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New Zealand Listener
Play in practice: Evelyn Glennie
As she put the finishing touches on her application, a teenager named Evelyn Glennie felt butterflies in her stomach. Growing up on a farm in Scotland, she had dreamed of becoming a musician.
10 min |
January 2 - 12, 2024
New Zealand Listener
Passion players
The daily grind can be transformed into a source of daily joy, says leading organisational psychologist Adam Grant.
2 min |
January 2 - 12, 2024
New Zealand Listener
Tunnel of love
Shayne Cunis had never heard of engineering when his school guidance counsellor suggested studying it. Now, he's leading the big push to improve Auckland's wastewater system.
5 min |
January 2 - 12, 2024
New Zealand Listener
The beginnings of a long struggle
In moments of depression, perhaps at the end of a long struggle with a virus,\" wrote a former editor of the Listener, the great Monte Holcroft, \"the stranger aspects of our civilisation make us wonder if life itself has not become a sort of illness.
2 min |
January 2 - 12, 2024
New Zealand Listener
Lurching to the right
It's starting to get scary out there. People with really weird hairdos and wild, right-wing politics are getting elected all over the place.
2 min |
January 2 - 12, 2024
New Zealand Listener
Quackers about festivities
Just Stop Oil, Extinction Rebellion and the like have remained strangely silent about one of the world's most recalcitrant climate offenders. Nicholas of Bari started out as a nice old clergyman, beloved for his habit of giving secret gifts.
2 min |
January 2 - 12, 2024
New Zealand Listener
The antisocial media
The dominant online platforms became more toxic than ever in 2023. Is there a way out?
2 min |
December 16-22, 2023
New Zealand Listener
Animal magic
The long-held view that pets make us happier and healthier is being challenged.
3 min |
December 16-22, 2023
New Zealand Listener
Not the Messiah
Had enough Hallelujah Chorus? Try these picks for other seasonal classical options.
2 min |
December 16-22, 2023
New Zealand Listener
The last round
Veteran director Ken Loach says goodbye to a lifetime of political cinema with a story of hope in an English mining town.
3 min |
December 16-22, 2023
New Zealand Listener
Sharp as a knife
Memoir of a girl growing up across two hemispheres is a sly and delicious peepshow.
4 min |
December 16-22, 2023
New Zealand Listener
A kaleidoscopic crème brûlée
David Cohen taste-tests what's coming to the boil and what's so last year to help home kitchens and top-end diners stay on trend in 2024.
3 min |
December 16-22, 2023
New Zealand Listener
Cooking by the book
What cookbooks do chefs and foodies reach for? Alana Rae asks some of our culinary leaders about their favourite tomes.
8 min |
December 16-22, 2023
New Zealand Listener
It's a celebration
Turkey is the main event, bookended by refreshing watermelon to start and raspberries to finish, with sourdough stuffings and a potato pie in between.
10 min |
December 16-22, 2023
New Zealand Listener
Performance pressure
Young women are weighed down by feelings of being judged by their peers, and social media mores are making it worse.
9 min |
December 16-22, 2023
New Zealand Listener
The Ardern enigma
Why did many New Zealanders turn so quickly on our most popular leader of recent times? And will the politics of compassion ultimately be her legacy?
9 min |
December 16-22, 2023
New Zealand Listener
An untimely delay
An unnecessary operation delayed appropriate treatment for prostate cancer patient Paul Catmur. One year on, he's still waiting for his surgeon's actions to be investigated.
8 min |
December 16-22, 2023
New Zealand Listener
Equal measures
Living behind her parents' dairy taught Vanisa Dhiru all about being helpful. Now, she puts that into practice in her advocacy roles.
5 min |
December 16-22, 2023
New Zealand Listener
Jibes across the Tasman
Scott Morrison, the self-confessed bulldozer prone to mansplaining, exasperated Ardern.
2 min |
December 16-22, 2023
New Zealand Listener
Let the brawling begin
We've had a government for barely a week and already the insults are flying thick and fast.
4 min |
December 16-22, 2023
New Zealand Listener
Enhanced memoirs
An awful suspicion is dawning that rather than just replacing humans by being more efficient, artificial intelligence (AI) might also show them up for the wretched, self-deluding egomaniacs they so often are.
2 min |
December 16-22, 2023
New Zealand Listener
One fine day
There are perfect moments in the garden in spring. My favourite bit of the garden is one that I had no part in making. This is the gravel garden, on the drive in front of the house. I didn't know I wanted a gravel garden. I certainly didn't plan to grow a gravel garden. It grows itself. A gravel garden is a marvellous thing. You don't have to feed it, you scarcely have to weed it or water it, and the best thing about it is that it hasn't cost you a cent. It is perfect for miserly gardeners.
2 min |
December 02-08, 2023
New Zealand Listener
An AI leap for robots
The same tech underpinning ChatGPT is set to finally make the general-use robot a reality.
2 min |
December 02-08, 2023
New Zealand Listener
Great expectations
It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, so keep your stresses at bay.
3 min |
December 02-08, 2023
New Zealand Listener
Sweet talking
A common artificial sweetener has for the first time been classed as possibly carcinogenic.
2 min |
December 02-08, 2023
New Zealand Listener
On a high note
Countertenor Stephen Diaz explains why JS Bach presents such a challenge to singers.
2 min |
December 02-08, 2023
New Zealand Listener
Sunday bloody Sunday
Outback noir's smallscreen adaptation has big-screen aspirations.
2 min |
December 02-08, 2023
New Zealand Listener
Titillating takedown
Mr Ripley meets Brideshead in this black comedy, an outlandish dissection of the British upper classes.
2 min |
December 02-08, 2023
New Zealand Listener
The cannonball run
French leader biopic is hardly revolutionary, but it sure is fast.
2 min |
December 02-08, 2023
New Zealand Listener
Folky valentines
Erny Belle confirms her early promise and Cat Power plugs and unplugs Dylan.
2 min |