Innholdsfortegnelse for October 2016 i Metro NZ

The Metro team has won two gongs at the 2016 Magazine Media Awards. At the awards dinner in Auckland on September 8, Metro won Best Cover in the current affairs and business category for our November 2015 issue featuring John Campbell. The judges noted that in a category with a high calibre of entries, “Metro had an arresting cover with powerful cover lines”. Art director Micheal Hanly was recognised with the award for Best Designer in the current affairs and business category, the judges commenting that Metro was “not afraid to take risks, clean, sophisticated”. See page 19 for photos of the night.…

AT Q THEATRE’S FIFTH BIRTHDAY PARTY AT Q THEATRE AT THE MAGAZINE PUBLISHERS ASSOCIATION AWARDS AT THE AUCKLAND MUSEUM…

“I’m wondering what the hell’s wrong with me,” says Rima Te Wiata. “Do I look 120?” Hardly. Te Wiata is 52, yet her most recent roles have all been characters aged in their seventies or beyond. It’s the same story with her latest — she plays grandma to Billy, the coal miner’s son who dreams of being a ballet dancer, in Auckland Theatre Company’s Billy Elliot the Musical. Of course, as Billy Elliot director Colin McColl points out, such casting is a tribute to Te Wiata’s ability as a character actor. Billy’s hard-scrabble childhood, where the arts are viewed with suspicion at best, is the antithesis of Te Wiata’s own upbringing. But despite her father Inia Te Wiata’s success as an opera singer and her mother Beryl’s career as a…

The hippest city in the world thrived. E-bikes glided around a city full of pink cycleways and air bridges. David Slack was drawn to two things in life: booze and mouthing off. He was a barman, a breweries executive, a speech writer, a columnist, a talkback host, a mouth for hire. Wherever people sat down to talk bullshit, he felt at home. But by middle age, he was jaded. You could bang out 600 or 800 sarcastic words but what ever changed? Nothing. What was the point? Might as well move to Nelson and get a lawn-mowing round. Or Thailand. Everyone says it’s nice in Thailand. And the beer’s icy cold. But then there was a victory party for Phil Goff. Slack knew how it would go: just like all…

If I’m honest, I sometimes find being a father utterly fucking terrifying. Over the past few weeks, I’ve become a commuter. Every morning, I get up at six and a bit and walk the dog and then I shower and get changed and make a coffee and run to the ferry. I walk up through the city’s towers with all the other people who have real jobs. Some days — when Ira goes to a grandparent or day care and Hannah goes to work and takes the dog — all four of us drive into the city down the carpool lane. I left my last real job in 2007 — 2007! — and for the better part of a decade I’ve made my way in the world with only my…

For the typical family to buy the typical house would take over 70 years, unless they spend a lot of their income on housing. Auckland is a pretty cool city. I love the harbour and the parks, the diversity, even the weather. And the food — being able to buy just the right Kashmiri chilli for my vindaloo from Sandringham or a Paris baguette from Sabato (I am a very particular cook and too often a decadent eater). Auckland has some great things going for it, but also some serious problems in housing and transport. This story is about housing — that it’s broken, how it broke and how we can fix it. House prices have risen much faster than incomes since the early 2000s — from five times household…

Driving around every Sunday for six months to look at open homes convinced first-home buyers Lisa McAlpine and Ben Stewart they didn’t want to commute from the fringes of Auckland’s sprawl to get to work. They were flatting on the North Shore, where they both grew up. With a budget of $600,000, they started looking at houses in Whangaparaoa, then Beach Haven and out west. They realised they would be too far away from their jobs — McAlpine, 23, is a front-desk co-ordinator for hair salon Dry & Tea in the City Works Depot and Stewart, 24, is an insurance company team leader in Greenlane. “Sitting in traffic for two hours each day — we were just over it,” McAlpine says. “We figured that to buy a house in Auckland…

IT’S HIGH-END, HIGH-QUALITY APARTMENT LIVING IN REPURPOSED COMMERCIAL PREMISES. EVEN YOUR VISITORS ARE TAKEN CARE OF, WITH GUEST SUITES AVAILABLE TO BOOK. It’s a case of “don’t just dream it, live it” - at Western Park, a new city-fringe apartment development in Ponsonby. The building is set alongside a quiet park for down time, views to remind you where you are in the world, and restaurants and bars just a walk away. With 27 apartments of two bedrooms and two bathrooms and accompanied by two car parks, Western Park is right in the heartland of Auckland’s city living and Ponsonby’s sophisticated atmosphere. With a pool and tennis court, a 5-star lobby, library and fully furnished, sumptuous guest suites available for residents to book, Western Park allows you to entertain —why…

After eating at Pasture, I decided that with most food, eating is nostalgia. You recognise flavours and textures and that triggers a sensory value judgment. I also remembered that a great many restaurants cheat by adding sugar. Pasture treats eating as adventure, and it doesn’t seem to have any sugar. So the combinations and flavours are often not what you know. No nostalgia. It’s brave and very exciting and I loved eating there. It serves degustation, which is not the fashion in this town, but it’s not dego served by starched-up waitstaff in a room of hushed reverence. Pasture staff wear aprons and jeans and flash their tattoos just like their compadres in every bistro on Ponsonby Rd. The room is square and high-ceilinged, a modernist pagoda with lots of…

SCARECROW 33 Victoria St East, Aucland CBD Open 7 days from 7am, Tues-Sat till 10pm Ph: 377-1333 www.scarecrow.co.nz With more than 100 local suppliers, Scarecrow offers dining options for all palates, with vegan and vegetarian choices. Day and evening menus are matched with local brews, wines and juices. Grocer, florist, restaurant. Eat, shop, relax. FARANG CAFE & BISTRO 503 New North Rd, Kingsland Ph: 815-3834 www.farangcafe.com At Farang (which means foreigner in Thai), we have food bursting with the flavour of true Thailand. Sweet, sour, salty or hot, Farang serves the best Thai food in a street-food style vibrant scene located at the heart of Kingsland. HONEY CAFE 12 Huron St, Takapuna, Auckland Ph: 489-4000 Mon-Fri 7am-3pm, Sat-Sun 8am-3pm www.honeycafe.co.nz Honey café has created a stir within the Takapuna café…

MY NAME IS LUCY BARTON ELIZABETH STROUT (PENGUIN, $38) Elizabeth Strout says it took her 15 years “to get sentences to do what I wanted them to do”. The apparently artless simplicity of My Name is Lucy Barton belies supreme control; Lucy’s voice is unadorned, but her storytelling skills are revealed as the narrative unfolds. From a hospital-bed reunion with her mother, the story flashes back to her poor, rigid upbringing in the American Midwest and the circumstances that led to her becoming a writer (“Books brought me things… And I thought: I will write and people will not feel so alone!”). Writing about the effects of a hard childhood, the absence of five dollar words makes the emotional wallop all the more devastating: “There are…

GOOD TO KNOW CHASE GREAT: WHERE TO FIND TRUE LOVE ONLINE, AS RICHIE DID • Buy something only you would like on Trade Me and insist on picking it up to see what kind of person shares your taste. • Find someone whose views you agree with on stuff.co.nz and reply to all their comments with your email address. • Copy the text of one of those sexy scam emails from Olga in Ukraine and send it out to your LinkedIn contacts to see if you get any takers. • Send Facebook messages to celebrities you fancy (caveat: best if you, too, are a celebrity). • Change your Tinder pick-up line to “sorry for your loss”. OTHER THINGS THAT POLLUTE RIVERS BESIDES DUCK POO • German tourists with GoPros drifting…

Shamubeel Eaqub Writer He’s an economist with a gift for putting complicated subjects into simple terms, which is why we asked Shamubeel Eaqub to come up with the answers to Auckland’s housing crisis (page 51). Eaqub, who grew up in Canterbury, lives in Auckland with his wife, Selena, and son, Haydn. Having spent six years as principal economist with the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research, Eaqub is now a partner in a boutique consultancy, writes books and aims to “give voice to the unheard”. • INSTAGRAM.COM/ METROMAGNZ • TWITTER.COM/ METROMAGNZ • FACEBOOK.COM/ METROMAGNZ FIND US AT... METROMAG.CO.NZ METROEATS.CO.NZ (IPHONE APP AND WEBSITE)…

October 1 AUCKLAND LIVE INTERNATIONAL CABARET SEASON Rebel with UK duo Frisky and Mannish, spend a night with the Blackbird Ensemble, wallow in the music of Nina Simone and Chet Baker. See page 26. TOWN HALL AND VARIOUS VENUES, TO OCT 2, WWW.AUCKLANDLIVE . CO.NZ AUCKLAND HERITAGE FESTIVAL Get better acquainted with our city at one of more than 200 low-cost or free events. VARIOUS VENUES, TO OCT 9, WWW.HERITAGEFESTIVAL.CO.NZ NIGHT AT AUCKLAND MUSEUM: TIME WARPED Take a journey through time and examine our lives through past, present and future tense. A great night out for the kids. AUCKLAND MUSEUM, TO OCT 7, WWW.AUCKLANDMUSEUM.COM 2 SHOW ME SHORTS Damn good short films from here and over there. THE CIVIC AND VARIOUS VENUES,…

Claire Cowan loves a nana nap — so much so, she recently blogged about how to have a good nap, and why naps are a good thing. In the hours she’s awake — more than you might imagine, given how many naps she takes — Cowan and eight members of her orchestral group, Blackbird Ensemble, are rehearsing their collaborative work Dreams (yes, a show about sleeping) for the Auckland Live International Cabaret Season. The show, which debuted at the Basement last year — Metro reviewer David Larsen called it “magical” — returns for just one performance. The ensemble call themselves a “mini-orchestra”, but really they’re a loose gang of about 50 classical musicians who perform experimental shows featuring rearrangements of contemporary songs by the likes of David Bowie and The…

Nga mihi nui kia koutou katoa. Welcome, friends and fellow citizens of Tamaki Makaurau. The city of a thousand lovers. The city loved by so many. The city with 800 more cars every week. Nearly 45,000 people a year. That’s the population of Hamilton, every three and a half years. There’s a good side to the growth. It brings opportunity. More chances to buy and sell things, get a job, find workers for your company. More choice in the sports your kids play, the food you eat, the clubs you can join, the events you can take part in and the shows you can go along and watch. More ways in which you can belong. Our communities are the villages in which we live, whether that’s in a suburban street…

Home ownership — the white picket fence and quarter-acre section — may seem a lost dream for many Aucklanders right now. But it’s worth taking a look at areas you may not have considered before, where interesting changes are under way. Here are three localities worth keeping on your real-estate radar: CITY FRINGE Historically these pockets of residential homes were littered with shoebox apartments — “the kind you couldn’t swing a cat in”, says Sandra Forrester, manager of Barfoot & Thompson’s City branch. Many were built in the late 90s, but more recently, smart developers have added plenty of apartments in low-rise buildings (typically of six to 12 storeys) as a way of increasing density without compromising on space. Expect to pay about $10,000 to $12,000 per square metre, which…

“It’s not in the bank’s interest or yours to lend money that you clearly cannot afford to repay if interest rates go up,” says Manjeera Hammond, product manager home loans at BNZ “Banks apply interest rate buffers when assessing an application to make sure you are able to repay the loan if rates go up,” explains Hammond. “Even so, it’s a really sensible idea to do your sums on a much higher interest rate than the current floating rates. That way, if the interest rate rises by a percentage point or even two, you will be capable of keeping up the payments. “If rates increase by even one percent per annum, you could be paying hundreds of dollars more a month. It’s not that long since Kiwis were paying eight…

NEW BUILDS Buying off the plans? Ask how the deposit is to be held and whether the purchaser will receive the benefit of the interest. Generally, deposits are held by the developer’s lawyer pending settlement (which could be years away). Be sure to check furnishings — the marketing material may show top-quality appliances, but the list of furnishings attached to the agreement is what you are actually buying. If you’re purchasing a leasehold apartment, check what the current leasehold rental is and how often rent is reviewed. EXISTING APARTMENTS The “secondary” market for existing apartments is cheaper, but having to compromise is more likely. Just as you would with a house purchase, conduct thorough due diligence. If the property is leasehold, check what the current leasehold rental is and how…

Sparkling wines Champagne and Champagne-style wines. MORTON PREMIUM BRUT MÉTHODE TRADITIONNELLE ($20) With a high proportion of reserve wine in the blend, this has to be New Zealand’s best-value bottle-fermented sparkling. A full-flavoured, toasty, developed style that will appeal to occasional bubbly drinkers as well as aficionados. BOLLINGER SPECIAL CUVÉE CHAMPAGNE NV ($105) A special celebration deserves the extraordinary and Special Cuvée is my all-time favourite non-vintage Champagne. There is richness and power here, but also an elegance and vitality which make this a great all-round bubbly. It’s rich enough and complex enough to enjoy through meals (and Champagne is generally great with salty dishes). FREIXENET CORDON NEGRO CAVA NV ($17) Like many other quality bottle-fermented sparklings, Cava can be made from both red and white grapes, but as an…

“I was always into the idea of shifting my form, or my skin — painting it or tattooing it or shaving my head.” This dress (1) is my solo costume. It was given to me by artist Reina Sutton and it represents everything that I’m not. The way it binds, the colour, it’s so flowy. I don’t wear things like this usually. It’s an idea of bondage and constraint. It’s also the idea of being beautiful, and I’m afraid of that idea. There’s an idea attached to it that leaves me vulnerable. If I can control vulnerability in performance, I’m all about it. If I can be perceived as beautiful from an outside eye, I can’t control that gaze and then it freaks me out. The dress gets stripped…

SPORT POWELL (XL) Out on October 14 It all started with an angry rant by legendary rock producer Steve Albini. The story goes like this: hot dance-music producer Powell emails Albini to ask for permission to use a vocal sample from one of his old records. In a series of replies, the former Big Black guitarist unleashes a torrent of criticism that Powell cleverly builds into the hilarious video for the song, “Insomniac”. Albini’s withering criticisms of dance music are then memorialised on billboards advertising the Powell track. Apparently there was no personal enmity between the two, but Albini’s views represent the schism — and adversarial attitude — that still exists between a certain old-school rock music perspective and the groove fraternity. “I detest club culture as much as I…

It was downright impractical; it was bloody high maintenance. But you didn’t really care. You bought a house! Of course you did. Back then — not so long ago, when you think about it — it’s what most of us did. You bought a house because you needed one, because you wanted one. Because you could. There were always an unlucky few, but for the rest of us, buying a house was just what we did. It’s what was expected of us, and what we expected for ourselves. It was a turning point, and a milestone, and it was so much more than that. A sanctuary, a comfort, a certainty. A place to call home and a place to come home to. A warm light in a window. A beacon.…

01 Putting the Delegats’ lawyer into your phone contacts in case you feel like punching someone unconscious? 02 Yacht club counts as community service, right? 03 This “postal voting” — what’s a mail box again? 04 Want to vote for Chloe, but worrying that any 22-year-old who wants to be mayor must be not quite right in the head? 05 Len still won’t be remembered for the underground railway, will he? 06 Reassessing your use of salty sailing jargon? 07 Will someone please give Bashford Antiques its own reality TV show? 08 Given up your Netflix this month for High Court defamation trials? 09 In what universe is “lying on your legs” an appealing thought? 10 Is it true there are uncontacted Amazonian tribes who have seen Emily Ratajkowski’s boobs?…

When I stand in front of this painting of Pare Watene, or Pare Watana as she is known in our family, I am standing in front of a taonga of my whanau. I see our connection through our shared whakapapa. I connect myself and my four children to her through the whakapapa knowledge and her cultural property that has been passed on to me from my grandmother and her brothers. Pare was a rangatira and you can feel that when you stand in front of her portrait. I still have her korowai, the cloak that I believe is the one she is wearing in the painting. She lived at Parawai in Thames, where she was close friends with Heeni Hirini, a woman also painted by Gottfried Lindauer and whose portrait…

“You can always guarantee three things with Frisky and Mannish,” says Matthew Floyd Jones on the phone from Hertfordshire in the UK. “I’ll be wearing tight trousers [as Mannish], Laura [Frisky] will be wearing a low-cut top, and we’ll both have a lot of glitter on.” You can also expect riotous pop-song mash-ups inspired by hot societal issues, uncanny celebrity impersonations, and audience interaction. But to accurately describe the British cabaret act, who have been performing to critical acclaim since 2008, can be hard work, says Jones. “Labels are constantly being blown out of the water at the moment — like gender and sexuality, which we deal with in the show. We’ve been called theatre, comedy, queer art.” He says the fluidity of the word “cabaret” appeals: “It’s an amazing…

Feel the girl power as you watch the Spice Girls shadow-box in PVC and throw futuristic nunchucks in the desert. “You are my fire. The one desire.” Nothing unites a karaoke room quite like when the opening lines of one of the most brilliant and nonsensical pop songs of all time blast through the speakers. “Believe when I say, I want it that way.” It’s the equaliser, the icebreaker, even for the shyest of participants. Look around as the chorus builds and you’ll see fists clenched, knees bent in unison as everyone belts out, “Tell me WHY-EEE!” Heads shaking, fingers slowly wagging to the beat, “Ain’t nothin’ but a heartache”, you pause and double over dramatically, “Teeeellll me WHY!” At this point, you get distracted trying to copy the band’s…

1 SUBURB With help from CoreLogic, we grouped adjacent suburbs that we considered broadly equivalent from a home-hunter’s point of view. *Central-city and Newmarket property data relates only to apartments. 2 VALUE Median (midpoint) house and apartment values were derived using a smart measure by CoreLogic. An E-Valuer gives an instant estimate of the current market value of a property based on recent, nearby comparable sales. Each sale is weighted based on its similarity. Using E-Valuer, CoreLogic calculated the median value of all houses or apartments in each of our suburb groups. We chose this measure over median sales because it reflects robust estimates for every single property, rather than only those that happened to have sold in a given period. 3/4 RISE IN PAST 2 YEARS & SINCE 2007…

When interest rates are historically low it’s tempting to bank the difference and spend it on luxury items. There’s no rule that you have to spend 25 or 30 years paying off a mortgage. Many people cut their term quite considerably. If you want to get ahead financially, turn that thought around and view the all-time low interest rates as an opportunity to pay down your mortgage now and get debt free faster. “Think of it this way,” says Manjeera Hammond, “When interest rates are low, more of your monthly payments go towards paying down the principal. As former United States president John F. Kennedy said: ‘The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining’.”…

Inner-city life is changing. The emergence of a new breed of luxury apartment buildings is helping to bring central Auckland into a vibrant 21st century. One such development is the retrofitted historic Grand Hotel at 9 Princes St, now called The International. The hotel’s façade was kept when a 15-floor office tower was built in the late 1980s. The complex is now set for another new lease of life as an upmarket apartment development. Although retrofitted, The International will look bang up to date thanks to a dramatic white exoskeleton that wraps the original building in a lattice of white steel. Its 88 freehold apartments spread over 17 levels will ratchet up inner Auckland’s lifestyle quotient. Every person who moves into the central city and its surroundings boosts demand for…

AROUND THE BARBECUE Fruity and appealing, these reds are for sipping while you watch the steak sizzle. LIGHTER RED  Villa Ponciago Fleurie FULLER-BODIED REDS  Valcanto Syrah Knappstein Shiraz RELAXING AFTER WORK Refreshing wines to wind down with while you debate whose turn it is to cook dinner. LIGHTER WHITES  Churchill’s White Port Nobilo Icon Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc LOWER ALCOHOL  Framingham Classic Riesling FISH AND CHIPS AT THE BEACH These wines have acidity and character so they’re great with battered fish and slice through most types of seafood. LIGHTER WHITES  Hidalgo Manzanilla Tyrrell’s Hunter Valley Semillon MEDIUM- TO FULLER-BODIED WHITE  Camshorn Sauvignon Blanc LAZING IN THE SUN Light, breezy and simple, these are wines bursting with fruit and lower in alcohol. Best enjoyed outside on a hot day. LOWER ALCOHOL  Flight…

“LA is comically brutal for a woman of unclear ethnicity. Earlier this year, I got an audition for the role of a shaman with a bone through her nose.” For a hint of Madeleine Sami’s approach to her first gig as a television director, just check out her choice of footwear. Arriving at the Metro office after a rainy photo shoot at The Wintergarden, she’s sporting weather-appropriate Doc Marten boots as unequivocal as her attitude to being a first-time director. Sami makes her off-camera debut on September 30, when the second series of Funny Girls kicks off on TV3. When the first season of the Kiwi sketch comedy show aired last year, it quickly found a following and won praise among critics, who shockingly concluded that yes, “girls” can indeed…