Archive

A Piss-tory of Dunedin Breweries

Posted 2:29pm Sunday 24th April 2022 by Thomas Rillstone

Alcohol, booze, grog… whatever you call it, Dunedinites just can’t seem to get enough of the stuff. While the stereotype is often blown out of proportion, it’s certainly not without any basis in reality; Dunedin students are known to love a good drink or twelve. Thomas Rillstone, Read more...

The Great Critic Te Arohi Flat Garden Competition

Posted 2:25pm Sunday 24th April 2022 by Sean Gourley

Most of Dunedin is a concrete and shattered-glass wasteland. The only crops that grow are a large quantity of substandard housing, liquor stores and fast food restaurants. However, there are a few green spaces that, against all odds, have managed to produce life from Dunedin’s inebriated Read more...

Golf in Dunedin: Par or Subpar?

Posted 1:39pm Saturday 9th April 2022 by Keegan Wells and Fox Meyer

Ah, golf. It’s got quite the reputation. Maybe you think of it as that thing that your mates do maybe once a week to feel like they’re putting their business degrees to use. Or maybe it was your parents’ substitute for child care after they picked you up from Christ’s College Read more...

Hidden Barriers: Accessibility at Uni and across North Dunedin

Posted 1:38pm Saturday 9th April 2022 by Elliot Weir

Guy Fieri once said, "we're riding the bus to Flavortown". Except in this case, Flavortown is North Dunedin, and the bus we're meant to be riding didn’t even show up.  For many, barriers to accessibility make getting around Flav-, sorry, North Dunedin, more difficult Read more...

21st Annual Critic Fish n’ Chip Review

Posted 1:34pm Saturday 9th April 2022 by Ruby Werry & Critic Staff

We all know fish n’ chips is the meal of champions, if those champions were hungover and on their last $10. That sounds like you. So for all you champions, Critic is here with the annual Fish and Chip review to guide your next weekend feed. We reached out to the best and brightest minds for Read more...

A 4-Point Methodological Approach to Shoey Perfection

Posted 6:14pm Friday 1st April 2022 by Keegan G. Wells and Will R. Murrell

Abstract: A 4-point scale was used to determine the optimal foot vessel to utilise as a booze-funnelling device in what is known colloquially as a “shoey”. This metric indicated that a sockie is the least desirable vessel, while a dress shoe is the most desirable. Further field research Read more...

Artists, Activists, Ambassadors: when Aramoana Declared Independence

Posted 6:03pm Friday 1st April 2022 by Sean Gourley

Over forty years ago, passionate residents of a small settlement, just 20km along the coast from North Dunedin, founded the Independent State Aramoana. While it never became anything close to an genuine independent nation, they fought tirelessly against the government to prevent an aluminium smelter Read more...

The Great White: Students in Antarctica

Posted 6:01pm Friday 1st April 2022 by Fox Meyer

Will was soaking in a 250 litre drum filled with hot water. Hundreds of metres away, in a tent, someone was watching Derry Girls. In this moment, to Will, the audio coming from that TV show was the only sound in the entire world. Will was in Antarctica, at New Zealand’s Scott Base. A Read more...

Capital Gains: The Great Critic 24-Hour Trade-Up

Posted 5:46pm Sunday 27th March 2022 by Keegan Wells

I love getting shit for free. So, when I was able to swap a half-empty Billy Mav for an (obviously superior) blue lighter, I was hooked. I gave myself 24 hours to upgrade that half-empty can of shite to whatever glory awaited me. One man even offered me his children at one point, which I figured Read more...

Apps, if they were your ex-lovers

Posted 5:44pm Sunday 27th March 2022 by Fox Meyer

Ever wanted to fuck a smartphone app? Me neither, but that doesn’t mean you’ve never been curious about how loving of a partner they’d be. Critic set up an artificial intelligence to court and report on a bunch of apps, and the resulting “heartbreak index” was used to Read more...

Urbex: Exploring the abandoned world around us

Posted 5:40pm Sunday 27th March 2022 by Zak Rudin

Broken glass, dark corridors, and no electricity are all big red flags when it comes to looking for a flat, but for the students seeking an adventurous trespass onto abandoned properties, these signs are as good as gold. Urban exploration (often shortened to urbex) involves exploring human-made Read more...

Deal or No Deal

Posted 2:26pm Sunday 20th March 2022 by Justina King

From sketchy drops and Tinder swindlers to based grandmas and roleplaying dealers, buying drugs is an experience that can go a lot of ways.  Figures from the NZ Drug Foundation show that 80% of New Zealanders have tried the ol’ Wacky Tobacky by the age of 21, and 44% of adults will Read more...

The Best and Worst Hypothetical Places to Do Hypothetical Drugs in Dunedin

Posted 2:23pm Sunday 20th March 2022 by Keegan Wells, hypothetically

If anyone were to take this list seriously and try any of these things, just test your stuff, know your limits, and be safe. Also do not try crack, it will never be as fun as you think.  Weed  Best: Butterfly Exhibit at the Museum  The butterfly room is an incredible place. Read more...

ADHD Part 2: The highs and lows of prescription stimulants

Posted 2:18pm Sunday 20th March 2022 by Lotto Ramsay

“We were on a bit of an MD bender and someone said that they had some Ritalin we could do”, Alex told Critic. “We cut up some lines and snorted it – I think we had two or three lines each – and afterwards everyone else was hyper and talking at like three hundred words a Read more...

ADHD Part 1: The Long Road to Diagnosis

Posted 2:16pm Sunday 20th March 2022 by Fox Meyer

Last week, we sent out two reporters to interview students about getting diagnosed with ADHD. Apparently they met a really, really interesting group of students with great takes on the situation, but our reporters - both of whom have diagnosed ADHD - were so excited about the interview that they Read more...

Bop or flop? Your One Stop Op Shop Opinion Drop

Posted 1:06pm Sunday 13th March 2022 by Lotto Ramsay

Need a wardrobe makeover on a budget? Are you craving a whiff of that specific, musty, secondhand smell? Have your bootstraps gotten worn out from all that pulling-up you’ve been doing? A solution is never far away. Critic Te Arohi visited seven secondhand clothing stores north of the Octagon Read more...

Shaken, not Stirred: The Critic Te Arohi Milkshake Review

Posted 12:56pm Sunday 13th March 2022 by Sean Gourley

Who the fuck invented milkshakes? They may seem like a good idea, but after you’ve chugged several litres of milk on a boiling Thursday afternoon, they really start to feel like a terrible idea. And this was the predicament we found ourselves in. With rumbly, bubbly tummies and rapidly Read more...

Dunedin Housing and Flat-tening the Curve: Why Omicron Loves your Home

Posted 12:49pm Sunday 13th March 2022 by Fox Meyer

We all know that Dunedin student housing is not exactly the best. So what happens when you introduce a highly transmissible virus to a population that lives in cold, damp flats? Critic wanted to know how our unique housing situation would affect the spread of Omicron in our community, so we reached Read more...

The Moral Alignment of OUSA’s Clubs and Socs

Posted 4:40pm Sunday 6th March 2022 by Elliot Weir

Clubs day couldn’t be held this year, so we thought we’d help you out by sorting all the clubs in one convenient table. Whether you’re trying to fit in, trying to find friends, or trying to join the froth, there’s a club for you. All participating clubs have supplied their Read more...

The Online World of Fake Psychics

Posted 3:51pm Sunday 6th March 2022 by Ruby Werry

As I’m sure we all know, the internet is a lawless wasteland, and of that lawless wasteland, Facebook is undoubtedly the Wild West. Traders on Marketplace asking for used diapers; updates from unhinged family members; more scammers than you can wave a stick at. Not only are these scammers Read more...

Fringe Sports for a Fringe Town

Posted 3:14pm Sunday 6th March 2022 by Elliot Weir

Many students have grown tired of dragging themselves to Unipol and have instead taken up one of the many “new” sports that have become increasingly popular and accessible in the last two years. Critic talked to people involved in these rising stars of the Dunedin sports scene to find Read more...

Goops, I did it again! An idiot’s guide to stain removal

Posted 3:32pm Sunday 27th February 2022 by Lotto Ramsay

Happiness is fleeting, we all die, and nothing is truly permanent. Nothing, that is, except for stains that you don’t get out in time (fuck you especially, red wine). O week is full of shenanigans that can ruin your clothes, soft furnishings, and possibly your future. Luckily, Critic is no Read more...

What They Don't Teach You About Saving Money in a Flat

Posted 3:21pm Sunday 27th February 2022 by Oscar Moriarty

With each new year at Uni comes a new crop of students, all trying to navigate the potentially treacherous world of flatting for the first time. Flatting is expensive, as my grandchildren always tell me as they beg for handouts. As a third-generational stock broker on the NZX, I feel it is my Read more...

From Communes to Councils: Sitting Down With Mayor Tim

Posted 3:12pm Sunday 27th February 2022 by Elliot Weir

Sir Tim Shadbolt, Mayor of Invercargill, celebrated his 75th birthday last week. Critic Te Arohi travelled to the mighty city down South to interview the man who has been a mayor longer than anyone else in New Zealand history. From a legacy steeped in parties, protests, and poems to council Read more...

What's it actually like to have Covid?

Posted 7:20pm Friday 11th February 2022 by Keegan Wells

For me, it was the shift from “prevent” to “prepare”. The 15-second unskippable YouTube ads had stopped telling me to prevent the spread and were now asking me to brace myself. It felt like an admission of defeat. After two years of watching the Covid burn through the rest of Read more...

Scamming the Spammers: The Friends, Money, and Contracts I Made While Replying to Spam Emails

Posted 2:18pm Sunday 10th October 2021 by Erin Gourley

For months, Mr Manuel Franco has been emailing me from different accounts, telling me I’ve won three million USD in the email address lottery. I get one email a day from him from various different email accounts. It always goes straight to my spam folder. I started replying to my spam Read more...

Slice of Heaven? Your summer guide to the shit towns of Otago and South Canterbury

Posted 9:33am Sunday 10th October 2021 by Annabelle Vaughan

Shit towns are the pride of our nation. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the concept of a “shit town”, it’s a town where literally everything is shit. But visiting a shit town is a cultural experience to find out how the other half live, so it’s a must Read more...

Why Aren’t We There Yet? Understanding Barriers to Getting Aotearoa Vaccinated

Posted 9:17am Sunday 10th October 2021 by Elliot Weir

The government is putting on the pressure for New Zealanders to get vaccinated. But many people are not vaccinated yet. The reason why is a mix of policy, inequality, and misinformation from friends, family and far-right conspiracy theorists. Up until recently, we’ve enjoyed relative Read more...

You Gotta Cheat It to Win It: Is trivial cheating slowly killing pub quizzes?

Posted 12:06am Saturday 2nd October 2021 by Sean Gourley

Pub quizzes are one of the more wholesome sides of student drinking culture. With pubs back open in Level 2, there’s nothing like testing your knowledge and your friendships by battling other teams for a bar tab or some Speights tees. However, in recent years cheating has reportedly become Read more...

Housing is Hell: Are we ever going to get to own houses?

Posted 12:04am Saturday 2nd October 2021 by Oscar Francis

“Don’t wait, just go,” is Bernard Hickey’s advice to students who want the security of owning their own home. Bernard is an economist. He is perhaps even more pessimistic about the prospects of home ownership for young generations than the doomers themselves. If you Read more...

Kmart Dunedin — Lost Legacy or Waste of Space?

Posted 12:02am Saturday 2nd October 2021 by Denzel Chung

It used to be a rite of passage for students in the new year: the big flat furnishing shop at Kmart in Meridian Mall. Lines of students would hike piles of everything from duvets to dish racks to toasters and toilet roll holders down George Street. Cars overflowing with pillows and vacuum cleaners Read more...

The Great Critic Pizza Review

Posted 3:13pm Sunday 26th September 2021 by Critic

It’s about time that Critic did a pizza review. But how could we possibly judge the multitude of flavours, styles, and techniques that can be found in pizza? How can we best capture the rich tapestry of gastronomical history that pizza represents? These are all questions that we mulled over Read more...

The Kiwi Who Admins an International Bestiality Group

Posted 3:10pm Sunday 26th September 2021 by Asia Martusia King

Content warning: Graphic descriptions of bestiality. Jessica* is my new friend. She loves cooking, podcasts, gaming, and dogs. Here’s the caveat: She really loves dogs. She admins an online international bestiality server of 11,000 people, united by their desire to fuck Read more...

International Students: Far From Home

Posted 3:02pm Sunday 26th September 2021 by Keegan Wells

While it’s been a rough couple of years for all of us, international students, or as the University probably refers to them, ‘our largest source of income’, have had a particularly tough pandemic. Otago Uni reports that out of the 20,700 students in 2020, international students Read more...

The Ultimate Guide to a Dunedin Summer Body

Posted 2:00pm Monday 20th September 2021 by Sean Gourley

Spring in Dunedin has arrived. It is the time of the year to drag our pasty bodies and damaged livers back from the brink of collapse and get them ready for the joys of the summer season. With Unipol restricted and many sports winding up, it can be a struggle to find a routine in these uncertain Read more...

Post-glad or Post-sad? What postgrads wish they knew before starting

Posted 1:58pm Monday 20th September 2021 by Susana Jones

It’s the second half of semester two and the countdown to graduation for some of you undergrads is well and truly on. You might be thinking, what comes after graduation? Will you go straight into the workforce and hustle your way up capitalist ladders? Maybe you’ll make some serious bank Read more...

Behind the Counter: Employment Law Breaches, Bullying, and Sexual Harassment in Uni Hall Kitchens

Posted 1:56pm Monday 20th September 2021 by Elliot Weir

CW: sexual harassment, homophobia, sexism, and racism. Kitchen staff are a key part of the first-year experience in residential colleges. They dish up mashed potatoes and chicken cordon bleu for hundreds of already-drunk freshers on a Thursday night, and take their dishes from them afterwards. Read more...

Kūmara: How One Word Crossed the Pacific

Posted 3:02pm Sunday 12th September 2021 by Karamea Pēwhairangi, Te Āwhina Pounamu Waikaramihi, and Fox Meyer

About 1,000 years ago, a Polynesian navigator made a historic trade. Goods from the Pacific were exchanged for a stubby, brownish root vegetable from the foothills of Peru. There, on a presumably sunny day on the South American coast, kūmara was introduced to Polynesia. It’s called Read more...

Te Reo Māori: Tōku Hononga Ki Te Whaiao, Ki Te Ao Marama

Posted 1:43am Saturday 11th September 2021 by Madison Chambers-Coll

Kei āku whetū, kei āku manu taki, kei āku hunga tiaki, ko koutou ngā pou, ngā kaitohutohu o tōku ao. Kei āku toka tū i te moana, tē mutu te aroha i a koutou rā. Nei rā āku mihi. Ko te reo Māori, koinei te reo e Read more...

The Epidemic of Virus Video Games

Posted 1:38am Saturday 11th September 2021 by Asia Martusia King

Video games are a lovely form of escapism. You can forget about the worldwide pandemic and disappear into a virtual world for a few hours, before waking up pizza-stained and bleary-eyed in your mum’s basement again. It’s an odd phenomenon, in that sense, to see how pandemic-themed Read more...

Lockdown Leisure: Games to Play During Lockdown

Posted 3:17pm Sunday 5th September 2021 by Runze Liu

By Runze Liu, Citizen of The Island of Club Penguin, Member of the Club Penguin Elite Penguin Force (EPFM), Fellow of the Royal Club Penguin College of Tour Guiding (FRCPCTG), Club Penguin First Party List Member of The Club Penguin Parliament (MP) based in Iceberg South, Club Penguin First Party Read more...

Do You Believe in Love After Lockdown?

Posted 3:12pm Sunday 5th September 2021 by Asia Martusia King

The pandemic has had its moments. Other than the hallowed launch of Pokémon Go in 2016, I’ve never experienced such a sense of community before — which is odd considering we aren’t allowed to physically hang out. A lot of us formed socially distanced friendships with Read more...

Tales from the Road: A Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to Hitch-Hiking

Posted 3:09pm Sunday 5th September 2021 by Callum Finn Reason

Hitchhiking is a noble art. To immerse myself in the hitchhiking spirit — putting Jack Kerouac’s dilapidated shoes on my feet and Arthur Dent’s soggy towel round my waist — a friend and I took to the South Island roads with our heads held high and our thumbs turgid. Our Read more...

Liminal Spaces of Dunedin

Posted 3:13pm Sunday 22nd August 2021 by Sophia Carter Peters

I have lived in Dunedin for long enough to be bored by Castle Street (AKA more than one year), and in that time, I’ve realized this town has some weird-ass buildings. Anyone who has set foot inside Archway Lecture theatres knows what I mean. Why are there so many entrances, but so few Read more...

Bygone Gays: A Queer History of Otago University

Posted 3:11pm Sunday 22nd August 2021 by Asia Martusia King

CW: Homophobia. Students were a “driving generation” in queer liberation, says Chris Brickell, Professor of Gender Studies and LGBT historian. Otago University was no exception. Here’s an abridged history of our forebears and Read more...

Is Noise Control Out of Control?

Posted 3:08pm Sunday 22nd August 2021 by Sean Gourley

Picture this: you’re in your third year of uni. It’s the end of February and you’re fizzing for a year of 21sts, grad celebrations and general piss ups. You move into your new flat on George Street, with an outdoor area perfectly suited for gigs. For pres on your first night you Read more...

Spotlight on Student Artists

Posted 1:46pm Monday 16th August 2021 by Erin Gourley

Untitled by Dave’s Flat Dave’s Flat are the elusive artist behind last week’s centrefold in Critic. Like Banksy, they do not want their identity to be widely known. The work is as mysterious as its creators; an egg in an eggcup, with the word ‘Dave’ written Read more...

The Art of Opshopping: How to buy less and buy better

Posted 1:43pm Monday 16th August 2021 by Molly Willis

Why buy new? was the motto in our house when I was growing up.  Whether it was inheriting my cousin’s old pair of ski pants, a bag of clothing from that lady at mum’s work’s eldest daughter, or Sunday shopping for vintage homeware at the Crow’s Nest (the best junk shop Read more...

Top Ten Paintings I’d Like to be Trapped Inside at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery

Posted 1:39pm Monday 16th August 2021 by Asia Martusia King

If you can’t jump into paintings, that’s embarrassing for you. I do it all the time. One day, my hubris will get the better of me and I will be trapped in one forever. If I get to choose which painting that is, it’ll be one of these. I’ve excluded any landscape paintings of Read more...

Dunedin’s Best Late Night Kebabs

Posted 1:42am Monday 9th August 2021 by Assorted Critic Staff

Late-night kebab missions are a hallmark of Dunedin culture. And while there are about a dozen places to order a kebab, only a handful may be open for you as you stumble home from town. Heck, not even all of these make the cut, but they were the ones our staff were most familiar with. We ordered all Read more...


Show: 102050100
Showing results 101 - 150 of 1111

SHOW: