Mark Price

Otago Daily Times columnist Gordon Parry has celebrated 90 years of life and 65 years in the media with a new book - his 35th publication. Memories at 90 draws on the experiences of this evergreen Dunedin newspaper "reporter" - from commuting by cable car to thoughts on writing his own obituary. Mark Price reports.

Cr Fliss Butcher has launched a scathing attack on Dunedin Mayor Dave Cull, accusing him of political and gender bias in the selection of Dunedin City Council committees.

An Otago film-maker is about to steal a march on Avatar director James Cameron, who is to make a 3-D documentary film about the threat posed to an isolated tribe by the advance of Western civilisation.

Some critics of the Dunedin City Council emerge when there is an issue and subside when it is resolved. But then there are the full-time critics - familiar names like Bev Butler, Lyndon Weggery and Dave Witherow.

An infamous Nazi uniform worn by a New Zealand soldier may lie stashed away in the props department of a New Zealand school or amateur dramatics group, according to the author of a new book, The SS: A New History.

Were Paul Henry's questions on breakfast television this week just a bit of light-hearted "shock jock" entertainment or the tip of an ugly racist iceberg?

The first study of the reputations of New Zealand's corporations has given top honours to New Zealand Post. But how does it stack up in the most important area of all - its mail delivery performance? Mark Price arranged for flocks of empty envelopes to be let loose around the country and then waited.

Who knew Dunedin once kept monkeys in the city's Botanic Garden?

It is the architects who usually get the glory for Dunedin's cityscape - Troup for the railway station, Lawson for the municipal chambers, Campbell for the courthouse, and so on. But beyond those famous names are two others that have endured through much of the building of Dunedin.

The seat in Parliament left vacant this week by the resignation of Act New Zealand MP David Garrett will be filled by Dunedin Act list MP Hilary Calvert. Ms Calvert is a mother of three, a qualified but non-practising lawyer and the landlord of, among other things, one of Dunedin's massage parlours. She thinks, but is not certain, that she stood for Parliament for the first time in 2002, she believes she has no criminal convictions but will be checking with police just to be sure and she owns quite a chunk of Oturehua. Mark Price spoke to her during the week.

The Christchurch earthquake has raised the obvious question of whether Dunedin is likely to be similarly struck, and how prepared the city is to cope. Mark Price and Kim Dungey report.

It could be argued that if the South Island is family, then Dunedin and Christchurch have always been the siblings who come together only for weddings and funerals.

Once all Southland had was the swede, the oyster and the rolling `r'. And that seemed more than fair. But over the past decade or so, our southern cousins have been accumulating sporting assets and glory at an alarming rate - threatening even to eclipse Otago's own rather modest successes of late.

Once again, the defenders of Otago and Southland's health services are doing battle - this time over the future of Dunedin's neurosurgical services. But, is there more at stake? One of the seasoned warriors from battles past thinks there might be. Mark Price reports.