The concept of success often seems to be conflated with big-picture thinking. A bit of systems change, global impact and industry-wide disruption for good measure. But for this issue, when I sat down with Dr. Kerry Spackman, who lives in the space of high performance and achievement, I started to appreciate things a little more […]
Rakiura | Third Island Gin Third Island Gin hails from Stewart Island, New Zealand’s southernmost distillery. This small-batch London Dry spirit arrives in a beautiful and unique bottle. Each unique batch showcases exceptional craftsmanship. The nose presents bright juniper and citrus alongside remarkable New Zealand natives. Aromas of Rimu and Manuka create an enticing profile. […]
Toyota has maintained a position of leadership in the New Zealand market for an enviable 38 consecutive years. In 2025, the company achieved record sales of more than 34,000 vehicles. Across Corolla, RAV4 and Hilux, Toyota defines the concept of the car for the New Zealand public. Not surprising that the RAV4 is now the […]
For a band whose best-known song insists history never repeats, Split Enz are doing a remarkably good job of proving themselves wrong. Nearly two decades after their last full New Zealand run, Tim Finn, Neil Finn, Eddie Rayner and Noel Crombie, joined by James Milne on bass and Matt Eccles on drums, are deep into […]
JenNa Ortega was stunning on the red carpet at The 2026 Actor Awards. She had one nomination at the event for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series for her work in Wednesday, of which she is the titular character. This has been the role that has really cemented her in the […]
Now might be a terrible time to visit Dubai, but if I was going to risk venturing into a regional conflict right now, it’d be for the Bvlgari Mattar Bin Lahej x Octo Finissimo. Revealed at the Dubai Watch Week in November AT Burj Park, the limited piece puts one of the Emirati’s most celebrated […]
Celebrated documentarian Louis Theroux is back at it again, this time honing in on the fringe elements of the Manosphere in his new doco “Louis Theroux: Inside The Manosphere”. The ripples since its release follow predictable cycles of everyone involved finding ways to shill their wares. HSTikkyTokky wants everyone to know that he absolutely smashed […]
In a recent interview with Matthew McConaughey in a Variety & CNN Town Hall Timothée Chalamet talked about how the craft of movies is changing, and having to meet the audience where it is. One comment in particular kicked off some shirtiness at the Academy Awards with ballerina Misty Copeland who was in attendance rebucking […]
At 13:24:59 Central Standard Time on December 19 1972, the Apollo 17 command module splashed down in the Pacific Ocean, about 350 nautical miles south-east of Samoa, concluding the last mission to the Moon. During his career, Apollo 17’s commander, Eugene A. Cernan, logged 566 hours and 15 minutes in space, of which more than […]
I arrive at the Savic West Melbourne facility with a full suitcase. Usually I travel with carry on only, yet my leathers and boots demand space. Savic (pronounced Savich) has built a striking ‘Chrome and Leather’ cafe racer that I’m here to test. There’s no fairings here folks, it’s mechanicals on display, without forgetting about […]
Ryan Gosling walks into a room, or onto a screen, and the temperature instantly changes. Women feel it immediately. Men don’t seem to mind either. Some even smile. That’s almost impossible to pull off and almost nobody else can do it. What is that thing exactly? Turns out, it’s everything. From Mouse to Man To […]
For years, Seeby Woodhouse has had the luxury that many founders spend their whole lives vision-boarding. A clean exit. He had money and success. He could step back. He could operate as an owner, shareholder, or director. He could, as he puts it, “go away to Europe for three months and leave the CEO in […]
Well, isn’t this a little treasure? Lotus is the ultimate sports car formula: small, light, fast and fun. “Lightness” was the catch-cry of Colin Chapman, founder of Lotus; it helped him win many Formula One victories. The Emira typifies this fabulous form. With compact dimensions, rear-wheel drive, and a mid-mounted engine, it is masterfully packed. […]
The Ferrari Amalfi has many good numbers. 3.9 Litre 90-degree V8 twin-turbo with 470Kw and 760 NM from 3,000 to 5,700 rpm and it will spin to 7,600 driving through a 8-spd DCT for a 3.3 seconds 0 to 100 sprint, and a 320kph vmax. It’s 4.6 m long with a 2.7 m wheelbase, a […]
Turns out the best way to understand a supercar’s four-wheel drive system is to point it at a frozen lake in Inner Mongolia and see what happens. While most of us were going to work and pretending to care about interest rates, a handful of lucky New Zealanders were halfway across the world in Yakeshi, […]
I had the honour of joining Ferrari for two events at Casa Ferrari at the Melbourne Formula One Grand Prix. Situated on the main straight – the view was stunning, as was the hospitality. Thursday night cocktails made quite the event, especially when you are joined by F1 team boss Fred Vasseur, and seven-time world […]
Cadillac is the newest team to join Formula One, making 11 teams and 22 cars on the grid. F1 is a very sophisticated operation these days, an elite franchise with restricted entry. How the most famous name in American luxury autos made it to the startline is an interesting story. Italian-born and USA-based Mario Andretti […]
It started with a question from Sony in 2017. They wanted a car for the new Gran Turismo. McLaren answered with the Vision GT, a digital monster where the driver literally lay in it like a motorbike. Millions played the game. Then a group of customers asked the factory to build it as a real […]
Greg Murphy is one of the most approachable motorsport superstars. The four-time Bathurst winner is a similar age to me; I saw him at the Nissan Mobil 500 Wellington street race back in the 90s. That was before he became famous, but even when he was on the podium, he had his feet firmly planted […]
Petrol is now over $3 a litre. That’s only happened a handful of times in living memory, and each time it does, the same conversation starts up again: how do we stop being so dependent on the stuff? Three bucks is expensive in anyone’s book, and with pump prices this unpredictable, the case for electrification […]
For more than a decade, Ed Harvey has been building towards a moment exactly like this one. He devoted himself to building a company on the conviction that New Zealand’s dependence on imported fuel was a vulnerability waiting to be exposed and that electric vehicles, charged at home on the country’s own renewable grid, were […]
Evs, see them on the road and they look and drive just like the cars you’re used to. But once you open the bonnet, or even the driver’s door, it becomes quickly obvious they’re very different beasts indeed. Modern vehicles, whether petrol, hybrid or full electric, are packed with sophisticated technology that goes far beyond […]
Bogan grunge is back and arguably never left if you grew up out west like I did. Thanks to a collaboration between Californian fashion label Brixton and Goodyear we can finally get some threads that give us the blending of vintage workwear and modern utility we were after. The collection features off white Snapbacks, a […]
The Sony World Photography Awards have announced the 30 finalists and 65 shortlisted photographers for the 2026 Professional competition, and we’re privileged to share some of them here with you today. Across this year’s competitions, over 430,000 images from over 200 countries and territories were submitted. Combined they represent a powerful showcase of visual storytelling […]
Every April, Geneva reminds the rest of the world why it is the capital of watchmaking. Palexpo fills with journalists, retailers and collectors from well over a hundred countries, press releases land at midnight, and the industry collectively lays its cards on the table for the year ahead. Watches and Wonders 2026 was, by every […]
Rolesium COSMOGRAPH DAYTONA The new Daytona comes in Rolesium, combining Oystersteel with platinum, and it is noticeably cooler in tone than the gold-heavy references that have dominated the line in recent years. Whether that reflects a deliberate shift in direction or simply a gap in the release schedule is hard to say, but the result […]
Celestial Ref. 6105g-001 Patek Philippe has been mapping the sky in mechanical form since 1927, when the manufacture first produced an astronomical pocket watch displaying sunrise and sunset times for a private client. That piece, made to order for James Ward Packard, was followed six years later by another for Henry Graves Jr., a commission […]
PAM01089 Submersible Navy Seals Afniotech Experience The most immediately striking thing about the PAM01089 is the material. Afniotech is Panerai’s proprietary alloy comprising over 95% hafnium, and hafnium is not a material that appears in watchmaking catalogues. It is more commonly found in neutron control systems for nuclear reactors, and aboard the first US nuclear […]
Ref. 7939G1A0NRU BLACK BAY 58 GMT The Black Bay 58 GMT is Tudor doing what it does best: taking a proven case and making a genuinely useful watch out of it. The 39mm Black Bay 58 proportions have earned their reputation since the reference arrived in 2018, and bringing a GMT function into that chassis […]
Ref. 6654N VILLERET COMPLETE CALENDAR MOONPHASE The Villeret Complete Calendar Moonphase is where Blancpain makes its clearest argument for what the collection is actually about. This is not a watch that announces its complications; it wears them with the kind of composure that only comes from doing this since 1983, when the original complete calendar […]
O-MEGASTEEL, 18K Gold & Platinum-Gold CONSTELLATION OBSERVATORY The Constellation Observatory takes its name from Omega’s observatory chronometer competition history of the 1950s and 60s, when the brand was submitting movements to Swiss and European observatories for precision trials with consistent results. The pie-pan dial, with its raised dodecagonal rim and stepped indexes, is a direct […]
Ref. 610G-001 Celestial Patek Philippe has been mapping the sky in mechanical form since 1927, when the manufacture first produced an astronomical pocket watch displaying sunrise and sunset times for a private client. That piece, made to order for James Ward Packard, was followed six years later by another for Henry Graves Jr., a commission […]
If you watched Ryan Gosling’s latest MOVIE then you may have noticed him flashing his suitably modern watch around. Project Hail Mary is directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, with a screenplay by Drew Goddard, and follows science teacher Ryland Grace who wakes up on a spaceship light years from home with no recollection […]
Wrap Yourself in Luxury with our Pick of the Season’s most stylish offerings from FELLINI and Monti Castello. Asymmetrical Coastal Check in 100% Lambswool by Fellini Camel, Merlot & Sky Plaid in 100% Lambswool by Fellini Hunter’s Houndstooth Check in 100% Lambswool by Fellini Tuscan Woodland Plaid in 100% Lambswool by Fellini Forest Green Pure […]
BVLGARI has snaffled up BAFTA Award-winning actor and Academy Award nominee Jake Gyllenhaal as its new Global Brand Ambassador. “Jake represents a contemporary form of excellence rooted in integrity, empathy and authenticity,” says Laura Burdese, Bvlgari Deputy CEO who will become full Bvlgari CEO later this year. He joins the stable of ambassadors that include […]
When it comes to AI Sam Altman takes just about all the airtime, but Dario Amodei is giving him a run for his money, except with a dash less moderation. Amodei started Anthropic in 2021 after he broke away from OpenAI and cofounded the company with his sister Daniela Amodei. Their AI platform Claude has […]
Dr. Kerry Spackman has built a career on extreme performance. Over the years, his work has taken him into the orbit of four Formula One teams, the All Blacks, Olympians and billionaire business figures, placing him inside worlds that, at first glance, seem to share little in common in terms of the skills, environments and […]
Matt Bishop is not especially interested in preserving the old shape of his industry. Brevity, Bishop’s Auckland-based business still does the practical work of construction engineering, particularly across interiors, racking, events and compliance, but it is also building software, training tools and automation systems for where that work is heading next. Bishop thinks that matters […]
In any industry, being good at the work does not mean you are good at the business. Going to market, pricing properly, building systems, maintaining standards, hiring and developing people, and keeping enough work in front of them without sacrificing quality, these are just some of the plates that need to BE kept spinning. That […]
For all the noise around AI, a lot of businesses still operate with the same old friction. Invoices arrive in different formats. Referral forms turn up incomplete. Orders sit in inboxes. Staff spend hours moving data between systems, checking fields, fixing errors, and doing work that has to be done but adds nothing to growth. […]
AI won’t replace great leaders. But it will expose the ones who stopped growing. Rosanne Graham, CEO of Skills Group, has a framework for what comes next. Ask most people what skills a future leader needs and you’ll get a list that reads like a LinkedIn post: “strategic thinker, great communicator, team player.” Rosanne Graham, […]
When we were tasked with the job of collating our favourite quotes from the stoics we thought it would be amusing to just publish two blank pages as it might be more in line with what the Stoics were all about. In the end wordcounts won the day. While most of the philosophy of the […]
One Guy Three Screens Now that we’ve had every possible iteration of screen sizes as well as some pretty novel double screen layouts it’s time to boldly venture to new frontiers. THREE MONITORS. Laptops offer a sticky design problem since people generally expect there to be a keyboard somewhere on it. XBook has designed a […]
In the early 1970s, the idea of an ordinary person owning a computer sounded absurd. Computers back then were more like aircraft carriers or nuclear power plants than household appliances – vast machines housed in data centres operated by teams of specialists, serving governments, universities and large corporations. Then came Apple. Founded on April 1, […]
So Elle Fanning has a new show “Margo’s Got Money Troubles” coming out made by her production company she co-founded with her sister. She ain’t just an actor anymore, she’s a businesswoman getting a slice of the industry, which she then acts in. Based on a book, it demystifies the hustle of being on OnlyFans, […]
This might come as news to non-nerds but the new Spider-Noir show starring Nicholas Cage as a black and white spidey is actually him reprising his role as the character. As one of the quirky side-spideys in the animated Into The Spider-Verse (one of the most highly rated spider-man films out there) I wasn’t entirely […]
Despite the last film releasing in the middle of a pandemic, the Mortal Kombat reboot did well enough to receive a sequel. So what if the critics gave it a 55%? These films have never tried to be anything other than a goofy time. You don’t go to Mortal Kombat to see Schindler’s List, you […]
I love videogames. I love movies. I hate most videogame movies. The math doesn’t work but here we are. Mostly growing up in the 90s and early 00s videogame movies were hot trash. 9 out of the ten highest grossing videogame films were released in the last ten years, and the top three came out […]
The weather’s crap, you’ve just lit a fire and you’re looking for some dumbish yet action-filled entertainment to while away the evening on Netflix? Boy, have I got a recommendation for you! Especially if you loved the Arnie peak of Predator and/or the proper (ie non-Tom Cruise) version of Reacher. War Machine is exactly what […]
Large Language Models are inherently flawed. They’ve pulled off a highly technical party trick but it’s not going to be the path forward toward true machine intelligence. When it comes to flexible creative thinking and learning nothing beats the human mind (when it isn’t vibe coding with Chat-GPT). But how do we put a human […]
