ICYMI: What I wish I’d known as a new parent
October 29 - November 4
The fall of Queen’s Rise? Auckland’s hot new dining precinct feels the pinch. Queen’s Rise was supposed to be Auckland’s answer to Melbourne’s laneways or New York’s Chelsea Market, but a year and a half since its much-hyped opening, Auckland’s “hottest foodie destination” is showing cracks. As food editor Alice Neville reports, several current and former Queen’s Rise tenants tell stories of mismanagement, unreasonable expectations, broken promises and lock-outs. One restauranteur recalls being told the precinct’s focus would be on smart dining rather than takeaway, but then the site began to fill up with “grab-and-go” outlets.
The Guardian launches New Zealand expansion. Since launching in Australia in 2013, the Guardian has become a strong player in the region’s digital news market. Now, it’s preparing to go further as it launches its New Zealand expansion. Last week, the Guardian confirmed it had hired its first full-time reporter in New Zealand and was introducing a new variation on the homepage specifically served to New Zealanders. Don’t expect a full-blown landing page though – the expansion will amount to “small section” on the site’s international homepage when accessed from New Zealand, but the spokesperson noted that “if readers respond positively, we hope to do more.”
What I wish I’d known as a new parent. Every parent was a new parent at some stage in their life, and that includes Emily Writes. Looking back on her seven years of raising two children, would she do anything differently? “Turns out yes. For a start: I wouldn’t even bother with a cot. I adore my children but they’re absolute turd sleepers and I’ve accepted that now,” she notes. But also: “I’d have asked for help sooner. I’d have let go of the shame that makes us believe we are meant to just know how to mother. I don’t mean experts – I mean people who genuinely care for you. People who care for you, not for profit but because they love you and want to help you.”
Terry Teo is the great New Zealand comic. Growing up in the 1990s, Toby Morris rarely saw the New Zealand he knew in the comics he read. That is until he discovered Terry Teo, co-created by children’s book author Bob Kerr who Toby actually got to interview for his webseries Two Sketches just recently. Here, he explains what Terry Teo means to him: “It’s hard to explain how rarely I saw my New Zealand in the culture I consumed as a 9-year-old in Tawa… TV was all Gillette ads and Wella women; clean-shaven bankers lounging on Lamborghinis. My dad had a moustache and caught the train [and] I was a scruffy dorky skateboarding kid from the boring burbs. Terry Teo was a scruffy dorky skateboarding kid from the burbs too, but he actually got into adventures.”
What I learned that broccoli can do to me when I got my DNA tested. With just the swab of a cheek, a genetic test called myDNA detects how people respond to common medicines (like antidepressants and anti-inflammatories). It has the potential to revolutionise the way doctors prescribe drugs, so business editor Maria Slade decided to test it out, offering up her own DNA to find out that broccoli might just be what’s messing up her sleep.
Just quickly, a brief word from Toby Morris, editorial cartoonist and illustrator at The Spinoff:
“I don't think there's anywhere apart from The Spinoff that gets what I'm trying to do and would support it in quite the same way. Similarly – as readers you get to make that choice now too. You choose to read The Spinoff, and by becoming a member you can directly support the kind of stories you want to read more of (and, for $8 a month, get a free copy of our book!). You support us making something new and different – and, hopefully better, you get to read it.”
I got myself Date Checked and the results terrified me. By her own admission, senior writer Madeleine Chapman is the type of person who wants to know everything, all the time, regardless of its pertinence, so when Date Check came along – an online background checking service specifically for people you may have met through dating apps – she was intrigued. After paying Date Check $99 to run a background check on her, here’s what they found out.
How the hospitality industry incentivises smoking. For years it’s been a running joke in the hospitality industry that in order to get more breaks, young workers should start smoking. But it turns out there’s actually some truth to that statement, reports Alice Webb-Liddall. One worker she talks to recalls how she started smoking because her hospitality job allowed smokers extra breaks during shifts, while industry veterans like Sophie Gilmour notes that the issue is far from new. “This certainly applied during all my days as a waitress in hospitality,” she says. “The smokers got guaranteed breaks and everyone else’s were [often] up for debate.”
The Spinoff Weekly is written by staff writer Jihee Junn.