 1987 film Roxanne, starring Daryl Hannah and Steve Martin, is a modern version of which play? ❑ The Lion in Winter❑ The Importance of Being E

■ Vitamin A is an antioxidant and is used to form and maintain healthy skin, hair and mucous membranes. Dairy products and oily fish are good sources, so include low-fat milk and cheese, as well as sardines, tuna or salmon, in your diet. Also, the ca

From Takapuna, on Auckland’s North Shore, to Kirkwall, the main town on Orkney Island, is a distance of 17,580km. Yet those two widely separated places are now connected, thanks to Orkneybased Scots writer and musician Duncan McLean, 57, who publishe

It’s November 2023 and a pandemic is hitting chilly London, a new one that’s far worse than Covid-19. There is no cure, only a pill for a quick death. The virus’ name? 6DM, for “Six Days Maximum” once contracted until death – by way of fever, diarrho

As a lifelong reader, I find it a big ask to make a list of books important to me. The “short” list inevitably devolves into pages. As a result, no such list is ever anything but a snapshot of my reading journey. Today’s snapshot begins with THE TIME

He looks at us from his portrait with bored, quizzical warmth, a handsome man in a giant periwig leaning on a velvet pillow. With his odd lack of intensity, big hair, lacy collar and pink wrist bows – chic in 1671 – wealthy 42-year-old Dutchman Chris

The 70s: the decade that style forgot. Who said that? Seriously? What a plonker. The maker of such a sweeping and ridiculous generalisation was clearly not knocking around London in the electrifying days of punk and a new emerging dance-club movement

Ten years on, Christchurch is remembering the quakes. A group of journalism undergrads work on a memorial issue of the students’ association magazine Canta, recalling what they were doing at the time, laying bare long-buried memories of how the quake

As I’m an unrepentant Raymond Chandler and Damon Runyon fan, it was entirely predictable that Ron McQuilter’s BUSTED!: Stories from New Zealand’s leading private investigator (New Holland, $34.99) would occupy a significant slice of my holiday readin

Readers were asked to provide eggcorns (words or phrases that result from mishearing or misinterpreting another, an element of the original being substituted for one that sounds very similar). Christine Gratton of Auckland: “Lewis Hamilton won his ra

CRICKET: If the surfeit of high-carb T20 games is based on the idea that fans no longer have time to spend seven hours watching one-dayers, then NZ Cricket risks undermining the case by staging three T20 international double-headers while the English

I was appalled to hear the host of RNZ’s Mediawatch (February 7) criticise a rival radio broadcaster’s pronounciation of the word pounamu as “deviant”. I understood perfectly what the UK-born broadcaster said, even if it wasn’t quite correct. If we w

FREEVIEW 51 SKY 422 iHeartRADIO rnz.co.nz/concert News and Weather 6.00am, 7.00, 8.00, 9.00, noon 6.00 Summer Mornings 10.00 Summer Days 1.00 Onstage 2.00 Worlds of Music with Trevor Reekie Trans-global, fusion and folk roots 3.00 Summer Afternoons 5

Properly practised social distancing lowers an individual’s chances of catching the coronavirus, say researchers at Ohio State University. The study of 2120 people gave participants a simulation of real-world scenarios and asked them to position them