Archive

A Day in Dunedin’s Underbelly

Posted 12:25am Tuesday 12th October 2010 by Thomas redford

Busy days at the Dunedin District Court are a big excited reunion. On Tuesday 19 September, the hallways and waiting rooms were packed at the start of the day, so nods, big reverse-nods, winks, and arm-wrestle-angle-handshakes abounded, and were remarkably shared across all of the courtroom Read more...

PORT CHALMERS

Posted 11:15pm Monday 11th October 2010 by Staff Reporter

Port Chalmers is a funky little port town full of historic buildings and artsy stores. It's the perfect day trip, rain or shine, just 20 minutes of water and sky away from the city centre. Get there:    It's about a 20-minute drive to Port Chalmers, which is 15km from the city Read more...

Dunedin's Dark Past

Posted 11:09pm Monday 11th October 2010 by Staff Reporter

Dunedin's quaint architecture and quiet suburbs hide a dark past. This small southern city has had more than its fair share of brutality, with some of the country's most high-profile crimes and horrific happenings occurring right here in the Edinburgh of the South. The axe murderer that got Read more...

My Story

Posted 9:31pm Monday 11th October 2010 by Critic

The first time I realised what this feeling actually meant, it felt as if I was in a horror movie. My first crush, that first denial, pushing all of these feelings and thoughts back thinking it is all a phase. Well, most things are a phase, right? My denial was very strong. It was against Read more...

Translating Trans for the Masses

Posted 9:27pm Monday 11th October 2010 by Caitlyn O’Fallon

“Arthur or Martha? Let the commission decide!” was NZ First's sensationalist response to the Human Rights Commission's Transgender Inquiry in 2008. “If you're born a male, you stay a male. If you're born a female, you stay a female. If you want to start fiddling around and changing your body, that's Read more...

Dinner with Thomas

Posted 4:35am Monday 20th September 2010 by Henry Feltham

The car swings heavily around the corners. I can feel its weight with every turn, migrating up through the steering wheel, a sense of connection that’s lost in newer, smoother cars. Each curve feels like a lift settling to the ground, but pulled sideways, towards the mountain on one side, or the Read more...

SOUTHERN SOLILIQUIES.Insights and imaginings from three Dunedin writers.

Posted 4:12am Monday 20th September 2010 by Critic

“Dunedin,” says local writer Sue Wootton, is “a fantastic place to be a writer. We have a great creative energy, often invisible to people who may not be directly involved. It's often thought of as a very conservative place, where nothing is happening, but there is a lot going on in wee pockets!” Read more...

Female Serial Killers:

Posted 3:55am Monday 13th September 2010 by Staff Reporter

Female Serial Killers: Countess Elizabeth Bathory:     Born in 1560, and a countess from the renowned Bathory family, Elizabeth Bathory certainly etched her name in history. The ‘Blood Countess’ is alleged to have lured young, attractive women to her dungeons in Read more...

Vibrators: A History

Posted 3:49am Monday 13th September 2010 by Caitlyn O'Fallon

We think of the Victorians as the epitome of prudishness. The end of the nineteenth century was a time when table legs wore skirts and the Queen was said to have told her daughter that the only way to endure the marital bed was to “lie back and think of England.” So it comes as a surprise to most Read more...

Critic's Contemporaries

Posted 11:39pm Sunday 5th September 2010 by Susan Smirk

As Critic reaches the ripe old age of 85, we decided to have a chat with some other 85-year olds about some of the highs and lows of their lives. Susan Smirk chatted to Jenny Lambert, who used to go dancing every night; May Munro, who once caught a 385-pound shark; Len Robinson, who taught Read more...

The 85 Best Sentences in Critic History

Posted 11:28pm Sunday 5th September 2010 by Thomas redford

Sir,    It is with growing honour and rising gorge that I view the scandalous increase of the use of trousers by women. Trousers are the outward hallmark of man’s estate. Not content with cutting short their hair, smoking cigarettes and, God forbid, even pipes, women have Read more...

Dredging sucks*

Posted 5:20am Monday 23rd August 2010 by Caitlyn O’Fallon

For several years now, turmoil has been brewing in Dunedin. The fate of Otago Harbour lies in the balance. Some groups claim that dredging the harbour will be a step forward for Dunedin; others say it will destroy it. Caitlyn O’Fallon looks into it. The plan that sparked the controversy Read more...

Exploring Otago by Bicycle: Three Suggested Adventures

Posted 5:17am Monday 23rd August 2010 by Jennifer Turek

Bike Touring: The Otago Central Rail Trail    Difficulty: Medium    Distance: 150 km    Time: 4-5 days recommended (could do faster or slower, depending on interests/ability)      Located in our own backyard, the Otago Central Rail Read more...

GREEN DIETS - How your plate affects your planet

Posted 5:08am Monday 23rd August 2010 by Susan Smirk

There are ever so many reasons to change what you eat, ranging from the laughable to the admirable. We make eating choices for the sake of our weight, our wallet, our health, our image ... or sometimes (and perhaps less often) our beliefs. Animal rights crusaders have campaigned long and hard to Read more...

Critic Exclusive: interviews with Presidential candidates

Posted 10:35am Thursday 12th August 2010 by Ben Thomson and Julia Hollingsworth

Critic Editor Ben Thomson and OUSA Correspondent Julia Hollingsworth sat down with the four presidential hopefuls and grilled them about all of the important issues. Read more...

Dog days are over

Posted 12:09am Tuesday 10th August 2010 by Georgie Fenwicke

You'll never believe me, but I'll tell you anyway. I went to see Florence and the Machine live in Auckland. A friend had told me via some sort of Facebook link that they were coming back to New Zealand. After much to-ing and fro-ing, another friend and I decided to invest. It is the best $220 I have Read more...

Taking their place in the world

Posted 11:56pm Monday 9th August 2010 by Georgie Fenwicke

Dunedin is a city at the bottom of the world. It is cold, wet, and lacks sunshine. For the most part, it has an aging population, excepting an annual injection of fresh blood and student allowances. Granted, it is also home to Cadbury, Fisher & Paykel, and a manufacturing hub in Mosgiel. Read more...

Celebz in NZ

Posted 11:52pm Monday 9th August 2010 by Staff Reporter

Celebrity in New Zealand is a weird thing. We subscribed to America’s world-conquering culture of celebrity worship, and then inevitably wanted to transpose the same devotion to homebred stars. But that’s difficult in a country of New Zealand’s size and humility. A country whose biggest celebrity Read more...

Religion on campus

Posted 4:34am Monday 2nd August 2010 by Susan Smirk

Faith shapes the world we live in. We may think that we live in a world of pure science and secularism, but our history, our society, and our individual lives are still shaped by world views grounded in religious belief. What we think about the universe, human nature, death, God, and the human soul Read more...

Religion: Explained

Posted 4:31am Monday 2nd August 2010 by Jonathan Jong

The oddness of religion.Every 12 years, millions of Hindus from all over the world gather in India for the Maha Kumbh Mela pilgrimage. In 2001, 70 million people attended, purportedly making it the largest gathering of people in history.   Somewhat less impressively, three million Read more...

Maori Mythos

Posted 11:16pm Sunday 25th July 2010 by Caitlyn O’Fallon

“Her body was like that of a human being, but her eyes were greenstone, her hair sea-kelp, her mouth was like that of a barracuda, and sharp flints of obsidian and greenstone were set between her thighs … Maui was determined to enter Hine-nui-te-po’s body, consume her heart, and then aimed to Read more...

A History of the Decline of the Maori Language (He Hatori o te Heke Haere o te Reo Maori)

Posted 11:03pm Sunday 25th July 2010 by Jared Mathieson

Once upon a time te reo Maori (the Maori language) was the only spoken language in New Zealand. However, these days only four percent of our entire population is able to hold a general conversation in te reo. Sadly, only 24 percent of all Maori are fluent speakers. It was once thought that the Read more...

Critic’s Easy Guide to the Essentials of Te Reo Maori

Posted 11:02pm Sunday 25th July 2010 by Hauauru Rae

Meet and Greet/ Wa Tutaki   Hello (informal) Kia ora  key-ah order    Hello (formal, to one person) Tena koe ten-are kweh Hello (formal, to two) Tena korua ten-are call-roo-ah Hello (formal, to three or more) Tena koutou ten-are co-toe   Read more...

BODY COUNT: What happens to the bodies donated to the Otago medical school?

Posted 10:35pm Sunday 18th July 2010 by Susan Smirk

There is a certain room in the medical school – a large and featureless room, lit with a fluorescent glow. In this room, there are corpses laid out on trolleys, in grey body bags. They are there right now. And if you are lucky enough the get into Medicine, you will spend two years cutting, probing, Read more...

Home is where the heart is.

Posted 10:28pm Sunday 18th July 2010 by Caitlyn O’Fallon

If we ever stop to think about it, most of us know little to nothing about homelessness. We’ve probably walked past unfortunates huddled down for the night in an alley or turned away from the guy at the bus stop asking for change. Caitlyn O’Fallon set out to find out who the homeless in Dunedin Read more...

3 minutes* (*More or less.)

Posted 10:24pm Sunday 18th July 2010 by Henry Feltham

People used to have attention spans – it’s the only possible explanation for opera, Charles Dickens, and cricket. Nowdays, I can’t imagine sitting through five hours of Wagner, even with chemical aid. Most of my friends watch a movie in two or three sittings, or can’t be bothered at all – they Read more...

SKEGG

Posted 10:52pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Susan Smirk

Sir Professor David Skegg OBE BMedSc MBChB (Otago) DPhil (Oxon) MFPHM FAFPHM FRSNZ University of Otago Vice Chancellor Sir Professor David Skegg announced last month that he was standing down. Goneskies. Kaput. Done. So ovah it. Well, sort of – he is going to stick around for the next year. Read more...

R.I.P. SCARFIE - Who is killing the dream?

Posted 10:48pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Thomas redford

“Half the reason people come down here is for the whole student lifestyle. I’m worried the University doesn’t quite understand that; that they’re keen to push down that whole side of University life. Everything that they do … the Code of Conduct, Gardies, every other thing the Uni does is putting Read more...

Brand Scarfie.

Posted 10:45pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Critic

How ‘Scarfie’ Became a Dirty Word.     The Beginning The term ‘Scarfie’ originated with the practice of students wearing blue and gold (the Otago colours, duh) scarves during the cooler months of the year.    The Middle Over the years, Otago Read more...

City Lights.

Posted 9:50pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Susan Smirk

New Zealand, a land of jagged snow-capped mountains, deep blue lakes, wild wind-swept coastlines, and lush sheep-speckled pastures. New Zealand is known for its natural wonders – but is there any wonder to be found in our urban wildernesses? Our official tourism website insists that “Today, Kiwis Read more...

The Far East

Posted 9:49pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Susan Smirk

These are the places your mother doesn't want you to go. Half the people you know won't expect you to come back. Most of the friendly farewell advice you receive will be along the lines of “Don't die.” There will be frustrating border crossings, people with guns, and a lot of desert. Tempted Read more...

Central America.

Posted 9:46pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Jennifer Turek

Picture yourself wandering along a trail through the dense rainforest. You’ve never seen plant life like this before. Water drips down from the trees towering above you and lands on the top of your head. The bushes ahead of you move – is it an anteater or a coati? Neither. It’s an agouti, a relative Read more...

Internet Addic-tron-net.

Posted 7:57pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Caitlyn O’Fallon

The latest thing in protesting seems to be trying to sell something on TradeMe. OUSA tried to sell themselves to make a point about VSM. Design Studies made a brief appearance on the site in April. A school principal in Invercargill even tried to sell the New Zealand curriculum on TradeMe to protest Read more...

Football World Cup

Posted 7:55pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Critic

Country profiles. Group A   South Africa: Despite their measly FIFA ranking (90 at time of print), smart money is on South Africa to progress past the group. They will get the majority of the referee’s decisions, and will always have home crowd advantage, plus conditions Read more...

The Clientele

Posted 7:51pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Critic

Gardies: Touchy subject. Over the years, Gardies has proven a haven for both first- and second-years, especially those on ‘the Castle Street buzz’. Come the end of every exam period, Gardies finds itself packed to the rafters with all sorts of sop, eager to get loose, and erm Read more...

Rising from the ashes of the global financial crisis...

Posted 3:54pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Critic

..over the backdrop of the green revolution, investing with the well-being of the world in mind is an idea whose time seems to have come. If you have some spare cash around at the moment, or are interested in the prospect of investing once you have said cash, then ‘socially responsible investing’ is Read more...

Balancing the Scarfie Budget.

Posted 3:52pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Critic

We lucky Scarfies (OTP) are privy to the most unique form of currency around. It’s more unique than the rand, the clam, or even the button. We Scarfies have So-Go’s (Southern Gold). At $6 a pack, they provide the perfect way of assessing purchases and writing weekly budgets. Critic has taken the Read more...

PLAGIARISE THIS ARTICLE

Posted 3:01pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Critic

“Using one person's ideas is plagiarism. Using lots of people's ideas is research.”   I like this quote, but I'm not sure who to attribute it to; I heard it from a friend, who heard it from a friend, and who knows where they got it. (Actually ,the original quote is “Copy from one, Read more...

Celebrity Financial Failures

Posted 2:59pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Critic

    Donald Trump: It wasn’t all plain sailing for the rich cat with the killer do. Trumpykins (as he likes to be called) suffered heavily in the recession of the late ‘80s, amassing serious amounts of debt and even going into business bankruptcy (not to be Read more...

61 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About The Human Body

Posted 2:57pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Critic

1. There are about ten times as many bacterial cells in the human body as human cells.   2. Newborn babies often lactate (produce breast milk), because they’re born with their mum’s hormones in their blood.   3. The muscle that makes men, um … retract Read more...

The Perpetual Student: the life of the student who never graduates is under threat

Posted 2:04pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Thomas redford

What do you picture when imagining the ‘perpetual student?’ A hunched and green-blazered old joker, whose sleeping head isn’t visible within the fortress of library reference books that he constructs around himself every day? Or a strutting, regularly-wassuping party animal with worried eyes that Read more...

It’s graduation time.

Posted 2:02pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Critic

Graduating Over the next few weekends it will be impossible to book a table at a restaurant or drive down George Street without being run over by a horde of people with weird square hats. Why? It’s graduation time, of course. You’ll get there soon. Critic examines the major courses of study at Read more...

The Capping Show: Really Old

Posted 1:59pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Caitlyn O’Fallon

The University of Otago’s oldest tradition has nothing to do with riots, togas, or using furniture as kindling. There is one tradition that predates the Leith run by over 40 years, and the Clocktower race by nearly a century. And it’s not only our oldest tradition, it’s also our funniest. Read more...

The Campus Toilet Review.

Posted 12:43pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Dreke Verkuylen

In one of the more controversial task assignments, Critic sent reviewers around some of the various facilities the University of Otago has to offer. Not quite the glitz and glamour of eating takeaways, but if a thing’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right.   Clock Tower After much Read more...

The Coffee Review.

Posted 12:42pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Dreke Verkuylen

In the interest of eliminating student indecision regarding the wide variety of cafés in Dunedin, Critic has compiled a review of some of the more prominent coffee houses around campus and town. While this may leave some uneasiness in the stomachs of connoisseurs, in the interest of appealing to Read more...

The $1 Mixture Review.

Posted 12:40pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Dreke Verkuylen

  Campus Wonderful 12 items Good selection, including sour strap (normally valued at 20c), and a variety of larger lollies. The inclusion of a Mackintosh and fizzer tube was deemed controversial by our judges. The chocolate fish, however, was well received. This selection had the Read more...

The Fish ‘n’ Chips Review.

Posted 12:39pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Dreke Verkuylen

Welcome to the Annual Critic Fish and Chip Review. This has proved to be one of the perks of the job, as Critic’s senior editorial staff got to laze around one night, gorging on takeaways and shooting the shit. In the midst of the resulting grease and squalor we have managed to pull together our Read more...

The Bar ‘Safety’ Review.

Posted 12:35pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Dreke Verkuylen

Critic enlists a (very eager) OUSA Exec to run round town and assess the ‘safety’ of Dunedin’s various drinking establishments. Very important work, of course. Gardies As Shakespeare would have put it: “Alas, poor Gardies, I knew it well (and so did you).” For as everyone now Read more...

How to Fuck a Moose

Posted 4:06am Monday 10th May 2010 by Michael Tyler Jensen

You’ve done it all.  You’ve grasped a Drysdale ram by the horns and hammered away like a road worker.  You’ve dropped trou and done the nasty with squirrels, chipmunks, gophers, marmots, rabbits, hamsters - if it squeaks, you’ve been there.  You even got funky with an aardvark once when you had Read more...

Exploiting Freshers

Posted 4:02am Monday 10th May 2010 by name

First-year Health Sci and Law students are possibly the most desperate people on the planet. Even the ones who start out ‘just keeping their options open’, or those who ‘thought they looked like interesting papers’ tend to end up a quivering wreck by the end of BIOC192 or LAWS101. Surveying students Read more...

Student Soldiers

Posted 3:54am Monday 10th May 2010 by Susan Smirk

Students with guns - probably the University's worst nightmare. Nevertheless, many students do join the armed forces while completing their degrees. In order to juggle study and service, most opt for the Territorial Forces, the part-time troops also known as the Reserve Army. Susan Smirk talks to Read more...

My Life at war

Posted 3:13am Monday 10th May 2010 by Thomas redford

Talking to war veterans is a win-win exercise; you get to enjoy first-hand stories from a time it is hard to imagine yourself experiencing, while most veterans savour having an interested ear to feed their well-practised yarns. But perform a few calculations and you’ll realise that not only are Read more...