Air New Zealand has teamed up with some of the world's hottest surfers for its latest safety video, launching today. Among those on the Safety Safari video are past and present world champions, New Zealand's best surfers, a big wave legend and two of the world's most popular women surfers on social media. It was filmed at Malibu, California, Australia's Gold Coast and at Raglan and Piha in this country in mid-March and the film crew and the nine surfers had to work around Cyclone Pam to find suitable waves here and across the Tasman.
The national carrier's new inflight safety video featuring nine world-famous surfers is proving a digital hit - the video has already received more than three million views on YouTube.
Air New Zealand's latest production, called Surfing Safari, features rippling torsos, bronzed bodies and bikini models. Who said safety can't besexy? And popular. The YouTube clip has had 3,139,072 hits.
Pro-surfers and swimsuit models Alana Blanchard and Anastasia Ashley feature alongside Kiwi champs Maz Quinn and Paige Hareb, and world-class surfers Laird Hamilton, Gabriel Medina, Mick Fanning, Masatoshi Ohno and Ricardo Christie.
The surfing theme follows the airline's string of innovative videos. Richard Simmons, golden oldie Betty White, Hobbit actors, adventurer Bear Grylls, body-painted cabin crew and a gaggle of scantily clad Sports Illustrated models have featured in the past. And Air NZ isn't the only airline bringing fun to the friendly skies. America's Delta Airlines' newest safety video oddly features 25 popular internet memes. Two months ago, Air France opted for chic women wearing Breton tops dancing to a techno beat. In 2010, Philippines' Cebu Pacific Airlines opted for staff dancing to Lady Gaga's Just Dance and Katy Perry's California Gurls.
Love is strong for Karl Urban, 42, and his American girlfriend Katee Sackhoff, 35, a fellow Hollywood star, who took to Twitter to gush about her love for this country.
Karl Urban and girlfriend Katee Sackhoff.
The pair split their time between Los Angeles and Auckland, where Urban's two kids, Hunter, 14, and Indiana, 9, live primarily with their mother Natalie Wihongi, who Urban separated from last year after 10 years together.
Sackhoff last visited New Zealand in January, where she fished for snapper in the Hauraki Gulf, strolled along Pakiri Beach and dossed at Karl's new Westmere mansion.
The sci-fi actress says what she most likes about this country are "the people and the laidback lifestyle".
Sackhoff, best known as Starbuck on Battlestar Galactica, became close to Urban during filming on the Riddick set in Quebec.
So smitten is she with her man she's taken to obsessively watching his 2012 movie Dredd. That's love.
"Watching Dredd for like the 10th time in my trailer," the devoted girlfriend told Twitter fans last week. "So proud of my guy for this movie! He's pretty brilliant if I do say so myself."
Urban turns 43 next week - cue more social media gushing.
Exiting Campbell Live executive producer Pip Keane will not boomerang back to TVNZ to head up the network's Sunday show, as rumoured. The Diary can report Max Adams, Fair Go's executive producer, has been tapped for the role following Briar McCormack's departure.
"This leaves a fantastic opportunity for someone at Fair Go," said Graeme Muir, TVNZ's editor of content in news.
Perhaps Pip? Media is nothing if not a merry-go-round, eh?
Memoir of misspent youth
Deborah Coddington.
My friend, journalist and raconteur Deborah Coddington, has penned a memoir - The Good Life on Te Muna Road (Random House).
She tells The Diary: "The book is me as people would not know me - misspent youth and its disastrous results, anti-war protester, blah, blah. Not a political memoir (boring!) and nothing about sex offenders, I promise (unless you count the sex-crazed duck)."
There's also a story about Sir Bob Jones being outrageous upon meeting the then 18-year-old Coddington for the first time. Says the author: "Bob was a sexy beast!"
Coddington has four adult children, one grandchild and lives in Martinborough, where she and her husband Colin Carruthers, QC, produce Te Muna Valley wines. Her book is an ode to her Wairarapa community and a realisation that family and a sense of place have always been at her heart.
"There is some tough stuff in the book, too," Coddington admits. "Personal revelations relevant to the narrative, not exactly idyllic memories but typical perhaps of many men and women who lived through the so-called 'permissive sixties'. There's a universal story in here."
