Something Elsewhere

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The Day The Sky Fell In

10 Aug 2007  |  2 min read

The day that the Sky digital network crashed and deprived 550,000 subscribers -- us included -- of programmes two curiously ironic things occurred for me: that very morning I tried to buy a transistor radio, and in the afternoon I looked out my wind-up gramophone. It was coincidence, but it was also as if I had known that hi-tech would fail me sooner or later so I was into forward thinking... > Read more

Auckland City, Where The Past is Present

10 Aug 2007  |  4 min read

I just caught a glance at him out of the corner of my eye when I heard him shout “Why don’t you keep quiet”. Or words to that effect, with unprintable expletives included. He was dressed in a lawyer’s suit, had close-cropped hair, had those mad staring eyes like Chris Dixon, and was wound tight as a drum. His fist were tight balls and for the life of me I thought... > Read more

Shadow in the Glass: A short story

13 Jul 2007  |  13 min read

Campbellhad a directness that Dennis had once mistaken for the dourness of the Scots. “You’ll be wanting home, then?” “Yes, just for a fortnight . . . perhaps three weeks . . . I can pass on the Peebles brochure to Meg and the old Strathaven history could go on hold until I get back . . . Iain has still got something else to add anyway so there’s not much... > Read more

A Small Fire: a short story

8 Jul 2007  |  13 min read

The coincidences that brought Frank and I together again were like something out of a bad 19th century novel, and perhaps that’s why I have thought about it so often since. Maybe it was what went down between us all those months ago too. Either way, I’ve been thinking a lot about just how our lives can go. Lani had gone away up north that morning to stay with Janet, and the... > Read more

BREAUX BRIDGE, LOUISIANA. A TOWN AT WAR (2004): Iraq comes to Cajun country

24 May 2004  |  6 min read

Breaux Bridge in Louisiana rarely makes the news. It's not that kind of place. The small town in earshot of the multi-lane highway between Lafayette and Baton Rouge is on the bayou, that eerily picturesque region where cypress trees and Tupelo gums grow out of the endless expanse of brown, still water.This is Cajun country. Most people here are direct descendants of the original French-speaking... > Read more

INSIDE THE HERMIT KINGDOM: North Korea by those who know

4 Nov 2003  |  8 min read

The few New Zealanders who have visited North Korea confirm it is spectacularly beautiful, especially its towering mountains. It has great potential for tourism, but don't expect to go to pick your souvenirs anytime soon, because the reclusive Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), crippled from within by its Stalinist-style politics and failed economy, doesn't welcome visitors.Dr Tim... > Read more

IRAQ, BLAIR, SEXED-UP LIES AND THE FALL GUY: The death of Dr David Kelly

23 Aug 2003  |  6 min read

On a warm Thursday afternoon a little more than a month ago, a man in a white cotton shirt, jeans and brown shoes set off for a walk from his 18th-century farmhouse near the border of Oxfordshire and Wiltshire and never returned. By his suicide that day the modest, quietly spoken Dr David Kelly, one of Britain's leading experts in biological and chemical weapons, became the unlikely flint... > Read more

INSIDE AL QAEDA: Terrorism expert Dr Rohan Gunaratna interviewed

14 Jan 2003  |  20 min read

Sri Lankan-born, Dr Rohan Gunaratna is the author of six books on armed conflict, and addressed the United Nations, the United States congress and the Australian parliament in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks in the United States. He is the research fellow at the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence, St Andrew's University, Scotland.In his book Inside al Qaeda... > Read more

TERRORISM ON THE HOME-FRONT (2003): Coming ready or not?

1 Jan 2003  |  9 min read

In a travel story about New Zealand in the Sydney Morning Herald last month journalist Bruce Elder, trying to avoid Australian cliches about this country, stepped rather neatly into a patronising pile of them.Apparently we are no longer a country trapped in the 1950s, are "the only nation where sock, sacks, sucks, sex and six are all pronounced 'sux' ", and not only is our food... > Read more

THE MESS THAT IS THE MIDDLE EAST: Guns and rhetoric, again

19 Jun 2002  |  11 min read

The image resonated with a depressing deja vu: Israeli tanks rolling through the streets of Ramallah, rumbling past destroyed, deserted or barricaded homes, on their way to the compound of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Again.We saw this in April when Arafat was similarly isolated, so we know what will come next: Palestinian teenagers throwing rocks at Israeli soldiers and tanks, more... > Read more

NORTH KOREA: Diplomacy beyond the wire

4 Aug 2001  |  10 min read

From this hilltop the mysterious, mute country across the river possesses a rugged beauty, its towering mountains crumpling to the far horizon, shimmering hazy blue in the heat.Through powerful binoculars you can see farmers moving about their back-bending work in picturesque green rice paddies sculpted into hillsides. The river glints silver under the sun, your camera points towards unknown... > Read more

THE POLYNESIAN PANTHERS REFLECT (2001): Three decades on from the dawn raids

22 Jun 2001  |  9 min read

For anyone who lived through the period, the iconography and images still resonate: the clenched fists in leather gloves, the lines of civilian-soldiers in empowering uniforms of black polo-neck sweaters, impenetrable shades and black berets. The language was of black pride and the images defiant and confrontational. The times they weren't a-changing, they'd changed - and in the early... > Read more

JIMI HENDRIX (2000): A slight return to the Experience

5 Jan 2000  |  2 min read

To fully appreciate the impact Jimi Hendrix had, you need to forget the decades of myth-making and t-shirts since his death. Try to imagine the music world in 1966. When Jimi crashlanded in London in September that year the Beatles were still a pop band, the Stones had released Paint It Black and Bob Dylan was confusing people with the sprawling double album Blonde on Blonde.... > Read more

STARS WHO WANNABE OTHER STARS (1999): Vanity projects for the self-regarding

1 Nov 1999  |  3 min read

News that broadcaster Paul Holmes is recording an album has been greeted with derision in some quarters, but the collector's group of Vanity Incorporated Products can't wait until this album —- apparently including such classics as Witchita Lineman — hits stores in time for the lucrative Christmas market.Not because it's especially welcomed for its own sake but some are seeing it as... > Read more

OLD FORGOTTEN SOLDIERS? (1999): But not in South Korea

27 Apr 1999  |  14 min read

The undistinguished town of Kap'yong, 90 minutes' drive north-east of the South Korean capital Seoul, isn't on many maps. Even the young man at the desk in Seoul's Tower Hotel can't say where it is, although he served in the Army in the district eight years ago.As an ordinary country town nestled in a wide valley between towering hills, it is a quiet place, the only regular noise coming from... > Read more

DAVID MARKS OF THE NEW ZEALAND SKEPTICS (1998): Spoon bending made easy

5 Feb 1998  |  8 min read

David Marks paces furiously around the small room, giving a good impersonation of a caged animal. It's disconcerting.His arms flail as he says that if we doubted his ability he'd accuse us of being negative thinkers who would rob him of his psychic powers.And then he stops to quietly perform a piece of magic. It's an old trick, but a good one. With a little gentle rubbing, the silver spoon he... > Read more