Full Show Podcast: 26 January 2025

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News Talks EDB.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
It's Sunday. You know what that means.

Speaker 1 (00:15):
It's the Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin and Wiggles for
the best selection of great reads News Talks EDB.

Speaker 3 (00:29):
Good morning and welcome to the Sunday Session. I'm Francisca
rugging with you until midday. Coming up on the show.
A new season of The Night Agent landed this week
and it's New Zealand tommstar Riccianie Buchanan starring in the show.
She's back and she's in fine form. She's going to
join me out to ten this morning to talk about
how her life has changed since the show became such

(00:49):
a huge hit on Netflix. Now, if you love knowing
everything about everything, well you have someone in your family
that does, They're going to love My guest after eleven.
Felicity Lewis is the National Explainer editor at Age and
the Sudday Morning Herald, and she's compiled the Explainer Guide
to modern Mysteries called Why Do People Cue for Brunch? Now,

(01:09):
Felicity is going to explain whether we could ever journey
to the center of the earth and does handwriting still matter,
amongst many other things. And right now Miya Motto is
fighting Ali Scotney for three super bantam weight world titles.
She's in the fifth out of ten rounds. We're going
to keep an eye on this for you throughout the hour.

(01:30):
You're with news to Zreb.

Speaker 2 (01:33):
The Sunday session.

Speaker 3 (01:35):
As he probably picked up from Prime Minister Luckson's State
of the Nation speech on Thursday twenty twenty five. It's
apparently all about financial growth and saying yes, two trends
I'm trying to adopt in our House of twenty twenty
five as well, especially saying yes when I ask someone
to do something. But I digress back to the nation.
Before COVID nineteen, tourism was New Zealand's largest export industry.

(01:56):
So it's clear why the Prime Minister and his newly
minted Economic Growth Minister Nicola Willis have identified it as
a priority area for the country to earn more. Data
released in January relieves that in the year ending November
twenty twenty four, visiting numbers increased to three point twenty
six million, an increase of three hundred and sixty thousand
from the previous year and we're at eighty six percent

(02:17):
of pre pandemic levels, so the numbers are going in
the right direction, but international tourism still remains our second
highest export. There is more work to do. New Tourism
and Hospitality Minister Louise Upston is the fifth minister to
hold the portfolio in five years, so some stability in
the portfolio is a good place to start. Nikola Willis

(02:38):
has suggested the new minister will look at how funding
is currently being used the visa processing system and marketing
campaigns all good places to start, although you'd have hoped
this happened when the Coalition came to power over a
year ago. The Minister will also be looking at how
funding from the International Visitor Levee is being spent after
the levee increased from thirty five dollars to one hundred

(02:58):
dollars in October. Increasing levees, adding user charges and targeted
tax on visitors has been reckoned been recommended by mb
in the past as a way to fund tourism and
we've seen it. We've seen dock increase, hut and campsite
fees and the trialing of car parking charges at Punacaiki
and Franz Joseph Glacier and Araki Mount Cook. But what

(03:21):
about the visitor bed tax? Perhaps a crude idea in
twenty twenty when hotels were empty, but with the industry
recovering as it is, is it time to resurrect the idea.
Auckland Council has long advocated to central government that some
ford of bed night levy or tax is required to
support funding major events, destination marketing and visitor attractions. If

(03:44):
one is not implemented by the middle of this year,
there will be a budget gap to fund major events.
The government is not buying into the idea that tourism
needs infrastructure support and their view of regions get more
tourists than they can deal with it themselves. But when
it comes to one of our busiest tourist spots, the
government is very quick to point out that Queenstown is
getting a two hundred and fifty million roading upgrade. But

(04:05):
that's not anough. As Queenstown Mayor Glenn Lewis told me
on early edition this week, I'd welcome more tourists if
there is the provaso that the infrastructure to support and
accommodate more tourists and visitors is accounted for. He pointed
out Queenstown's airport needs to be staffed with more customs
and security staff to function well as an international airport.

(04:26):
We all want growth in a thriving tourism industry, but
we also want it to be sustainable, avoiding the degradation
and overcrowding of our wilderness, pressure on infrastructure and communities
carrying the cost. So if the government wants growth and
tourism back in the number one export earnest spot, it
should perhaps consider putting in a little bit more so
it can get a little bit more.

Speaker 2 (04:47):
Out the Sunday session.

Speaker 3 (04:52):
So if we attract more tourists and we make it
easier for them to come and they do, are we
going to go? We're still going to end up back
where we were not enough amenities and facilities and locals
having to cover the cost. Should the government be listening
to what tourism heavy regions need. I think they shared
keen to hear your thoughts. You're as welcome to text
anytime throughout this morning this morning for a small fee

(05:12):
on ninety two ninety two. Next up we talk science
funding with Auckland University Professor Richard Ester.

Speaker 2 (05:19):
Relax, it's still the weekend.

Speaker 1 (05:21):
It's the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin and Whig Girls
for the best selection of great reeds use talks.

Speaker 3 (05:28):
That'd be you're with a Sunday session. It's fifteen past nine.
Just keeping an eye on this fight between mer Motto
and Alie Scottney. It is ferocious at this stage. The
commentators are suggesting that Scottney is on top. Mere Motto's
possibly one one round. They've just finished I think their
seventh round, so we'll keep you up to speed with that.
So this week we had major changes to the science

(05:50):
sector announced by the government, one of the hopes being
the reforms will boost the economic performance of the industry.
There has however, been concerned in science circles with the
announcement bringing no additional funding, including funding to implement the
plane the planned changes. So will the changes boost economic
performance and can the science sector function and implement these

(06:10):
changes on current funding. To discuss this, I'm joined by
the Augland University professor Richard Isa he's with me now.
Good morning, Richard, thank you for your time and good morning.
So tell me will these reforms help to boost the
economic performance of the sector.

Speaker 2 (06:25):
They might.

Speaker 4 (06:26):
I think it's probably the answer. I mean, I think
I think it's good to take a step back and
say that, you know, everybody who works in science, I
think believes that what they do or cord should you
contribute to the well being of society. And obviously that
you know that's borders in the economy itself, but there
is a shared goal you're making a positive contribution. I

(06:47):
think the problem here is that it is quite a
big up people not for science necessarily as a whole immediately,
although there are more things coming, but in particular focuses
on the shape of the Crown Research Institutes. And the
thing that strikes me looking at this is that, you know,
everyone thinks, oh, you know, science should contribute to the economy.
But the crowd research institutes were formally the DSIR, you know,

(07:09):
which all the people may remember from when they were kids,
and that was broken up to form the CRIS and
I was founded in nineteen twenty six to boost the economy.
So it's science isn't boosting the economy. It's not because
we don't want it to do that, because we haven't
figured out how to make that work. So the devil
is very much in details. And so the challenge here,
I think is that they want to bring about major

(07:31):
changes in the way these organizations are structured. But that's
going to cost money and there's no there's no clarity
about where the money to do that. It's only come from.

Speaker 3 (07:40):
Is the economic performance of science harder to determine than
other sectors?

Speaker 4 (07:45):
It is, I mean, I think part particularly in New Zealand,
I think the government of successive governments have taken a
very narrow view of what counts's economic performance. Oh, you know,
we fund this and we get that, whereas a lot
of times if you look at you know, really deep
success stories and science, you know, we founded one thing,
we got another thing, and that leads to something else,
and that lead to something else, and it's you know,
it's two or three, something else is down the line.

(08:08):
That is actually the thing that makes a huge difference.
So a case and points in New Zealand is, you know,
one of our biggest science stories right now is that
there are people in upp Hut who are trying to
build a nuclear fusion reaction, like a working nuclear fusion reactor,
which is an awesome story and something that we should
feel proud that we're able to do in New Zealand.

(08:28):
But the special source that goes into that is actually
sort of magnet technology that was started here in the
nineteen nineties. And so it turns out we're particularly good
at making a particular kind of magnet and the people
who foundered that in the nineteen nineties were certainly not
thinking about, you know, nuclear fusion in the twenty twenties.
And I think that that long an unexpected way that

(08:50):
science can deliver a value. There's something that something that
is frequently left out so.

Speaker 3 (08:54):
Research it can take a lot of time in some cases,
and the benefit isn't always immediate, so had to.

Speaker 4 (08:59):
Yeah, and the bigger the benefit and the more profound
the change, often the longer it's going to take.

Speaker 3 (09:07):
Have this government and previous governments given the sect or
what it needs when it comes to funding. Is science
valued enough in New Zealand?

Speaker 4 (09:15):
I mean, I think there's there's a kind of New
Yark reaction here, which is, you know, any any people
working on pretty much any job, including I'm sure news
would say oh yes, you know, we would do more
with you would do better, worth more resource. I think,
so I want to avoid you know, simply simply saying that.
On the other hand, if you look at the way
that science is funded in New Zealand by buying industry

(09:36):
and by government, we're definitely at a very low end
of praximus of total economics relative to the countries that
we would like to compare ourselves to, you know, Sayland
or a Singapore or someone like that. So I think,
I think it is true that science has has been
doing a lot with less in New Zealand, and so
it's hard to necessarily see how you'll get more productivity

(09:58):
without without more inputs.

Speaker 3 (10:00):
That was one exqustion. So can we do more with less?

Speaker 4 (10:04):
I think, I think there our questions. I mean, one
of the biggest things for me gets back to the
short termism of a lot of government thinking around science
and then is that you know, if we if we
are a resource constrained, then the most important thing is
that we make good decisions about where to spend our resource.
And so the reform that we're announced recently, you know,

(10:27):
part of a much bigger package of reform that there's
been put together by the science sector advisory groups, and
so they're talking for instance about having a Ministry of
Science which is separate from MB, which is you know,
which was swallowed up by NB when it was set up.
And I think that, for instance, was there critical. I
think MB doesn't necessarily make good decisions about the way

(10:48):
that resources are allocated, and in some cases it's made
I think, very poor decisions. And I think if there
was more collaborations between ministry officials and a new ministry
and an expertise in the science sector, I think that
would lead to better outcomes and would be probably closer
to what we see in countries that do do this
more successfully.

Speaker 3 (11:08):
So is that what's kind of needed for this particular
restructured to work, because we've we've restructured and changed the
sector before. But you know, we've got to learn from
from that process, don't we what went right and what
you know, how it improved things and how things sort
of didn't improve.

Speaker 4 (11:25):
And looking and I think looking at other places that
are doing a better job, I think I think would
be critical. And I think I think part of it
is theres a often a lack of trust between government
and the science sector, so they turn everything into it
into a competition and we spent a lot of time
competing with each other sometimes rather than getting things done,
which is not always productive.

Speaker 3 (11:45):
Richard, there's a lot of talk about what the Science
System Advisory Group report called exploitable research. But will we
still be focusing as well on stewardship research and policy
focused research and knowledge knowledge generating research.

Speaker 4 (12:01):
I think it's I mean, I think the explorable research
is in very short term. But I mean, you know,
if you have someone who comes up, you know, as
a better bridge of kiwi for it, for instance, I
know that is undoubtedly something that that there. You know
that public sector science is working on, you know how
you set that relative to somebody who does a better

(12:22):
job of understanding this quakeris And both of those things
are critical to the economy. But one of them is
you know, buying insurance in some sense, and the other
one is making a positive investment. And so I think
it is it is it is dangerous to be chasing
those short term wins. And the other question is is
the shorter term it becomes, the more you would expect
industry to be investing in that. You know, so there's

(12:43):
a very clear return and you know the risk is accessible,
then that is you know that that is an area
where you would expect a private sector to become investing
with government, whereas in many cases government will will be
expected to invest in things where you can't immediately identify
where the benefit it's going to be.

Speaker 3 (13:01):
Right, Well, what's how science been like compared to other countries?

Speaker 4 (13:05):
Low And there's a very nice thing to download the reports.
There's a graph there most most of the countries to
the left of us, and you know, and then they're
they're categorizing both private sector and public sector investment in science.
The countries that are sort of the wrong side of
us on both of those numbers, and generally places that
we wouldn't want to emulate.

Speaker 3 (13:27):
Richard, I've heard from a few people in science who
have made the comment over the last year that they
didn't feel that Judith Collins had a huge amount of
enthusiasm for science. How do you feel about Shane RETTI?

Speaker 4 (13:38):
I think that's a complex question. I mean, especially to
the to the I mean, Colins is enormously enthusiastic. I
think at times it was clear that she wasn't you
know that that she'd spoken to someone who told us
something and she'd been enthusiastic about it, but she didn't
she doesn't know. She's also has you know, portfolios that
bring her legal experience to bear, and it's clear there
that she has, you know, a greater depth of knowledge

(13:59):
and experience. So I think she was definitely enthusiastic, but
I didn't always see the sort of deep judgment that
I might have wanted. I mean, really has a background
on science, you know, or the broadly speaking as a
medical professional. You know, he's spent time and then the elite
institutions overseas that generally do science in a positive way,

(14:21):
so we would be hoping.

Speaker 3 (14:22):
I think, Richard, really appreciate your time this morning. Thank
you so much. That was Augland University professor Richard Est there.
It looks like the fight is complete between Mermotto and
Alice Scottney. The commentators are saying Matty would have needed
a knockout to win this fight. She potentially took round nine.
We will be back in just a moment with the outcome.

(14:44):
It is twenty four past nine year with News Talks ATB.

Speaker 1 (14:50):
It's the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin on News Talks
at B.

Speaker 3 (14:58):
Very shortly we are going to head to the US.
We're going to talk to Dan Mitchinson. It's been rather
big week in US politics, hasn't it, which is a
bit of an statement. And we're here be with us
in just a moment. The fight between Mia Mottu and
Alie Scottney has just finished. Alie Scottney has won the fight.

(15:20):
She beats me and Mottu by unanimous decision. The three
judges scored the about ninety one to ninety nine apologies
to ninety one, so she it was ferocious. I don't
know if you've been watching it, but it was absolutely
fall on joining us now from newstalksv. Sport, we've got

(15:42):
Clay with us. What did you think of that?

Speaker 5 (15:45):
Yeah, I mean it was a very busy, action packed
kind of fire as you quite often get in these
lighter weight classes. There's a lot of action. You know,
they're very fast and they throw a lot of a
lot of punches. So the judges have effectively scored the
fight ten rounds, scored the fight nine rounds, all three
of them nine rounds to Alie Scottney in one round
for me and more to which I have to say

(16:06):
I think is a little bit unfair. I think the
back half of the fight, Scottaney certainly looked looked the
dominant fighter, But the first four rounds I thought Mia
might have even been the better fighter. So, but this
is boxing. I think it's you can't argue either way
that that Allie Scottney won the fight. Perhaps, like I say,

(16:26):
the decision in terms of the points a little bit
perhaps a little bit unfair, but all three judges scored
it in the same way and they probably know more
than I do.

Speaker 3 (16:33):
So very disappointed though, just just personally because I just
so like me and motto, and I so like what
she's about, and she just goes that she went into
this with this huge smile on her face. She was
determined to enjoy this and have fun. I'm disappointed for her.

Speaker 5 (16:47):
Yeah, and those of that have followed MEA's story and
know what she's been through to get to this point.
For her to be on this stage as a success
in itself, isn't it. Of course, she'll be disappointed not
to win. But Allie Scottany is a very good fighter,
unbeating herself, you know, decorated at Olympic level of well so,
so certainly no kind of shame and losing to a

(17:09):
fighter like this. I think most most boxing pundits would
say that Alice Scottney is the is the you know,
the best fighter in the world in this in this
division at the moment. So you know, she certainly held
her own and showed a lot of those qualities we
know she has. She just keep coming forward and never
never give up.

Speaker 3 (17:25):
So where does me and motto go from here?

Speaker 5 (17:27):
Well, it's hard to say. I mean, I'm sure she's
had a big build up to this fight, and you
know she's fourteen rounds this morning, so definitely we'll have
a little bit of a layoff. But I think, like
I said, like I say, she's proven that she's she can,
she can put it with the best at this level.
Perhaps another step to take to then beat those other fighters,
But you know other fights out there for sure, in

(17:48):
this division and also at these lighter weights, they quite
often go up and down, So she might even and
try a luck it at another division, who knows, but
certainly far from done and to go ten rounds with
a fighter of that caliber shows that she's right up
there among the best in the world in her weight class.

Speaker 3 (18:03):
Fantastic Clay Wilson. Thank you so much for popping in.

Speaker 2 (18:07):
The Sunday session.

Speaker 3 (18:10):
It has been a very big week in US politics,
hasn't it. Donald Trump is five days into his second
term as president and has not mucked around to stalk
us through those first few days. I'm joined by Dan
Mitchinson and the US Good morning, Dan. Thank you for
being with us.

Speaker 6 (18:25):
And to you my pleasure.

Speaker 3 (18:27):
What have you made of Trump's first five days in office?

Speaker 6 (18:31):
You know, it's interesting because we always talk about the
first one hundred days in office here in the US
when a president moves into the White House, but with him,
it really has been the first five days. And he
has done so much, and I think this is part
of his plan. What he's trying to do is what
we call flood the zone. So he's really trying to
do an awful lot in a short period of time,

(18:53):
and that's going to make it difficult for any one
of his individual moves to get the kind of scrutiny
that it might under normal circumstances.

Speaker 3 (19:02):
Yes, it certainly has been a tsunami of news. What
is his approval rating since returning.

Speaker 6 (19:09):
Well, right now, it's about forty seven percent of people
that say they approve of him this week. They did
the poll in the first couple of days that he
was in office, and this actually shows that his popularity
is a lot higher than it was throughout his last
term here. Not everyone, thoughs you know, is happy with
everything he's done. About sixty percent say that they don't
agree with him pardoning all the people that were convicted

(19:32):
of the crimes for the assault on the US Capitol
back in twenty twenty one. And I think a lot
of people are just fascinated that he's back here. One
of my favorite, I have to tell you, one of
my favorite comments came from somebody that was being interviewed
by the BBC, This woman who said she felt like
she was watching a WWE professional wrestling match, you know,
just there's showmanship and playing for the cameras and that

(19:53):
you can tell that entertainment is a big part of him.
And my first thought was, Yeah, that's kind of what
he's been doing for the last few decades, and I
think that's what we're going to deal with for the
next couple of years.

Speaker 3 (20:04):
Is that sort of the general mood in America of
on the street? How are people feeling after the start
of this presidency.

Speaker 6 (20:12):
I think it's sort of a wait and see thing.
I mean, he did, grant you he signed more executive
orders in his first day than the last ten presidents combined.
And I think there's a sense, at least I think
the public is getting in the media certainly getting that
there's sense of urgency with him this time, because he
knows he only has one term, and we know in
about eighteen months we're going to start talking about, Okay,

(20:34):
who's going to run for twenty twenty eight. Candidates are
going to be throwing their hat in and starting their campaign,
which goes on for about two and a half years
over here, it seems like, and that's going to take
some of the spotlight off his agenda. So I think
he wants to get as much done in as little
period of time as he can.

Speaker 3 (20:49):
You're right, he has not held back with the executive orders,
but there is a backlash already. Court proceedings taking place
which areas have changed. Do you think are going to
proceed in which might be halted?

Speaker 6 (21:01):
Well, I think this is going to be interesting because
we're seeing, of course, he's focusing on limit immigration in
the stricter immigration laws, vetting process for visa applicants over
here that's already gotten pushed back from from the courts.
He's starting to impose tariffs on our trading partners, or
at least our top ones over here in Mexico, Canada, China,

(21:21):
and the EU as soon as next week. And that
means I mean people think, hey, that's great. People are
all about that over here. What they're not thinking about
is when you when you put a twenty five percent
tariff on something that's coming into this country, the business
isn't going to eat up that that extra twenty five
percent that's going to be passed down to me and
to you and to anybody else that wants to buy
these things. So I think it may sound good on paper,

(21:44):
but I think he will have a lot more pushback.
We're under an extreme amount of fires here in California
right now, and the President did come out here yesterday
to meet with Governor Gavin Newsom, who is one of
the top contenders for running for president four years. And
these two guys have been going, you know, head to
head for or for a long time. And right now
the President suggesting withholding money from California unless we change

(22:07):
our water policies out here. So, you know, I think
he's trying to move forward on a lot of things,
but I think he's also getting back his own on
a lot of people that went against him last time around.

Speaker 3 (22:19):
Yeah, if you look at the wake, I would sort
of sum it up by saying, he is a man
of his word. He has taken action where he said
he'd take action, but obviously those consequences may take it
a little while to sort of hit home. Military service
members have also been sent to the border. Dan, how's
that been received?

Speaker 6 (22:36):
Well, I mean the I mean California is a big
military state, San Diego, where a lot of these military
people are coming from. He's a big military town, It's
where I grew up.

Speaker 2 (22:45):
It's a big city.

Speaker 6 (22:46):
It's transient in some ways in terms of people sort
of come through it, but the one thing that is
constant is its military presence right there. So he wants
he's getting a lot of the military down to the
border right now. He wants to stop these refugee arrivals.
So he suspended the admission program. But there's going to
be a ninety day review of this, and there's gonna
be record from Homeland Securities.

Speaker 2 (23:08):
So really, I.

Speaker 6 (23:09):
Think he's going back to what he talked about a
few years ago. He wants to continue constructing the wall
and other barriers. He wants more military, which there was
almost immediately after he went through. And the other thing
that you know, you have to always find that one
little nugget, that one little talking point when something happens
in a news story. And I know this is sort
of a three sixty, but for me, it was this

(23:29):
diet coke button that he had installed again on his
He is a huge fan of diet coke, and when
he was in office last time, he has a button
when you next time you're watching him on TV in
the in the oval office, look to the well, it's
going to be on his right, but it's going to
be your left looking at the TV. He has a
little button that is installed there. Anytime he wants a
diet coke, he presses that button and he gets somebody

(23:50):
that comes in and that's their only job is to
bring him that diet coke. I mean, all the things
to have installed in the first day in the White House,
but that's what he wants.

Speaker 3 (23:59):
Head He's cavit everything. Dan Mitchinson, thank you so much
for your time. This morning is always very much appreciated
pleasure and we talked local politics next on NEWSTALKSB. It
is twenty three to.

Speaker 1 (24:10):
Ten Sunday with Style the Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin
and Winkles for the best selection of Greg Reeds.

Speaker 2 (24:19):
He's Talks EBB.

Speaker 3 (24:20):
And Times talk local politics and joining me as New
Zealand Herald Deputy Political Editor Thomas Cocklan. Good morning, Thomas,
good morning, Good to have you back with us. Are
two scene setters this week from Luxon and Hipkins. Luxon
State of the Nation Hipkins address at the Labor Caucus Retreat.
Both quite different vibes. One in a suit, one in
a pair of jendles.

Speaker 7 (24:41):
Yes, so I was. I didn't make it up toill
Awten for luckson State of the Nation's Abbie, but I
did get the farmers from north to see Chris Hapkins
and his joendals and it was certainly, certainly quite a sight.
But yes, I imagine Hopkins will do a more formal sceneca,
but later and later in the year. But lust and
certainly got things wagging about this idea of growing for

(25:04):
both this year and improving our economy and social services.
By baking a bit more economic growth, a bit more
foreign investment through the door, and as that economy starts
to grow, you get are a bit more tax revenue.
Treasury said last year that if we increased the increase
the economic growth rate by a single percentage point, which

(25:26):
would be that would be a bit of a miracle.
That's probably not going to happen. But to give you
one idea, if we increase the economy economic growth by
a finish point above what we're forecasting now, that's an
extra one point two billion dollars with a tax revenue,
so that it's not to be sniffed at. So you
can see why they are they are looking at it,
whether or not they'll be successful. These things take time

(25:46):
and they're quite difficult. Everyone's trying to grow their economies
a bit faster at the moment, and everyone's having trouble.

Speaker 3 (25:53):
I suppose wardrobe choices aside. If you were going to
compete the two speeches, you know, you relax and did
turn up and actually throw some ideas out, throw some
attitude out, throw some kind of you know, sort of
a plan. You know, he's mentioning mining in various other things,
and this whole idea about saying yes and not saying no,
not finding reasons why we can't do things, but finding

(26:15):
reasons why we should do things. And how would you
compare that to you know, Hipkins address and him looking
forward to twenty twenty five.

Speaker 7 (26:26):
Yeah, Labour is certainly keeping its cards close to its chest,
which has obviously worked so far. They are just ahead
of National and the most recent Taxpayers Union Caurier poll,
but they have yet to sort of come up with
a policy platform for the next election. You know, I
don't really judge them too harshly on that because because

(26:48):
it's still a couple of years away and parties tend
to come out with policies closer to the election. But
certainly you'd be expecting this here to have a few
more concrete policy ideas, and obviously as you come out
with those policy ideas, which which Labor doesn't really have
at the moment, then you might see, uh see some
of that support either way, because you know.

Speaker 8 (27:10):
It's it's you.

Speaker 7 (27:12):
You. You create policies and they draw some people to
You've got those same policies push some people away, and
as I said before, the government's trying to get some
get some money through the door through economic growth and
and labor for labor. That they are pretty on the
sense about some of those ideas they ushered in a
slightly more restrictive foreign investment regime. They're very they're very

(27:34):
on the sense about mining. Not totally against mining, but
they are against some some some mining, fossil fuels in particular.

Speaker 9 (27:41):
Uh.

Speaker 7 (27:41):
And then of course there's this text policy which will
probably get some you know, we'll get some updates on.

Speaker 8 (27:47):
That throughout the year.

Speaker 7 (27:48):
I'm not sure it will be released, but that that
will obviously be you know, planning a flag in the
in the in the sand, and and that will that
will potentially put some people off and attract other people.
But that that's the real big core for labor is
where they land on that text policy. And you know,
we'll be waiting with Beata.

Speaker 3 (28:06):
Could you argue at the moment, when you look at
those poles and those results, it's not anything to do
with what labour's doing, it's actually to do with what
national is doing.

Speaker 7 (28:14):
Yes, I think I think that is that's almost essentially
exactly what's what's happening over a long period of time.
I think the most important leading indicator of where party
party political polling is going as right track, wrong track,
and how people feel about the economy. We're in a

(28:34):
very we've been through a very deep recession, and so
naturally the electorate is blaming that on the government. I
would imagine some of that will reverse out as interest
rate to continue to get cut this year and the
economy starts to grow again, just because you know, that's
what the Reserve Bank is trying to do. They try
to kill the economy to get inflation done, and now
they're trying to bring the economy back to life to

(28:57):
make sure we don't get this inflation. And as that
happens towards the end of this year, you're probably going
to see the government's poll ratings increase the game, because
that is just that just tends to be how the
way that politics and the economy reacts. Of course it
could be wrong, but that's over the long term.

Speaker 3 (29:12):
That's Thomas, very quickly, What did you make of David
Seymour's call to for privatization.

Speaker 7 (29:19):
Yeah, and it is very interesting, very cuckly. Obviously the government,
well Rystpha Latson's ruled out that this term, but you know,
John Key ruled about effectively in his first term and
then campaigned on it in the second term. So we
could be seeing a pretty controversial policy that will almost
certainly be litigated in great detail on the twenty twenty
six campaign trail. So I think, I think if this

(29:39):
government gets the second term, a debate over privatization will
certainly be a part of the coalition talks.

Speaker 3 (29:45):
Thomas Cogland, thank you so much. Don't forget that, Luciani Buchanan,
the start of the night Agent is with us after
ten this morning here on the Sunday session. It's fifteen to.

Speaker 1 (29:54):
Ten, putting the tough questions to the newspeakers, the mic
asking breakfast mining.

Speaker 10 (30:00):
The Prime Minister mentioned that in his address Shane Jones
is the Resources Minister.

Speaker 9 (30:03):
We have an inordinately large Doctish state. Much of that
dock estate is suitable for quirying and mining, and we
need to get over ourselves because if we want the
surplus income, we should identify which areas are really precious
to the birthright of Kiwis and which areas can be
used for economic purposes.

Speaker 11 (30:20):
So you're talking about opening up stewardshipland which is nine
percent of our land area to mining as well as dockland.

Speaker 9 (30:26):
Dockland is already used. In some cases, stewardship land can
be made available not only for mining but for other
economic purposes.

Speaker 1 (30:34):
Ryan Bridge on the mic Hosking Breakfast Back tomorrow at
six am with the Range Rover Villain on News.

Speaker 2 (30:40):
Talks ed B. There's no better way to start your Sunday.

Speaker 1 (30:45):
It's a Sunday session with Francesca Rutkin and Witkles for
the best selection of Greg Reeds used Talks eDV.

Speaker 12 (31:00):
You told me job.

Speaker 3 (31:04):
You're with the Sunday session. It is twelve to ten
and something a bit different for you now. It's a
film festival with a dark side. It's definitely one for
the lovers of true crime. The New Zealand International Fraud
Film Festival is coming to Wellington and March. This week.
The festival announced its full program. New Zealand Fraud Festival

(31:24):
Chair William Fatherbee joins me. Now, good morning William.

Speaker 8 (31:28):
Good morning Francisca. Thanks for having me.

Speaker 3 (31:30):
You yourself are a lawyer with expertise in fraud. How
did you get involved with the Fraud Film Festival.

Speaker 8 (31:38):
Yeah, so this is the iteration of the festival my firm,
Mara's Con has been involved in Aubum from the very
start alongside Deloitte. And you might know that Mara's Conn
is a private law firm, but it's also the office
of one of the crowdslisters for Quindalicia and McClintock. So
that means that we do a lot of work with

(31:58):
law enforcement or what to be delayed as combating fraud
or adjacent to it. So I think as a firm
we are particularly attuned to why type of event and
the fighting fraud is important and useful and personally my
practice is investigating corporate fraud or trying to recover the
losses for the victims of fraud. So you do see

(32:21):
the devastating consequences.

Speaker 3 (32:23):
The reality of it.

Speaker 8 (32:25):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So often you're dealing with people
who've lost life saving so we do recognize I think
the importance of public outreach.

Speaker 3 (32:34):
I mean, what is the aim of the festival? Is
it entertainment, education, a bit of both.

Speaker 8 (32:39):
Yeah, So I think the overall objective is to raise
awareness of fraud in New Zealand so we can prevent it,
and we also try and be a forum for discussion
between people involved in combating fraud, and they're obviously a
number of ways you can do that, but we think
that if you want to be effective, you have to

(33:01):
have something that's interesting and engaging and different, and that's
why it's a fraud Film Festival. Definitely educational. If you're
a lawyer, you get CPD points. But I think one
of the best things about it is, you know, some
of this material, if you say, is quite dark and

(33:21):
and unsettling, but the documentaries are very good at showing
the human story, the points resilience, the little points of light.
So I think it is entertaining and ultimately uplifting.

Speaker 3 (33:35):
Do you have a mussy documentary amongst the ones that
have been announced.

Speaker 8 (33:40):
Well, they're all They're all excellent obviously, but if I
could choose one, I would choose one called staff FC
is about how the East German Secret Service infilstrated infiltrated
football in Germany in the nineteen seventies.

Speaker 4 (33:59):
That one has to be seen.

Speaker 3 (34:01):
Oh, I love it. A bit of sport and a
bit of crime. As the general public, do you think
that general public is quite naive to the extent in
which some of these frauds go.

Speaker 8 (34:14):
Yeah, what I think is is not well understood. Is
just the scale of what we are up against. So today,
you know, last year about two hundred million dollars in
New Zealand was lost to fraud and it is organized
for systematized forward corporatized fraud. One book I can recommend

(34:34):
to your listeners as a book called number goes up
by a gun called Zigphoe. It's largely about cryptocurrency. That
one of the things that he does is he takes
you inside these prison compounds in Cambodia where people are
attricted to coming and basically directed to spend their days
targeting Westerners through romance stands. So the under no illusion

(35:00):
that there is a whole industry out there targeting Westerners
and New Zealand Forlida, for a number of reasons, is
to music targets.

Speaker 3 (35:08):
When you sort of read the synopsis for some of
these films, do you think to yourself, Oh, this is
just something Hollywood's made up, don't you. I mean they
are quite outrageous.

Speaker 8 (35:17):
Yeah, So I think to two ones that fall into
that category of outrageous. One film called Lie to Me,
you know, that's about the one coin scam. One pin
was sense were typtocurrency is actually a purabid scheme was
run by someone also known as the crypto Queen Jagnatova,

(35:37):
and that was a four billion dollar fraud. And it
was not just a cryptocurrency but sort of a bit
of a religion that came with it. And you see
thing about that is some of their money ended up
in New Zealand and the property in Wellington and the
New Zealand plus ultimately sees so I had a nice
new film connection there. The other one I highlighted one

(36:00):
called The Man with a Thousand Spaces. So this is
a romance scam. It's sort of like the Swindler that
you may have seen that unlikely to the Swindler, the
sky would have up to four different women on on
the go at any one time, had four different backstories,
four different personalities, and that one goes into how he

(36:24):
adapted the story, personality, behavior to each of those different vibes.

Speaker 3 (36:28):
Oh look, William, some fascinating stories there. Thank you very
much for your time this morning. The New Zealand International
Fraud Film Festival comes to Wellington's Roxy Cinema on March
the seventeenth and eighteenth. You can might find more info
at Fraudfilmfest dot co dot Nz, Your News talk ZB
keep it.

Speaker 2 (36:45):
Simple, It's Sunday.

Speaker 1 (36:47):
The Sunday Session with Francesca Rudgoters for the best selection
of grays used talks, EDB.

Speaker 2 (36:54):
Keep it Simple, It's Sunday.

Speaker 1 (36:56):
The Sunday Session with Francesca Rudgoters for the best selection
of grays neused Talks, EDB.

Speaker 3 (37:06):
Luciani Buchanan. Start of the Night Agent is with me
next here to talk about the impact the success of
the show has had on her career because it has
been huge, and the joy that she also gets from
telling Pacifica stories. She doesn't just act, but she also
writes and produces. We're going to finish the hour with
some music from the Night Agent soundtrack. This is a

(37:28):
cover of David Bowie's Heroes by Australian band Gang of Youths.
You're with the Sunday Session. We're back shortly.

Speaker 12 (37:39):
Job four.

Speaker 1 (38:59):
Welcome to the Sunday Session with fran Jessica Rudkin and
Wiggles for the best selection of great reeds.

Speaker 3 (39:06):
Excuse this is a Sunday session. Good to have you
with us. I'm fre Jesca. I can with you until Midday,
can We tong An actress Luciani Buchanan began her acting
career as a teenager in Auckland. She was in the
local show Filthy Rich, before going on to appear in

(39:28):
the likes of the New Legends of Monkey, Mister Corman
and Sweet Tooth. In twenty twenty three, Luciani made a
global name for herself in the breakout role as Rose
Like in one of the lead roles in The Night Agent,
which is one of Netflix's most watched shows of all time.
It also led Luciani to become one of imbd's Top

(39:50):
Stars of twenty twenty three and to highlight the scale
of this show, it held the number one viewed show
for six months after release. With the whopping eight hundred
and twelve million hours hued. Season two of The Night
Agent drop this week and Lucianie Buchanan is with me.
Good morning, Luciani, thank you so much for with us,
Thank you.

Speaker 13 (40:08):
For having me. Good morning.

Speaker 3 (40:09):
I hope you don't mind, but I was just wondering
if we could go back to the beginning of The
Night Agent and how you got cast in this show.
How did it all come about? Because we were in
a lockdown, won't we Yeah, so.

Speaker 13 (40:23):
It was twenty twenty one, end of twenty twenty one,
and yeah, it was a very strict lockdown, and I
get the audition via email with my US manager, and
I was kind of at this point of my career
where I was like, I'm not booking things over there,
like i think it's time to have that conversation. I'm
ready to maybe step away from acting and do things

(40:46):
I was working more behind the scenes. I was kind
of like ready to go that way, and of course
the minute you look the other way, opportunities arise. And
I snuck actually I snuck a friend into my house
who wasn't in my bubble. He's like my favorite reader,
Jared Blakeston, and we did the tape, we sent it off,

(41:08):
and then they came back and they're like, we really
like you, and I was like, okay, whatever, I've heard
this before. You get close to so many roles all
the time. And then it just kind of kept happening.
More callbacks, and then my last audition was reading, doing
chemistry reads with Peter, who's the main character. And then

(41:29):
I booked the job and I kind of came out
to my flatmates at the time back in Mount Ros school,
and I was like, I think I need to move out.
I think I booked this job, and yeah, it all
just kind of happened really quickly.

Speaker 3 (41:43):
Isn't it fantastic? Though, on this day and age, you
can film an audition tape in Auckland and get yourself
a role in the States.

Speaker 13 (41:51):
Oh my gosh. Like back in the day that you
said this thing called pilot season and you'd have to
fly out to la and do like five auditions in
a day. But yeah, now you can do it for
the comfort of your own home.

Speaker 3 (42:02):
What was it? What was that like, the reality when
you sort of landed you realize that this is happening.

Speaker 13 (42:09):
Oh gosh. I don't think it really hit till Yeah.
I was in Vancouver and I was meeting everyone, the
our showrunner, you know, I was getting flowers from Netflix
and all the stuff, and I was like, Oh my gosh,
we're doing this And I had no idea it would
go on to be as big as this. It's crazy.

Speaker 3 (42:28):
What is the key to getting noticed as a key
with actress? What does it take? Is it about having
obviously the talent, but is it about having those connections
in the United States to get you the auditions and things.

Speaker 13 (42:41):
But yeah, I guess like you have representations, You've got
managers and agents who kind of, you know, they get
the briefs of all the upcoming shows and films and
then they send them out to you. But I don't
know what. Yeah, I guess it is your talent, and
I guess understanding the culture over here, and it's one
thing to kind of imagine what it is to play

(43:03):
a character over here, but I definitely feel living here
and seeing how different it is, I can kind of
bring that to those characters. And it also helps with
your accent as well, being around it all the time.

Speaker 3 (43:17):
Has the success blown your way?

Speaker 13 (43:21):
Look, I try not to think about it too much.
It's only in these situations people like this is how
many how those people watched it for or you know
there's many views or breaking all these records. I'm like, oh, yeah,
that's right. I definitely found it overwhelming it first when,
because again I thought it was going to fly under
the radar. I didn't think it would go on to
be this thing. So yeah, I found it quite overwhelming.

(43:45):
And then you just kind of move on and I'm
just ultimately more grateful than anything.

Speaker 3 (43:52):
Because it is one thing, as you say, it's one
thing to be cast in a Netflix show, but it's
a whole other thing to become one of the platform's
most watched shows.

Speaker 13 (44:01):
It's crazy and like the different types of people that
have watched the shows mind.

Speaker 3 (44:06):
Blowing and I'm not surprised. It's a huge I've absolutely
loved it. I cannot wait for the second season. In
the six months after it launched, it was the most
viewed show on Netflix. Here we go. I'll give you
the figures as just to you know, as you said,
everyone always does. Eight hundred and twelve million hours watched.
I mean that is so I suppose the question is
what has this show done for you and your career?

Speaker 2 (44:27):
Oh?

Speaker 13 (44:28):
Like so much. This was my first US production, and
it's opened so many doors for me in terms of,
you know, all the people that I now work with,
and just getting my profile out there so that the
next things I go for, they've got a body of
work to look at in terms of getting me the

(44:50):
next role. But I don't know, I feel like this
is just the start for me. I don't feel like, oh,
I've made it. I'm like, oh, this was a good
test round of what to expect for the next time.
And I think the coolest thing about Q is is
we all share our knowledge. So I'm really close with
Cyusha castle Hu who lives out here as well, and
she's been through this tenfold and from a young age,

(45:12):
so she's shared her knowledge with me, and I hope
I can do that for the next person that's coming
up over here.

Speaker 3 (45:19):
Because how long have you been living in the US?

Speaker 9 (45:21):
Now?

Speaker 13 (45:22):
Oh gosh, on and off for maybe the last five years,
but this time around one year? So oh no, no, no,
that's not true. I think it's a year and a half.

Speaker 3 (45:33):
Sorry, time, Just what is it? What does it matter? Yeah, Oliam,
do you get home much these days?

Speaker 13 (45:42):
Last time, my time is always in August from New York.
It's a seventeen hour flight, which is a bit daunting,
you know, you have like three naps. But you know,
my last job, which was at Apple Show Chief of
War was shooting back home, so that was amazing, but
also kind of like crazy schedule, but also trying to
see family and friends on the weekend.

Speaker 8 (46:04):
It was a lot.

Speaker 13 (46:05):
But it's always such a treat when I get to
work at home.

Speaker 3 (46:09):
It's lovely to hear you talk about and I hear
a lot of actors talk about the closeness of the
key we expect community, especially within the industry that you're in.
I love the fact that you know they sort of
they asked you who would be great to play your
aunt in the first season, and you couldn't come up
with anyone, and then they found the perfect person, a
fellow Kiwi soone Cassel.

Speaker 13 (46:32):
And the thing about her is that she is a
beast with stunts, like so much so at the stunt rehearsal,
she kind of like took off her coat because we're
shooting in freezing Vancouver, and then they saw her guns
and they were like, let's let's keep her in.

Speaker 3 (46:47):
A tank top.

Speaker 13 (46:48):
She is like a beast, and I was just like,
that's my aunt right there.

Speaker 3 (46:55):
Do you enjoy the action aspect of the show.

Speaker 13 (47:00):
Look, Francisca, I never thought in my life that I
would be in like an action show. Like when I
wanted to be actress when I was young, I was like,
I can see myself on a family drama where we
sit on the couch and discuss dynamics, and then I
keep finding myself in shows where I'm running a lot
and being thrown around by different people and dodging bullets.

(47:22):
So no, I didn't expect to be a part of this,
but I've learned that it's quite fun because I guess
when you were a kid, you play cops and robbers
and you know, play with toy guns, and now I'm
a grown adult doing that for a job.

Speaker 3 (47:38):
It's funny. I know that you are very firmly connected
to your tongue and heritage. Is that hard being in
New York so far away?

Speaker 13 (47:48):
Oh my gosh, for sure. Like I was just saying earlier,
I missed tongue and food so much. And when I
was calling my family on Christmas Day, They're just showing
me the plate and I'm like, what I would do
for that right now? But there is a community out here,
which is crazy just being so far away, so I
do get all moments. And as soon as I hear

(48:09):
like the cackling laughs from miles awhere, I'm like, oh
I'm home.

Speaker 3 (48:14):
I was wondering if you could tell me a little
bit about the short film that you worked on, because
I know you've got your multi talented and I know
you're doing a lot of work behind the scenes as well.
And you recently filmed a short film. Can you tell
me a little bit about that.

Speaker 13 (48:27):
Yeah, it's called Lettu Buanga mother tongue, So that's the
direct translation. And I wrote it a really long time ago.
I was living in Los Angeles, not booking any work
and was not creatively fulfilled because I just I was
working at a restaurant, you know, nine to five, and
a friend of mine was like, well, you should write,

(48:49):
just do it for fun, and I was like, okay.
So I kind of took inspiration from lots of parts
of my life, but specifically my insecurities of not being
able to speak tongue in and so you know, all
good stories start from a place of truth, and some
think that means a lot to us, and wrote it.

(49:10):
I got funding from the New Zealand Film Commission, not
a lot. It was definitely a labor of love. And
then via Muffy Lao, who's an amazing documentary director who's
also half toung in, willingly said should join me. And
last year we actually premiered at Sundance Film Festival and

(49:31):
the international competition, and that was crazy. It was literally
a year ago yesterday, I think it was, and that
was just amazing to see like our little film that
we made, you know, at the Egyptian Theater, which has
you know, screened so many iconic films, and have our

(49:51):
language up there for the first time. It was so amazing.
And yeah, we thought it was like, oh, it's a
bit niche, but it was. We realized that these themes
were actually more universal and it's connected us with so
many wonderful people. So I feel really lucky to be
to make.

Speaker 3 (50:08):
That because how important is pacific a storytelling to you.
I know that you were also an associate producer on
the show The Panthers and have been involved. It's very
much growing. I saw Mickey megaceivers Tina recently. It's wonderful
to see some more specific stories.

Speaker 13 (50:28):
Oh my gosh. And it's only growing. Like Vere and
I were on the jury for the Hawaiian International Film
Festival and we were like, there's so many Hawaiian films.
This is incredible and it wasn't like that a couple
of years ago. So we feel like we just said,
you know, the beginning, and it's so like such an
honor to be a small part of that. And if
anything that I'm interested in any story that you know,

(50:53):
I feel compelled to tell. I'm on the phone and
I'm like, how can I be a part of this
in a small way or a big way?

Speaker 3 (51:00):
Yeah, So obviously at the moment, you know you're on
fire when it comes to being in front of the camp.
But are you very keen to keep pursuing things behind
the camera. Do you sort of have a preference for
what you love the most.

Speaker 13 (51:13):
Well, I know, acting better than any other department. So
like I feel, as I said, I'm still at the
beginning of that, So I want to keep doing that
for a long long time. But on my to do
list for twenty twenty five was to get back into writing.
And I want to direct my next thing rather than

(51:34):
just write it because I've learned from that experience. I
didn't really enjoy acting the stuff that I wrote because
I was like, this is too much, too much to
think about.

Speaker 3 (51:44):
But that's what we end out. That's what a lot
of filmmakers end up doing because they have to. They're
producing it, they're writing it, they're directing in it, and
often starring in it.

Speaker 13 (51:50):
You know, yeah, to get you know, yeah, there's not
much money, so you're like, you know what I'll do
this for free. I'll be the character, I'll.

Speaker 3 (51:57):
Do it all. So finally, what can we expect from
season two of The Night Agent? As I said, I'm
a huge fan, I'm going to bingo. What can we expect?

Speaker 2 (52:09):
Ah?

Speaker 13 (52:09):
Yeah, just what you said. If you loved season one,
you're gonna love season two. I binched it, and it's
weird because I know the story and I cringe it myself.
I cannot sit in a room and watch myself. But
I was pleasantly surprised. It's so intriguing and yeah, you're
just gonna fly through the episodes because it's it's really

(52:31):
really good.

Speaker 3 (52:33):
Do you really not even watch yourself?

Speaker 6 (52:36):
Oh?

Speaker 13 (52:36):
It's discussed like I mean, of course at premiere is
and things. You kind of just like sit there and
you're like, oh, I know what's coming and why did
they pick that shot? And oh god, I'm you know
what's funny. When I watched this season, I was like,
nobody's faces move and then they cut to me and
I'm like so expressive. I was like, oh god, see

(52:57):
this is what These are the thoughts that go through
my head when I'm watching.

Speaker 3 (53:01):
We love a face that moves, absolutely yea that moves.
It's I should you like to talk to you? Congratulations
on your success. It's so exciting, so deserved. Cannot wait
for the second season.

Speaker 13 (53:14):
Oh thank you, friend, your skin and enjoy absolutely well.

Speaker 3 (53:17):
That was Kerry actress Luciani Buchanan. She plays the lead
character Rose Larkin and smash hit Netflix show The Night Agent.
Season two is out now on Netflix. I highly recommend it.
We're going to talk more entertainment. Next here on the
Sunday Session is twenty one past ten.

Speaker 2 (53:34):
Grab re Cover.

Speaker 1 (53:35):
It's the Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkine and Wiggles for
the best selection of great brings used talks.

Speaker 3 (53:41):
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There's no better way to start your Sunday.

Speaker 1 (54:27):
It's the Sunday Session with Francesca Rutkin and wit Calls
for the best selection of great breeds us talk st be.

Speaker 3 (54:56):
You're with the Sunday Session. Time to talk entertainment now
and I'm joined by editor at flix dot co dot Inz, Steve.
You'll good morning. I got it caught up there with
jaw which playing a little bit of George Michael because
that song features in the fabulous film Baby Doll. And
you know what it's like when you've a classic tune

(55:17):
has been taken and thrown into a movie and then
that's all you can do is associate it with that scene.
That's how I feel about that song.

Speaker 14 (55:24):
Yeah, Harris Dickinson kind of sinuously wobbling around with a
glass of whiskey and really get really ready, feeling, really feeling.

Speaker 3 (55:35):
The George Baby Baby Girl, Baby doll Is, Baby Girl,
Baby Girl, Sorry, Baby Girl is an interesting number. I
think it's going to be one of the most talked
about films of the year. You're either going to love
it or hate it. I really loved it, and I
loved it because it's one of my favorite Nicole Kibman
performances I've seen in a while.

Speaker 14 (55:51):
And all that, and also kind of a return to
the heyday of the nineties erotic thriller. In Baby Girl,
it's Nicole Kibman's this high powered ceo. She makes some
ill advised relationship decisions in her workplace. It's the sort
of stuff that normally would just kind of opened to
Michael Douglas if it was the nineties, We're like, oh, whoopsie, Daisy, Look,
I've got myself in a bit of a pickle. But

(56:13):
this is a little bit more nuanced. Having Kidman in
the lead is just basically a huge bounty to the film.
I don't think Baby Girl could exist without Eyes Wide Shut,
and I don't think her performance and Baby Girl could
exist without her what she went through for Stanley Kubrick's
relationship film Eyes Wide Shut. But yeah, look, I've had

(56:35):
so many people asking me, so many women asking me
when this film opens, there's a huge amount of anticipation.
I thought I'd maybe overegged it, but when I went
in to see it, absolutely loved it.

Speaker 3 (56:47):
Yeah.

Speaker 14 (56:47):
Yeah, this is a smart film that kind of has
its cake and eats it too. It's got stuff to say,
but it is also pretty hot.

Speaker 2 (56:56):
And it went it out.

Speaker 8 (56:57):
Is it now?

Speaker 14 (56:58):
That's in general release this coming week? There are there
are some sneaks, some sneak sessions on before Thursday.

Speaker 3 (57:05):
I was a little bit disappointed to see when the
Oscar nominations were released on Friday morning that Nicole Cobman
and Baby Girl has been snubbed.

Speaker 14 (57:12):
Yeah, bit of a surprise and look at slightly challenging,
but then you know the substances all through the Oscar
norms as well. I don't quite know what to make
of it. Kibben's performance is great, the film's really clever.
I don't get it. Something something the Academy is not
picking up about this about this movie, But across the
other nominations, like, there's still sort of plenty of stuff

(57:33):
to barrack for probably for me the Oscar nominee. That's
the weightiest. The thing that's kind of thinking about most
going to award season to be The Brutalist, which is
in cinemas now. But it's good to see that from
the range of Best Picture nominees, most of them are

(57:54):
available to watch, so you can do your homework over
the next few weeks. The Oscars being in the first
week of March. Of course, Amelia Perez leads the nominations.
That's in cinemas now. A Complete Unknown is another Best
Picture nominee. I'm just going to read through the Best
Picture nomenies, A Complete Unknowns and Cinemas now, Conclave, the
Papal Thrillers and Cinemas now. Nickel Boys will be streaming

(58:16):
in a couple of weeks. Time I'm still here is
about to open. The Substance is available to rent. June
Part two is available to rent. Wickeds available to rent
and in cinemas now, Anora's and cinemas and The Brutalist.

Speaker 3 (58:28):
Yeah, I mean, this is probably what we get out
of things like the Golden Globes and the Oscars. Is
a list of really great films.

Speaker 15 (58:35):
To go and check out totally.

Speaker 14 (58:37):
But this is as much as it's the time to
celebrate the nominees. Yes, the time we sort of reflect
on the snubs a little bit. I was quite surprised
to see that Denzel Washington missed out on a nomination
for glad Air to two.

Speaker 3 (58:51):
He was the Best Supporting Actor.

Speaker 14 (58:54):
Yes, he's sort of like maybe in a different film
to everybody else there. And also my favorite movie soundtrack
of last year. Challenges by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross
won the Golden Globe. Uh, just a week or two ago,
didn't get nominated for the Oscars.

Speaker 16 (59:09):
Weird.

Speaker 3 (59:10):
I'll let them know that you're not happy about that, Steve.

Speaker 14 (59:13):
I think I mean Challenges, baby girl, know that. Yeah, okay,
there is something sort of in common with this one.

Speaker 3 (59:21):
What they're sexy?

Speaker 14 (59:22):
That's sexy'sy?

Speaker 8 (59:25):
No sex? No sex?

Speaker 14 (59:27):
Please? Were Oscars?

Speaker 2 (59:29):
Steve?

Speaker 3 (59:30):
Always good to catch up, Thank you very much for
your time. Even wondered why some people are really good
at hula hooping and others just can't keep the hoop going. Well,
scientists have worked out why that may be, and yes,
body shape does matter. More on this Next in Science,
It's ten thirty with News Talks Hepp.

Speaker 1 (59:49):
It's the Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin on News Talks
at b.

Speaker 3 (59:55):
Joining me now with our science study of the week
is not a Girl, Doctor Michel Dickinson, Good morning, Good
morning hula hooping. Can you do it?

Speaker 8 (01:00:02):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:00:03):
Oh got the hips for it? Did you do it
as a care yes? Yes, yeah, you know, and then
you could do it around your head and it wasn't
just round your wist that you do it around your head,
round your foot, you know, you'd sort of skip over
it around your foot.

Speaker 13 (01:00:14):
I have no, I can't.

Speaker 17 (01:00:15):
I had a huloop as a kid, and I've tried
as an adult, and it's almost impossible.

Speaker 3 (01:00:20):
You've taken this too far.

Speaker 12 (01:00:22):
But there seems to be like a.

Speaker 17 (01:00:23):
Group of people who can hula hoop and those of
us who can't hoop, and like we wiggle around and
I'm doing what it seems to be what everybody else
is doing, just like moving my tummy and moving my bomb,
but my hool hoop just falls to the ground. And
the reason why we're talking about this is there's a
beautiful study that has come out this week and it
is in the journal Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences

(01:00:44):
p NAS. It's an open source one. I love it
because it's filled of fun videos and actually I've really
enjoyed watching the videos on this. If you've got nothing
to do on a rainy Sunday, go check this out.
The paper is titled Geometrically modulated contact forces enable hula
hoop Levitation. But basically what they've done is they've built
hula hooping robots of different shapes size that gyraid at

(01:01:09):
the perfect frequency that you need. Basically, they're wiggling around
and they've thrown these hula hoops on them to determine
the three D physics of hula hooping, which apparently we
never knew until this paper was out. We've only modeled
it under a two D function before. And now these
amazing physicians and mathematicians have gone, do you know what,
we should probably understand the physics of hula hooping a

(01:01:31):
little bit better. So you three D printed these models
of different body shape. So you've got a cylindrical, you've
got an hourglass shaped, you've got a pear shaped, you've
got an apple shaped, basically all of the human body types,
and they've thrown a hula hoop on it and then
got a human to initiate the spin and then got
the robot to wiggle and jiggle and try and understand

(01:01:51):
the physics of hula hooping.

Speaker 3 (01:01:52):
It's very cute to me, it is.

Speaker 17 (01:01:55):
And what they've found is what they didn't realize before,
is there's two things. And now I know this, I'm
going to go home and try hula hooping again because
now I understand the science of it. Two things that
are will mean successful hula hooping. And the first one
is how fast you spin it. At the beginning, You've got.

Speaker 18 (01:02:13):
To fin it really.

Speaker 3 (01:02:14):
Oh, you got to sort of flick around if you
don't do it fast enough. Yeah, you doomed from the stark.

Speaker 4 (01:02:19):
Didn't know that.

Speaker 17 (01:02:20):
Number two, you've got to gyrate yourself fast enough while
you're spinning it fast enough, So don't be all lazy.
I've spinn it or maybe I'll catch up with my body. No,
you've got to spin your body as fast as spinning
the hulu. But number three, and this is where we
can all go. Do you know what hula hooping is
not for me? It definitely depends on body shape. So
if you have an hourglass figure or a pair shape figure,

(01:02:44):
it's going to be much easier for you to hula
hoop naturally than if you're an apple or if you're
just straight up.

Speaker 3 (01:02:50):
Or down, because the imy of there is that most
kids are just straight up and down. Like when I
was doing it as a kid, I was pretty much
tried up and down. It'll be a different story now
wait going on. But I definitely got the thrower and
got moving straight away. I've just got this image of
you just standing there, not moving, kind of giving it
a bit of a push around the body and it's
falling to the ground.

Speaker 13 (01:03:09):
Me.

Speaker 3 (01:03:09):
See, yeah, I'm reacking. You don'tate together another world.

Speaker 17 (01:03:11):
Well, now I know the physics are there, I can
put all and now I can run experiment. I'm like,
I'm gonna go home.

Speaker 3 (01:03:15):
I'm going to hoop.

Speaker 17 (01:03:16):
If you're watching my Instagram stories, it's maybe what I'm
doing today.

Speaker 3 (01:03:20):
Thanks for your son.

Speaker 17 (01:03:21):
But I love the fact that we didn't really understand
hula hooping until this week. We just never did a
three D model. We never built a three D robot
that could huloup and then split it around. And you're like, Michelle,
why are we wasting money on this research? There are
lots of things in engineering that spin around using rings
or hoops, and so actually hula hooping really does defy
gravity when you think about it, and so it's about

(01:03:42):
how do we use this in an engineering form to
actually keep things levitating or whatever we want to do.
So it's great for science, but it's lovely. Go have
a look at these videos. There's little hula hooping robots.
They're quite fun and it might inspire you even as
an adult to go. I might bring out the hula
hoop again night.

Speaker 3 (01:03:58):
Head into the garage, find that little holo hope that's
heading away and give it a worl today. Thank you
so much, Michelle. These hot summer nights call for a nice, light,
fresh dinner, and up next, Mike vander Elsen has the
perfect dish, a crispy snapper and penzanella salad. It's here
on News Talks AB.

Speaker 2 (01:04:17):
There's no better way to start your Sunday.

Speaker 1 (01:04:19):
It's the Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin and Wiggles for
the best selection of Greg reads us Talk sa'd be
someone just.

Speaker 3 (01:04:28):
Texts to say if you have a proper hula hoope,
they're heavier and bigger than a kid's one. So that's
interesting as well. I should have put that to Michelle
and we could have seen that that would make a
difference to the hulo hoping. Anyway, Robin, thank you for
your text. Get that hula hoop out and give it
a will this afternoon, right, Mike vander Ellison is with
us now, Good.

Speaker 19 (01:04:46):
Morning, Good morning.

Speaker 3 (01:04:48):
This sounds what have I said this correctly? Panzanella perfect
pens and alas had a crispy snapper with pans and
ola salad. Sounds great?

Speaker 19 (01:04:58):
Well, it did sound great when I was writing this
freespee on Friday and run was bursting through it.

Speaker 8 (01:05:03):
It was nice and off and wonderful.

Speaker 3 (01:05:07):
Now it's a little drop happened to our suber where
we are. It's a little dripsy. Oh no, to be
honest with you, my cucumbers desperately needed this water. I
am very very relaxed about a day rain.

Speaker 9 (01:05:17):
Bring it on.

Speaker 19 (01:05:18):
Yeah, absolutely, the Panics need it as well. So yeah,
but pans and howa I've actually I was thinking because
during the week we had a couple of classes here
and we made Pansinewa on both of the classes, and
I was thinking back to when I first made it,
and it was my days in London. I was working
at a restaurant called Bluebird on King's Road and Chelsea,
and my head chef was a chief called John t.

(01:05:39):
Road and he introduced me to this pans and olauta
and inno. Since then, I just love it at this
time of the year when your tomatoes are just starting
to come out and the lovely and the sweet and
the bursting full of flavors. So panzanewa is the way
to go.

Speaker 15 (01:05:55):
So what is pans now?

Speaker 19 (01:05:56):
It's a classic Tuscan salad, bursting with those fresh tomatoes,
heaps of fresh basil which is starting to come out
now as well, krispy chair which you've toasted up, and
heats of olive ore. I don't use a lot of
extraversion olive aill in my cooking. I'm generally a sunflower
or grapes it all sort of guy. But this flavor,
or that the subtle bitterness of the olive oil really

(01:06:19):
elevates this dish and makes the panzanella kind of stand up.
So super simple to make, and the crispy snapper you
know that we're serving with this. This could be chicken,
this could be lamb, this could be beef. You can
serve the cell of anything. You want, so start by.
I've got this will feed maybe four to six people
half a life of cher barta so cher bart just

(01:06:41):
because it's crispy and it's crunchy and it kind of tears,
but that could be sourdough. It could potentially be some
for cutchia. Take that, rip it into irregular pieces, drizzle
some olive oil over the top, put some salt onto it.
Heats upper cast iron pan, throw in your bread, and
then just fry it until it's golden and crispy. Alternatively,

(01:07:02):
you could just spread it out onto an oven tray,
fire it into an oven and cook it into its
just under. You still want it to be somewhat chewing,
so once that's done, pop that aside and then to
a bowl. You want to make the dressing. So I've
got three tablespoons of red wine vinegar and then whiskey,
and three tablespoons of olive oil, one teaspoon of brown sugar,
and a teaspoon of dish or mustard, liver it of salt,

(01:07:22):
little bit of pepper. That's your dressing done, easy peasy,
lemon squeeze and then make up the rest of the ingredients.
So I've got eight small tomatoes. Choose that as you want,
four big eights more. Half a cup of chier bart
or sorry, half a cup of color mater olives that
you've just sliced in half. I've got a cup of
chargol peppers they could be like peppers that you buy
the Zio mug or if you've got peppers yourself, you

(01:07:43):
could charge all them. Cut them up, and then a
decent handful of Italian parsley. So that's pretty much the pans,
and now are done. You've got your bread done, you've
got your dressing done, and then you've got your tomatoes
or done. Keep them all separate from now we'll pull
them together just as we serve it. Take your snapper fillets.
Heat up that cast iron pan to its stinking hot.

(01:08:03):
Take your snapper fillets. If you can get them with
the skin side on, even better, because then you get
the crispy skin. You can't get it if it's got
no skin. Season it up.

Speaker 15 (01:08:12):
Chuck a whole pile of all over the fish.

Speaker 19 (01:08:14):
And then into the pan, skin side down. And here's
the trick to getting crispy skin snappers. Hold your finger
on top of the filet for five seconds, or use
like a spatcher, just to hold the flesh down and
that will stop it from curling, because when it curls,
you can't get krispy skin snapper. You just get it
crispy down the sides. So hold it five seconds. Once

(01:08:37):
that's set, and then you can let your finger off
and put all the rest of the filets in, pull
your pants and all. To sell it together, simply just
pull those ingredients together and then dress it. Pop that
onto a plate and buy. Then your crispy skin snapper
should be ready. Leave it to cook for its entire
time on the skin, so that skin gets maximum heat
maximum time, and it will crisp it up. And then

(01:08:58):
just at the last second, just flip it over, make
sure it's fully cooked, and then set it.

Speaker 3 (01:09:02):
Ah, it sounds so good, even if the weather isn't great,
will we today? The fresh tomatoes are on the vines.
I just noticed yesterday my true tomatoes are just starting
to ripeen, and I couldn't even get them inside. I
didn't them like you just been there and you just go, oh,
that looks good. So I had one, and then I
found a few more and sort of went inside and said, everyone,

(01:09:22):
the tomatoes are here and they looked at me like, yeah,
where are they anim I've eaten them.

Speaker 19 (01:09:27):
Amazing, But you know what happened to us on Monday Tuesday.
We've got all these tomatoes are all green, they are
all ready to ripe it up. And then Monday and
Tuesday we had that real bad offshore wouldn't and.

Speaker 15 (01:09:40):
Just blew them all off, blew them all off.

Speaker 19 (01:09:42):
We've probably got twenty kiloas of tomato sitting on the ground.

Speaker 2 (01:09:45):
So you can pulled them in, Yeah, you can.

Speaker 8 (01:09:48):
You can.

Speaker 19 (01:09:48):
We'll pulled them and we'll put them onto trays and
we're just leaving them in in a sunny spot in
the school and they will ripe them up. Oh god,
that's what they're saying.

Speaker 3 (01:09:57):
Anyway, fingers crossed. Oh Mike, thank you so much for
your time this morning. Always appreciate it. You can grab
that recipe from good from Scratch dot co dot in z,
or you can head to news Talk zb dot co
dot in z. For slash Sunday. You'll be able to
find all our interviews and information from today's show up
on our website. It is a fourteenth we're eleven up.

Speaker 8 (01:10:18):
Next.

Speaker 3 (01:10:18):
Erin O'Hara is with us. We're going to talk about
the impact on skipping meals intentional or not.

Speaker 1 (01:10:24):
A Sunday with Style The Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin
and Wiggles for the best selection of Greg Reeds news
talk Sevy.

Speaker 12 (01:10:34):
We'll never are fall, We'll never, We'll never up fall,
We'll never.

Speaker 3 (01:10:48):
It is time for wellness and joining me now is
Erin O'Hara. Good morning, Good morning. So we've been talking
about fasting for quite a while, the or skipping meals.
It's quite a popular strategy for weight loss. But we're
learning a lot more about it, don't we and whether
it's what sort of impact having on us and whether
it might be the right thing for someone to do.

Speaker 20 (01:11:10):
Yeah, I think it's been a really trendy thing over
quite a few years now with intimitded fasting or time
restrictive eating where people are only eating within a certain
time window, maybe fasting for sixteen hours, eating within eight
hours or something like that. And there's so many different
combinations that people do around restrictive eating, and it's a

(01:11:30):
really interesting one because for some people it actually does
work and for other people it's just a disaster. Is
that they fast and then they eat, and then when
they eat, they realize, oh my god, I'm so hungry
that they eat everything under the sun and all the
wrong stuff, and actually it doesn't help them in the
long term as well. And also my other big hesitation
around it is it creates that sort of yo yo

(01:11:51):
dieting kind of doing it and then oh the wheels
of the way, I can fall off eat anything, and
actually doesn't really create weight loss and improve your health
when you can't really stick to it. And that's why
I think there's sort of no one right way to
do it for everyone. And actually you've got to look
at yourself as the unique person you are and how

(01:12:12):
your metabolism works. Now, there's interesting things around the science
around fasting and when we're in the fed state, it
really promotes cellular growth, where when we're in a fastest state,
a stimulate cellular breakdown and repair. So it has a
really beautiful way of helping repair the body when we
are in a fasted state. However, when we're in fasted

(01:12:33):
state and we're not thriving in it, it can also
have that downside of like losing lean muscle mass, which
is actually going to slow your metabolism down if we're
doing too much fasting, which might be that one meal
a days kind of fasting, and then you're losing more
lean muscle mass, which is actually overall slowing down your metabolism,

(01:12:53):
also having it and moving into more like a survival
mode sort of metabolism, which is a slower metabolism, but
also has that effect of reducing mood and also making
more irritable or hang when you're doing too much fasting,
So that negative side really doesn't work for some people
like me personally, I'm one of those people that it's

(01:13:15):
not a good person to do fasting. Like if I
tried doing one meal a day, I would just be
low energy, grumpy, moody, not a person you probably want to.

Speaker 19 (01:13:24):
Get to know.

Speaker 20 (01:13:25):
But some people actually just feel great. They've got great
brain function, and that's where the benefit of skipping meals
for some people is it actually helps them create structure
to their day that they know that they can only
eat within a certain window. So if you're not very
good at regulating your appetite, that actually can be really
helpful and also controlling blood sugar levels. So when we're

(01:13:46):
in that fasted state, it helps us get better instant regulation,
which is going to help us long term have better
glucose control and also greater improvement.

Speaker 3 (01:13:56):
For cardiovascular as well.

Speaker 20 (01:13:58):
So there's beautiful benefits, but also there's the negative downside,
and I think you've got to weigh it out. And
there was a really interesting study done over a year
and it divided to a group of people into calorie
restrictive eating of twenty five percent less calories and the
other group doing fasting. And the interesting study results came
that actually they both lost the same amount of weight

(01:14:19):
or similar no significant difference, but also the same no
significant difference in health outcomes. So that's where I think
we've got to look at it as some people are
going to do better on calori restrictive and other people
will do better on sort of fasting. And the other
interesting thing that came up in some studies is most
people do better if they're doing two or three meals

(01:14:41):
a day when they're doing their sort of more time
restrictive eating rather than the one meal a day, and
it's a lot more sustainable. So I think, really looking
at the different options.

Speaker 3 (01:14:51):
One meal a day's a bit boring though, wasn't it. Ah,
it's hard life one meal a day.

Speaker 20 (01:14:56):
But if you're not very good at regulating your appetite
and when you start eating you can't control what you eat,
then it actually can work for people because they do
get a lot more calorie restrictive by having only that
one big meal a day and not having feeling like
they've got to restrict what they choose to eat. However,
they're downsiders. They sometimes can eat too much processed food.

Speaker 3 (01:15:17):
So there's benefits and the downside downsides, But actually it
depends on you and how it affixs you individually. Don't
stick with something which is making you mis rule or
not working.

Speaker 20 (01:15:27):
Yeah, especially if you're not feeling like you're coping and
you can keep up with your everyday life. And I
think maybe start with if you know that you're eating
all over the place, just cut back to being like cool,
I'm going to start with three meals a day through
the day, and then you might go, Okay, I'll try
two meals a day and see how you feel on
that and whether it makes you thrive or whether it

(01:15:47):
makes you struggle through the day, how your energy levels are,
what sort of weight loss you're getting if you're trying
to do it. For weight loss, and then if you
really need to, you could try the one meal a day,
but it wouldn't be my recommendation. But I know there
are some people that say that they just feel amazing
when they do it too, So I think, look your
own body as your own unique metabolism and do what

(01:16:09):
feels right for you.

Speaker 3 (01:16:10):
Erin O'Hara, thank you so much. It is six to
eleven News Talks ab Grab Recover.

Speaker 1 (01:16:16):
It's the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin and Wikles for
the best selection of great brings used talks.

Speaker 3 (01:16:22):
Be ever wondered who may own the moon, who could
claim the moon if anyone? Or what treasures lie deep
beneath the sea?

Speaker 8 (01:16:31):
Well?

Speaker 3 (01:16:32):
Felicity Lewis, the National Explainer editor for the Sydney Morning
Herald of the Age, has gone and found experts to
answer just these kind of questions and compiled their answers
into a book called Why do People Queue for Brunch?
She is going to join me next and we're going
to finish the hour with wonderful track from The Vale's
latest album, which was out on Friday. It's called Mortal

(01:16:55):
Wound mort.

Speaker 8 (01:17:18):
I.

Speaker 2 (01:17:47):
It's Sunday, you know, what that means.

Speaker 1 (01:17:49):
It's the Sunday Session with Francesca Rutkin and Wickles for
the best Election of Great Reeds U.

Speaker 2 (01:17:56):
S Talk SIPP.

Speaker 3 (01:18:03):
This is a Sunday Season. I'm Franchester Rudkin with you
and till the day. Good to have you with us.
Coming up this hour, Jason Pine on Mere Motu's world
title fight. Megan Singleton makes the case for staying in
an Irish castle and travel, and Joe McKenzie is thrilled.
Scott to Rowe has a new book.

Speaker 2 (01:18:19):
Out, The Sunday Session. Right.

Speaker 3 (01:18:24):
I love a good explainer, especially when it might be
something about the world or life that you hadn't really
given much thought to. Felicity Lewis is the Explainer's editor
for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald. Her entire
job is to research and demystify some of life's curliest
subjects for her readers. Felicity has compiled the explainers to
some of our modern mysteries in a new box. It's

(01:18:46):
called why do People Queue for Brunch? She joins me
now from Melbourne. Good morning, Felicity, Morning, Francesca. Good to
have you with us. Now before you before we get
you to explain some of these modern mysteries to us.
How did you get into explainers or how did you
become the Explainer's editor.

Speaker 11 (01:19:05):
Well, I've been a journalist for many years and I've
done all sorts of different roles. Some of them have
involved really unpacking some mystifying events in the news and
kind of buzzwords that we hear about. And so about
eight years ago now, the Age and the Sydney Morning

(01:19:26):
Herald decided that they wanted to have someone who was
dedicated to explaining. And that was a function of the
news becoming more and more fast paced, you know, on
people getting their information in bits and pieces, and we
thought it would be really good service to readers to
provide some context and some background. And then I suppose,

(01:19:50):
you know, as well as the news, I've interpreted my
brief rather broadly, so we also talk about all the
things that puzzle people in life.

Speaker 3 (01:19:58):
What topics work well, what are the readers love?

Speaker 11 (01:20:02):
It needs to be a question where there is an
answer that has some complexity to it, I guess, but
it also needs, so you know, not something you can
answer in one sentence, but it also needs to be
something that takes people on a fun journey along the way,
So lots of lots of colorful stories and interesting people

(01:20:23):
and experts who we interview along the way, so that
really it's about what do I think I'd like to
read about the end of the day. And of course
I work with my colleagues and I do straw polls
among them as well, So things like what's a rogue wave?
Or words that we hear talked about, like narcissist when

(01:20:45):
just in general conversation you probably notice some words tend
to trend, so you know, people are all talking about
what's you know, narcissism, so we unpack what does that
technically mean? And then there are the kinds of questions
that are what we'd call evergreen, which are like can
you journey to the center of the earth? And so

(01:21:06):
it's just the kind of thing that will give us
enough space to provide our readers with some interesting talking
points for barbecues or dinner parties and make you feel
like you've read something that's a bit enriching, even makes
you a bit smarter.

Speaker 3 (01:21:22):
It's much more interesting small talk than talking about the weather. Felicity, well,
that's right.

Speaker 11 (01:21:27):
We like to give people repertoire there's actually there's actually
an explainer in the book about how can you learn
the art of conversation? But that did come from one
of our reporters on the explainer desk. Christmas was coming
up and all those kind of cocktail parties or Christmas
parties were and family dinners were looming, and he thought, well,
how can you approach these kind of events with a

(01:21:49):
few tricks up your sleeve and maybe even make real
friends and have real conversations along the way. So there's
an explainer in the book all about that too, So
it is information you can use.

Speaker 3 (01:22:01):
Let's chat about some of these great explainers, and let's
start with the title why do people que Brunch? What
I really loved about this book is that you ask
a question like that, you know why you're queuing out,
spend fifty backs on some eggs and a flat white,
But then immediately you find yourself an ancient Egypt. You
never quite know where these stories are going to go,
where they're going to start and stop.

Speaker 11 (01:22:23):
Well, that's right, because things don't just come from nowhere,
do they. So yeah, on the face of it, you
are just queuing for a cronat or something like that.
But there's a long history of humans queuing up, which
we do talk about, and with the ancient Egyptians, they
were queuing up, according to mythology, to get into the afterlife,
and the question was which we're going to go up
or down, you know, and there was this nervous queue

(01:22:45):
while you were waiting for judgment. That we also look
at the history of cues themselves in more in the
modern world and in the way that the cub behavior
has been studied, the way that people behave and the
rules that they apply in cues, and we look at
the way businesses have kind of made an art of
making cues an okay place to be.

Speaker 8 (01:23:07):
So places like.

Speaker 11 (01:23:08):
Disneyland really pioneered the idea of these cues where the
queue almost became part of the ride, so that were
waiting to get on part of the entertainment. So there's
something of that in the queues that people are in
when they're when they're waiting for brunch. And this one
came about because I do live in a kind of
trendy inner city area with cafes, and I do see

(01:23:31):
people standing on the street and they're queuing, and the
que they're not just cues of you know, half a
dozen people cues that are going around the corner, and
I'm actually not a very patient person myself, and so
I was really curious, like what why. So I did
a bit of reporting on the ground and went and
asked them, and it was very.

Speaker 8 (01:23:48):
Funny some people.

Speaker 11 (01:23:50):
Some people say, oh, well, actually I'm not a cure either,
but you know, they point to their family member or
their partner and.

Speaker 3 (01:23:57):
Say they made me do it.

Speaker 11 (01:23:59):
But other people were in groups and they did regard
it as a bit of a social event in itself.

Speaker 3 (01:24:06):
But we look into the psychology of it a.

Speaker 11 (01:24:09):
Bit more deeply than that, and you know, a Q
is on one level, it's a visual shortcut. So it
always has been, whether we're talking about wartime rations or
you know, the latest trendy food item. They're a visual
shortcut to help you choose. And people see a queue
there are five shots all selling the same thing, they'll
go to the one with a queue generally because it

(01:24:31):
signifies that there's something.

Speaker 3 (01:24:33):
Really good here.

Speaker 11 (01:24:35):
And there's a bit of you know, social currency, being
in the know, posting that you're in that queue on Instagram,
and even a bit of a touch of fomo can
come up in the mix there.

Speaker 3 (01:24:45):
Yeah, I think I'm a bit like you for Lessie,
I don't have enough fomo to really to enjoy the queue. Hey,
there was another chapter that I was really fascinated, and
it's called is the Moon for Sale? Can someone claim
the Moon? And of course this is really topical now
because there is all this interest and the resources that
we've discovered on the Moon and mining that. Yeah, there's

(01:25:08):
a few things on the Moon.

Speaker 11 (01:25:09):
There's this this energy source called helium three that they've found,
and they've found ice, which which was really important because
it means that he can apparently you can. I haven't
done chemistry. We can split ice into oxygen, which is
handy for humans on the moon, and into hydrogen for power.

Speaker 8 (01:25:27):
So look that the.

Speaker 11 (01:25:28):
Short short answer is yes and no.

Speaker 3 (01:25:31):
So the Moon, under.

Speaker 11 (01:25:33):
International law and all about a space is the province
of all mankind. But there is a guy in America
who did start selling plots of land on the Moon
about forty years ago, and you can still get them.
They're about forty dollars a pop, I think. And apparently,
as the story goes, he was he was dreaming of
getting on the property ladder and he looked up at

(01:25:54):
the Moon one night.

Speaker 3 (01:25:55):
And he thought, now there's a lot of real estate.

Speaker 11 (01:25:58):
So we spoke to an expert who works at a
very senior level with United Nations and so an Australian
space lawyer, and he actually has one of these plots
on the Moon, which is students bought for him. But
he told us he didn't think that would hold up
in an international court of law necessarily. But there is

(01:26:21):
a huge amount of activity, so it's there hasn't There
haven't been humans up there since the seventies. I mean
after that nineteen sixty nine moonwalk, there were a handful
of others. There were even astronauts who played a couple
of shots of golf up there, So there's still golf
balls up there on the Moon. But there's a much more,

(01:26:42):
much more serious focus now on getting back up there
for all sorts of reasons, from scientific to it being
a stopping off ground to Mars. And there are also
private operators in the mix too, which we know from
Ilon Musk's Space X. So international lawyers really are looking
quite closely at what the rules of conduct are going

(01:27:05):
to be when you've got people who are but not
just visiting, but who are based on the Moon for
whatever period of time, and they're all from different countries
and they all have to get along. So what are
the guidelines for best behavior. It's fascinating, it certainly is.

Speaker 3 (01:27:22):
And look from space back down to Earth. I had
no idea that we had a hole in the Earth
that's twelve kilometers deep.

Speaker 11 (01:27:30):
I know that's one that was dug by the Soviets
from the seventies and they kept going on and off,
I think for the next twenty years, but they eventually
had to give up. It gets pretty hot the further
you go, but it's twelve kilometers it's over twelve kilometers deep,

(01:27:54):
but there is Once again, this is the thing about technology.
When it hits a kind of trigger point, it means
that all sorts of in this case digging work can
be done again, so that people are looking again at,
you know, digging under the Earth's crust. We explain in

(01:28:14):
the book that the Earth's like it's got several layers,
and it's got a crust, and then it's got this
thing called called the moho, which is like, which is
a layer before you get to that mantle, which we
kind of know is that churning hot molten liquid that
pops up sometimes from volcanoes, and there are serious moves
to get.

Speaker 3 (01:28:34):
Down to that, to that layer and see what's in it.

Speaker 11 (01:28:38):
And it all goes towards explaining, you know, how the
Earth was formed and how it's evolved, and it gives
you know, priceless information about what we're doing here, you know,
in the universe. And you would think that all this
kind of thing was known. But it's not an easy
it's not it despite the Jules vern you know stories,

(01:29:01):
it's not it's not an easy place to get to.
So another thing that we have to explain. It's not
just what we already know, but how we know that
about it, you know, through through different waves that scientists
have sent down to work out what's what's in the
center of the Earth. But it's a great it's a
great read, and it's got all sorts of exciting things

(01:29:22):
like crystals and you know how we're magnetized, how you
got magnetized. So yeah, it's a it's a really fun read.

Speaker 13 (01:29:31):
And we do talk about Jules vern in there too.

Speaker 3 (01:29:33):
Though that chapter is called could We ever Journey to
the Center of the Earth? And I tell you what
I learned a lot. I did realize though, for Liicity
that probably my knowledge of the earth and its cause
and things like that comes from school and things have
moved on a little person. That's right. Yeah, hey, look
something else I just want to quickly touch on as well.
As we live in a hugely digital age now, writing

(01:29:55):
can almost seem quite foreign when we have to do
it because we spend all day on our phones and
computers and devices. So its handwriting still important in the
digital age.

Speaker 11 (01:30:04):
Yeah, well, I was there is about this because I
like writing myself. I've got to borrow on my desk
as we speak. But I've also got a mix of
notes that are handwritten, and you know, my working notes
are handwritten and sometimes you know, of course mostly their type.
So we did investigate this, and I mean, on a

(01:30:26):
very basic functional level, students need to know how to
write neatly. It's very important for them because they've got
to do exams. And we spoke with people who actually
coach students who are having a challenge with writing neatly
enough that their ideas are legible, so that it's a
really important thing in life. You might have the best ideas,

(01:30:48):
but if you can't get them down, you know, neatly
on paper, then it's a problem. But we've all We
also spoke with some experts about the value of handwriting
to your brain. So because you're doing it, you're doing
handwriting with your body of course, and it literally how
help you kind of collect your thoughts as you're going.

(01:31:09):
So the parts of your brain that control memory and comprehension,
even spelling all come together as you're doing the handwriting.
So in some ways, say you were taking notes and
you're wanting to remember in a university lecture or whatever
the situation might be, it's really helpful to do it

(01:31:30):
with handwriting. And it's also pretty good creatively as well.
I mean, writers like Stephen King who writes the Horror
the Horror books, and other poets and writers who we
spoke to do some of their drafts with a biro
or a pencil, whatever it might be, and some of

(01:31:51):
them color code, you know, but it's kind of a
kind of more it's an extension of what's going on
in your head. You know, you're not stuck with the
fonts and the formats that are given.

Speaker 3 (01:32:01):
To you with a computer. So that one was interesting.

Speaker 11 (01:32:05):
I mean, we spoke with forensic experts as well about
how even though it might not be a window to
your soul, handwriting is very individual and distinctive.

Speaker 3 (01:32:18):
So yeah, I did laugh about that whole idea felicity
of handwriting being a window to your soul. That would
make my soul look very messy about now, thank you
so much for your time. That was Felicity Lewis with us.
The book. It's just great for curious readers. It covers
so much general knowledge. It really is fabulous and you

(01:32:38):
can find more detail on all the topics that we've
just been talking about, plus many more explainers of modern mysteries.
And Felicity's book its called Why Do People Queue for Brunch?
It's in bookstores now. Panel us up next to you
with the Sunday Session.

Speaker 2 (01:32:52):
Relax, it's still the weekend.

Speaker 1 (01:32:54):
It's a Sunday Session with Francesca Rudgan and Whiggles for
the best selection of great reads, used talks that'd be okay.

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Speaker 1 (01:33:58):
All the highs and lows, talking the big issues of
the week the panel on the Sunday Session.

Speaker 3 (01:34:05):
And joining me today on the panel we have news
talks at the host Roman Travers Morning Morning Morning and
editor and journalist Joe McCarroll. How are you Joe, welcome.

Speaker 16 (01:34:14):
Oh I am thriving.

Speaker 2 (01:34:16):
Oh it's good to hear.

Speaker 3 (01:34:18):
Love the positivity, Love the positivity. Are you going to
say yes more to life this year? Joe, Well, just
not in general. Like the Prime Minister, I mean, I
think he's probably got a point here. I think sometimes
we find too many barriers or too many reasons why
something's too hard, as opposed to going okay, let's find

(01:34:40):
a way to balance everything out, make sure we're ticking
all the boxes, but still move forward with things.

Speaker 16 (01:34:45):
Yeah, there's a simplistic truth to it, isn't there. Francisca,
Like I agree with this sentiment. I think it's a
nation we skewter that sort of defensive attitude. Maybe we could,
like rather than saying no, because we could be yes.
But you know, but I think it is there is
systemic policy barriers to some of what he's promising the

(01:35:10):
future of limitless private of foreign investment, and it's not
as simple as just removing the barriers of the resources
management acts.

Speaker 21 (01:35:25):
Yeah, I've got concerns with that too, Joe. That whole drill,
baby drill, you know, dig the big holes, get all
the stuff out of the ground. I do worry about
that to some extent, because the reason why we have
these barriers in place that we currently want to diminish
is because some idiot would have got things wrong in
the past and so we had to have restrictions in place.
So it's all very well to say let's get on
with it, but not at the cost of the environment.

(01:35:45):
We have to remember that half the reason why people
come to New Zealand is because it looks clean and green.

Speaker 8 (01:35:51):
No.

Speaker 3 (01:35:51):
Absolutely, and look, making money is one thing, but many
New Zealanders I think we'll still want the government to
balance this sort of pragmatic approach with consideration and respect
for affected communities and the environment and the treaty and things. Joe,
I still don't think it hurts to kind of launch
into things with a slightly more we can do hard
things attitude.

Speaker 16 (01:36:12):
I agree. I mean, I think he's right when he
makes a point about we do have this tendency to
skew to no and I think we can look at that,
we can look at that as a nation. I agree
with Roman completely. I had Shane Jones on the radio,
you know, it's saying using would be the easiest place
in the world to extract resources. That is not a

(01:36:34):
race I am looking to win.

Speaker 9 (01:36:36):
You know.

Speaker 16 (01:36:36):
I don't think there's a country in the world which
has opened up its natural resources to foreign interest that's
gone well for the local people. But you know, I
think that's an appealing sentiment. I think saying let's just
do things. I think it's part of Trump's pell. I
think it's point Lim Dan made in his op ed.
But it's as always, it's a little.

Speaker 2 (01:37:00):
Too simple, isn't it.

Speaker 21 (01:37:02):
And then you've got David seem more like an excited
chihuahua saying sell everything, sell it. You know, I do
have worries about we're seen to have all this pushing
and pulling within this coalition, but that's what you get
when you get a coalition.

Speaker 3 (01:37:13):
Right, But then you've got the checks and balances, which
is an election.

Speaker 16 (01:37:19):
And you know, I just I feel like it's it's
been reduced to these really simplistic latitudes. Probably that's a shame,
you know, Can we not as a nation have like
a more sophisticated discussion about it, where we recognize it's
more challenging than that, it's not as simple as that.
And then of course you'll you'll challenge and I'm sure

(01:37:43):
there'll be people listening. Oh, you know, that's just the
wokarati trying to stop me from putting a you know,
the House of the back section, and I just wish
we could have a more sophisticated discussion around it.

Speaker 3 (01:37:55):
But I think that will come.

Speaker 2 (01:37:56):
Joe.

Speaker 3 (01:37:57):
I think you're right. I mean, there is when you're
doing sort of a state of a nation, you're trying
to sum up sort of an awful lot, it does
end up getting simplified in the way it's presented. But
I do hope that those conversations will come.

Speaker 16 (01:38:08):
Internationally, I feel that the discourse has been simplified to
such an extent and it's no good for anyone to
be so reductionist and so simplistic and act like these
are simple problems. They're not simple problems. They're challenging problems
with a numerous factors that you need to consider.

Speaker 3 (01:38:27):
This is very disappointing joke because I've taken on these
two challenges that the Prime Minister has suggested, you know,
economic growth in saying yes, I've taken that into my
house and said, okay, guys, twenty twenty five is what
we're going to do. I want economic growth from every
single one of you, and could you please say yes
more often when I ask you to do something. I
thought that would quite good.

Speaker 16 (01:38:44):
But check in at the end of a year how
the economic growth is going.

Speaker 3 (01:38:48):
For we'll see how the nation went, and then we'll
see how my household went. I'm not holding out a
huge amount of hope, to be honest, Joe. You've sort
of talked about the sort of you know, politics on
a global scale here, and of course it's been an
extraordinary week in the US and we've had a tsunami
of news coming out of this dates since Trump, of
course took office.

Speaker 2 (01:39:10):
Roman.

Speaker 3 (01:39:10):
If you were going to try and describe Trump's first
days and a sentence, what would you come up with?

Speaker 21 (01:39:15):
Like, she wrote something down because I did my homework
based on what you asked me to do. I wrote
down the Balacos Bravado is alive and well with Trump,
and that's that's it in a nutshell, because I have concerns.
I don't really care if they voted for him. Good luck,
good luck with them, apples, Let's see what happens. I
do have concerns for the world, though, beyond the US.
When he wants to withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord

(01:39:36):
and from the World Health Organization. God helped the poor
people of the world.

Speaker 4 (01:39:40):
Right, that's it, That's what I got.

Speaker 16 (01:39:42):
What about you, Joe, Oh, I've enjoy the bread and
circuses on route to Gilliad by the gentle light of
the burning planet would bend him.

Speaker 3 (01:39:55):
Somebody in my family mentioned Gilliard during this week as well.

Speaker 8 (01:39:59):
Joe.

Speaker 3 (01:40:00):
You know what I just all I can say is
he is proving to be a man of his word.
But at the end of the day, he said, I'm
going to do all this, whether it all whether he
pulls it all off or not. How much pushback there is,
how this all unfolds, we are going to have to
wait and see. It's going to be really interesting to
see the reaction of the American people the reality of
what they've promised to put into action.

Speaker 21 (01:40:21):
Joe, don't you think it sounds like to me? It
looks like an excited schoolboy in a lollipop shop. He's
running around licking all the lollipops, but not actually buying one.
Do you know, do you get that impression that he's like,
look at me, I've got all these promises and I'm
going to do it all today.

Speaker 16 (01:40:34):
Yeah, but I mean in doing so, he's undermining the
rule of law. And where does that lead you?

Speaker 22 (01:40:40):
Yeah?

Speaker 16 (01:40:40):
I thought that in the inauguration with the lineup of
billionaires in the front row.

Speaker 4 (01:40:48):
Is this what you want?

Speaker 16 (01:40:50):
An unelected oligarchy where I mean, I think most of
us are closer to being homeless than we are being billionaires.

Speaker 3 (01:41:00):
So no, absolutely, Joe, I think what is it. I
think one percent of Mirror Burrican's own thirty five percent
of its wealth and capital, the bottom fifty percent of
Americans own I think one point five percent of it. Like,
it's just I mean, the conditions are ripe for an oligarchy.
Joe and Roman, thank you so much.

Speaker 2 (01:41:21):
Roman.

Speaker 3 (01:41:21):
You're back this afternoon, aren't you. Weekend collective busy man,
and thank you in advance for taking care of the
Sunday session for me next Sunday as well.

Speaker 8 (01:41:28):
Thank you.

Speaker 3 (01:41:30):
I'm going to take a quick break, but we're going
to keep you working. But you promise me you'll take
a holiday soon. It is twenty six to twelve.

Speaker 1 (01:41:39):
It's the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin on News Talks.

Speaker 2 (01:41:43):
A B.

Speaker 3 (01:41:46):
Jason Pine is with us at midday with Weekend Sport
and he's here. Now, how are you, Jason?

Speaker 15 (01:41:51):
I'm great, Francesca, thank you.

Speaker 3 (01:41:53):
Did you get a chance to watch any of Mia
Motto's War title fight this morning?

Speaker 10 (01:41:57):
I had eyes on it that I wasn't, I wasn't
deeply invested in it. I've I had eyes on it.
It felt throughout that she was behind the April. I no,
that's the wrong sport, But yeah, it felt as though
she wasn't doing enough to win, and so it proved
and she looked I mean, she came up against a

(01:42:17):
very good boxer and Allie Scottney, who you know, she's
she and I think me and Motto is a good
fighter too. But but I think Allie Scottney just just
proved that technical ability is quite important at times, and
it proved to be in this fight unanimous decision. Neither
was able to find the knockout. And yeah, I think
that's me and Motu's first defeat. So she'll come back,

(01:42:38):
but for now, Allie Scottney takes the takes of chocolates today.

Speaker 3 (01:42:42):
Yeah, look, she looked like she was having a ball.
She looked like she deserved to be there. You know,
I hope I have a fingers crossed that maybe, you know,
we could see some history made. But I hopefully she's
got a lot of fight left in her.

Speaker 10 (01:42:57):
I think she will, yeah know. I mean, it's just
one It's just one bout, isn't it. And she's been
what she she was twenty and oh before today, so
you know, this is just one setback. And look at
isn't the first time that an undefeated fighter has lost
a fight and then come back and continued on. I
guess we wait to see what the path forward is
for her now. But yeah, I mean she'll She'll dust

(01:43:18):
herself off, no doubt. She seems like an absolute character.

Speaker 3 (01:43:21):
I love it and really enjoyed meeting her and having
her on the show and just sort of learning a
little bit more about her in her life and things.
I was but like you, I hadn't on it while
I was hosting the show. They the women really go
for it, right. I mean I find it a bit much.
It's not my kind of sport, and I worry about
their heads and their brains and things like that. But

(01:43:42):
I was watching it going man Alive this month, you know,
for people who don't love it as a form of
sport and entertainment. They must have been loving it.

Speaker 10 (01:43:49):
Yeah, and that's it too, as you as you know,
you're going to get a good spectacle. I think with
about like this, and good on them. You're right, they hit,
they hit a hard and me and Mata yeah know
what a what a what a diamond of a human being.
So look, I hope there's more to come from her.

Speaker 3 (01:44:04):
I was he open. Have you had any time to
were that over the last couple of weeks.

Speaker 10 (01:44:07):
Yeah, I've been watching that. I've been watching the tennis, yeah,
I said attendant. My evening's sitting on the couch and
flicking around the sports channels in the last couple of weeks,
most of them had tennis on them. I was delighted
for Madison Keys. I have to say she first started
playing major tennis tournaments in twenty ten. We're in twenty
twenty five now, and at her forty sixth attempt she's

(01:44:30):
finally won one. And look, I don't think this was expected.
Arena Sabolenka was double defending champion of Every Inch, someone
who was going to go three in a row. But
Madison Keys won the first, said comfortably. Then Sabolenka won
the second. I thought, okay, it's going to be a
two one to Sabolenka, but no, in Madison Keys, I
mean good on her.

Speaker 15 (01:44:47):
I think she's is.

Speaker 10 (01:44:48):
She beat Fiontek and the Semis and Sabolenka in the finals,
so the top two seeds on the way to her
first ever major tennis titles. Not a bad few days
work for Madison Keys.

Speaker 3 (01:44:57):
A wonderful story. And of course I've got the men's today.

Speaker 15 (01:45:00):
Yep, yep means tonight one v two Center Vizverev.

Speaker 10 (01:45:03):
Both have played in two previous finals and one both
of his, and Zverev lost both of his. Zveria's the
same as Madison Keys. I've been playing for ages and
has never won a major. So maybe he takes some
inspiration from last night and takes that onto the court tonight.
I think you Onixon is the favorite, but you know
who knows who.

Speaker 3 (01:45:20):
Knows on the show?

Speaker 10 (01:45:22):
Finely, where do you go, Tim sifher's on the show?
To let us off, he's playing T twenty cricket in
the UAE at the moment. He only landed from the
Big Bash a couple of days ago, so the traveling
the life of a traveling t twenty cricketer. I'm going
to dig down into that with Tim Siffett and should
we have a team in the Big Bash a New
Zealand team in the Big Bash. Will talk some tennis
and also Luca Harrington. I don't think many of us

(01:45:44):
had heard of. He's now a gold medalist in the
X Games with a win yesterday and the men's Slope Style.

Speaker 15 (01:45:50):
He's going to join us this afternoon as well.

Speaker 3 (01:45:51):
Fantastic Jason, looking forward to it. That is weekends, That
is weekends for coming up at midday.

Speaker 2 (01:45:58):
Sunday with Style.

Speaker 1 (01:45:59):
The Sunday session with Francesca Rudgin and Wiggles for the
best selection of Greg Reaves. He talks travel with Wendy
Woo Tours Where the World is yours.

Speaker 3 (01:46:10):
Book now and it is time to travel And joining
me is Meghan Singleton, blogger at large dot com.

Speaker 13 (01:46:16):
Good morning, Good morning, Francesca.

Speaker 3 (01:46:19):
Oh my love, you're not sounding brilliant. Thank you for
your time. Hey, You've got a lovely topic today. Because
I think at some point whenever we've been whenever someone
goes traveling, especially in Europe, you might think to yourself,
goodness me wouldn't it be lovely to stay in that castle?

Speaker 23 (01:46:34):
Yes, well, that's exactly right, And there are so many castles.
I've just been writing up about Dublin and Ireland because
it's really on my radar. I did a road trip
in Ireland many years ago stayed in a castle hotel
in Dublin, so then I thought, what else is there
to stay? And now there's lots of castles. I mean
there's castles dottled through Ireland like potatoes in a stew.

(01:46:55):
You can go absolutely everywhere, but not all of them
you can stay in. So I found three within Cooey
of Dublin that and I've stayed in one of them
that you can really get your royalty and they're fantastic.
The one I stayed in, Clontaff can trace its roots
back to the twelfth century and it's now a combination
of sort of medieval original design and contemporary design. You

(01:47:19):
can rent your e bikes. It's only about a fifteen
minute drive, five minutes from the airport. So what we
did was we flew into Dublin, stayed in the heart
of it all, which is the Temple Bar area. And
I know it's busy and it's loud, but it's all
the great music, the great bars. Then we did a
road trip and when we came back to Dublin we

(01:47:39):
stayed in a castle hotel before we flew out.

Speaker 13 (01:47:42):
It was amazing.

Speaker 23 (01:47:43):
So I've got a couple of them there.

Speaker 3 (01:47:44):
So is there a range? I imagine there's a range
of places when it comes to castle. Some that might
be very very flash some may be just a little
bit more run down and rustic.

Speaker 2 (01:47:54):
You know what.

Speaker 23 (01:47:55):
In my research, some that call themselves castles nothing to
do with the castle. So actually, in the end, I've
whittled it down to three. So you've got Clontaff, You've
got Fitzpatrick Castle, which is south of the city, overlooking
Killinny Bay. But that was built in the eighteenth century,
you know, seventeen hundreds, and then that's quite modern, you know.

(01:48:16):
And then there's the most amazing fifteenth century. How do
I say that, Luttra'stelle Lutra's luttrels down Castle. The catch
with that is that you have to book out the
whole thing. It's got a consplete fifty four people with
twenty rooms. Michael Jackson has stayed when he was there
with his kids, it's a place for weddings. They've got

(01:48:37):
a golf course five hundred and sixty seven acres of estate.
But you can actually go there for afternoon tea. So
that's the great thing about that place.

Speaker 3 (01:48:48):
Cheaper than finding you know.

Speaker 23 (01:48:52):
Yes, yeah, for the nearest and dearest. Yeah, but no, Look,
Ireland is filled with castle. Some are completely ruined. I
mean even Blarney Castle where you go up and kiss
the Blarney stone. That's actually just a stone sort of
column of a building. Now, but I did go up
there and kess the blindy stone. Not with COVID mind. Goodness,
they're wiping that stone anyway.

Speaker 24 (01:49:14):
Very true.

Speaker 3 (01:49:16):
Wow, you'd kind of that was the case. You'd hope
they were wiping it regularly, wouldn't you. You go and
take care of yourself. Thank you. If you want to
have a read of Meghan's blog, you can find it
at blogger at large dot com. Next up, books and
we've got a new book by Scott Tureau to have
a chat about with Joan. It is thirteen to twelve.

Speaker 2 (01:49:38):
Books with wiggles for the best election of Greek Reads.

Speaker 3 (01:49:42):
Joining me now to books as Joan McKenzie. Good morning,
Good morning, good to have you with us. Carissa Chen
has a book out called Home Seeking. Tell me about this. Oh,
it's really good.

Speaker 22 (01:49:53):
It's one of those berg epic, sweeping stories that starts
in one place and finishes up a long way away
from where it started. And it's the story of Suchi
and high Wind, who are childhood friends and then they
become teenage sweethearts. He's a really talented violinist and she's
really drawn to him by the music. But that all
falls apart when he signs up for the National Military Service,

(01:50:18):
which he does in order to stop his brother being
forced to enlist, so it's an act of real sacrifice,
and he goes off to the military training and she's
left on her own. And her parents are very keen
to get their daughters away from the Cultural Revolution, so
they send them to Hong Kong, where they really struggle
for several years. Life's really, really hard, and they get

(01:50:40):
a job in a very seedy establishment, and the only
way that Sushi manages to get out of there is
by marrying one of the patrons, which, as you might imagine,
doesn't go well. This is historical fiction because it's set
against the landscape of things like the Second Chinese Japanese War,
the Chinese Civil War, everything that went on with their
cultural revolution, and it covers a lot of ground. It

(01:51:02):
goes from Shanghai to Hong Kong, to Taiwan and finally
ends up in America, where sixty years later, Souci and Hiwen,
who have anglicized their names during those decades, unexpectedly meet
up again and start to reignite the friendship. So it's
about looking back over what they had and what they've lost,
and how they've found a sense of place in the world,

(01:51:25):
but what they've had.

Speaker 3 (01:51:26):
To give up in order to achieve that. It's lovely
sounds like a wonderful yarn. What else have you got
for us?

Speaker 22 (01:51:31):
I've got Scott Turo's new book called Presumed Guilty.

Speaker 9 (01:51:34):
Now.

Speaker 22 (01:51:35):
I first read him back in nineteen eighty seven when
he did a book which for me was a real breakthrough,
called Presumed Innocent. And you know, he does courtroom drama.
He does it really really well, so do people like
John Grisham, But I think Scott Turo was the first
because Presumed Innocent was four years earlier than John Grisham's
The Firm, So he really started a trend and he

(01:51:57):
did it beautifully with a character called Rusty Sabin. There's
been one sequel called Innocent, and now this third book
is called Presumed Guilty, and it's really really good.

Speaker 3 (01:52:08):
So only three books in what thirty eight year that's
take you.

Speaker 22 (01:52:12):
To protect my life, writes this nice speak expansive story.
So Rusty Saban is now older, is in his seventies,
and over the course of his career he's been a lawyer,
a prosecuting attorney, a judge, and then in the second
book he was in fact a defendant and found guilty
and imprisoned himself. So he's got a lot of experience

(01:52:33):
and he's got a nice life. Now he's got a
relationship with her high school principle. Things are going really
well until her son is accused of murder and Rusty decides,
against his better judgment, that he will stand up and
defend this guy in court. So it's the story of
what happens of the courtroom drama as it unfolds, and

(01:52:54):
if you like that sort of story, this is really good.
And then at the end of course, all becomes clear
and you find out exactly what had happened, and the
fact that possibly that trial should never have gone ahead.

Speaker 3 (01:53:06):
I like the sound of both of these books, Joan,
I'm off on holiday. I think that these will take
the box perfectly what to take with me to read.
So thank you so much. Home Seeking by Carissa Chen
and also Presumed Guilty by Scott to Row with the
two books that Joanes spoke about. We'll talk next week.

Speaker 2 (01:53:22):
See you then, keep It's simple.

Speaker 1 (01:53:24):
It's Sunday the Sunday Session with Francesca Rudgin and Wiggles
for the best selection of the Great Reads News Talk ZEDV.

Speaker 3 (01:53:32):
Thank you so much for joining us on the Sunday
Session today. We've been talking a little bit about me
and Motto throughout the show, and I really enjoyed meeting
her last year. I did an interview with her and
it was just really beautiful. She's a very beautiful person
with a really interesting story to tell and outlook on
life and things. She actually features in our Great Chats podcast.

(01:53:54):
So what we did over summer was we threw together
some of the best interviews from last year from the
Sunday session. We interviewed people like Elijah Wood and Marion
Keys and Trent Dalton and Hugh Bonnieville and Robbie Williams
and Rick Ashley and Rick Osman, all these fabulous people.
We've put them together in wonderful little short podcast for you,
perfect over the summer. If you're going for a walk,

(01:54:15):
or you're at the gym where you want to have
a listen to something, well, you're on a drive, so
you can find great chats with Francesca Rudkin at iHeartRadio
or wherever you get your podcasts and go and have
a little listen to some of those interviews. Right Roman
Travis is hosting for me next week. He's going to
be joined by Miriam Mugglees to talk about her travels
around New Zealand. Thank you to Roman for hosting the

(01:54:36):
show for me. I'm going to take a quick break
for a week and then back into it. We're going
to finish with a new single from Marlon Williams or Attura.
The song was inspired by Mara show bands from the
nineteen sixties, and Marlon has also announced this week he
has a new album coming out in early April. Enjoy
the rest of your weekend. Jason Pine is up next

(01:54:57):
with Weekend Sport, Take Care, Oh Well, Dude.

Speaker 18 (01:55:06):
Quin Cocky Geo, Oky, I'm not quick.

Speaker 2 (01:55:17):
Call it Lucky. I'm not.

Speaker 24 (01:55:24):
Call Lucky Gable, called Peterble, call Loa co.

Speaker 19 (01:55:40):
Mall call.

Speaker 7 (01:55:50):
Audra hab.

Speaker 24 (01:55:53):
Da Har money they had.

Speaker 2 (01:56:00):
Got can today All to Do?

Speaker 1 (01:56:29):
For more from the Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin, Listen
live to News Talks It'd be from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio

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