Author Archives: thesentinel2012

More on the British election from a New Zealand perspective. Boris Johnson continues an incredibly erratic performance, and the Conservative Party are full of tricky manoeuvres and funny games on social media. Johnson launched the Welsh Conservatives campaign and the … Continue reading →

I got an email yesterday from Amnesty International in Australia, entitled ‘Behrouz is finally free’, with a photo of the Amnesty man greeting Behrouz Boochani at Auckland airport. Behrouz Boochani is an Iranian Kurd, an asylum seeker who has been … Continue reading →

It’s Saturday the second of the November, and today was meant to be the day that New Zealand won its third rugby world cup in a row. Instead, it will probably be England. So conventional wisdom is that if the … Continue reading →

Some short confessions of an Anglophile, I hope. I’ve had the misfortune to be fascinated by the Brexit process, and its lack of progress through the House of Commons. And I’ve lost sleep over it, given the time difference with … Continue reading →

This is a photo by New Zealander photographer Peter Peryer, who died last year. It was one of his first, and is called Hunua, from the Mars Hotel collection. If you could enlarge the photo a bit you will see … Continue reading →

After a little break, filled with television watching of world tour cycling and the live feed of the Supreme Court in London, it’s back once again to 1976. This time we are with the listener in the first week of October of … Continue reading →

Well it’s the end of September in 1976, and the cover of the listener has a publicity shot for a new New Zealand TV drama, Hunter’s Gold. This is a young adult costume drama, set in the goldfields of Otago, in the … Continue reading →

This week the listener cover story (18 September) features a preview of a radio programme titled ‘Ladies, a plate please’. For those that don’t know what this means, it refers to the cultural practice whereby, when inviting a couple to … Continue reading →

Margaret Thatcher did visit New Zealand in September 1976. She even made the cover of the listener magazine. The listener was the magazine provided by the State which gave the listings for the two public TV channels, and the publicly-owned radio channels. But … Continue reading →

This may be the last blog post, or a change in direction, but has nothing to do with tax havens. It is time to renew the blog, and pay WordPress for the privilege, as I can’t seem to go back … Continue reading →