The bar to get a opinion published about legalising and regulating cannabis is, you'll know, not terribly high at the moment. Anyone can have a crack. But there's a column published on Stuff that I want to take a closer…
SATURDAY AUGUST 1 ¶ Artefact (Prime, 7.30pm). The series presented by Dame Anne Salmond screened on Māori Television, but is totally worth revisiting if you saw it the first time. Dame Anne tells the stories of taonga that highlight the history…
SUNDAY JULY 26 ¶ Country Calendar (TVNZ 1, 7.00pm). Tonight, kiwifruit growing in the King Country. Crazy! ¶ Normal People (TVNZ 1, 10.30pm). Holy cow, if you thought it was slow on a binge-watch, imagine what it's like in weekly doses. Nevertheless,…
SATURDAY JULY 18 ¶ ANZ Premiership Netball (Sky Sport 3, 5.00pm). Top of the table Central Pulse meet next-on-the-ladder Mystics today; tomorrow, the Pulse meet the Tactix, also at 5pm, followed by Steel v Magic at 7pm. On Monday, it's Steel…
MONDAY JULY 13 ¶ Bodyguard (TVNZ 1, 8.30pm). It's the final; if you haven't seen this already on Netflix, get ready, the ending is batshit. ¶ Unforgotten (Vibe, Sky 006, 8.30pm). I wonder if Sanjeev Bhasksar's character has got rid of that…
Back in April, I wrote about trials in Iran of a fixed-dose combination of two existing anti-viral drugs used to treat hepatitis C – sofosbuvir and daclatasvir – that could point to an effective treatment for Covid-19 symptoms. ¶ At the time, data…
If the government has not lined up behind a "Yes" vote in this year's cannabis referendum the way some reformers would have liked, one entirely laudable thing it did do was commission some science around the public's choice. ¶ That science…
MONDAY JULY 6 ¶ Washington (History, Sky 073, 7.30pm). The brilliant Doris Kearns Goodwin is the executive producer of this six-part series about America's first president. It combines interviews with live action and is narrated by Jeff Daniels. It's engaging, said…
I wrote earlier in the week about the Scientology front organisations Drug Free World and Drug Free Ambassadors and their quite prominent role in anti-cannabis reform "coalition" assembled by Family First and a new local branch of the American prohibitionist…
Last night, One News ran a follow-up story to its Colmar Brunton poll results on the cannabis referendum, headed here as Government accuses big American anti-cannabis group of interfering in NZ politics. ¶ In truth it wasn't just the government: Justice…
Back at the beginning of April, when we had much else on our minds, I wrote this post urging some caution in interpreting the results of the latest Horizon poll, conducted in February, on voting intentions in this year's cannabis…
SATURDAY JUNE 27 ¶ Banksy and the Rise of Outlaw Art (Sky Arts, Sky 017, 8.00pm). There was graffiti before Banksy, but perhaps his pungent political messages hit home a bit harder. Anyways, a doco about his influence on street art…
There have been a number of articles written about the voting in the final statges of the Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill, during which National MPs voted alongside the Green Party to force a change that would prevent…
Painting, Lego, honey and a lawyer. ¶ SATURDAY JUNE 20 ¶ Landscape Artist of the Year (Prime, 6.00pm). Want to literally watch paint dry? Stephen Mangan and Joan Bakewell begin the quest for a new British landscape artist in Yorkshire. ¶ Great British…
I try my best to know what I don't understand, and one of the things I know is that meta analyses and evidence reviews are difficult for lay people to assess. The merging of data from multiple sources is complex…
SATURDAY JUNE 13 ¶ Exhibition on Screen: Van Gogh & Japan (Sky Arts, Sky 020, 8.00pm). One of those 8K tellys would be awesome for this Exhibition on Screen doco about the influence of Japanese art on Van Gogh. It seems so…
I want to tell you about how things have been for me since I wrote on my experience as a disabled person during Covid-19. I’d like to but I can’t properly. This account might not be as lucid and linear…
The 60 Years of New Zealand Television celebrations, such as they were, seemed to rely heavily on the classics: here we go again with Lynn of Tawa, A Week of It and the Country Calendar spoofs. Wonderful highlights of our…
SATURDAY MAY 30 ¶ Six60: Live at Western Springs 2020 (TVNZ 1, 8.45pm). Remember live concerts? The day will come again, friends, when we will be able to stand shoulder-to-shoulder in an uncomfortable sweaty venue with people we don’t know. It…
Anyone who keeps an eye on evidence around cannabis and public health will be familiar with the Christchurch Health and Development Study. It's one of two local longitudinal studies frequently cited with respect to cannabis and youth development. But in…
SUNDAY MAY 24 ¶ The Luminaries (TVNZ 1, 8.30pm). There are an awful lot of indeterminate accents in The Luminaries; even lead Eve Hewson seems undecided about being Irish, and she is Irish. Fair play, accents can go badly wrong, so…
Five years ago, Know Your Stuff didn't have a name. They were just a group of people from the festival community who began testing party drugs onsite because they'd seen the consequences of people taking substances they couldn't identify or…
At last year's Splore festival Listening Lounge sessions, one of the most popular discussions was the one on psychedelic therapy. So for this year's festival, I brought back two of the participants from that panel – Dr Will Evans and Amadeus…
It probably was too good to last. The blessed peace on the roads that I wrote about here began eroding even before we left Level 4 of the Covid-19 restrictions – and on day one of Level 3, with the tradies…
The Epidemic Response has apparently resolved to call on the Director-General of Health, Commissioner of Police and Solicitor-General to provide it copies of relevant material, including legal advice prepared for the government. It is not clear whether summonses have been…