Bruce Munro

It has already been a big year for Guy Ryan, the 2015 Young New Zealander of the Year. What a contrast to the bleakness he felt just 12 months ago, writes Bruce Munro.

Mexican ambassador Leonora Rueda will be among dozens of her compatriots in Dunedin next week to cheer on their team in the Fifa U-20 World Cup. Getting Kiwis to engage with the real Mexico, not just the stereotypes of violence and drugs, would help her country meet its challenges, Mrs Rueda tells Bruce Munro.

After failing to find any mah jong players in Howick, Bruce Munro then wonders if he is drawing a long bow on income inequality. Immigration and impulsivity are in the headlights as the nationwide Kiwi identity road trip rumbles past the halfway mark.

The Otago Rescue Helicopter Trust is 21 years old. Nobody thinks they will be the next to need its help, yet hundreds of people throughout the lower South Island owe it their survival. That is what it is all about, founding pilot Graeme Gale tells Bruce Munro.

Nick Davies is a guest speaker during next month's Dunedin Writers and Readers Festival. Davies and Radio New Zealand's Carol Hirschfeld will explore questions of media impartiality and manipulation in a one-hour session on Saturday, May 9, at 6.30pm, in the Regent Theatre, Dunedin.

China-born Dunedin businessman Joe Jiang says Chinese visitors should be tested before driving on New Zealand roads.

Police are using big data to stop crime before it happens. The aim is to make New Zealand the safest country on Earth, writes Bruce Munro. But at what cost?

Bill and Margaret McIndoe think more people should ''get off their butt and go adventuring''. The octogenarian Dunedin yachties talk to Bruce Munro about almost four decades of wild seas, beautiful islands and living life ''first-hand''.

We're almost home. In this final chapter of his round-the-country exploration of the Kiwi psyche, Bruce Munro hunts New Kiwi, looks over the edge into the apocalyptic abyss, and considers two very different views of the Treaty of Waitangi.

Viewing porn is as normal as breathing for lots of young people. But a growing number are now trying to kick what they say has become a destructive habit. Bruce Munro takes a look at how a world awash with porn is shaping a generation.

What could be worse than having to travel around our fantastic country talking to its fabulous people? On the eve of the 175th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, Bruce Munro draws the short straw and heads off on a whistle-stop nationwide road trip to discover who we are and who we are becoming.

Why are many of New Zealand's cherished icons so shallow, and what is this fascination with Gothic themes? Silence, darkness and free drinks abound as Bruce Munro continues his whistle-stop nationwide road trip in search of Kiwi identity.

Elvis Presley would have turned 80 yesterday. And, as Bruce Munro finds out from some true-blue (suede shoe) fans, the King of Rock and Roll's memory is still very much alive.

Meticulous research has brought Ian Farquhar face-to-face with the real Johnny Jones. The colourful early Otago settler's story is more tempestuous and far-reaching than we have been led to believe, Mr Farquhar tells Bruce Munro. 

Fear, fascination and food - creepy-crawlies play a bigger role in our emotional and physical world than we often recognise or care to admit. Bruce Munro talks invertebrates with Emma Burns, the curator of a bug exhibition at Otago Museum.

Award-winning British science communicator Professor Marcus du Sautoy is here to reveal the hidden, intertwined worlds of maths and arts. His talk will be entertaining, but with a serious purpose, writes Bruce Munro.

Work in the Dunedin School of Art's annual ''Site'' exhibition asks some searching questions, Bruce Munro writes.

Dunedin is likely to set up New Zealand's first conscientious objector memorial. It would have been unimaginable during World War 1, when ''conchies'' were widely vilified as shirkers and traitors. Bruce Munro asks, how should we now view those who fought for peace by refusing to take up arms?

The first Sailors' Rest in the southern hemisphere is sitting pretty 142 years on.