New Zealand Listener Issue 4, 2022

It sounds like some kind of joke: what do Paula Bennett, Hilary Barry and Kate Rodger have in common? Not a lot you might think, other than being well-known Kiwi women in their fifties who have all hosted shows on TV. And you would, of course, be quite right. Except there is another common denominator: in the past few months, they have all spoken out about their experience of menopause. Bennett confided that she thought she was having a breakdown. Barry described her experience as “hideous”. Rodger announced that she was drawing a metaphorical line in the sand: “I refuse to navigate these perilous menopausal seas solo as a hot, sweaty castaway washed up on the desert island of middle age.” It was three decades ago now that renowned feminist Germaine Greer published…

Is science catching up with religion (“Gene genie”, January 8)? About 65 years ago, my identical twin brother and I found it hard to accept Auntie Joan’s Sunday School teaching that “God has a plan for you”. After discussing the doctrine of predestination over the dishes with Dad, we decided we would freely choose our own paths. Some years later, John and I began to assert our individuality by taking different directions. John chose theatre and I chose design. While practising as a designer, I turned the visual/spatial experience of design into words on paper as text for magazine articles. While practising as an actor, John put words on paper as scripts to be turned into visual/spatial experiences on stage or screen. Eventually, through very different circumstances, we each wrote a book…

THIS WEEK’S PICTURE WINNING CAPTION Roy Lilley, Blenheim FINALISTS Matthew McConaughey: “All right. All right. All right. You win. I’ll cross your palms.”– Kate Gore, TaurangaMcConaughey: “U2!” Bono: “U-571!”– Dianna Rule, DunedinMcConaughey: “Hey, not you, too? You’re a real pro, Bono, I’ll tell you that for nothing.”– Dean Donoghue, Papamoa BeachMcConaughey: “I thought you’d never pop the question.”– Rex McGregor, Auckland…

“The only thing that should be tripling over the holidays is my BMI.” – Stephen Colbert on the rising US Omicron cases “Economics is like the Dutch language – I’m told it makes sense, but I have my doubts.” – John Oliver “Rediscovered the joy of reading for pleasure (bragging about it).” – seen on Twitter “When you expose a problem you pose a problem. It might then be assumed that the problem would go away if you would just stop talking about it or if you went away.” – Sara Ahmed “It’s a luxury to be able to tell a long-form story. I love novels, and I love to have a long relationship with characters.” – Jane Campion “Thank God that God exists … this is the biggest victory in his career, bigger than…

1. True or false? Intermeshing cog structures can be found in the natural world. ❑ True ❑ False 2. Which of the many volcanoes in the Auckland volcanic field erupted most recently? ❑ Takarunga/Mt Victoria ❑ Maungawhau/Mt Eden ❑ Rangitoto Island ❑ Maungakiekie/One Tree Hill 3. Which film ends with the epilogue: “It was in the reign of George III that the aforesaid personages lived and quarrelled; good or bad, handsome or ugly, rich or poor, they are all equal now”? ❑ Shakespeare in Love ❑ Barry Lyndon ❑ The King’s Speech ❑ The Elephant Man 4. In which country might you visit La Paz, the highest metropolis in the world? ❑ Ecuador ❑ Bolivia ❑ Colombia ❑ Bhutan 5. Which TV sitcom included the memorable line: “You can’t eat this soup standing up. Your knees buckle”? ❑ Seinfeld ❑ Keeping Up Appearances ❑ Father Ted ❑ Are You Being Served? 6. Which…

The QI elves are a team of writers and comedians who find the answers to impossible questions, doing the research for the long-running QI TV series, podcasts and the spin-off books. For the next little while, we’ll be running some of their finest findings: the weird, wonderful, witty and wise, from their latest book, Funny You Should Ask … Again. Why don’t women’s clothes have pockets? Blame the patriarchy. Men’s clothing has featured built-in pockets since the Renaissance, yet history shows that women had to wait a long time for them. And even when women did eventually get pockets, in around 1650, they were separate from their clothing and tied around wearers’ waists. In fairness, the ones that survive today were generous by our standards – they could measure up to 30cm wide…