The glittering alloy biscuit that passes for the Olympic gold medal these days is a poor cousin of the pure gold specimens last awarded

HERE'S the thing about trucks - they're big and they're heavy. Yup, no real surprises there. But what is surprising is the number

LAST week Prime Minister John Key announced the formation of a new superspy agency -- a combination of the GCSB which was designed

THE Rio Olympics are over ... that's it for another four years. Hope you enjoyed them. There were some great sporting moments - not

At about the same time as snow closed the Napier-Taupo highway we were in Melaka, acclimatising to the heat and quizzing locals about

SHOULDN'T WE be looking at how top rotect our under-pressure pristine landscapes? Do we need another Great Walk? Regardless of your

MONDAY The Prime Minister said, "Mate, would you like to go to Rio at the end of the day?" I said, "You bet I would, mate!" "Good,"

There is an urgent need to tackle the problem of Vulnerable Political Strategy ... Those who proposed the name of Ministry for Vulnerable

Well, there were a couple of surprises when the nominations closed for local body elections. No fewer than 33 candidates have been

IT HAS sometimes struck me that there are people in Whanganui who have an inferiority complex about their home town. As if they need

I'M GRATEFUL the Olympics only last a fortnight -- watching all that highly fraught determination to propel bodies, horses and bicycles

With our current employment rates at 90.4 per cent, a whole lot of us are spending significant time and energy in our place of work

THERE are lots of good things to be said about Whanganui, and it's worth repeating that we're beautifully situated with the beating

LAST week Economic Development Minister Steven Joyce, Primary Industries Minister Nathan Guy and Minister for Maori Development Te

Fires are devastating, and capable of wiping out whole households and memories. THE number of house fires in Whanganui and district

THIRTY-THREE candidates ... count them. That's 33 hopefuls standing for the chance to sit down at the Whanganui District Council

I HAD malaria once, and it was extremely unpleasant. I had been working in Yemen, but I contracted it while flying home on a Dutch

TWO American elections ago, during their primaries when Barack Obama beat Hillary Clinton for the candidacy of the Democratic Party

NEGOTIATING with a gun to your head cannot be easy ... Is that why Whanganui chief executive Kym Fell was unwell over the weekend? Mr

MONDAY Monday caucus. They filed in, dragging their heels, yawning, scratching, sighing. They were a bit more animated than usual. I

THERE has been much talk of late about the "no show - no dough" proposal for Whanganui council members when it comes to attending

WHAT can I say when there is so much that needs to be said? I could begin with a horsey haw-haw response to Mark Todd saying he lost

IN medicine, something that grows until it kills its host is called a cancer. Something that is in balance, doesn't use up all its

FIRST discovered in that wonderful decade, the 1950s, Kapuni has been providing natural gas for New Zealanders for more than 50 years. To

IN an age of professional sportspeople, every action will create a reaction because the lives of those individuals are front and centre. The

They are calling it Woeful Wednesday - or maybe it should be Terrible Tuesday, depending if you are on NZ time or Brazilian time. Either

I'VE recently had a few weeks in the Far North - the place which people who don't live there cannot refer to without prefacing it

Lego. What a truly magnificent product and a case study for all business in terms of adaptation and staying ahead of the curve. On

I came to my skepticism of political advertisement early in life. World War II ended shortly after my 10th birthday and I remembered

In some ways many of today's kids do have it easy. Calculators and tablets for schoolwork, mums (and dads) zooming them everywhere in cars for after-school activities, bugger-all real chores to do. But in other ways today's kids have it harder.