The New Zealand Herald is bringing back some of the best stories of 2021 from our premium syndicators, including The New York Times, Financial Times, The Times of London and The New Zealand Listener.
Today we look at David Seymour's rise in the political polls, a brother's desperate plea, the crazy world of cryptocurrency, Johnny Depp's status in Hollywood and how to help stave off dementia.
The rise and rise of David Seymour
He was once a social media joke.Now, the polls tell us, he's second choice for PM. Could the Act leader really lead New Zealand one day?
Michele Hewitson of The Listener talks to Seymour.
Act leader David Seymour during Question Time in the House. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Where is her body? Murderer's brother calls on him to confess
In June 2001 Alix Sharkey's mother called him in tears. "She said, 'The police have been here asking about Stuart,' " he says. Sharkey, a freelance journalist who was living in Paris at the time, couldn't understand what the police wanted with his younger brother, Stuart Campbell. Nor could he understand why his mother was so upset.
She kept saying that the police wanted to talk about "that girl". It was only after he reassured her and put the phone down that he remembered seeing a story on the BBC News website a few days earlier. A schoolgirl had gone missing from East Tilbury, Essex. There had been a photograph; a young girl in school uniform with butter-blonde hair and a self-conscious smile. He hadn't thought much about it at the time, but now he logged back on and read the story properly. "And then, of course, the ground shifted underneath me," he says.
Sharkey tells Rosie Kinchen about the horror of finding out that his sibling had murdered a 15-year-old schoolgirl. Twenty years on, can he finally persuade Stuart to reveal what he did with her body?
Essex police canvassing drivers in East Tilbury, Essex, after 15 year old school girl Danielle Jones went missing almost in July 2001. Photo / Getty Images
Crypto crazy: My attempt to become a bitcoin billionaire
The rollercoaster ride that is cryptocurrency is absurd, but it is also ruthlessly logical. The more people want something, the more value you can attach to it. It's supply and demand — the oldest rule in the economics textbook and the only way to explain Jack Vettriano. But when everyone wants something because some people on Reddit say they want it, that's when you get the sort of price fluctuations that would make a Venezuelan finance minister blush.
How hard can the latest money-making craze be? Matt Rudd leaps aboard the rollercoaster.
Dogecoin was created as a joke by two software engineers to show how ridiculous cryptocurrency speculation can be. Photo / 123RF
Johnny Depp: 'I'm being boycotted by Hollywood'
In the 1990s Johnny Depp was a sensitive heart-throb. Cooler than DiCaprio, edgier than Pitt. In this past year he has been stripped of his status and dignity.
A 2016 systematic review of evidence concluded that sticking to a Mediterranean-style diet may protect against cognitive decline and dementia. Photo / 123RF
