Saturday Morning
1,315 episodes - English - Latest episode: 1 day ago - ★★★★★ - 16 ratingsA 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
Wombats' amazing armoured bums: Alyce Swinbourne
December 04, 2020 21:40 - 12 minutes - 11.4 MBDr Alyce Swinbourne is a wombat specialist based at the School of Animal and Veterinary Sciences at the University of Adelaide. She says the animals use their amazing armoured backsides (made up of four hard plates) as a weapon, and to defend their burrows against predators. We'll ask her more about this often overlooked peril of the Outback, and how she became fascinated by these multifaceted marsupials. Alyce Swinbourne and a wombat.
The art of audio description: Judith Jones
December 04, 2020 21:05 - 40 minutes - 37.3 MBJudith Jones is an expert audio describer, providing verbal descriptions of museum exhibitions and stage performances to people who are blind or with low vision. She works as a host at The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa in Wellington offering 'sensory tours', and also with local dance companies and theatres. In recognition of her work she received an Arts Access Aotearoa Accolade in October.
High intensity training and the brain: David Moreau
December 04, 2020 20:40 - 13 minutes - 12.8 MBCognitive neuroscientist Dr David Moreau has been recognised by the Royal Society Te Aparangi Te Kōpūnui with the Early Career Research Excellence Award for Social Sciences. Moreau is a lecturer in the School of Psychology at the University of Auckland, and leads its Brain Dynamics Lab. The award recognises his research into the benefits of high-intensity exercise on the brain. Although the benefits of exercise on the brain and the body are well documented, this was thought to rely on pr...
What Australia can learn from New Zealand: Laura Tingle
December 04, 2020 19:35 - 27 minutes - 25.2 MBAustralia is not well known for casting envious glances across the Tasman. But what can 'the lucky country' learn from us? Laura Tingle is a senior political journalist with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and the author of Chasing the Future: Recession, Recovery and the New Politics in Australia. An acclaimed essayist, she's just written a new longform article called The High Road: What Australia Can Learn From New Zealand. You can read an extract here. In it she considers the c...
Anne Wyllie: developing a cheap Covid-19 saliva test
December 04, 2020 19:11 - 20 minutes - 19.1 MBSaliva-based Covid-19 tests could have many advantages over current nasal swabs; being potentially cheaper, quicker, easier, and safer for health workers. Recently returned expat New Zealander Dr Anne Wyllie is a medical microbiologist usually based at the Yale School of Public Health in New Haven, Connecticut. She and her colleagues have been working on SalivaDirect, a saliva-based PCR test that got US FDA emergency use authorization in August and has been attracting interest from aroun...
Francesca Goodman-Smith: tackling supermarket food waste
November 27, 2020 23:55 - 18 minutes - 16.9 MB26 year old Francesca Goodman-Smith is on a mission to tackle New Zealand's food waste problem. Working for Foodstuffs, one of the country's biggest supermarket chains, she's designed an award-winning waste minimisation programme across 130 stores.
Cory Newman: Sit Down in Front(man)
November 27, 2020 22:40 - 17 minutes - 15.8 MBGisborne punk band "Sit Down In Front" formed in January 2017 and its members are all still in high school. Fronting the four piece is 17-year-old Cory Newman who uses a wheelchair. His energetic live performances have been likened to a young Johnny Rotten. "Sit Down In Front" recently released their second album, "Confessions Of A Pie Thief".
Semicolons; the most misunderstood punctuation mark
November 27, 2020 22:05 - 31 minutes - 29.2 MBWhether you love them, hate them, or just don't know when to use them; the semicolon can be a divisive and contentious punctuation mark. That's what historian, Cecelia Watson discovered when she spent 10 years researching a book on what's claimed to be 'the most feared punctuation mark on earth'.
Ben Lowings: unsung Pacific explorer David Lewis
November 27, 2020 21:30 - 30 minutes - 27.7 MBDavid Lewis might be the greatest explorer you've never heard of. Born in England in 1917, but raised in New Zealand and Rarotonga, Lewis' exploits included climbing 19 South Island peaks, kayaking solo around the North Island, circumnavigating Earth in a catamaran, and being the first person to sail to Antarctica alone. Journalist Ben Lowings has written a biography of the sailor, adventurer, doctor and Polynesian scholar called The Dolphin.
Iris Eichenberg: medals for healthcare workers on the pandemic front line
November 27, 2020 21:05 - 16 minutes - 14.7 MBThe Hand Medal Project was devised by friends and artists Iris Eichenberg and Jimena Ríos to thank medical staff and caregivers for the sacrifices they were making to treat people infected with COVID-19. Since the plan began in April, thousands of these medals have been made and distributed around the world.
Dr Chris Smith: Finish line in sight for COVID-19 vaccine race
November 27, 2020 20:40 - 15 minutes - 14.3 MBA third promising COVID-19 vaccine candidate has released promising trial results this week. To weigh up the pros and cons of the various vaccine candidates is Dr Chris Smith. Chris is a consultant clinical virologist at Cambridge University, and one of BBC Radio 5 Live's Naked Scientists.
Sir Michael and Mike Parkinson: Like Father, Like Son
November 27, 2020 20:05 - 34 minutes - 31.9 MBIn his prime, Sir Michael Parkinson's eponymous UK TV talk show attracted more than 8 million viewers a week, making 'Parky' a household name. In Like Father, Like Son: A Family Story Sir Michael (now aged 85) and his youngest son Mike reflect on the fathers they had, the fathers they were, and the fathers they are trying to become.
Alex Burns: Is Trump preparing to leave the White House?
November 27, 2020 19:10 - 28 minutes - 25.8 MBMore than three weeks on from election day, there are signs that Donald Trump is moving towards acceptance that he has lost. So how will the transition process work from here. Alex Burns is the national political correspondent of The New York Times. He's a regular on The Times' news podcast The Daily and a political analyst at CNN.
Can dogs learn language?
November 21, 2020 04:10 - 28 minutes - 25.8 MBShany Dror is a PhD student based in Hungary and the driving force behind the Genius Dog Challenge.
Dolly Parton: 'I’m proud to be an example for a strong woman'
November 21, 2020 02:03 - 30 minutes - 27.8 MBThe legendary singer, songwriter, actor, author, and humanitarian Dolly Parton is 75 years old and presides over a multi-million dollar music, entertainment and philanthropic empire.Her book Songteller: My Life in Lyrics mines over 60 years of songwriting to share the stories behind 175 of her songs.
Listener feedback for 21 November 2020
November 20, 2020 22:55 - 3 minutes - 3.57 MBListener feedback for 21 November 2020.
Diane Stoppard: Whangerei's giant pinhole camera
November 20, 2020 22:43 - 15 minutes - 14.4 MBDiane Stoppard is a photographer who is leading the $1 million Camera Obscura project in Whangarei. It's a giant walk-in pinhole camera clad in decorative steel.
Diane Stoppard: Whangarei's giant pinhole camera
November 20, 2020 22:43 - 15 minutes - 14.4 MBDiane Stoppard is a photographer who is leading the $1 million Camera Obscura project in Whangarei. It's a giant walk-in pinhole camera clad in decorative steel.
Hirini Kaa: Te Hahi Mihinare
November 20, 2020 22:05 - 35 minutes - 32.1 MBHistorian, Anglican minister, TV presenter and social commentator Dr Hirini Kaa (Ngati Porou, Ngati Kahungunu and Rongowhakaata) has long been interested in the engagement and the interaction between Christianity (and in particular the Anglican Church) and iwi in Aotearoa-New Zealand. This complex and sometimes tense relationship- with claims of religious power, followed by assertions of imperial authority, and degrees of Maori adaptation and transformation- dates back to the time the fi...
Colin Maclaren: The Man On The Island
November 20, 2020 21:45 - 14 minutes - 13.5 MBColin Maclaren is the central figure in a new locally produced documentary The Man On The Island. The island in question is Rakino (population: 19), 2 kilometres long and 1 kilometre wide, and 22 kilometres north east of Auckland in the Hauraki Gulf. Maclaren bought land there 40 years ago and moved there full time in 1990, following generations of dreamers, visionaries, hippies and adventurers who have called Rakino home. The 77-year-old lives alone and passes his splendid isolation in ...
Kirsten Johnson: Dick Johnson is Dead
November 20, 2020 21:06 - 38 minutes - 35.2 MBCinematographer and director Kirsten Johnson was afraid of losing her father to dementia, so she got in first, killing him off in imaginative and comical ways in her new film Dick Johnson is Dead.
Doug Wilson: Learning to live older
November 20, 2020 20:42 - 15 minutes - 14.5 MBMedical academic, former pharmaceutical executive, and author of Ageing For Beginners, Doug Wilson's back, reporting in from the other side of 80. This week, like many other life stage transitions, ageing can be stressful and disorienting. Almost everything changes: financial circumstances, relationships, physical and mental capability, and we have to adjust. So where can we go for guidance, help and education?
Dolly Parton: My Life in Lyrics
November 20, 2020 20:06 - 30 minutes - 27.8 MBThe legendary singer, songwriter, actor, author, and humanitarian Dolly Parton is 74 years old and presides over a multi-million dollar music, entertainment and philanthropic empire.Her book Songteller: My Life in Lyrics mines over 60 years of songwriting to share the stories behind 175 of her songs.
A World History of Bluff: Dr Michael Stevens
November 20, 2020 19:42 - 15 minutes - 14.6 MBNgai Tahu historian Dr Michael Stevens specialises in the history of Awarua (Bluff), a key Ngai Tahu settlement.
Golriz Ghahraman: finding her place in Aotearoa
November 14, 2020 20:38 - 32 minutes - 29.6 MBIranian-born Golriz Ghahraman arrived in New Zealand with her parents as a 9-year-old. In 2017 she made history when she became the first New Zealand MP with a refugee background. She studied human rights law at Oxford and has practiced as a lawyer in New Zealand and in United Nations tribunals in Africa, The Hague, and Cambodia dealing with war crimes and human rights atrocities. The Green MP writes about the quest to find her place in Aotearoa New Zealand in her autobiography Know Your...
Listener feedback from 14 November 2020
November 13, 2020 22:55 - 4 minutes - 3.99 MBListener feedback from 14 November 2020.
Kathy Baughman McLeod: naming heat waves like hurricanes
November 13, 2020 22:45 - 15 minutes - 14.2 MBKathy Baughman McLeod is Director and Senior Vice President of the Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center at the international affairs think tank, The Atlantic Council. Working on the intersection between business and future environmental risk, her old job at Bank of America involved planning the investment of US$125 billion into eco friendly projects by 2025. She also led a team at the Nature Conservancy using natural infrastructure (and tailored insurance policies) to ...
Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje: how a Black British kid ended up in a skin-head gang
November 13, 2020 22:06 - 34 minutes - 32 MBBritish actor, model and director Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje's film Farming is based on his childhood experiences growing up in Essex, east of London. It tells the story of a young Nigerian boy 'farmed out' by his parents to a white British family in the hope of a better future. Instead, he joins a white skinhead gang. Farming premieres on Rialto Channel, Saturday 14 November at 8.30pm with further screenings in November and December. More info here:
James McIntyre: singing dogs and intersex pigs
November 13, 2020 21:16 - 42 minutes - 38.8 MBFor decades he's been studying one of the rarest and most publicity shy breeds of dog on the planet. Now American zoologist and retired biology teacher James 'Mac' McIntyre has made his breakthrough discovery. Through DNA tests conducted on animals trapped on a series of intrepid expeditions through Papua New Guinea and West Papua, he's managed to establish that the New Guinea Singing Dog- also known as the New Guinea Highland Wild Dog- still survives in the wild. Until this discovery th...
Tim Harford: How to Make the World Add Up
November 13, 2020 19:38 - 19 minutes - 18 MBCOVID-19 has put the power and accuracy of statistics at centre stage. Infection rates, 'R' numbers, new cases, hospital admissions and the data underpinning new vaccines are being used by the media to tell stories about the pandemic, and are scrutinised daily to make vital public health decisions. It is familiar territory for 'undercover economist', journalist and broadcaster Tim Harford who explores the beauty of statistics, and their uses, abuses and shortcomings in his new book How t...
Chris Smith: how exciting is Pfizer's vaccine news?
November 13, 2020 19:11 - 29 minutes - 26.8 MBNews that a collaboration between Pfizer and BioNTech has produced an effective coronavirus vaccine sent world stockmarkets soaring this week. Pfizer said early results suggest the vaccine is more than 90 percent effective in preventing the disease among trial volunteers who had not previously been infected. With no safety concerns as yet, the results have been described as "stunning". So is this the breakthrough we have all been waiting for? And can people now start thinking about booki...
Listener feedback 7 November 2020
November 06, 2020 22:55 - 8 minutes - 7.6 MBListener feedback 7 November 2020.
Presidential pets: Andrew Hager
November 06, 2020 22:46 - 11 minutes - 10.2 MBAs Historian-in-Residence of the Presidential Pet Museum Andrew Hager records the menagerie of domestic animals that have called The White House home. Recently Donald Trump's failure to own a pet became the subject of some of Joe Biden's campaign ads. Should Mr Biden be declared president, his two German Shepherds, Major and Champ, will join cows, snakes, goats, parrots, pigs, turkeys,elephants, lion cubs, a pygmy hippo, a bear, and the odd wallaby who have lived at the White House.
Remaining erratic: Martin Edmond's Red Mole theatre days
November 06, 2020 22:08 - 37 minutes - 34.1 MBBorn from a chance encounter in a Laotian opium den in 1973, Alan Brunton and Sally Rodwell's avant-garde troupe Red Mole exemplified political, provocative, creative and chaotic theatre. Their performances mixed theatre, song, dance, satire and (sometimes) huge puppets, and were built on a core manifesto of five principles which included 'escape programmed behaviour by remaining erratic'. Born in Ohakune and now living in Sydney, Martin Edmond was an actor, writer and later lighting tec...
Populism and the pandemic: law expert Campbell McLachlan
November 06, 2020 21:42 - 14 minutes - 13.5 MBHow will the global rise of populism, allied to the pandemic, shape the future of international law? Professor Campbell McLachlan QC of Victoria Law School recently returned to New Zealand from Berlin, where he was considering this issue at the Berlin-Potsdam Research Group. He argues that the brand of populism we are seeing in countries including the US, UK and Brazil has weakened the world's capacity to respond to COVID-19 through the usual mechanisms to combat the threat of infectious...
Scottish poet laureate Jackie Kay
November 06, 2020 21:07 - 37 minutes - 34.6 MBPoet, playwright, and novelist Jackie Kay is the current makar (the National Poet of Scotland) and previous winner of the Guardian Fiction Prize. Born in Edinburgh to a Nigerian father and Scottish mother she was then adopted and grew up in Glasgow. Her play The Lamplighter has recently been reissued and follows five characters sold into the British slave trade: in the process she explores Scotland's often overlooked role in this. She ran the Makar to Makar online performance project dur...
Midnight Oil returns to champion indigenous rights
November 06, 2020 20:30 - 24 minutes - 22.7 MBFormer politician, environmentalist and activist Peter Garrett first came to prominence as the lead singer of the Australian band Midnight Oil, welding socially conscious lyrics with atmospheric vistas of Australia seen from the back of a flatbed truck. After a hiatus of nearly two decades Midnight Oil are back with a new 'mini album' called The Makarrata Project. The album features a cross section of First Nations' musicians including Jessica Mauboy, Alice Skye and Tasman Keith, with th...
Sports broadcaster whose lockdown canine commentary went viral
November 06, 2020 20:06 - 18 minutes - 17 MBOlive and Mabel are two labradors who've become social media stars thanks to a series of short, funny videos made by their owner, Scottish sports broadcaster Andrew Cotter.
Virologist Chris Smith: UK lockdown latest and Q+A
November 06, 2020 19:35 - 23 minutes - 21.4 MBConsultant clinical virologist at Cambridge University, and one of BBC Radio 5 Live's Naked Scientists, Dr Chris Smith returns to digest emerging COVID-related science and research. This week; the latest on post COVID-19 immunity, the ongoing race to a safe and effective vaccine, how the UK ended up back in lockdown, and why is Denmark culling millions of mink?
Evan Osnos: can Joe Biden unite a divided America?
November 06, 2020 19:12 - 20 minutes - 19 MBWith democratic candidate Joe Biden looking likely to win the US presidency, it's time to delve into his background and ambitions. And to ask how he is going to deal with a deeply divided America, ravaged by the COVID-19 pandemic and struggling with ongoing racial and political unrest. Evan Osnos is a staff writer for The New Yorker covering politics and foreign affairs. His new book is called Joe Biden; The Life, the Run, and What Matters Now.
Bill Bailey's secrets to happiness
October 31, 2020 06:05 - 47 minutes - 43.8 MBPopular UK standup comedian and actor Bill Bailey's a bit of a renaissance man - with interests ranging from music to bird watching. After appearing on TV shows including QI, Black Books, Never Mind the Buzzcocks and Spaced, his latest foray onto the screen is as a competitor in the wildly popular BBC dance contest Strictly Come Dancing No surprise then that ballroom dancing is listed as one of 30-odd things that bring him joy in his new book Bill Bailey's Remarkable Guide To Happiness: ...
Dr Fran Priddy: 'Transformational nine months' as scientists race to find Covid-19 vaccines
October 31, 2020 04:25 - 20 minutes - 19 MBHow is New Zealand contributing to the urgent global quest for a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine? American vaccine expert Dr Fran Priddy recently joined The Malaghan Institute as Clinical Director of the Vaccine Alliance Aotearoa NZ (VAANZ). VAANZ is a multidisciplinary team of local and international collaborators specialising in vaccine research, development, and manufacturing. Dr Priddy has spent much of her career researching and developing clinical vaccines for infectious diseas...
Neil Finn: Crowded House to tour NZ and release new album
October 31, 2020 01:30 - 21 minutes - 19.9 MBIt's exciting times for fans of iconic band Crowded House. There's a new single out and an album on the horizon (their first new music in a decade), and they've just announced a 10 date NZ tour in March 2021. The band's line-up features founding members Neil Finn and Nick Seymour along with producer and keyboardist Mitchell Froom, guitarist and singer Liam Finn and drummer Elroy Finn. Neil's only 2 weeks out of quarantine, having returned with his family from LA, where he been based whil...
Feedback from Saturday 31 October
October 30, 2020 23:00 - 5 minutes - 5.02 MBKim Hill reads listener feedback from the show.
Max Quinn: The life and times of a polar film maker
October 30, 2020 22:30 - 25 minutes - 23.2 MBRenowned polar photographer, director and cameraman Max Quinn covers a 50-year career spent working in the world's coldest places in his book A Life of Extremes. Quinn learned his trade as an NZBC cameraman then as a Director of Photography on homegrown TV dramas, before he joined TVNZ's Natural History Unit in Dunedin in 1987. Over the years he's filmed for many of the world's top broadcasters including National Geographic and Discovery Channel. In 1991 he wintered over in Antarctica fo...
Emmy winning cinematographer Baz Idoine
October 30, 2020 22:05 - 21 minutes - 19.7 MBFrom the TVNZ photocopier room to winning an Emmy last month - New Zealand born cinematographer Barry "Baz" Idoine has come a long way. His CV is extensive and impressive, including credits on Rogue One, American Sniper, The Master, There Will Be Blood, Erin Brockovich and even Waterworld. His Emmy was for his work on season one the mega hit Star Wars spinoff The Mandalorian - which introduced the character of The Child (aka Baby Yoda). The production pioneered the use of StageCraft tech...
Unjoo Moon: director of Helen Reddy biopic
October 30, 2020 21:05 - 28 minutes - 26.2 MBUnjoo Moon is the Australian director of I Am Woman, a biopic about the singer Helen Reddy. Reddy emerged as a feminist icon in the early Seventies when her song 'I Am Woman' became an anthem of the women's liberation movement. It also became a number one hit for Reddy and co-creator Ray Burton, selling over one million copies. Troubled by health problems in her later years, Reddy died in Los Angeles last month (aged 78), with the song reaching number 2 in the Australian digital sales ch...
Legal scholar Kim Wehle: the path to a US election result
October 30, 2020 19:10 - 26 minutes - 24.6 MBAuthor and constitutional scholar Kim Wehle is a professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law and a former assistant attorney. She was associate independent counsel in the Whitewater investigation into the Clintons' business affairs (where she worked alongside Supreme Court Judge Brett Kavanaugh). She is also the author of What You Need to Know About Voting and Why With Tuesday's vote in the US still in the balance, she's been considering the prospect of legal challenges to the...
The right to whakapapa: Jade Morgan
October 24, 2020 04:10 - 16 minutes - 15.6 MBJade Morgan didn't let a 6-year prison sentence and early gang ties define him. His work reconnecting Dunedin prisoners with their whakapapa using Te Ao Maori - whether that's through martial arts, kapa haka or oratory - has been recognised with a national Te Putanga Toi Arts Access Award. He's been running his tikanga programme, Te Hokai Manea Tipuna (the glowing footsteps of our ancestors) at the Otago Corrections Facility since 2017. Morgan saw his own life changing course when he sta...
Matthew McConaughey: Searching for green lights
October 24, 2020 03:55 - 48 minutes - 44.2 MB"All right, All right, All right" Matthew McConaughey's Dazed And Confused catchphrase sums up how life has turned out for the actor. Now 50 and the father of three children, the Academy Award-winner has mined his diaries to write a candid and philosophical memoir Greenlights. He reflects on growing up in rural Texas as the the son of parents who married three times and divorced twice, and his career which has included starring roles in Dallas Buyers Club, Magic Mike, The Wolf of Wall St...