Though I know it was shot on the cheap in the LA Chinatown, the hokey Eddie Murphy film The Golden Child still shapes the way I see Kathmandu. We fly in on a warm morning, drive through town, and the city looks like the too-cheesy handiwork of a set designer who needs to learn some […]
Author: Greg Roughan
Adios, folks. Rebecca and I are off in the morning to Nepal, where I’d count it one of my peak life experiences to see one of these in the wild: Realistically, that’s about as likely as Don Brash performing a haka for Queen Elizabeth – but I dunno… sometimes I think I was kind of […]
In lieu of anything exciting happening to me this week, I thought I’d post the last of the Laws accidental poetry – I actually put the concept into a book proposal and sent it to some publishers. Random House sent back the standard gracious, thanks-but-no-thanks form letter; Allen & Unwin were cautiously keen before backing […]
Well it’s been ages since my last post, mostly because I’ve been super busy – I’ve been subediting for the NZ Herald group (which is thoroughly enjoyable – it’s like doing crosswords all day), and on the few breaks from that I’ve been doing some serious hunter-gathering. Recent species caught, killed and eaten include some […]
Welcome back to my ongoing project, The Accidental Poetry of Michael Laws, where we make poems out of Laws’ Sunday Star-Times columns by deleting, emphasising – but never adding or even rearranging words. Click here to read more about the process (and hear my weasily reasons why I shouldn’t be sued). Once you know the […]
So this morning I was filmed by a crew from Fair Go for my first ever appearance as a talking head on TV. They’re doing a story on some guy in Hamilton who was kicked out of a bar for not taking off his hat, and wanted my opinion on it because – as far […]
Okay you know when you have that extra coffee of an afternoon and you get just a liiittle too buzzy – but then you’re hit by an idea that’s just SO GOOD you have to tell someone straight away? Okay, so we’re there, right? Which is why I’m presenting to you – apropos of nada […]
Since getting back from Malaysia, I’ve found my ideas about travel changing. For me, travel has always been about going places in sturdy footwear. About having your loins clad in the reassuring prickle of polypropylene long johns, and having your fingers forever rummaging in your – if you’ll excuse the expression – damp sack of […]
So it turns out that the Perhentian Islands in Malaysia kind of under promise and over deliver. I just got back from a week there, courtesy of Tourism Malaysia and AirAsiaX (read the Dominion Post article here…), and it went a bit like this: ‘Today? Oh, snorkelling very bad. Too cloudy – no see shark, […]
Below is last weekend’s Sunday Star-Times opinion column by Michael Laws, stripped down into a 12 line poem. Now, I have to say, I started this game because I’m no fan of Laws’ work. I found that his columns contained such visceral intensity that they actually made better poetry than prose, and I thought it […]