Dorothy – 30/10/97 Methven – country town, winter sports centre, now summer resort thanks to enterprising people There is evidence that before the pakeha settlers came, moa-hunting parties passed through this area, but there was no Maori settlement. Aerial view of Methven, photo taken on a balloon ride by Evan Glass. (Click on the image…
Patti Bradfield – 23/10/97 Patti Bradfield from Redmond WA wrote this upon arriving in New Zealand in 1979. It was Patti whose enquiry sparked the articles about changes since 1980. Throw away the girdles and let your seams out. The fresh bread shops, green grocer and butcher are alive and well at the bottom of…
Film review – Conrad – 23/10/97 “Baby, you’re money, you are money”. So Trent (Vince Vaughn) tries to convince his friend Mike (Jon Favreau, first seen here in New Zealand as Monica’s millionaire boyfriend in ‘Friends’) that he is capable of re-entering the dating scene. Mike’s transition from a love torn loser trying to get…
Film review – Dagny – 23/10/97 Even those who are staunchly opposed to brass band music can find something to appreciate in writer-director Mark Herman’s Brassed Off. Set in the fictional North-England mining town of Grimley, the film tells the story of the Grimley Colliery Brass Band and the effect that the closure of the…
Selected by Commander Robert Green, Royal Navy (Retired) – 23/10/97 Introduction by Commander Robert Green “On 1 October 1997 in Wellington, General Lee Butler USAF (Ret) delivered the second Erich Geiringer Memorial Oration. [Dr Geiringer was a key mover in getting the World Health Organisation to ask the World Court for its opinion on the…
Dorothy – 16/10/97 Why was $300,000 of public money allocated to this programme? When it was first proposed by Communicado in 1995 it was refused funding by New Zealand on Air. After a strong protest letter from Neil Roberts, at that time working with Communicado, NZOA granted $300,000 as funding and TVNZ assisted with the…
Conrad – 9/10/97 The vote for a change of electoral system to MMP in 1995 was fuelled as much as anything by public disillusionment with politicians, and frustration at the difficulty in having any impact on Government policy. We have limited options when it comes to expressing this: we can sign petitions, we can march…
Dorothy – 9/10/97 Canterbury Dialogues Building Social Cohesion – based on an interview with Mark Prain, the General Manager of Sustainable Cities Social Capital “While no-one has yet produced the definitive answer to the question of how a nation goes about accumulating social capital, there are four characteristics which are found in communities that have…
Film review – Dagny – 2/10/97 One of the reasons I went to see this movie was to see how well it would live up to Peter Hoeg’s extraordinary novel, Miss Smilla’s Feeling For Snow. But having said that, I think it is important that the film be judged not just for how well it…
Dorothy – 2/10/97 Will proposed changes to benefits BENEFIT beneficiaries? Is the real problem dependency or poverty? Two Conferences look at the situation of beneficiaries and benefits in New Zealand, one emphasising dependency and possible patterns for change, the other looking at the real face of poverty in this country. You will probably want to…
