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Jemaine Clement on creating 'Bowie's in Space', the Flight of the Conchords' paean-parody to their musical hero. In 1999 Bret McKenzie and I were sitting with our guitars in our dingy flat in Wellington trying to learn David Bowie songs. They...

They are the clowns who shall inherit the earth – and for Trump, Johnson, Morrison et al, the jokester act provides the perfect political cover, writes Morgan Godfery. (This essay is extracted from new essay collection Public Knowledge: Radical...

Huge claims from Uther Dean about The Wicked + The Divine, the books he's spent the last five years with.  The Wicked + The Divine is the best story released this decade in any medium. I want to be clear here. People often confuse favourite...

  The Side Eye is a monthly non-fiction comic by Toby Morris, supported by NZ On Air. Read the rest of the series here.

Summer reissue: Hard to break, cheap as chips, filled with instant coffee or weak tea – it's the mug of the marae, the staffroom, the factory canteen, the church hall. It's our mug, says John Summers. First published 8 May, 2019 Our son was...

Eight years after publication, Walter Isaacson's "iBio" Steve Jobs remains massively influential. Danyl Mclauchlan examines how the deeply flawed genius the book revealed continues to manifest.  It’s the end of the decade, and my social media...

Thirty per cent of the Swedish population live in public housing. New Zealand could learn a lot from their system, argues a former Auckland renter. After many years living in rented flats in Wellington and Auckland, I’ve found myself living in...

What happens when your work is the victim of attempted sabotage by a group of slow-moving middle-aged men? Author and journalist Michelle Duff reveals all. Initially, it was kind of unclear what I was looking at. The disembodied hand loomed from...

A truly ambitious solution would keep jobs in Southland, delivering on the promise of the Zero Carbon Act to make NZ all but carbon neutral by 2050, writes Nicola Gaston in a post co-authored with Sally Brooker, Justin Hodgkiss and David Williams of...

Yesterday, we published an essay by novelist Lloyd Jones lamenting the change in New Zealand's book culture. Today, Alie Benge responds with a passionate defence of the modern NZ library. Lloyd Jones is worried. He couldn’t find the New Zealand...

The bill unveiled this week represents an excellent opportunity to take control of the supply of cannabis and properly reduce harms, writes Joe Boden, director of the Christchurch Health and Development Study. By now the harms associated with...

Closing it down entirely isn't the answer, but neither is letting it run as before. Jeanette Fitzsimons has a compromise plan. An asset or a liability? Actually, Tiwai is both, but the liability could be turned into an asset with some creative...

Every week over 8,000 primary school students around the country are doing science experiments in their classrooms, many in te reo Māori thanks to an initiative started in Tauranga. Chris Duggan explains why she felt compelled to start House of...

As the death toll grows, the immunisation campaign is crucial. At a time like this individuals spreading nonsense is downright dangerous, writes Madeleine Chapman. As of November 27, there have been 33 confirmed measles-related deaths in Sāmoa,...

The world is more connected than ever and hundreds of racist attitudes are just a click away. From well-meaning to outright hateful, when you're a young Māori journalist working in the mainstream media, the sheer volume can be overwhelming.  My...