Archive

Red Card 101

Posted 3:38am Monday 21st March 2011 by Phoebe Harrop

For more on the history of Red Cards in Dunedin, check out: How The Red Card Became a Dunedin Cultural Phenomenon An introduction to, and critical appraisal of, a Dunedin student tradition The red card is a mysterious phenomenon. No one knows quite where it came from, but I like to imagine Read more...

I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream

Posted 3:33am Monday 21st March 2011 by Josh Hercus

Josh Hercus reviews Dunedin ice cream.   Critic ice cream review criteria   Ice cream type: how good it tastes. Obviously, some places use the same stuff. Price and quantity: is it a good size for the price? Standard size = two scoops, always on a cone. Structural Read more...

The Great and Glorious Annual Critic Fish and Chip Review

Posted 3:28am Monday 21st March 2011 by David Milner and Cory Dalzell

Critic’s been reviewing fish and chips for yonks and yonks, or eleven years to be exact. It seems there’s nothing as universal, nor as all-embracingly glutinous, as consuming a greasy packet of deep fried goodness. And so, at least for the sake of keeping tradition alive, we’ve taken it upon Read more...

Wikileaks; Freedom, Law and Politics

Posted 4:58am Monday 14th March 2011 by Charlotte Greenfield

The New Yorker's George Packer calls him "super-secretive, thin-skinned, [and] megalomaniacal." Sarah Palin claims he's "an anti-American operative with blood on his hands" whom we should pursue "with the same urgency we pursue al Qaeda and Taliban leaders." Meanwhile, he is the darling of left Read more...

System Overload

Posted 4:53am Monday 14th March 2011 by Georgie Fenwicke

In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt But being season'd with a gracious voice Obscures the show of evil? - The Merchant of Venice III.II At any time of the week, Courtroom One in the Manukau District Court is a busy place; in the half-hour or so before lunch, it gets pretty Read more...

Bizarre Crimes

Posted 4:44am Monday 14th March 2011 by Josh Hercus

If you’re gonna get locked up, it might as well be for something that will make a good story. Josh Hercus has done his research, and come up with eight of the most bizarre crime and court cases from around the world. Something smells off A man in Singapore was sentenced to 14 years in prison Read more...

Sam Johnson

Posted 2:29am Tuesday 8th March 2011 by Georgie Fenwicke

On a normal day, Sam Johnson is a Canterbury University student majoring in Law and Political Science. Unleash a natural disaster onto his city, however, and Sam becomes one of the co-ordinators of the army of student volunteers working tirelessly to restore Christchurch to its former glory. Each Read more...

O Week

Posted 2:20am Tuesday 8th March 2011 by Charlotte Doyle and Georgi Hampton

Each year, Critic conducts a review of OUSA’s O Week - the highlights, the spew-y lowlights, the great bands and the bands that sparked hateful scarfie chants. This year, however, we did things a little differently. For a while now Dunedin bars have been offering up “alternative” OWeeks, often Read more...

Face Value

Posted 2:16am Tuesday 8th March 2011 by Siobhan Downes

As of 2011, over 500 million of us are living our lives within the cornflower-blue-and-white themed webpages of Facebook. For most of 2010, Facebook surpassed Google as the most visited website. We’re over searching porn, celebrities and LOLcats. We’d rather search each other; our friends, families, Read more...

Seven irritating ‘friend’ types on Facebook

Posted 2:12am Tuesday 8th March 2011 by Josh Hercus

There’s a good chance some people are going to defriend me as a result of this piece... The Liker: Known for: ‘liking’ everything and anything  What they think they’re doing: I’m really bored so I’m just gonna like all this stuff cause it’s just so Read more...

I know what you did last summer…

Posted 4:01am Monday 28th February 2011 by Phoebe Harrop

If the extent of your summer current events knowledge came from: a) doing the occasional Stuff quiz; b) checking the Facebook statuses of your socially-conscious friends; or c) reading the ODT; then this alphabet of Important Summer Happenings, compiled by news-savvy Phoebe Harrop, will bring you up Read more...

It's What He Didn't Say

Posted 3:58am Monday 28th February 2011 by Georgie Fenwicke

Recently, Georgie Fenwicke was set the ambitious task of interrogating John Key on his leadership style, election plans and policies for students. Key turned out to be as evasive as any head of state should be, and thus what follows is compelling both for what he actually said, and what he carefully Read more...

Fresher FAQ

Posted 3:55am Monday 28th February 2011 by Josh Hercus

Most Freshers look like confused puppies as they wander eagerly through campus, giggling loudly about getting OTP and the guy on their floor they pashed last night. It’s the point when freshers still think that their law degree will make them successful, rather than drain their soul, and that doing Read more...

Books are the new Black

Posted 3:50am Monday 28th February 2011 by Charlotte Greenfield

The demise of the hard copy book has been predicted by technophiles since the birth of the personal computer. After all, with surf the channel and youtube at our fingertips, who has the time to struggle through Jane Eyre, or, god forbid, Tolkein? Charlotte Greenfield talked to Politics lecturer Read more...

New Zealander of the Year 2010 – Shane Cortese

Posted 2:18am Wednesday 3rd November 2010 by Staff Reporter

Shane Cortese; a man with more talents than there are shades of blonde streaks in his hair. A man who bravely made a comeback after a tragic fake tan incident during Dancing With the Stars that has permanently left his skin a strange, inhuman, yellowy-brown hue.   2010 was a triumphant Read more...

ADJUDCIATION BY THE NEW ZEALAND PRESS COUNCIL ON THE COMPLAINT OF THE OTAGO MENTAL HEALTH SUPPORT TRUST AGAINST CRITIC TE-AROHI

Posted 2:03am Wednesday 3rd November 2010 by Critic

  Mike McAlevey of the Otago Mental Health Support Trust has complained to the New Zealand Press Council that an article in the Otago University student newspaper, Critic, headed The Bum at the Bottom of the World, was among other things, inaccurate, discriminatory and in poor Read more...

Scamming Studylink

Posted 1:52am Tuesday 12th October 2010 by Staff Reporter

Ralph grew up in a $7m beachfront house in Auckland’s affluent Cheltenham. His Dad made “serious coin” working as a partner in a prominent law firm for 14 years, enough to retire when Ralph was in fifth form. Ralph has spent the last four years studying physiotherapy at AUT. Throughout those four Read more...

Taking away of a Nun

Posted 1:46am Tuesday 12th October 2010 by Caitlyn O’Fallon

and other odd laws past and present. Most people would agree that politicians are capable of some entertainingly stupid actions. It's one of the redeeming qualities of politics in general. But according to the lists of stupid laws that do the rounds on the internet or, in earlier times, in Read more...

The Most Dangerous Places on Earth

Posted 1:44am Tuesday 12th October 2010 by Staff Reporter

The Most Dangerous Places on Earth Colombia:    Dirty little drug-running Escobar wannabes have made Colombia one of the most dangerous countries in the world. Paramilitary groups have waged war on the government with no end in site, contributing to a frenzy of murders. Another Read more...

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...