Philippa Johnston

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Articles

Power Play

Nov 12, 2023 | northandsouth.co.nz | Philippa Johnston |Michael Fletcher

Luke Blincoe, CEO of Electric Kiwi, is an affable, cheerful sort of bloke, but when it comes to New Zealand’s electricity market, he’s not one to mince his words. In mid-September he wrote a bluntly worded email to the company’s 70,000 customers that, among other things, accused the big four electricity companies of “squeezing retail competition out by subsidising their bloated retail arms with the excess profi ts from generation”.
Letter from Israel

Nov 12, 2023 | northandsouth.co.nz | Philippa Johnston |Oded Na’aman

It is now 1pm, Wednesday 18 October, and I am at home, in Tel Aviv. Eleven days have passed since the 7 October attack on Israel. At least 1400 people were killed in one day, mostly civilians, and there are around 200 Israeli hostages held in the Gaza Strip. Israel has since launched its deadliest attack on Gaza so far: around 3500 Gazans have been killed, about 1000 of them children. Hamas still manages to fire rockets at Israel, mostly toward towns closer to Gaza, but some toward Tel Aviv.
End of an era

Nov 12, 2023 | northandsouth.co.nz | Philippa Johnston |Hera Lindsay Bird

We have a strange and persistent love for radio in this country, but I can’t help feeling that Kim Hill deserves some personal credit for the endurance of the medium. When I was growing up, her voice was as familiar as Saturday-morning lawnmowers, and the neighbour’s kid, grudgingly practising his trumpet. The one time I ever bagged a spot on her show, I immediately got a text from everyone I knew over the age of 40, despite not having tipped anyone off, confirming her ubiquity.
How do you solve a problem like housing?

Oct 15, 2023 | northandsouth.co.nz | Philippa Johnston

This February, Trade Me Property sales director Gavin Lloyd reported that the median weekly rent had reached a record high of $600. Like the neverending statistics of climate-change-induced heat records, this announcement arrived with the limp splat of an overcooked spaghetti noodle. We all know the New Zealand rental market is a disaster.
Possums of the Deep

Oct 15, 2023 | northandsouth.co.nz | Philippa Johnston

A kina opener looks like a trowel crossed with a speculum. To open the urchin, as EnviroStrat senior environmental consultant Johnny Wright demonstrated to North & South, insert the tip of the “spade” into the hole at the base of the shell and give the opener a firm whack. Squeeze the spring loaded handle to crack open the shell, then, using a spoon, scoop out the five golden-brown “roe” (actually the urchin’s gonads).
Burps & Bluster

Oct 15, 2023 | northandsouth.co.nz | Philippa Johnston |George Driver

Essentially, CO2 emissions last for a millennia or more and this means that ongoing CO2 emissions keep accumulating in the atmosphere indefinitely, heating the world more and more. Methane, however, lasts in the atmosphere for about a decade on average and is almost entirely gone from the atmosphere within about 50 years, although a small amount of warming persists for more than a century. This short lifespan means methane emissions don’t accumulate indefinitely like CO2.
National treasures

Sep 17, 2023 | northandsouth.co.nz | Philippa Johnston |Lindsay Wright

Because steel and iron outlast raupō and rimu, and the written word is considered to be more reliable than oral history, some rural museums become collections of old agricultural machinery in various states of decrepitude. But Pātea, the town in South Taranaki where the eponymous river reaches the sea, has a treasure trove of artefacts that may reach all the way back to Hawaiki.
A Boy Named Sophie

Sep 17, 2023 | northandsouth.co.nz | Philippa Johnston

When Sophie Ottaway was a teenager she often had to go to the doctor. She knew that she had been born with medical complications, that her ovaries were damaged and had been removed, and from the age of 11 she had to take hormones. But when she was 22, she went for a routine appointment for tonsillitis. Sophie hated medical appointments, so her mother always liked to accompany her on visits to the doctor. On this occasion her regular GP was on holiday and she saw a locum.
September 2023

Aug 20, 2023 | northandsouth.co.nz | Philippa Johnston |Matthew Jansen |George Driver |Greg Partington

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Guilt, Part 2: The robberies and the outcast

Jul 23, 2023 | northandsouth.co.nz | Philippa Johnston |Ryan Wolf

However, she goes on to tell me about a man she dated for nine months, and his bizarre disappearance on the night of Voudouris’s murder. “I had just gone upstairs to put my kids to bed and say good night. And when I came back down he was gone. He’d just vanished. I didn’t hear a door open or anything. It freaked me out.” Having searched every nook and cranny of her home, Fiona locked her doors and tried to call him only to find his phone had been turned off.