I always loved the Smurfs. I was even such a Smurf-geek as a kid that I’d set my weekday alarm early enough to watch the 6:30am episodes on TV2 before getting ready for school. The pre-pubescent version of myself often thought how cool it would be to have my own human-sized Smurf house. Well, fast-forward 25…
New Zealand’s Slice Of Jurassic Park
A couple of weeks ago my wife and I took up an invitation to return to a guesthouse that sits on the edge of a forest some people say is the healthiest in all of New Zealand. Maungatautari is the name of a mountain in Waikato that most North Islanders would’ve driven past without probably…
Barry Gibb Reveals Long Lost Grease Demo As The Film Turns 40
I can remember reading once that Barry Gibb reportedly earned more money for writing the song Grease than any one person has ever earned for a solitary song in music history. Something both highly contestable and near-on impossible to quantify, but who cares, it’s a great fun fact. Even if the “fact” aspect is mightily…
Why To Make Penang Your Next Tropical Island Holiday – My NZ Herald Article + Top 60 Photos
Last month the New Zealand Herald published my article about why Penang in Malaysia should be on your radar if you’re after a holiday on tropical island that’s a little different from all the rest. There are plenty of warm weather islands in the world with beautiful scenery and nice resorts to de-stress yourself, but there…
Martin Luther King 50 Years On: Commodores Bassist Ronald LaPread Recalls The Day He Met Him – My NZ Herald Article
Last week the New Zealand Herald published my article about the 50th anniversary of the death of Martin Luther King Junior. Click here to link to the piece that details my 2016 visit to the site of King’s assassination, the Lorraine Motel in Memphis. If you’re planning a trip to the States and Memphis is somehow missing…
30 Years Since Andy Gibb Died, Why It’s Time To Re-Examine His Career
It’s 30 years since one of the biggest teen idols of them all, Andy Gibb, passed away. Given that this month also marks what would’ve been Andy’s 60th birthday, I wanted to post an updated version of an article I wrote in 2013 that I hoped would encourage people to re-examine his life and career. Five years on…
A Honeymoon In The Jungles Of Malaysian Borneo – My Top 40 Photos From The Kinabatangan Region
The precious jungles of Sabah in Malaysian Borneo are the stuff of legend for good reason. Regarded by some scientists as the single most biodiverse place on the planet, one 10-square kilometre chunk of rainforest in Sabah has more flora and fauna than all of Europe and North America combined. Mind blowing. In looking for…
Why We Chose The Hotel Grand Windsor For Our Wedding Night & Photos – My Concrete Playground Review
I’ve always been drawn to historic hotels, even if their glory days are behind them. Whether it’s a crumbling palace in India or a slightly faded ski lodge in the States, old hotels have so many stories to tell. But what about a historic building that originally wasn’t a hotel? Not only that, but when it…
Cat Stevens Live: My NZ Herald Review Of His ‘Intimate And Grand’ Auckland Concert
It’s not everyday you get a retweet from Cat Stevens. Indeed it would be slightly odd if Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam loved your Twitter feed to such an extent. But a one off? I’ll take it. Apparently the man himself liked my review of his Auckland concert late last year and humbly said, that’s a massive…
Road Tripping Through South India Part 3: Kerala Backwaters To Trivandrum Top 60 Photos
The third and final chapter in my trilogy of Let’s Travel magazine articles about road-tripping (and boating and training) through the south of India is now out and in the current issue. I travelled with World Journeys and here’s a little taster of the article: It felt like Jurassic Park. Or probably more specifically, Jurassic…
Why It’s Wrong To Call Maurice Gibb “The Quiet Bee Gee” – 15 Years Since His Death
He was the glue, the joker, the multi-instrumentalist and the rock ‘n’ roll of the Bee Gees and this month, it’s 15 years since Maurice Gibb’s sudden death. Thinking back to the news headlines after Maurice died (due to complications from a twisted intestine), so many stories referred to him as “the quiet Bee Gee”…
Saturday Night Fever Turns 40, Barry Gibb Gets A Knighthood & This Music Geek Discovers Something Unusual About The Fever Songs
Barry Gibb has a knighthood and I’m a happy man. I’m not much into numerology, but there is something about the Gibb family and the number 7. The Bee Gees had their first international hits in 1967, they released what became the biggest selling album of all time in 1977, they stormed back to the top of…