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Alex Casey: ‘Would you like me to also be a different skin colour and male?’ – Anika Moa claps back at tattoo criticism on Seven Sharp

“I’ll just cover up a little bit” Moa whispered, frantically pulling her sleeves over her hands and attempting to cover the exposed parts of her chest and neck. Barry continued, “I will not be watching this programme or any other programme until the tattoos are covered.”

By this stage, Moa had rotated completely around to face the back of the Seven Sharp studio, her tattoos (and face) completely out sight. Somewhere out there, Peter let out a huge sigh of relief. But his state of nirvana was not to last for long.

She swivels back to face the camera, “would you like me to also be a different skin colour and male while you’re at it?”

Leonie Hayden: Grateful horis and model minorities: why don’t we know we’re racist?

“Lately a lot of people have objected to the observation that cis-gendered, heterosexual, white, able-bodied men are over represented nearly everywhere that power exists, to the point where they now think they are the marginalised group (hint: they’re not).

I can’t help but wonder if it’s the newness of being named. In Western countries, being those things means you are born into a world that uses language that treats you as the default. You’re the only ones that don’t have to add extra words to the things that define you – Chinese-New Zealander, female director, trans mayor, Paralympian.

So when a minority culture has a name for you that you didn’t sign off on – cis, Pākehā – you immediately assume the worst.”

Sam Brooks: Ranking the Dancing with the Stars NZ contestants based on their promo videos

“Suzy Cato is winning this thing.

At the start of her clip she pushes through the crowd of dances, rimmed glasses firmly affixed to her face, does a little dance that I’m sure was improvised, and she doesn’t even need a name until the very end. She’s Suzy Cato. You know who she is.

Which is her main asset, honestly. The rest of the contestants you can imagine people not knowing, to an extent. Everyoneknows who Suzy Cato is. Even more crucially, everyone who knows who Suzy Cato is (which is literally everyone) loves Suzy Cato.”

The Spinoff: Duncan Garner launches blistering attack on Duncan Garner

“High profile broadcaster and columnist Duncan Garner has this morning spoken truth to power, or more specifically, truth to high profile broadcaster and columnist Duncan Garner.

In a blistering attack on Newshub’s simulcast AM Show, Duncan Garner railed against the poison of “the speech police”.

“The speech police are winning the war,” said Duncan Garner.

“Those who overreact at everything we say and everything we do in society … We need to be careful that we do not lose the precious gift that we have in this country – it’s called the freedom of speech. When you lose it, have a look at that, it is so, so important we keep it. We need a contest of ideas and thought and creativity, so do not bow down to those who want to ring-fence society with their take on our society.”

Duncan Garner’s comments were a clear denunciation of recent comments by Duncan Garner, who last week attempted to ring-fence the speech of Taika Waititi.”

Joel MacManus:  How a cult Dunedin film gave Taika Waititi his big break

Five first year students find an empty flat. It’s a shithole and cold as balls, but there are two selling points: free rent, and free power. Then they discover something amazing: a basement chock-full of weed. They flick the whole lot off to a local dealer, and suddenly they have more money than any of them know what to do with. But soon it all comes crashing down. The owner of the house comes back, and he wants to know what they’ve done with his stash.

“It was basically a ‘what if,’” Sarkies said. “You take a group of extremely naive characters and put them in an extremely stressful situation which would ultimately drive them to be prepared to commit murder.”

“It was my first film, so I just wanted something with an interesting enough story that even if I fucked it up, it had potential to succeed.”

Jihee Junn: Ten young entrepreneurs New Zealanders should know about

“We love to perpetuate the stereotype of the slacker millennial, spending hours on end scrolling through social media and whittling away a lifetime’s worth of savings on $22 brunches. But when we look at some of the most exciting businesses in New Zealand today, young people are are often the ones leading the pack. Because what young people lack in experience and expertise, they make up for with enthusiasm, freshness and a whole lot else.

Our previous list highlighted ten amazing women in business, but it’s a list that could’ve gone on and on. This time it’s no different with hundreds of young people promising good things across New Zealand. But ten is a nice round number, so we’ve taken the time to pick out a few young people in business who we think deserve your special attention.”

Don Rowe: I got Instagram hacked by the fake Ray-Ban ads, and I’m mad as hell

The ads, posted by individual user accounts up to four times in a row without warning, consist of a bad graphic offering Ray-Bans at 90% discounts in any currency from pound to euro to the New Zealand dollar. Various URLs are provided for keen shoppers, but the sites are uniform in their amateur design, error-ridden copy and total lack of affiliation with the actual Ray-Ban site hosted in the US.

“We are professional online company in the world,” they trumpet. “Our designer items are hand picked to match every uptown ladies’ latest desires all at discounted prices.”

“This is a perfect place for perfect products. It would be an honor for our professional team to provide satisfied services for you.”

Though the websites are identical right down to the typos, they are registered to various cities in Eastern China. Seems legit.

Emily Holdaway: The secret to coping without sleep when you have babies

I think we come into parenthood with unrealistic expectations of what the first year will look like – especially regarding sleep. Or lack of. During pregnancy everyone jokes about how tired you will be, but you never quite believe them. And then, once your baby is born, everyone changes focus to their sleep. Is your baby sleeping? Is your baby not sleeping? How much sleep does your baby sleep?

And you think – hold on a minute, you just spent months telling me I’m going to be tired, and now you’re expecting my child to be sleeping all night long? That makes no sense. But you’re too tired to think about it any further, so you shrug, and scull your lukewarm coffee.

All the jokes, and all the memes, and all the assumptions are about non-sleeping babies, and yeah some are funny at the time, but they miss 50% of the equation.

No one is focusing on you.

Adam Goodall: The beautiful promise of backwards compatibility – and the sad reality

“On Tuesday, Microsoft announced that they’d be bringing 19 games from the original Xbox to the Xbox One. This brings the total number of original Xbox games available on the Xbox One, backwards-compatible and in as close to their original form as possible, to 32.

Which is great! I grew up playing Xbox games; me and my sister sacrificed two years of our weekly allowance to get an Xbox launch bundle in 2002. And though old Wheezy (each Xbox had its own randomised name, which is the kind of innovation that I’m all in for) has long since died, the games I played on him meant a lot to me. I’m glad they’ll get a new life. Or some of them, at least.”

Yet another blistering AM Show attack as cricketer-turned-broadcaster condemns cricketer-turned-broadcaster

Earlier this week high-profile broadcaster and host of the AM Show Duncan Garner launched a blistering attack on high-profile broadcaster and host of the AM Show Duncan Garner over his role as Chief Constable in the Speech Police.

Not to be outdone, his co-host, Mark Richardson, has let rip a scathing attack on Mark Richardson.

“I’m sick of all the sanctimony that’s coming out of our disgraceful written media at the moment … They should be ashamed of themselves.”

While cricketer-turned-broadcaster Mark Richardson does not typically write down his opinions, leaving that instead to someone or other at Newshub to transcribe them, his remarks are a clear and ruthless attack on cricketer-turned-broadcaster Mark Richardson.

The Oxford Dictionary defines sanctimony as “The action or practice of acting as if one were morally superior to other people.”

The Spinoff is unable to confirm whether the words “act as if you are morally superior to other people” are literally written on Mark Richardson’s job description.

It seems likely, however, that Mark Richardson’s feelings of sickness have been brought on by binge-level quantities of Mark Richardson sanctimony.

Last month, for example, Mark Richardson was very sanctimonious about millennials.

“All they do is grizzle. That’s all I hear out of the young people now. Grizzle about this. Grizzle about that. Complain this isn’t fair. How about get off your arse and do some work?” said Mark Richardson on the AM Show, sanctimoniously.

“They just want things that make life easier, and when it’s not easy they’re in some sort of crisis.”

Mark Richardson may also have had in mind Mark Richardson’s recent sanctimony around whether women should be asked questions about their child-bearing plans in job interviews. Or his recent sanctimony in dismissing those who suggest being a mother is tantamount to a job. “It is hard work being a mum, but you can’t call it a job, it is a fact of life. We raise children on this planet. Don’t call it a job,” he said, sanctimoniously.

Mark Richardson was just as likely to have been censuring Mark Richardson for a recent moral lecture in which he suggested New Zealand could take a leaf out of the book of Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte and his death-squad campaign against drugs.

Sanctimoniously dismissing “human rights mumbo-jumbo”, Mark Richardson said: “If they really want to affect supply, they’re going to have to conduct an actual war – and conduct it like a war.” That meant giving a group of people “the power to operate above, below, underneath, in the murky shadows, and these people just go missing”.

More likely still, Mark Richardson was sickened by Mark Richardson’s haughty insistence of his moral superiority in driving in the outside lane without any intention of overtaking. It was a question of courtesy, and “I choose not to be courteous”, but not against the law, said Mark Richardson. As the web-page on which his sanctimonious outburst is recorded notes, “it is against the law”.

Mark Richardon may also have been repudiating Mark Richardson over the time Mark Richardson told South Islanders to shut up and stop complaining about the weather. Just as likely, Mark Richardson also had in mind the time Mark Richardson did one of the most sanctimonious shits of all time – off the back of his jet-ski.

It is not the first time that high-profile broadcaster and former cricketer Mark Richardson has launched such a tirade. Just last month Mark Richardson characterised the media as “sheep, wandering around on a field of sanctimony”, sanctimoniously.

The media should try “writing something that’s actually difficult to justify, then have a go at justifying it” said cricketer turned post-modernist busker Mark Richardson.

Mark Richardson, who is part of the media, added: “I am not part of the media.”

The remaining member of the AM Show trio, Amanda Gillies, is a well-regarded and intelligent broadcaster. There are, nevertheless, fears that she may not be spared, and as such is warned to stay well away from Amanda Gillies.

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