Saturday Morning
1,345 episodes - English - Latest episode: 14 days ago - ★★★★★ - 1 ratingA magazine programme with long-form, in-depth feature interviews on current affairs, science, modern life, history, the arts and more.
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Episodes
Saturday Morning listener feedback
April 13, 2024 00:00 - 10 minutes - 9.42 MBSusie Fergusons listener feedback for Saturday Morning 13th April 2024
Leah McFall: books my friends borrowed and never returned
April 12, 2024 23:40 - 13 minutes - 12.7 MBWriter and reviewer Leah McFall reckons one of the best endorsements for a book is when your friend borrows it and it never comes back. Leah shares three great non-fiction titles currently missing from her bookshelves: Amy Liptrot's The Outrun, Ruth Reichl's Garlic and Sapphires and Craig Brown's One, Two. Three, Four.
Deborah Frances-White: The Guilty Feminist
April 12, 2024 23:05 - 27 minutes - 25.5 MBDeborah Frances-White opens each episode of her podcast with a confessional catch phrase "I'm a Feminist but.." It's an acknowledgement that you don't have to be perfect in the pursuit of social change. Recorded live on stage, with guest comedians and experts The Guilty Feminist is a joyous mashup of comedy and activism. The podcast has racked up 100-million downloads in eight years, and is coming to Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch as part of the NZ International Comedy Festival.
Prof Tim Ryley: the seaplane rises again
April 12, 2024 22:40 - 16 minutes - 14.8 MBHolidays, work trips, cargo, freight and parcels; we rely on aviation personally and for business. But aviation's carbon footprint is huge, so what are some of the sustainable technology changes taking it into the future? A handful of manufacturers are looking at reviving the production of seaplanes for a new age in aviation, including Amphibian Aerospace Industries in Darwin. Professor of Aviation at Brisbane's Griffith University Tim Ryley weighs in on the future of seaplanes.
Prof Karen Willcox: The predictive power of digital twins
April 12, 2024 22:05 - 31 minutes - 28.7 MBNew Zealand born Aerospace engineer Karen Willcox is on the frontline of the rapidly developing field of digital twins. Digital twins are two-way data driven virtual representations that predict real world outcomes, with applications spanning aviation, aerospace, medicine and climate change. Willcox is director of the Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences at The University of Texas at Austin. Willcox spent 17 years as a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Tech...
Alice Taylor's adventures in cakeland
April 12, 2024 21:40 - 13 minutes - 12.6 MBAlice Taylor may not have won Masterchef in 2022, but she won the hearts of fans, and the judges' attention. Competing in the show inspired the 24 year old to pivot from a planned career in politics to fully embrace her love of baking. She's now working as a pastry chef at Auckland's Paris Butter and has just released a cookbook - Alice in Cakeland. Packed with tips and tricks, it has easy, affordable and adaptable recipes for cakes, desserts, biscuits, breads, brioche, crepes, donuts an...
Bonnie Garmus: how a bad day at the office sparked a glittering new career
April 12, 2024 21:05 - 36 minutes - 33.1 MBBonnie Garmus had been a successful advertising creative for decades when she started writing the worldwide bestseller Lessons in Chemistry. That day, Garmus says a surge of anger about sexism overrode the rejection she'd felt when her previous book "didn't go anywhere". "For other writers, you should always realise that when you are filled with passion or anger - whatever shape the passion takes - it might be a good time to write it down," she tells Susie Ferguson.
Mark Staufer and Neil Harding: The Lost Boys of Dilworth
April 12, 2024 20:14 - 45 minutes - 42 MBAuckland's Dilworth boarding school was set up to to provide education to boys from disadvantaged backgrounds for free. Last year an independent inquiry into sexual and physical abuse at the school uncovered a "catalogue of damage and injustice" spanning more than half a century. Broadcaster turned screenwriter Mark Staufer was one of the boys physically and sexually abused while under Dilworth's care. He's written and features in The Lost Boys of Dilworth, a docu-drama revealing his exp...
Self-confessed taphophile: Deborah Challinor
April 05, 2024 21:40 - 20 minutes - 18.3 MBBestselling writer Deborah Challinor explores the world of Victorian funeral customs in the first book in a new series Black Silk and Sympathy. Deborah has written eighteen novels of historical fiction, including young adult novels, and two works of non-fiction about the Vietnam War. She speaks with Colin Peacock about her fascination with graves, cemeteries and funerals and how this interest shines in the first of a new series telling the tale of Sydney's first female undertaker.
Richard Shaw: The Unsettled
April 05, 2024 21:07 - 33 minutes - 30.6 MBPolitical commentator, academic and author Richard Shaw's new book The Unsettled confronts colonial land theft through Pakeha settler stories. A follow up to his 2021 book The Forgotten Coast, a personal story of his family history highlighting what he calls "the shady bits beneath our family tree, specifically, the land which underpinned his family's security and prosperity, taken from tangata whenua.
'Tepid response' to Oppenheimer in Japan
April 05, 2024 20:45 - 13 minutes - 12.7 MBOppenheimer has finally opened in Japan, eight months after it was released in the US. Japanese distributors delayed the release, following criticism the movie minimises the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and to distance it from offensive "Barbenheimer" memes. The seven times Oscar winner, which tells of the race to develop the atomic bomb, grossed $US 2.5 million in its first weekend in Japanese cinemas. Tokyo based author of Pure Invention: How Japan Made the Modern World M...
On a mission to change the 'archaic' 9 to 5 for parents
April 05, 2024 20:14 - 31 minutes - 29 MBFormer New Zealand Army captain, Dr Ellen Joan Ford, was recognised with a Kiwibank Local Hero award last year for her work leading a team that freed over 500 Afghan refugees when the Taliban seized control in 2021. Ellen led this team remotely from her living room, during the Covid pandemic. Ellen, who now teaches leadership in business and high performance teams has a new fight on her hands: making working parents life better, under the banner #workschoolhours, striving to rethink the ...
Simon Young - from Pickering to Pitcairn mayor
April 05, 2024 20:08 - 20 minutes - 19.2 MBSimon Young is the first non-native mayor of Pitcairn. Originally from Yorkshire in the UK, Simon visited Pitcairn in 1992 and liked it so much he returned permanently in 1999 with his wife Shirley. Simon was elected mayor in 2022, becoming the first non-native to head the island's government. Pitcairn is home to fifty people, distant relatives of the mutinous crewmates of the HMS Bounty.
Nathan Thrall - A Day in the Life of Abed Salama
April 05, 2024 19:10 - 45 minutes - 41.7 MBJerusalem-based American journalist and author Nathan Thrall's new book is named on ten best books of the year lists, including The New Yorker, The Economist and the Financial Times. A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: A Palestine Story is a portrait of life in Israel and Palestine, giving an understanding of what it's like to live there, based on the real events of one tragic day, where Jewish and Palestinian characters' lives and pasts unexpectedly converge. Thrall has spent a decade at ...
Gwyneth Hughes: Mr Bates vs The Post Office
March 29, 2024 22:05 - 23 minutes - 21.7 MBThe British Post Office scandal been described as one of the most widespread miscarriages of justice in the country's history. Between 1999 and 2015, over 900 UK subpostmasters were falsely accused of theft and fraud as the result of faulty accounting software. Some were convicted and jailed, and more lost marriages, families and their mental health. A faulty accounting system doesn't perhaps sound like the makings of gripping drama, but it's been made into a series: Mr Bates vs The Post...
Girls State: Imagining a world run by young women
March 29, 2024 21:35 - 25 minutes - 22.9 MBFilmmakers Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss's creative partnership spans two decades, winning them Emmy awards and several prizes at Sundance. Their latest documentary Girls State follows teenage girls from Missouri navigating a week-long immersive democratic experiment, learning how to build a government from the ground up. Girls State airs on Apple TV from April 5. It serves as a companion to their 2020 film Boys State which followed a similar experiment. They also directed The Mission, a...
Claire Keegan: Small Things Like These
March 29, 2024 21:05 - 24 minutes - 22 MBIrish novelist and short story writer Claire Keegan was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2022 for her book Small Things Like These. It's the story of a coal merchant whose eyes are opened to the horror of the laundry run by nuns one Christmas. The Booker Prize judges described it as "both a celebration of compassion and a stern rebuke of the sins committed in the name of religion". Keegan is appearing at Wanaka's Festival of Colour next Sunday, along with Audrey McGee, talking about w...
Baron Hasselhoff's: the art and craft of great chocolate
March 29, 2024 20:40 - 16 minutes - 15.3 MBFor many, Easter means chocolate. And for chocolate makers Easter is one of the busiest times of year. Susie pops in to Baron Hasselhoff's chocolate boutique in Wellington to catch up with "chief chocolate disciple" Clayton McErlane.
Viet Thanh Nguyen on being Vietnamese and American
March 29, 2024 20:05 - 35 minutes - 32.7 MBAs a child watching the film Apocalypse Now, writer Viet Thanh Nguyen felt split in two - was he one of the Americans doing the killing or one of the Vietnamese being killed? "That moment really brought home to me this idea that stories don't only have the power to save us but that stories have the power to destroy us, as well," he tells Susie Ferguson.
The need for a holistic approach to dementia
March 29, 2024 19:10 - 45 minutes - 41.6 MBWorld renowned brain health expert, clinical neuroscientist and pioneer in dementia research Professor Vladimir Hachinski is the recipient of the 2024 Ryman Prize, a $250,000 grant for the world's best discovery, development, advance or achievement that enhances quality of life for older people. It's celebrating the major contribution Professor Hachinski has made to the diagnosis, treatment, prevention, and the links between 'the terrible three' - stroke, dementia and coronary heart dise...
Aboriginal artist and activist Richard Bell
March 22, 2024 22:40 - 15 minutes - 14.1 MBAboriginal artist Richard Bell's documentary You Can Go Now is screening at the Maoriland Film Festival, underway in Otaki . In it, he poses provocative and humourous challenges to the status quo and to our preconceived ideas of Aboriginal art.
Fearless fighter for marginalised New Zealanders
March 22, 2024 22:07 - 32 minutes - 29.7 MBClinical psychologist Dr Olive Webb is nominated in the Local Hero category of the Kiwibank New Zealander of the Year awards. A strong defender of some of the most marginalised members of our community, she tirelessly advocated and revolutionised care for people with learning disabilities. Most recently she also gave evidence to the Royal Commission into the Abuse in State Care and supported others to tell their stories. Dr Webb released From Behind Closed Doors last year, a poignant ref...
Jamey Stutz: Dating rocks in Antarctica
March 22, 2024 21:40 - 14 minutes - 13 MBGlacial geologist Jamey Stutz dates Antarctic rocks 'dropped like breadcrumbs from melting glaciers' to help determine the scale of glacial retreat. Jamey has recently joined the Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center in Ohio as a research scientist in the Polar Rock Repository, having completed his Ph.D at the Antarctic Research Center at Victoria University in Wellington. Jamey says he's excited to be part of the more than 60 year exchange of Antarctic knowledge between New Zealand and...
Kathy Lette: The Revenge Club
March 22, 2024 21:05 - 34 minutes - 31.8 MBDubbed "deliciously rude and darkly funny", "chick lit" author Kathy Lette has a new book out which wreaks revenge. The Revenge Club features four best friends approaching their sixties, feeling invisible and bent on vengeance. It continues the Australian-British writer's observations of the best and worst parts of being a woman, with female friendships one of the perks. Kathy Lette has written fifteen bestselling novels, and has been recognised for her advocacy of equality, human rights...
Escaping Utopia: What it takes to break free from Gloriavale
March 22, 2024 20:05 - 43 minutes - 39.6 MBAround 600 people (including around 350 children) currently live at Gloriavale – a strict Christian community on the West Coast. In TVNZ's upcoming three-part doco Escaping Utopia, former church member Rosie Overcomer talks about her experiences there, including years of childhood sexual abuse. Rosie joins Susie Ferguson with Liz Gregory, one of the people who helped her family make a new life and founder of the Gloriavale Leavers' Support Trust.
Caro Claire Burke: The rise of #Tradwife social influencers
March 22, 2024 19:35 - 16 minutes - 15.2 MBSocial media content makers celebrating their role as "traditional wives" are enjoying a startling rise in popularity. Influencers such as Nara Smith, Emily Mariko and Ballerina Farm are baking, procreating and home-making their way to millions of followers. So why is their #Tradwife vision of submissive domesticity so appealing in 2024? We ask Caro Claire Burke, a cultural critic and journalist at Katie Couric Media.
Catherine, Princess of Wales announces she has cancer
March 22, 2024 19:10 - 8 minutes - 7.4 MBCatherine, Princess of Wales has announced she has cancer. Kate Middleton is in the early stages of treatment after cancer was found in tests, and is undergoing chemotherapy. Details of the cancer have not been made public, but Kensington Palace says it is confident the princess will make a full recovery.
Prof Chris Barratt: male contraceptive pill enters human trials
March 22, 2024 19:10 - 19 minutes - 18.3 MBWomen still take most of the responsibility for contraception, but a long anticipated "male pill" could soon become a reality. Several non-hormonal male contraceptive pills that work by slowing sperm are under development, with one entering human trials. Head of the Reproductive Medicine Group at the University of Dundee Professor Chris Barratt has dedicated his career to understanding male infertility, human spermatozoa and sperm-egg interaction. He joins us to explain how these new pil...
Saturday morning listener feedback
March 15, 2024 23:00 - 6 minutes - 6.06 MBSaturday morning listener feedback
Australian jazz legend James Morrison
March 15, 2024 22:45 - 16 minutes - 14.8 MBOne of the many musicians hitting the stage at Tauranga's National Jazz Festival later this month is Australian jazz legend James Morrison. He's a multi-instrumentalist, playing the trombone, piano, saxophone and double bass, but is perhaps best known for the trumpet. He started playing instruments aged six and formed his own band by the time he was nine.
Ann Patchett: Tom Lake
March 15, 2024 22:05 - 31 minutes - 28.6 MBAnn Patchett is one of the world's most acclaimed, prize-winning novelists and non-fiction writers. She was named one of Time magazine's '100 Most Influential People in the World' and is a regular contributor to The New Yorker and Harper's Magazine. She also famously co-owns indie bookstore Parnassus Books in Nashville with her husband. Her collection of essays These Precious Days was chosen by Barack Obama as one of his books of the year in 2021. Ann is appearing at the Auckland Writer'...
Kath Irvine: how to prep your garden to feed you through winter
March 15, 2024 21:40 - 11 minutes - 10.9 MBIf you want your garden to feed you through winter, now's the time to get prepping. Brassicas like Broccoli need three months to grow, so need to be planted, and it's a perfect time to make compost with all your late summer garden waste Organic gardener Kath Irvine from Edible Backyard joins Susie with tips and tricks for both small and large gardens. Plus she'll answer your questions.
Liam Dann: How money works and why it matters
March 15, 2024 21:05 - 36 minutes - 33.8 MBShould you fix or float a mortgage? Is now a good time to buy - or sell? Why does cheese cost so much? And what even is money? These questions and many more are tackled by New Zealand Herald business editor at large Liam Dann in his new book, BBQ Economics He draws on his 25 years of reporting, sharing anecdotes to make economic concepts more accessible.
Expats filmmaker Lulu Wang
March 15, 2024 20:40 - 19 minutes - 17.5 MBFilmmaker Lulu Wang came to international attention in 2019 with The Farewell which also caught the eye of Nicole Kidman. Kidman then approached Lulu to bring a best-selling novel to the small screen. The result is Expats, showing on Amazon Prime, about the lives of women in Hong Kong - both the super rich and their many "helpers". Lulu Wang is coming to Auckland for the Big Screen Symposium next month.
Lulu Wang examines the cultural class divide in her TV series Expats
March 15, 2024 20:40 - 19 minutes - 17.5 MBFilmmaker Lulu Wang explores the complex power dynamics between Hong Kong's rich expats and their domestic 'helpers' in a new Amazon Prime series.
Gretchen Daily: the cost of not valuing nature
March 15, 2024 20:05 - 30 minutes - 27.9 MBTraditional systems of wealth measurement don't include nature's contributions. Faculty Director of Stanford University's Natural Capital Project Professor Gretchen Daily thinks putting a dollar value on a mangrove, or a creek, or a honeybee is a vital paradigm shift. Gretchen and her team help governments, international banks, and NGOs determine their gross ecosystem product, or GEP - a parallel concept to GDP.
Is there a good way to tell someone they're losing their job?
March 15, 2024 19:45 - 16 minutes - 15.3 MBWith proposed job cuts at TV3's News Hub and TVNZ's Midday and Late News, and the loss of Sunday and Fair Go, is it possible for employers to 'do' redundancy well? The news of the proposed redundancies was delivered in very different ways to each newsroom, each coming as a huge shock to employees. Top employment lawyer Susan Hornsby-Geluk joins Susie with her take on how they each played out.
Freebirth: Why women are choosing to birth alone
March 15, 2024 19:10 - 28 minutes - 25.9 MBConcerns about the rising practice of "freebirth" escalated last month, following the death of premature twins in Byron Bay. Freebirthing, also known as unassisted birthing, is when women choose to give birth without medical assistance, rejecting both hospital care and midwife supported homebirth. It's increasingly a movement that NZ midwives are running into too. So what is motivating women to choose this path? And how risky is it? Joining Susie, Australian Professor of Midwifery Hannah...
Saturday morning Listener feed back
March 08, 2024 23:00 - 4 minutes - 3.95 MBSaturday morning listener feedback
Playing favourites with James Shaw
March 08, 2024 22:05 - 53 minutes - 48.7 MBThis Sunday, after nine years as Green Party co-leader, including a five year stint as Climate Change Minister, James Shaw is stepping down. He's joining Susie to talk about everything other than politics and share some favourite music.
Volcanologist Graham Leonard: all about ash
March 08, 2024 21:40 - 12 minutes - 11.4 MBThe plumes of ash that can accompany volcanic eruptions are spectacular, but often damaging, in multiple and surprising ways. Most people think what comes out is like fire ash, but volcanic ash is something quite different. GNS principal scientist Graham Leonard join us to talk about exactly what ash is, how it can affect the health of both humans and animals, and all the ways it can disrupt everyday life.
Angélique Kidjo: genre-defying music superstar
March 08, 2024 21:05 - 39 minutes - 36.3 MBMulti Grammy award winning Beninese musician Angélique Kidjo has been named one of the most influential people in the world by Time Magazine. Her career spans four decades and her music is a fusion of West African with American R&B, funk and jazz, dancehall and European and Latin American influences. Angélique serves as a UNICEF and OXFAM ambassador. She founded Batonga to support the education of young African girls. She also won last years Polar Music Prize, seen on a par with Nobel aw...
Rolling out big ideas: Sir Geoff Mulgan and James Plunkett
March 08, 2024 20:25 - 45 minutes - 41.2 MBWhy is the idea of a four-day working week seen as radical? What did the pandemic teach us about the role of science in politics and the reality of human interdependence? English thinkers Geoff Mulgan and James Plunkett are currently in Aotearoa as Australia & New Zealand School of Government visiting fellows. They join Susie Ferguson to discuss some of the big challenges and opportunities for governments in the next decades.
Lee Tamahori and Robin Scholes: The Convert
March 08, 2024 20:05 - 18 minutes - 16.7 MBFilm director Lee Tamahori and producer Robin Scholes have a long history of collaboration, beginning with 1994's Once Were Warriors, which launched both their careers. Their latest offering, The Convert, starring Guy Pearce, opens in cinemas next week. A loose adaptation of Wulf by New Zealand author Hamish Clayton, The Convert features a largely Maori cast and follows the story of Munro, a war veteran-cum-preacher who comes to Aotearoa in 1830.
Aliya Danzeisen: becoming Muslim
March 08, 2024 19:10 - 40 minutes - 36.8 MBLawyer, linguist and teacher Aliya Danzeisen converted to Islam as an adult four months before 9/11. Today, Aliya is the national co-ordinator and spokesperson for the Islamic Women's Council, and a standard bearer for the contribution Muslim women are making in New Zealand. Danzeisen prepared the Islamic Women's Council's response to the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Christchurch mosque attacks. A week out from the 5th anniversary of the massacre, she joins Susie to reflect on th...
Aotearoa's long history with wool and blankets
March 01, 2024 23:10 - 45 minutes - 41.5 MBFor the past 200 years blankets have formed part of Aotearoa's history, part of our early trade, providing warmth and comfort during the New Zealand Wars and for our soldiers fighting overseas during two world wars. For Whakaawa and Josh Te Kani, the history of wool in this country is integral to the stories they weave into their blankets and their work will feature in a new exhibition, Paraikete Threads, which opened yesterday at the Pataka Art Museum in Porirua.
Feedback for Saturday Morning March 2nd 2024
March 01, 2024 23:00 - 6 minutes - 5.7 MBFeedback for Saturday Morning March 2nd 2024
Kowtow founder Gosia Piatek
March 01, 2024 21:40 - 14 minutes - 13.4 MBClothing label Kowtow has built a devoted following since its inception in Wellington back in 2006.
AC Grayling: Who owns the Moon?
March 01, 2024 21:05 - 31 minutes - 29.1 MBAs private corporations invest billions in the space race, tighter regulation of their off-Earth activity is urgently needed, says British philosopher AC Grayling. "If you could put in place a set of really robust and binding and enforceable agreements which would restrain people from acting badly in outer space, our future selves would thank us," he tells Susie Ferguson.
Photographer Fiona Amundsen: Nuclear (in)visibility
March 01, 2024 20:35 - 21 minutes - 19.6 MBFiona Amundsen is a photographer and associate professor at AUT's School of Art and Design.