The X-Factor
X Factor’s Redfoo glassed in Sydney brawl
Review: Henson’s Earnest worth seeing
Earnest
Q Theatre, Auckland
Some people consider Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest to be full of coded campy references to the Victorian homosexual underground.
Ben Henson’s fast-paced rendition of the play renders this subtext blatant in Earnest, which opened at Auckland’s Q Theatre last night.
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Gwyneth Paltrow approves of Jennifer Lawrence
Gwyneth
John Lennon’s killer sorry for being ‘an idiot’
John Lennon’s imprisoned killer says he still gets letters about the pain he caused in his pursuit of notoriety nearly 34 years ago.
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“I am sorry for causing that type of pain,” Mark David Chapman told a parole board last week, according to a transcript released Wednesday. “I am sorry for being such an idiot and choosing the wrong way for glory.”
It was Chapman’s eighth appearance before a parole board. In again denying his release, the three-member panel said it would “so deprecate the serious nature of the crime as to undermine respect for the law.”
Chapman fired five shots on December 8, 1980, outside the Dakota apartment house where Lennon lived on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, striking the ex-Beatle four times. After pleading guilty to second-degree murder, Chapman was sentenced in 1981 to 20 years to life in prison.
Last week, he told the parole board members that he would understand if they denied him release based solely on the number of people he hurt.
“Many, many people loved him. He was a great and talented man and they are still hurting,” Chapman, 59, said. “I get letters so that’s a major factor. It’s not a regular crime.”
Chapman, who is at the Wende Correctional Facility, east of Buffalo, can try again for release in two years.
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– AP
Ten movies about basketball
As the Tall Blacks prepare to compete at the world champs in Spain, James Croot looks at 10 of the best cinematic depictions of basketball.
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Blue Chips
Nick Nolte teamed up with a young Shaquille O’Neal for this excellent 1994 college basketball drama. Instead of the usual triumph over adversity tale, writer Ron Shelton (Bull Durham, Tin Cup) focuses on the length some coaches and schools will go to achieve glory.
X Factor’s Redfoo in Sydney brawl
X Factor Australia judge Redfoo has been reportedly hit in the head by a flying glass at a Sydney hotel.
The US singer was in a private area at the Golden Sheaf Hotel in Double Bay when he was approached by a man who allegedly threw a glass at him, 9NEWS reported.
The man tried to flee but was nabbed by security.
Redfoo had a 1-centimetre cut to his right temple but did not need stitches.
Paramedics and police were called and some patrons were reportedly evacuated, 9NEWS said.
A 21-year-old man was charged with malicious contact and bailed to appear in court on September 24.
Concerned fans took to Twitter after some saw the incident.
@Joshayyyy21 jealousy is a hell of a drug!
— Redfoo (@RedFoo) August 27, 2014
Redfoo, whose real name is Stefan Kendal Gordy, is best known for being part of electronic dance music rapper duo LMFAO which went into hiatus in 2012.
He also dated tennis star Victoria Azarenka from 2012 until earlier this year.
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– Stuff
Dads’ kitchens rule
Not got the time to cook dinner after work
Think again.
Josh King, 40, and Aaron Gascoigne, 43, both juggle corporate jobs with family time and still manage to get their kitchen duties done.
They are known as the Corporate Dads in the first season of My Kitchen Rules NZ.
King is the national sales manager at ITL Technologies and Gascoigne is the director and owner of a male fertility supplement company called Vitamenz.
Both have two children.
Gascoigne even finds the time to go kontiki fishing off Campbells Bay most weeks to catch his own amazing gulf snapper.
“My kids love fresh snapper and homemade chips. And yes, I catch it right off the beach in a city of 1.4 million people – how cool is it to live on the Shore”
My Kitchen Rules NZ is a cooking competition where contestants create instant restaurants in their homes before facing various challenges in different locations and at the show’s headquarters.
Gascoigne and King like to cook big proteins and big flavours and their least favourite dishes are desserts.
Both grew up on farms and Gascoigne says his favourite dish on the show is “steak, steak and more steak”.
The North Shore is also home to contestant Tracey Allan, who lives in a converted church in Belmont. But her house and teammate Neil Gussey’s central city apartment are unsuitable for an instant restaurant.
The pair, nicknamed Beauty and the Beast on the show, are instead cooking in Gussey’s parents’ house at Orewa.
Gussey and Allan feature in the first round while Gascoigne and King appear in the second group.
Gascoigne said they are really looking forward to it.
“It’s going to be amazing experience seeing ourselves on the telly three times a week – the kids can’t wait.”
Both said the show taught them not to take anything too seriously.
“Don’t sweat the small stuff and live every day as if it were your last,” Gascoigne said.
The men plan to launch a range of sauces and rubs called Two Fat Cats once the show ends.
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– North Shore Times
Pound pooch’s star turn
Animal behaviour expert Mark Vette turns dogs on death row into stars in a new television show.
The renowned Waimauku animal psychologist rescues doomed canines from the pound in the New Zealand series Purina Pound Pups to Dog Stars.
Vette and his team of trainers rehabilitate the dogs and see them rise from rags to riches.
The show follows the escapades of neglected dogs which are nurtured and trained to become stars of movies and television commercials.
Vette also finds them loving, new homes in the programme which kicked off this week. The show reveals that rescue dogs are smart creatures which simply need a second chance.
Viewers will gain training tips and tricks for pets and learn how to cope with different behavioural problems.
Senior trainer Rosie Miles of Waimauku has worked with rescue dog Ralphy, a beardie cross which was left on a chain, malnourished and mistreated.
The pair featured on the debut episode of the show on Monday night.
Ralphy is now happily settled with his new family in Muriwai and gets walked on the beach every day.
But the road to recovery has proved tough.
“He was one of the most difficult challenges because he didn’t want to open his trust box again,” Miles said, a trainer for film and television for 20 years.
“It took a long time for Ralphy to want food again and to find something he liked.”
Miles had to entice the emaciated puppy to eat before any specialised training could begin.
Miles discovered the 18-month-old fancied pork sausage and cooked chicken.
It took another two weeks to introduce normal dog food and the beardie cross eventually gained five kilos.
The dog was suffering from learned helplessness after being mistreated and possibly abused physically, she said.
“It’s where they switch off and go to a little place in their head where nobody can touch them or hurt them.
“His spirit was broken.” When Miles picked up her handbag the animal would drop to the floor and cower.
It was so difficult to gain his trust, she said.
“I wondered if we were going to win that one but when it started to happen it was beautiful to watch.
“His eyes suddenly got this flicker in them and he showed a little bit of personality.”
Miles has worked as a horse wrangler and co-ordinator for the TV series Xena, and The Young Hercules. The 54-year-old was born in East Africa, Kenya, to English parents.
She grew up surrounded by creatures and learned to ride a zebra when she was only 4 years old.
One of her favourite jobs was working on the set of The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe movie.
Miles worked with the mice which chewed through the ropes binding Aslan the lion to the sacrificial table.
She also loved training the movie’s wolves which had come from Los Angeles to the New Zealand location.
“I’ve adopted the closest thing to a wolf which I rescued only two days ago.” Miles has brought home a grey husky cross from Husky Rescue in Christchurch.
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“He’s magnificent. He’s going to be a star.”
The new show airs on TV One on Monday at 7.30pm.
– Norwest News
International success for Musical Island Boys
Tawa’s Musical Island Boys are absolutely positively ecstatic after being recognised for their world-beating achievements in Wellington today.
The barbershop quartet of brothers Will and Jeff Hunkin, Matthew Gifford and Marcellus Washburn, have been presented with an Absolutely Positively Wellington award by Mayor Celia Wade-Brown.
The local recognition comes after winning gold at the International Barbershop Quartet in Las Vegas this year.
The group said winning the world champs and being recognised in their home city was final vindication after years of hard work.
“That’s the one goal that we wanted to achieve when we first started,” Will said.
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Architect first up for festival
Within the cardboard structure of the cathedral he designed, award-winning Japanese architect Shigeru Ban opened Christchurch’s biennial writer’s festival with stories of how it came about.
As a child, Ban enjoyed watching his parents renovate their home by hand, to house the many woman who came from outside Tokyo to sew for his fashion designer mother.
These early observations, along with his dislike of throwing things away, led him to recycle materials like the rolls inside fax paper for building.
“It was much, much stronger than I expected,” he told Cantabrians who came to the transitional cathedral last night to hear author Andrew Barrie discuss his newly released book – Shigeru Ban: Cardboard Cathedral – with the architect himself.
The event – using photos, plans and artists’ impressions to assist the one-on-one conversation – was part of the WORD Christchurch Writers & Readers Festival.
After giving up on his dream to excel in rugby, Ban went on to pursue architecture at university in the United States. As a fresh graduate, he returned to Tokyo to build his mother a fashion studio.
He continued researching the use of cardboard and recycled materials, and built his own house after gaining permission from the Japanese government to use it as a permanent building material.
Ban has designed disaster-relief buildings all over the world, and believes architecture plays a role in re-establishing a community.
The WORD Christchurch Writers & Readers festival runs until Sunday, featuring novelists, poets, playwrights, biographers, journalists, and bloggers, like NoViolet Bulawayo, Eleanor Catton, Kristin Hersh, Anis Mojgani, Diane Setterfield, Meg Wolitzer and Damon Young.
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– The Press