Archive for November, 2008

Countries around the world are becoming increasingly aware of the importance, opportunities and benefits of strong country brands - of defining how they want to be percieved and how they can make the most of their assets.

Each year for the last four years FutureBrand, a global brand consultancy, researches and ranks countries by brand. In the country brand index Australia has been no. 1 for the last three years and New Zealand has moved from no 8 in 2007 to no 7 this year.

In 2008, FutureBrand has ranked country brands (based on research, expert opinions and relevant statistics) as follows:

1. Australia
2. Canada
3. USA
4. Italy
5. Switzerland
6. France
7. New Zealand
8. UK
9. Japan
10. Sweden

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Digital New Zealand is a programme of work funded through the Digital Content Strategy and led by a team at the National Library in collaboration with digital content providers from around New Zealand. It aims to help make New Zealand digital content easy to find, use and share, and bring to light content from the deep web and databases that search engines can’t find. It’s doing this by working with organisations to harvest information (metadata) about their content from existing websites and incorporate it into a much larger pool of metadata. It then exposes all the information for re-use and re-mixing through the tools that the team have developed.

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Jenny Pattrick has been named the winner of the 2009 New Zealand Post Mansfield Prize. Best known for her novels, The Denniston Rose (Black Swan, 2003) and its sequel, Heart of Coal (Black Swan, 2004), she can now travel to France to live and work at the Villa Isola Bella in Menton, France, where famed writer Katherine Mansfield lived and wrote in 1919 and 1920.

For more information read the NZ Post press release or check out the NZ Book Council author profile.

Pictured above, Wellington author Jenny Pattrick (photo supplied by Annalies van der Poel)

Sir Jon Trimmer has been dancing with the Royal New Zealand Ballet for 50 years. To mark the occasion, Company director Gary Harris created a principal role which suits Trimmer to a T – that of the eccentric and somewhat dotty “Don” in the 2008 Meridian Energy Season of Don Quixote.

Trimmer’s as fit as a fiddle. His legs are strong and supple, which he claims comes from good genes, keeping busy, gardening, plus regular yoga stretching and breathing exercises combined with his own ballet warm-up. His acting and mime skills are as well-honed as ever, and his portrayal of the “Don” is so convincing that it’s hard to imagine anyone else in the part. He’s on stage throughout the two-and-a-half hours of this rollicking ballet, and his vigorous performance sparkles with his delight.

“The Don is a very endearing character,” says Trimmer “a demented little old man who rushes off in one direction, then another, chasing his dreams. He loves books and he has a great imagination, and though he is often somewhat confused, he has some hilarious adventures. I’m having a marvellous time with this role. It’s great fun, and I’m loving every minute.”

Read the rest of this NZLive.com featured article here.

The 90th anniversary of the end of World War One is approaching, with a host of events around the country to commemorate the occasion. Bringing all these events together, the theme “Coming Home” is being used to link the many events and provide a common thread to the commemorations.

Remembered as Armistice Day, the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month is universally associated with the remembrance of those who died in World War One. What Coming Home adds is to reflect that the end of the war was only the beginning of the process to bring the war to a close: in some cases soldiers returned, in other cases not, but the reality of returning to a normal life – and remembering those who didn’t return – was not an easy one.

NZLive.com has a full listing of events associated with Coming Home from organisations up and down the country. Some of the picks include Auckland War Memorial Museum’s presentation of After the War, a silent film focussing on the immediate post World War One years and the 1920s, the National Library’s exhibition Welcome Sweet Peace, and the three-day Armistice in Cambridge event.