Latest news with #TheDetail
Newsroom
12 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Newsroom
How to ride a horse, if you don't have a horse
Alastair Goodwin remembers standing in front of an obstacle course, hobby horse in hand, and questioning the choices that had led him and his co-founder to that spot. 'We were the biggest sceptics … The couple of hours before we started we were just like, 'What the hell are we doing?'.' But after the event kicked off and crowds started lining the perimeters of the course, Goodwin, who co-founded Hobby Horsing New Zealand with Tony Sundman, tells The Detail all his worries evaporated. 'It's like, sceptics be damned, people have a really good time and a lot of people have a good laugh.' The children's hobby of 'riding' a stick with a horse head on it has been around for centuries but it wasn't until the early 2000s that it began to be taken more seriously. A group of children sitting with their hobby horses at Whanganui's hobby horsing competition. Photo: Alastair Goodwin Finland was the first country to embrace it, and the sport there is largely dominated by pre-teen girls. Oscar-nominated Finnish filmmaker Selma Vilhunen is widely credited with bringing the sport into the mainstream with her 2017 film, Hobbyhorse Revolution. While it sounds like a bizarre game of childhood make-believe, hobby horsing is taken incredibly seriously in some parts of the world. The horses are often handmade, and the goal is to make them look as realistic as possible. Many riders will train for different events, competing in the likes of dressage, show jumping, and western riding. In the past couple of decades the sport has taken off. It's estimated that about 10,000 Finnish people take part, and it's on the rise here as well. 'We get a lot of emails from people setting up [events] around the place and I know there's another organisation over in Hawkes Bay that does it,' says Goodwin. 'It is building, which is bizarre.' But, he says it's a lot more laidback here. 'We're just trying to promote it as a concept and if people want to run with it and do the kind of high-end level of it then that's good for them,' he says. Another sport rising in the ranks of popularity here is pickleball. The sport is a mix of tennis, badminton and table tennis, and has nothing to do with pickles. 'Three dads were at home with their kids during winter, and the kids were bored and the dads were getting a bit frustrated so they thought, 'Right, let's see what we can find,' and they made the game of pickleball up,' says Ange Brady, the Hawkes Bay representative on the board of the Pickleball Association of New Zealand. The game is designed to include the whole family, from grandchild to grandparent. 'Generally it's played in doubles,' Brady says. 'You've got two people each side of the net and you can only score a point off your serve.' But while it began as a fun family sport, pickleball has evolved. Brady says both America and Australia have professional league teams, and there's an annual world cup competition. New Zealand sent two teams over to last year's world cup. The open team made it to the quarter finals and the 50+ team came second out of the 22 participating countries. There's even talk of it becoming an Olympic sport, but for that to happen Brady says there need to be some changes at the governing level. 'There are currently two governing bodies for pickleball across the world. 'We need to have one governing body for the sport and a bit of consistency of what that looks like around the world, because you obviously need to have criteria that you would meet across all of the countries in order to select the team,' she says. Whether or not it makes an appearance at a future Olympic games, Brady says pickleball is a sport for everyone. 'I hear stories of kids lining up at lunchtime and morning tea time to play at schools, and then we've got pickleball available all through the day for everybody right through until the evening for those who still have to work a full-time job, and then across the weekends. 'Once you start playing, you just find your people.' Check out how to listen to and follow The Detail here. You can also stay up-to-date by liking us on Facebook or following us on Twitter.
Newsroom
3 days ago
- Politics
- Newsroom
Iran's nuclear weapons dash hits a hurdle, but race far from over
It's a long time since we've been on the edge of our seats wondering if a full-blown nuclear war is about to happen. But many had that sensation when the US President said last weekend that Iran's nuclear facilities had been 'completely and totally obliterated'. Trump's bullseye claim is now in question but the bombing had many experts talking about the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 at the height of the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union. 'They were very real fears and there were some very close calls, in particular during the Cuban Missile Crisis we now know the world came incredibly close to nuclear conflict,' international law and nuclear weapons expert Anna Hood of Auckland University says. People feared then that the 'Cold War would turn hot'. Since then we have had volatile moments and right now the risk is heightened, she says. 'There were higher numbers of weapons during the Cold War. We have seen some level of disarmament since then but we haven't seen enough movement in the last few years. The numbers are still very high.' Not only have the numbers stayed high, but countries are trying to upgrade and enhance the weapons they do have, she says. 'I would like to hope that most states, all states, wouldn't go there [nuclear war] or even if they've got nuclear weapons that that's not what they'll use but I think there are very serious risks in terms of what happens in the heat of a conflict, in terms of accidents.' Hood focuses much of her time on the numerous nuclear issues afflicting the world today and how to work towards a nuclear-free world. 'We are a long way unfortunately from that,' she admits, pointing to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists' annual Doomsday Clock showing we are closer than ever – 89 seconds to midnight, and catastrophe. Hood tells The Detail why the US strike on Iran is a violation of international law and the possible consequences. While the impact of the B2 stealth bomber attacks is still not clear, senior physics lecturer at Auckland University David Krofcheck says it does not end Iran's nuclear ambitions. 'Israel has had a go at assassinating their nuclear weapons scientists there but you can't destroy knowledge, and that's the critical thing. It can be rebuilt, you just start from scratch,' he says. Iran insists it is not developing weapons, but Krofcheck says he can't think of another reason it would need to enrich uranium to 60 percent, as confirmed by the International Atomic Energy Agency. But even with 60 percent enriched uranium, there's more to the process and it would have been months before it had a weapon ready. 'That nuclear device that's built might be gigantic, the size of a house. It's not something you can pick up and put on a missile and shoot at another country.' Check out how to listen to and follow The Detail here. You can also stay up-to-date by liking us on Facebook or following us on Twitter.
Newsroom
4 days ago
- Business
- Newsroom
The big ‘but' in our slow economic recovery
By the time our quarterly figures are out, they're three months old. And recent global instability is making them look very mouldy. While there were shoots of hope when the data was crunched last week – including a slightly better-than-expected lift in Gross Domestic Product – we are about to be hit by what economists like to call 'headwinds'. In this case, those headwinds are war in the Middle East, rising petrol prices, an unstable Kiwi dollar and the effect of America's tariffs. Kiwibank economists say we're still crawling out of the deep hole we fell into last year … 'and unfortunately, we may be crawling for some time longer'. Other commentators have pointed out that the figures are showing two economies. The picture is fairly rosy if you're a dairy farmer, not so good if you're in the city struggling to pay your bills. But even that narrative has been contradicted by yesterday's 'subdued' employment confidence figures, which show poor confidence in dairying-intensive regions such as Waikato and Taranaki. And unlike the traditional picture, this time farmers are not lifting up the rest of the country, where people are struggling with issues such as food inflation. Today on The Detail we talk to Kiwibank senior economist Mary Jo Vergara to make sense of the numbers, and try to peek into the future to get a sense of where we're going. She says external factors such as trade wars and actual wars are an added risk to the outlook. 'We'll feel the impact through how markets react to this,' she says. 'We've already seen oil surge in the last two weeks – it's up around 20 percent since the start of the month – and with this conflict that just escalated over the weekend we could see oil prices take another leap higher. There'll be a risk-aversion play with a flight to safety among investors dumping equities and moving into safe havens like gold or the US dollar, so we could see the Kiwi fall off the back of this.' Vergara says New Zealand has seen really good progress in the past couple of years pulling down inflation, going from 7.3 percent in the June 2022 quarter, down to about 2.5 percent. 'Now there's risk that inflation accelerates this year, and we could see it reaching the top of [the Reserve Bank's] target band.' And while the March quarterly figures out last week depicted a strong start to the recovery coming out of recession last year, 'the more timely economic data indicators that are coming out are showing that growth might not be repeated in the quarter we're in'. 'We might see a slowdown in economic activity in the June quarter.' People aren't out there spending, and the hospitality sector in particular is suffering. Vergara says uncertainty stalls growth and we are very much influenced by global trade disruption, which is spreading across many sectors. 'It's another reason why we need more interest-rate relief from the Reserve Bank, to add a bit more certainty in this uncertain time.' Check out how to listen to and follow The Detail here. You can also stay up-to-date by liking us on Facebook or following us on Twitter.
Newsroom
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Newsroom
At the Cannes Lions, a cheeky NZ advert comes out on top
When Sir Graham Henry got a call from a young ad man asking him to front a campaign about a taboo subject, his answer was surprising. 'It was quite daunting to call him up,' says Sam Stuchbury, creative director and founder of Motion Sickness. 'No one really wants to be in a herpes ad.' Sam Stuchbury, executive creative director of Motion Sickness. Photo: Motion Sickness But Sir Graham said 'yes' to the campaign, and last week took his support further by beaming into the prestigious Cannes Lions global ad awards with a tongue-in-cheek message of congratulations to New Zealand for being 'the best place in the world to have herpes'. The campaign was awarded two Grand Prix and four other prizes at Cannes, where they competed with more than 26,000 entries. Stuchbury tells The Detail how he nervously phoned Sir Graham, and before he could complete his pitch the former All Black coach said, 'Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll do it'. With Sir Graham on board, the team at Motion Sickness then approached other New Zealand 'icons' including Sir Ashley Bloomfield, Sir Buck Shelford and comedian Angella Dravid. The agency had been given an 'impossible brief' from the Herpes Foundation: to remove the stigma from genital herpes, an infection that afflicts one in three sexually active New Zealand adults. Foundation trustee Alaina Luxmoore says the organisation had been trying to destigmatise herpes for more than 20 years. 'It has never, ever, ever worked,' she says. 'You're up against mainstream media; being the punchline joke in movies and songs and TV; decades and decades and decades of internalised shame about herpes as being akin to some type of sexual proclivity or uncleanliness. 'It felt like you could never shake the stigma.' A still image from the award-winning herpes ad. Photo: Motion Sickness When the agency came back to Luxmoore with the campaign tagline 'Make New Zealand the best place in the world to have herpes,' her reaction was instant. ''Oh my gosh, that's it.' By the end of the weekend after we'd heard that line for the first time I couldn't shake it and we were giddy with excitement.' Both Luxmoore and Stuchbury were shocked at the worldwide reaction, with 22 million PR impressions, a reflection of the number of people reached by the campaign in the first eight weeks, and more than 10,000 hours of educational content watched. 'I didn't expect the level of admiration from overseas people and we had a lot of herpes organisations from other places around the world reaching out and saying, can I share your content, can you tell me about it. American podcasts, English researchers who are doing their degrees on the stigma around herpes. Lots and lots of international eyes on us and I didn't expect that.' For Luxmoore it was also a surprising personal experience, as she fronted for media interviews for the foundation about why destigmatisation was so important. 'It was like, 'Who is the person who can speak to the lived experience of herpes' and that's me. The reason I'm on the board is because I have herpes.'
Newsroom
18-06-2025
- Politics
- Newsroom
The thinking way to win a war
It was supposed to be over by now, a three-day (at the most) blitz by Russia on its many-times smaller neighbour, an ego-boosting win for Vladimir Putin. But the war is now in its fourth year, with Russia occupying just under a fifth of Ukraine, and some out-of-the-box thinking from Ukrainians boosting morale in the beleaguered country. Today on The Detail, we talk about Operation Spiderweb, which destroyed planes deep into Russian territory; Russian retaliation; financing a conflict and who's winning, with the Telegraph's associate editor of defence Dom Nicholls. He reports every weekday for the Telegraph's award-winning podcast Ukraine: The Latest – and he says there's always plenty to say. 'There's so much going on. 'There's always something happening on the battlefield but as we've discovered over the last three years of doing this, there's just a great appetite around the world to learn about Ukraine's history, the culture, the people, the food, the politics. So we come at it from all angles.' Nicholls is former British Army and the podcast team makes sure they visit Ukraine at least three times a year, so they're not just sitting back and analysing from afar. So, who is winning? 'In the dark days of February/March 2022, just Ukraine existing as a sovereign entity, with an effective government still in power, a president that's alive, and a society that's supportive of the war effort … I think many people at the time would have said 'right, let's have that, that's what we want'. Well that's kind of where we are now. 'Currently about 19 percent of the country's held by Russia, and President Zelensky's been very clear that they're never just going to accept the loss of [those] eastern regions. So does that mean that they're losing? 'Well look at it the other way. Putin thought that he was going to be in Kyiv in days, weeks at most. By no means has he achieved his aims there. He's almost bankrupted his country, he's wiped out a generation of people who can no longer work in the factories of Russia and generate the income, so the question is about, 'Is this a war or is this the war?' 'Is this the war you break your country over to win? That question is now being pushed in the face of Vladimir Putin. 'If the answer's no … you might want to think twice about what's happening now, three years into this thing. 'You can see both sides are winning, and both sides are losing as well.' Also on The Detail, Nicholls talks about the differences between the Russian and Ukrainian mindsets when it comes to new ideas and carrying them out, as well as the effect that US President Donald Trump's attitude could have on the outcome of the war. Check out how to listen to and follow The Detail here. You can also stay up-to-date by liking us on Facebook or following us on Twitter.
