Is 2025 the year we all slow down?

Should we get hobbies; how having a say on new laws went from nerdy to normal; chimp crazy and the year ahead in politics

Kia ora and welcome to The Weekend with Madeleine Chapman

A year ago I met a lovely older gentleman at a Christmas party who owned racehorses. He wasn’t “in the business”, as he said, he just enjoyed horses and so owned a couple as a hobby. After a dozen questions from me about the cost of horses, trainers, feed, land hire and more, I shook my head. “That’s a really expensive hobby,” I laughed.

“Well, you’ve got to have hobbies,” he said. “What are yours?”

I stopped laughing because I didn’t have any. Every day, I went to work and then returned home to watch something on TV while also scrolling mindlessly through my phone. I couldn’t even say reading was a hobby because I hadn’t done any sustained reading for pleasure in months. When I, embarrassed, answered that I didn’t have any hobbies and I was only just now realising it, the lovely man turned pragmatic. “Better late than never.”

A year later, on Wednesday this week, I stood in a dusty workshop looking at a pile of wood and wondering what to do next. I had already spent a good 40 hours on the pile of wood and had at least another 10 to go before it would hopefully resemble the shoe cabinet I had in my head. I had finally found my hobby.

It should’ve been an easy one to figure out. I grew up in a DIY household where every weekend and summer was spent holding planks of wood as they passed through a table saw or thicknesser, measuring up all the exact positions of studs and electrical outlets so we could cut GIB to line walls, then sanding the plaster before painting. Plus, I love putting together flatpack furniture.

I’ve since realised my impatience is the main thing holding me back from enjoying woodwork as a hobby. Once I start something, I like to finish it as soon as possible. Couple that with weeks of watching master furniture builders on TikTok create stunning pieces in precisely 60 seconds, and my perception of what woodworking entailed and encouraged was cooked.

My first few projects were monstrosities. Terrifying pieces of art illustrate cutting corners and rushed execution. Despite that, and despite my history of giving up on crafts after one failed project, I found myself enjoying the forced concentration and stillness in woodworking. There was so little instant gratification that it forced my brain to appreciate a slow burn again.

So now, the shoe cabinet. I was learning to appreciate a slow burn but still naively believed I could finish it in a week. Instead, after a whole week, I had only just made it to the step “having the right wood pieces”. Virtually every step of the build has required a pause to research, plan and learn a new skill or tool. Using hardwood rather than plywood has been a journey in patience waiting for glue to dry and sanding everything for hours. And the constant making of mistakes has meant painfully learning when the solution is to go home and sleep on it.

Sometimes, I would show up at the workshop with an ambitious to-do list and leave hours later having made a dozen measurements and zero cuts. I felt like I’d wasted a whole afternoon the first time it happened. By the third time, I was just glad to have not made an irreversible mistake.

The internet has made our lives and brains crowded and non-stop. Everything begins and ends a few minutes before it’s on to the next subject. I know a tiny bit about so many things. But 2025 is the year for slowing down and going outside. Or, as one Tiktok trend predictor described it, “the reverse brain rot”. I still love to watch a 30-second video of someone gluing up a cool wood joint, but now it is simply a helpful reference to add to my slower hobby, not the hobby itself.

On Wednesday, after pondering for a few minutes and deciding I needed to cut my shelves shorter, a man entered the workshop and asked if I needed help. I said I was trying to build a cabinet but had gotten stuck because it wasn’t square. His eyes lit up. “I’m a cabinet maker!” he said. We solved the problem together in five minutes. It turns out I’d had it pretty much perfect the first time, and if I had cut the shelves as planned, I’d have ruined the whole thing.

I never thought I would have the patience to get into woodwork. And I still don’t. But it has been forcing me to try. If I can stay patient enough not to destroy this cabinet over the next two weeks, having first thought about making it four months ago, it'll be my greatest mental achievement in years.

You might have noticed we’re sending this a bit earlier this year. Based on feedback, early birds were keen on getting it before 9am, and everyone else said they read it when they read it.

Our open letter, an update

We published an open letter about our financial situation in November last year. Despite record-high audience numbers, there has never been less support out there from advertisers or public funds.

We were buoyed by our audience's outpouring of commitment and support. We're crunching the numbers and will offer an update on the encouraging response in the next few weeks. While we still need to keep working hard to meet our goal of doubling the number of regular paying members to ensure our future, we are on our way to meeting the halfway target.

You can check out the letter now if you missed it.

If your membership has lapsed, please consider supporting The Spinoff as a paying member in 2025.

The submission surge: How having a say on new laws went from nerdy to normal

While the exact number is currently being confirmed, it seems almost certain that submissions on the Treaty Principles bill will total more than 300,000, a new record for levels of public engagement during the select committee process. As parliamentary staff read through submissions, Shanti Mathias reports on how submitting has become the go-to way to engage with politics.

Submissions have started to resemble petitions, a way for people to express their opinions about an issue, but they aren’t like votes. Not every submission is equal, and more against or for a particular bill won’t necessarily make it more likely to pass or fail. Still, widespread agreement exists that public engagement in legislation is ultimately good. Shanti asks whether it makes a difference.

Robbie Williams goes chimp crazy in Better Man

Robbie Williams’ chimp biopic isn’t the first buzzy swing at a biopic – just last year Pharrell Williams rendered his life story via Lego in Piece by Piece, and Vera Drew took her journey of self-acceptance into Gotham in The People’s Joker. Alex Casey argues that there’s something especially compelling about choosing a chimp – dangerous and violent one moment, vulnerable and “just like us” the next.

“Better Man wears its chimp heart on its chimp sleeve, and not everyone will be a fan. But this chimp behind a keyboard loved it and cried more times than they would admit in a public forum.”

Join us live in 2025

We have four fantastic live events in 2025. Join us in Auckland and Wellington for The Spinoff Live.

Auckland at Q Theatre: Bryn & Ku’s Singles Club Party, February 13 and Gone by Lunchtime Live, April 9.

Wellington at the Hannah Playhouse: The Fold Live, February 20 and The Spinoff Book Club, March 13.

The year ahead in NZ politics

• First off, we asked our big political commentary brains to nominate the three issues that will loom large in the year to come. There’s the Treaty Principles bill that just won’t rest, unemployment, housing, health and the economy, stupid. Read the full round-up here

• To help you stay on top of the year and alive at the Beehive, Lyric Waiwiri-Smith has put together a handy guide of what to expect and when to expect it

• For those in the capital, Joel MacManus lays out what the big issues for Wellington will be in 2025

The stories Spinoff readers spent the most time with this week

• Raul Seatown details the reality of raising a trans child

• Lyric Waiwiri-Smith empthsies with Golriz Ghahraman

• A high-earning 30-something shares her approach to spending and saving in one of this week’s Cost of Being

• Gabi Lardies catalogues the worst Google reviews of New Zealand’s best tramps

• Lyric Waiwiri-Smith explains the bill to regulate regulations

Recommended reads for your weekend

• The life lessons Liam Rātana found by making boule-shaped loaves of rēwana

• Soon-to-be deputy PM David Seymour has already had a crucial win behind the scenes, argues Henry Cooke

• Actor and comedian Kura Forrester takes us from her early Shortland Street rejection to finding fame in Ferndale

• Anna Rawhiti-Connell debates Anna Rawhiti-Connell over whether it’s ok to nark on the cops

• Not everyone got a sunny holiday, whinge Southerners Alex Casey and Tara Ward

• “January is the first pancake. It’s for the dogs.” Hera Lindsay Bird soothes those of us who have already broken our new year resolutions

• New Zealand banks’ Australian owners sign up to international climate goals while continuing to fund fossil fuel companies, reports Shanti Mathias

• 42 authorities are set to hold referendums on Māori wards in October. However, civic engagement remains a challenge, writes Liam Rātana

• A 32-year-old mother of a one-year-old shares her approach to spending and saving in The Cost of Being

• The Friday Poem is back, thanks to a local romance author

• Brainwashed dynastic cult devotee Toby Manhire tells you everything you need to know ahead of season two of Severance

Reader feedback of the week

• On Help Me Hera: I’ve already broken four of my five new year resolutions
  
  "My mates and I have given up on New Year’s resolutions and started making lists of “more of”, “less of”, “goals” and “intentions”. I like the ambiguity of most of those categories. If you go for a run once more each month than you did last year, that’s still more of! And in reverse for habits you’re trying to break or lessen. You still get to set some concrete and achievable goals, but there’s no strict line drawn for failure, and it makes a nice little sheet of paper to stick up on the fridge"
  

• On The worst Google reviews of New Zealand’s best tramps
  "These reviewers need some time on the 'Bench of Gratitude', near Glenroy for some perspective: https://maps.app.goo.gl/kD5wPG5zwrCUoG9j6. Absolutely worth reading the reviews "Some decide to hike the Mount Cook, I decided to sit on the bench of Gratitude I never been sat this good of my life""

Thanks for reading. See you next week.