John Lewis

"If you really want it, and you want it above everything else, you'll make it."

When Bi-Hua Huang Lin arrived in New Zealand 11 years ago, everyday life was a battle.

"I like giving traditional Kiwi meals my own twist. I like the creative side of cooking - I can make things just the way I like it."

Even in his retirement Aart Brusse continues to share gems of musical wisdom with pupils at Bayfield High School.

It seems the world is only the push of a button away.

With daytime temperatures soaring above 50degC and shady trees a rarity, Death Valley is not the most hospitable of places to take a bicycle ride.

Jonathon Clearwater has completed some of the hardest rock climbs in New Zealand and Australia.

It has been almost 65 years since a long overlooked anthem written by poet James K. Baxter and composer Douglas Lilburn was last performed.

"We hope to do for global poverty what Al Gore did for climate change."

The rolls of 54% of Otago's 154 secondary, intermediate and primary schools have declined in the past year, and 40% of them have posted their lowest and second lowest March Roll returns in the past decade.

Nearly 50 Otago schools are among 1000 across the country exercising their pupils' grey matter in a bid to win the second annual online New Zealand Maths Challenge.

"Where are your priorities Mr Key?" That was the main message delivered to Dunedin residents by more than 50 people who took to the streets on Saturday to protest against the Government's $30 million cut to the education budget.

While many might joke about it, it is not often that you meet the love of your life at a circus.

There is reading Dickens, and then there is reading a manuscript written in Dickens' own hand.

Otago terrritorial authorities are irritated they have had to spend nearly $800,000 during the past financial year repairing or replacing road signs - many of which have been damaged by vandals.