Full Show Podcast: 27 April 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. Welcome to the Sunday Session with
Francesca Rudkin and whig Girls for the best selection of
great reads used Talks EDB.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
Good morning and welcome to the Sunday Session. I'm Franchesca Rudkin.
Good to have you with us. Hope you are enjoying
the long weekend. Only one more sleep and everyone goes
back to school, not that any of us accounting. Are
we coming up today? Chris Whitker is with me, out
to ten. Chris's epic book, All the Colors of the
Dark was one of the must read books of twenty
twenty four. If you had to describe the book, you'd

(00:49):
call it a thriller, but it is so much more
than that. Chris is a really interesting guy. He left
school without qualifications, got stabbed during a mugging, found his
feet as a stockbroker, lost a million bucks, and finally
found some solace in writing. Thank goodness, because he is
excellent at it. Chris Whitaker joins me after ten. After eleven,
we find out how are Scott Gillian Swinton found herself

(01:11):
living a self sufficient life in central Attago along with
her partner Hamish. Together they are embracing a modern day
homesteader's life, and she has detailed all about it in
a new book called The Good Life. Juliana is with
me after eleven to explain and talk about homesteading and
Pope Francis's funeral took place last night. We had joined
by the New Zealand Archbishop Cardinal John Jue, who attended

(01:33):
the funeral mass. He's going to be with us very
shortly and as always, you were most welcome to text
throughout the morning on ninety two ninety two.

Speaker 1 (01:41):
For the Sunday session.

Speaker 2 (01:44):
So this week the government had a hiccup with the
Family Boost early child care payment, something they worked hard
to sell as good for the squeezed middle when it
was both announced in March and started in July twenty
twenty four. So, responding to written parliamentary questions from the
Labor Party, Nicola Willis announced that due to a lack
of reliable data on how much parents are paying for
early childhood education, the modeling was challenging and despite their

(02:07):
best efforts, the IID got at wrong. This is not
a good loock as we head into budget month. We
don't expect governments to get everything exactly right, but we
do expect them to be in the ballpark. Good governance
is judged on good management of public money. The Family
boosters a twenty five percent rebate for families weekly childhair costs.
When it was launched last year, Willis said, the IID

(02:28):
modeling suggested twenty one thousand families would be eligible for
the full nine hundred and seventy five dollars a quarter
or seventy five dollars a week. As of April this year,
two hundred and forty nine families had received the maximum
amount available since the scheme came into effect. That's one
point two percent of the estimated number who would receive it.

(02:50):
So it turns out we don't know how much families
are spending on childcare or how many families are eligible,
probably key information for a scheme like this. Who knows
if the Finance Minister was aware of the vagaries around
the data when she launched the scheme, But it isn't
a solid cell. Saying we don't have all the data
is that we're just going to be adjusting this scheme

(03:13):
as we go to make sure as many families benefit
as possible. Better to wing it. The RNA is of
course that at the end of July the AID or
June the IID will have clearer data to inform policy improvements,
which they plan to do. But we've learned that it
might not be enough time to get the correct information,
as families have four years to put their claim in

(03:34):
and it's expected some will never be bothered to do so.
Maybe the squeezed middle isn't so squeezed. Good on the
Finance Minister for not messing around once they were called
on this though, and admitting they got it wrong. If
we've learned anything from the drawn out school lunch saga,
accepting responsibility early is a much better way to move
the story on. However, heading into budget delivering month of

(03:57):
the government will want the public to trust its financial competency,
not be wondering if it's guessing. Trust in government has
full into forty five percent in the lust last Trust barometer,
and hiccups like this don't help sell policies. Aside from
this inconvenience and embarrassment of getting the family boost figures wrong,
the budget will be the Finance Minister's main priority at

(04:18):
the moment. It's a huge technical and complex process and
you have to get it right. Remember the ten billion
hole the National's transport plans or the eleven point seven
billion dollar hole. Stephen Joyce caimed he found in Labour's
budget for the twenty seventeen election. Mistakes like this would
be much more damaging. The Sunday Session, yes, eleven past nine.

(04:42):
So is the Family boost complete done in your eyes?
Or is it just an issue because of perception. I
think it's mostly about perception. The government campaign on being
a better manager of our economy going into the budget.
If we're going to have confidence in their policies and
the manner in which they're supporting New Zealand New Zealanders,
they do need to get those details right. Ninety two
ninety two is the text if you'd like to share

(05:02):
your thoughts on that. New Zealand. Archbishop Cardinal Due attended
France Pope Francis's funeral mass last night and he is
with us next here on the Sunday Session.

Speaker 1 (05:14):
There's no better way to start your Sunday. It's the
Sunday Session with Francesca Rutkin and Wiggles for the best
selection of Greg reeds us Talk sat.

Speaker 2 (05:24):
The fourteen past nine, Pope Francis has been laid to
rest at Rome's Basilica of Santa Maria Marjorie. Overnight, hundreds
of thousands filled out Saint Peter's Square and surrounding areas
for the funeral of Pope Francis. One of those was
New Zealand Archbishop Cardinal John Due. He joins me, now,
good morning, Cardinal.

Speaker 3 (05:45):
Good morning.

Speaker 2 (05:46):
It looked like a beautiful farewell to Pope Francis. What
was it like in Saint Peter's Square today.

Speaker 3 (05:52):
Yes, it was a beautiful farewell.

Speaker 4 (05:55):
It was a very lovely ceremony. They estimate two hundred
and fifty thousand people around Saint Peter's and the were
and in the streets around. But it was a very
you think, with that many people.

Speaker 3 (06:13):
You know, it could be very noisy. It was a
very prayer full.

Speaker 4 (06:16):
Time, very somber sort of what we call liturgy, the
whole process of the prayer, but very very beautifully done,
and involvement of a large number of people of different
nationalities because obviously he was here for everyone, and Orthodox

(06:40):
bishops also took part at one stage, and some of
the final prayers in their own language, and so those
sort of things were really touching. And to look across
from where we were sitting and think there were fifty
heads of state here, you know, I mean I had

(07:02):
to stay from fifty different countries. That just I thought
that spoke volumes of the you know, the fact that
that many people would make the effort to get to
Rome for his funeral rights.

Speaker 2 (07:17):
You were appointed a cardinal by Pope Francis in twenty fifteen.
Did that make being mere today all the more important
to you?

Speaker 3 (07:25):
Yes, it does.

Speaker 4 (07:27):
Because of the fact that that meant that when you
become a cardinal, you're also appointed to some committees in Rome.
So over the years, I've had many trips to Rome
and we always met with him for just some stage
of Usually those meetings are there about a week long,

(07:49):
but at some stage we always had a session with him,
and he was always just so friendly and welcoming and concerned.
I always was blown away by the fact that he
would say, how's everyone in New Zealand? You know, when
he's meeting people day, hundreds of people day after day,
he remembered who we all were, and we were able

(08:13):
to sit down with him without any real formalities, just
let's just sit down and chat, you know, and that
has never really happened. Therefore, those sort of ceremonies did
be a or gatherings. There'd be a welcome speech from someone,
or someone would speak about what we were doing, and

(08:34):
the pope would reply back.

Speaker 3 (08:36):
But he just wanted to sit in chat.

Speaker 4 (08:38):
So that made a huge difference to the way we
were able to relate.

Speaker 2 (08:41):
To him at his request. It was a simplified affair
in terms of what we've seen for other popes. An
example was, you know, he was later reacted in a
very simple casket rather than something more elaborate. Is that
symbolic of how he was as a person and a.

Speaker 3 (08:56):
Pope, Yes, very much so.

Speaker 4 (08:59):
He everything about him from the moment he was elected,
spoke volumes of the fact that while he respected ceremony
and participated in ceremonies extremely well, he didn't stand on

(09:24):
and didn't sort of stand on ceremony. He didn't wear
the elaborate, the more elaborate it was, the churchical vestments
that other popes had worn.

Speaker 3 (09:35):
He just wore his.

Speaker 4 (09:37):
It had been traditioned for popes to wear sort of
fancy red shoes.

Speaker 3 (09:41):
He just wore his old black shoes.

Speaker 4 (09:43):
And he did for the next twelve years.

Speaker 3 (09:46):
So a lot of.

Speaker 4 (09:46):
Things like that, And even where he chose to live.
They lived in an a Vatican guest house rather than
in the what's known as the Apostolic Palace, and he
said he wanted to do.

Speaker 3 (09:59):
That because he wanted to be with people.

Speaker 4 (10:01):
Rather than just a handful of people who sort of
served him and waited on him. And there was would
have been left stranded apart from, you know, the visitors
he had during the day. So he did things very
simply and without great ceremony. And one of the other
things I think about today was when his body was

(10:24):
taken from Saint Peter's over to Saint Mary Major's. On
the steps of Saint Mary Major's, there were I'm not
sure how many people there were, but there were some
prisoners and refugees, some people who had been humanly trafficked
and had been staved. They those people gathered to thank

(10:50):
him because he gave them hope. They brought new life
to them, and he put the plight of refugees and
migrants and the scourge of human trafficking on the world map,
so we're pope to have that kind of thing was very.

Speaker 3 (11:07):
Different and.

Speaker 4 (11:09):
I think speaks loud and clear that he was a
pope for the poor.

Speaker 2 (11:17):
Cardinal, you'll participate in the conclave to elect the next Pope.
When does that process start and do you know what
to expect?

Speaker 4 (11:26):
Well, we've already started in the sense that we've already
had I've only been to one day because it took
me a while to obviously to arrange to get here
from New Zealand. Over the next few days we will
have what's known as general congregations, and we just spend

(11:48):
the morning in part of the afternoon talking together. This
is all the cardinals talking together about the kind of
person we believe is needed to be elected for the
next pope. What are some of the issues that the
pope will have to face, both in the in the world.
So those general congregations will go on for a few

(12:11):
days while we just reflect together about through what kind
of person not rather than any names. And at the
same time, there's now we've gone into sort of an
official even though the journal has been held, there's always

(12:33):
an official nine days of morning. So there's some special
prayers that are said every day for the next nine days,
and I think about probably in about a week's time.
Towards the end of this week, we will have made
the decision about when the conclave starts. So when that starts,

(12:53):
that's when we go into the whole voting system. So
it's a few days away yet, but there's still a lot,
you know, it's an enormous event to organize. Of course,
then people will be working hard to do all that,
as they have for the last few days to plan
and prepare for the funeral.

Speaker 3 (13:13):
So yeah, this is quite a lot ahead of us.

Speaker 2 (13:17):
What are you looking for in the next pope, Cardinel?

Speaker 5 (13:23):
I want to see someone who, certainly as a gospel
centered person and who encourages others to live the Gospel.

Speaker 3 (13:36):
And to.

Speaker 6 (13:38):
Know that.

Speaker 4 (13:40):
Living the Gospels brings life and hope. And I think
Francis has brought life and hope to so many thousands
of people around the world. And while we're not looking
necessarily for a replica, we're looking for someone who you know,
sat Peter was the first pope, and the pope is

(14:01):
always referred to as the successor of Peter, so we
are looking for a successor of Peter and Pope's been
very different over the years, but we are looking for
the right person to lead the church at this time.

Speaker 2 (14:13):
Cardel John Due, thank you so much for your time
this morning, very much appreciate it.

Speaker 3 (14:18):
You're very welcome.

Speaker 4 (14:19):
Thank you very much.

Speaker 2 (14:20):
It is twenty three past nine, Good Sunday Session. And
joining me now is Rome correspondent Joe McKenna, who was
also in s Peter Square today. She joins me from
the streets of Rome.

Speaker 7 (14:31):
Good morning, Joe, Good morning Francisca.

Speaker 2 (14:34):
A beautiful day in Rome to farewell the Pope. Was
all of Rome on the streets today.

Speaker 8 (14:41):
Well, I was trapped in the middle of the crowds
at the Vatican, so I can't speak for the rest
of the city, but we certainly had two hundred and
fifty thousand people in the area of Saint Peters Square
and in the area surrounding it, and then on the
other side of the city where we saw Pope Francis
Coffin being transferred to the Basilica of Santa Maria Majorde.

Speaker 7 (15:05):
Along that room, there were.

Speaker 8 (15:06):
Another one hundred and fifty thousand, so four hundred thousand
people on the streets today and they came from all
over the world. I saw flags from Croatia, from Latin America,
from Germany. They're just so many different countries represented here today.

Speaker 2 (15:22):
And I know that you were queuing out since six
am your time this morning. What happened when the gates opened.

Speaker 7 (15:30):
I was shocked.

Speaker 8 (15:31):
I tried to get here but just a little bit
before six and they opened the gates. I don't know,
but I imagine people were queuing up even overnight, and
there was this surge of people along Via de la Quncholiazzioni,
the main avenue leading into Saint Peter's Square, hundreds of
people just running in trying to get a seat inside

(15:53):
that piazza and or stand at the edge of the
piazza and try and get a prime position to see
what was going to happen on those screens, because really
we had one hundred and seventy delegations delegations, we had
fifty leaders and ten sovereigns, so for them to actually

(16:13):
see what was going on in the square, they really
needed to look at those giant TV screens.

Speaker 2 (16:19):
And once the sort of the concert like behavior was over, Joe,
what was the atmosphere like for the rest of the ceremony. Well,
I think it.

Speaker 7 (16:28):
Was a mix of different things.

Speaker 8 (16:30):
We had very traditional music, some of the music was
Gregorian chance through the service, and it was this mix
of traditional and modern sense that I think Pope Francis
really wanted to put his stamp on this service. And

(16:52):
in the homily, for example, the Dean of Cardinals, who
presided over the whole celebration of the funeral mass I
should say, Giovanni Battista Ray in his speech, spoke about
the need to build bridges, not walls, and that was
a direct reference to Pope Franci's own message to President

(17:16):
Donald Trump when they met a couple of years back.

Speaker 7 (17:19):
So we were seeing this legacy that.

Speaker 8 (17:22):
Pope Francis wanted to leave behind, and as part of that,
we had migrants and refugees involved in the service and
others standing on the steps of that basilica where he
has been buried.

Speaker 2 (17:36):
Joe, you mentioned, of course the world leaders and dicrentries
who have attended the funeral, and I know that there
are plans and processes to deal with this, but how
challenging is the security around it.

Speaker 8 (17:48):
It was incredible to see the level of security in Rome.

Speaker 7 (17:52):
I think it was unpredented.

Speaker 8 (17:54):
We had thousands of police, we had experts. We had
sharpshooters on various buildings invisible I couldn't see them, but
we had patrols on the street with anti drone guns.
And the firefighters had a special unit that specialized in

(18:14):
chemical warfare, terrorism.

Speaker 7 (18:16):
And nuclear warfare.

Speaker 8 (18:18):
And one of the firefighter public relations chaps said to
me they were going to be testing the air quality
as the service was underway, to make sure there was
no chemical warfare underway.

Speaker 2 (18:32):
Right, Okay, so as you'd expect, pretty serious. Have you
seen this many kind of world leaders attend a pope
funeral before? Does this say something about Pope Francis.

Speaker 8 (18:43):
I wasn't here for Pope John Paul. That was also
a huge out pouring of support from various pilgrims and
world leaders.

Speaker 7 (18:56):
That was back in two thousand and five.

Speaker 8 (19:00):
Pope Benedict's funeral was much quieter, of course, because he
had resigned and he had been living in the Vatican
for time and we still had a sitting pope, so
that was no comparison whatsoever. But it also says something
I think about their different personalities, and Pope Francis was
someone who reached out in so many ways to ordinary

(19:20):
people around the world, and many Italians saw him as
a father figure, as an uncle, as a member of
the family.

Speaker 7 (19:27):
But let's go back to those world leaders.

Speaker 8 (19:29):
I think everyone will be just gobsmacked by that image
that we've seen flashed around the world of the Ukrainian
President Vladimir Zelenski and President Donald Trump inside the Basilica
moments before the funeral service got underwagh a very powerful
image on their own having talks hopefully about resolving peace

(19:50):
in Ukraine, and they've described those as productive discussions.

Speaker 7 (19:55):
And I think, looking at Pope.

Speaker 8 (19:57):
Francis, if he is sitting up there thinking about his
biggest legacy, he always wanted peace in Ukraine.

Speaker 7 (20:05):
He wanted peace in various.

Speaker 8 (20:07):
Trouble spots around the world, but he's spoke often about Ukraine,
and if we moved a step closer to that today,
I think he'd be very happy with that.

Speaker 2 (20:15):
Let's hope. So, Joe, thank you so much for your
time this morning.

Speaker 7 (20:19):
Thanks Francesca.

Speaker 2 (20:20):
Twenty nine past nine, you're with News Talks be Local Politics.

Speaker 7 (20:23):
Up next, it's.

Speaker 1 (20:28):
The Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin on News Talks AB.

Speaker 2 (20:34):
Thomas Coglan, New Zealand Herald Political editor joins me.

Speaker 9 (20:36):
Now, good morning, Thomas, Francesca.

Speaker 2 (20:40):
Chris Bishop has had a big week of announcing rhades.
We've had the north On express Mill Road, Western Rapid Transit.
He's on fire, yeah, he has.

Speaker 10 (20:50):
It's a bit of a charm offens it up at Autland.
I think, just sort of reminding the super city, the
city that decides who wins and loses elections, that the
government cares about them. I mean, the big one is
that Northold Expressway. The government announced the preferred route for
the first stage of that. That's a ten billion dollar
road we think, which will ultimately link Auckland with They're

(21:15):
building it in stages because and the first stage has
finally had it's it's it's route preferred route plotted, I
guess picked. And the way in which will skirt the Brindurwans,
which I must say is a welling tony and I'm
not not overly familiar with the geography, but I understand,

(21:37):
I understand that that that land around the Brindurwins is
pretty difficult to build a road through. So that's been
the main the main hold of it for that road.
But they have they have worked out what they want
to do with that, which I believe is to sort
of somewhat skirt them.

Speaker 2 (21:54):
Oh you're still with me, Thomas, Hello, Yes, no, we've
still got you, and I believe it's all right. I
believe that Chris Bishop may be announcing something to do
with evs today as well. Do anything about that?

Speaker 3 (22:08):
Yes, you're quite right.

Speaker 10 (22:10):
So this morning the government is doing an EV announcement.
On the election campaign, the National Party promised to start
building or building out in New Zealand's EV charging network.
I think there are roughly one thousand EV charges at
the moment and in the National Party promised to build

(22:31):
ten sorry get that number to ten thousand by twenty thirty.
That promise made it through coalition negotiations, so that what
we get today is in that in that area.

Speaker 2 (22:46):
Thomas, we seem to be having a few problems with
your line. But I just want to ask you very quickly.
Of course, the Prime Minister was at the Pope's funeral
last night. Do we know where he is traveling to next?

Speaker 3 (22:56):
He's coming home now.

Speaker 10 (22:57):
So we've got the budget next.

Speaker 3 (23:00):
Month.

Speaker 10 (23:01):
So that the Prime Minister attacked on that trip to
the Vatican to his week long to Europe, but that
trip has now concluded, so he's wringing his way back
to Auckland.

Speaker 2 (23:11):
Thank you so much, really appreciate it. Sorry about the
quality of line there. We are going to hear all
about Hikoi for Health next, a couple of Kiwi doctors
sick of an action from politicians around our ailing health
system and they're sort of taking matters into their own hands.
It is twenty four to ten News Talks.

Speaker 1 (23:29):
Airb for Sunday session. Full show podcast on iHeartRadio powered
by Newstalks FB.

Speaker 2 (23:37):
Yeah, with the Sunday session, it's twenty two to ten.
Sick of an action from politicians around our ailing health system.
Two Kiwi doctors are taking matters into their own hands.
GP doctor Glenn Carhoun and General hospital physician doctor Art
Nahil yesterday launched Tekoi for Health, a people's inquiry. They've
hit the road and a bright yellow v ambulance. Their

(23:58):
aim not only to protest the state of our health system,
but to collect stories from people of New Zealand around reform.
Yesterday they departed kite on route for Parliament and Glenn
and Art joined me. Now from their journey. Good morning enough,
Good morning Art. If I can start with you, I
want to look at your careers within the health system. First,
you've both been working as doctors for more than thirty years,

(24:21):
so you have been through many governments, many reforms, haven't you.

Speaker 11 (24:25):
Well, Yes, I've actually been in New Zealand since two
thousand and five working as a hospital physician.

Speaker 12 (24:32):
What about you, Glenn yep On, nearly clocking up thirty years.
I've worked as a GP in Ewee Health for half
my career, and then an adletant health with young people
the other half.

Speaker 2 (24:45):
Art, I believe or I understand that you've decided to
retire from clinical practice. Can you talk me through why
you made that decision?

Speaker 11 (24:53):
Sure, I think I would characterize it as a reluctant retirement.
As I said, have been here for twenty years, and
when I first arrived, I could, with hand on heart
say that the New Zealand's health system was an excellent
health system. And I've gradually seen conditions both for patients
and for healthcare providers to deteriorate to the point where

(25:14):
I just didn't feel I could bear any more what
I would call moral injury from trying to treat and
discharge patients in a broken system.

Speaker 2 (25:27):
Glenn, When did we get into trouble? When did things
start to go wrong?

Speaker 3 (25:32):
Francisco?

Speaker 12 (25:33):
I think it's been happening for a generation, at least
when I was a young GP. I remember our college
saying to government at the time, we're going to run
out of EPs in a generation, and you're going to
get a cohort of baby boomers through with quite a
lot of health met and those two waves are going
to crash at the same time, and no one did anything,

(25:58):
and now it's a crashing Glen.

Speaker 2 (26:00):
You talk about the need for a bottom up approach
to health, talk me through that.

Speaker 12 (26:06):
I guess you know, and I'm sure Art would agree.
Where where doctors who have worked in a trench? And
I have learned over the year years, to my chagrin,
that patients are so often right, and they know communities
have a wisdom in them if they feel respected, cared for,

(26:29):
and that you're going to be constant and build relationship
with them, and there's an enormous wisdom that comes out
of them. They have the ability to put others first,
to identify what the really important drivers of their health are.
And yeah, I'm humbled by working in a trench with them,

(26:49):
and it's part of the outrage. It's that down here
you've ignored the brain of the health system, and you've
those who have led have have assumed that they're the
brain and it's and they've proved that they're not.

Speaker 2 (27:08):
And aren't people want to be listened to, don't they?

Speaker 11 (27:12):
Absolutely? I think that's one of the best medicines there is.
I think that you know, we've been trying to focus
on treating patients when they have established well advanced diseases,
and that system is just not sustainable. One of the
taglines we have on our ambulance is the ambulance at

(27:35):
the top of the cliff. I think for too long
we've been waiting for people to get sick. We've been
expecting to people to come into the health system when
they are unwell, and we need to spend a lot
more time, effort, and resource trying to keep people healthy.

Speaker 2 (27:54):
Aren't you both in your sixties, nearing retirement or plenty already?
Does that play a part and you'll need to take action? Now?
Are you worried about what you're leaving behind?

Speaker 11 (28:07):
But for me, absolutely, I feel like this is a
sort of an elegy to my career in some ways.
And I think the thing that most worries me is
that I see the trajectory going in the wrong direction.
If I felt like there were viable alternatives out there,

(28:27):
viable plans for reform, I might be able to retire
a bit more easily. But all I keep hearing is
let's just pour more money into the system to train
more doctors and more nurses, which may help for a time,
but will not be the ultimate solution to a sustainable

(28:47):
health system.

Speaker 2 (28:49):
Siglin, talk me through this people's inquiry you're leading.

Speaker 12 (28:54):
So we've got the ambulance, which was beautifully painted up
by Nigel Brown. It's like driving a piece of art
through the country. It's a wonderful vehicle for us to
take down the North Island. We're stopping in fourteen I
think different towns through the North Island. We have a

(29:16):
website Health Reforming z dot org where people can see
the itinery. We're asking people to come to who at
towns we're stopping along the way. They can give us
a written submission to the website. They can talk to
us and we'll write down what they say. We have
young filmmakers Olive Pakadaier and Emily Kass who are recording

(29:42):
their thoughts and views in the back of the van,
which doubles as a little studio film studio. We're going
to wrap up all those thoughts, summarize them, and construct
a plan that people think might work better for them.
And then we'll put that together in a bit of
a book and we'll arrive in Parliament on May the

(30:05):
eighth and tell people what people have.

Speaker 2 (30:08):
Did this so people are getting to have this say,
but also those who work in the health system were
also welcome to come and have this say. Why is
that important?

Speaker 11 (30:18):
Well, because I think there's just a tremendous level of
frustration and anger out there, and anger and frustration if
there isn't a creative, positive outlet for it, I think
degenerates into cynicism and apathy. And so we're trying to
say that we're all in this situation together. We've dubbed

(30:41):
May eighth as band Aid Day, where we're asking everyone,
particularly healthcare providers, to wear a bandage or a plaster
in a prominent place as a symbol of frustration over
the government's approach to healthcare reform. It's plaster over plaster

(31:02):
over plaster.

Speaker 2 (31:03):
In January, we saw doctor Shane Rettie reply with Simeon
Brown as Health Minister, has that need to do more
or less encouraged about the direction of Health New Zealand.

Speaker 11 (31:14):
Well, I mean, I don't know Simeon Brown. I'm sure
he's a well intentioned individual. But one of the things
that worries me is I believe now we have a
Minister of Health and a Director General of Health, neither
of whom has very much experience in the healthcare sector.
And I think personally, one of the things that has

(31:34):
been the most problematic in watching the degradation of the
health system is that the health system has been politicized.
We have one government who wants to do things one way.
The next government wants to change everything and do it
the other way. When what we're advocating for is a
long term plan that has the support of all parties

(32:00):
or as many parties as possible, based on data, based
on stakeholder experience, and based on international models. It shouldn't
be a political football.

Speaker 2 (32:15):
Art and Glenn, thank you so much for your time
this morning. Best of luck with the hikoy.

Speaker 11 (32:20):
Sure let Brancheska, thank you Francesca.

Speaker 2 (32:23):
That was doctor Glenn Cahoun and doctor Art Nahil. And
if you'd like to find out more about the hikoy
you can head to Health reform enz dot org. It
is thirteen to ten.

Speaker 1 (32:35):
Putting the tough questions to the newspeakers the mic Asking Breakfast.

Speaker 13 (32:39):
So the early childhood sector is in for a bit
of common sense change. There are ninety eight rules apparently
in regulations around running any given center. About twenty percent
of those are going to go as Regulation Minister David
Seymore's in charge of it. And here's what there's the
angst seems to be coming around the qualifications for teachers.

Speaker 14 (32:52):
You say, what, We're not going to change the qualifications overall,
but I think there's a worthwhile question. Do you want
to have somebody who might have a PhD in architecture
comes and does a short course and go straight to
the top of the pay scale, or do you think
that the people who run the center and know the
quality of the people in front of them, should has
more flexibility about how much they hate them.

Speaker 13 (33:14):
Back tomorrow at six am The Mike Hosking Breakfast with Babies,
Real Estate News Talk, zied b grab a cover it's.

Speaker 1 (33:20):
The Sunday Session with Francesca Rudgin and Wickeles for the
best selection of great brings used talk sed be in
the back garden.

Speaker 15 (33:29):
Pop you Puss Up week you for our streep of
baby what was that? I I'm just saying this, this
is the best single bead of my life.

Speaker 16 (33:39):
Well, I want you just like that your.

Speaker 2 (33:42):
Hair music from Lord released on Thursday or what was
that as the name of the song. Very excited that
it's going to be a Lord winter with new music.
Thank you very much for your texts which have come
through throughout the morning on pretty much everything we've been
talking to. Angus has just got back from driving around
central Europe. He text Us say, in northern Italy they
wouldn't go over the Brindo when they go through it.
He said, there are several tunnels at several color meters

(34:05):
long and you drive it. One hundred is in the
same tunnel if you on the family Boost one. Had
you failed to mention that it was calculations provided to
the government by the IID that wrongly provided in correct
numbers for the number of qualifying families, think I covered
that off on my second sentence when I said that
due to a lack of reliable data on how much

(34:25):
parents were paying for early childhood education, the modeling was
challenging and despite their best efforts, the IRD got it wrong.
But another text says Nikola Willis as the one who failed.
Those calculations were hers, and she refused to show them
at the time. She's now gaslighting those with short memories. Francisca,
who got it wrong? Nicola or the ID? The ID
have massive data on us all, reads another text, also

(34:50):
in regards to the Heckoi. Since nineteen ninety four, nurses,
midwife doctors have been warning this would happen, and we're ignored.
I need to take responsibility for the messes we're in.
It was Susie. Thank you very much, Susie. Pamela sin
to love your text. I am not a Catholic and
wanted to commend you on the two interviews about the

(35:12):
Pope's funeral. Really interesting. Thank you, my pleasure, Pamela. What
else have we got here?

Speaker 17 (35:19):
Now?

Speaker 2 (35:20):
Look somebody else, I wondered, did you watch the funeral?
So Mary text to say that she watched the live
coverage of the Pope's funeral with a lovely narrator on
TVNZ plus. It was disappointed it wasn't showing on New
Zealand free to air channels, but of course TVNZ plus
is free to eat to you, so I hope you
did all get the opportunity to watch it if you
wanted to. I mean, look, I've just gone through the photographs,

(35:42):
but weren't they incredible. I mean, what a beautiful day.
Rome just looked amazing. But the number of people out
I do quite like all the patroant tree in the
you know, and everything that comes with a funeral mess
such as this incredible photos. So I came to hear
from you if you if you did enjoy watching that.

(36:05):
Now look if I've got a podcast for you, so
you know, this is the point every week that I
sell you my podcast. If you're thinking of therapy, or
you want to know more about what to expect from therapy,
or maybe you will just don't even know what kind
of therapist would be good for you, have a listen
to our latest episode of The Little Things that was
released yesterday. Our guest is clinical psychologist Jackie Maguire. Maybe

(36:26):
you don't think you need therapy, but you might change
your minds after having a little listen to this podcast.
Really interesting stuff from Jackie, and also she talks about
how there is possibly, you know, AI therapy could potentially
be really useful if you know, not if you've got
major issues to deal with in life, but there are
definitely some services out there, and so there's going to

(36:47):
be sort of a potential switch into that area as well.
She talks about that as well. So you can catch
the Little Things at iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 1 (37:00):
The Sunday Session Full Show podcast on iHeartRadio powered by
News Talks.

Speaker 3 (37:05):
That'd be.

Speaker 9 (37:07):
Right.

Speaker 2 (37:07):
Have you read Chris Whitaker's book All the Colors of
the Dark. If you haven't, it is worth picking up.
It is a soaring thriller and an epic love story
set in Southern America. It is inspired by Chris's own story,
which itself is pretty epic. But I tell you so.
Chris is with us next to share his life story
and how it has influenced his writing. He's also going

(37:29):
to be coming to the Auckland Writers' Festival. I hope
you've got your tickets to see him. I think he's
going to be a great guest. We're going to finish
the Hour with a little bit of Marlon Williams. Next hour,
Steve Neil and our entertainment segment has some very exciting
news for all Marlon william fans key, lokey color.

Speaker 5 (37:57):
Up corn.

Speaker 18 (38:05):
All are looking quitable? Quitable calla co.

Speaker 11 (38:21):
Mall goll.

Speaker 19 (38:28):
Ha auroha money, Daha money, the hamm got the can today?

Speaker 18 (38:44):
Have all two do?

Speaker 1 (39:10):
It's Sunday.

Speaker 3 (39:11):
You know what that means.

Speaker 1 (39:12):
It's the Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin and Wickles for
the best election of Great Reads News Talk Set.

Speaker 2 (39:19):
Be good to have you with us. I'm Francisco Udkin.
This is the Sunday Session. Epic thriller All the Colors
of Dark was one of the must read books of
twenty twenty four, but the road to success for its author,
Chris Whittaker, has been far from plain sailing. Chris has

(39:40):
suffered his share of trauma. There was childhood abuse, He's
been stabbed and as a stockbroker he lost a million pounds.
Through all of this, Chris turned to writing, a move
he credits with saving his life. Chris Whittaker is heading
to the News is heading to New Zealand this month
for the Auckland Writers' Festival, and I'm delighted to have
him join me now from London. Chris, good morning, Hi,

(40:01):
thank you for having me. So good to talk to you.
All the colors of the dark. The book four under
the crime thriller better. But it is a lot more
than that, isn't it. This book is an epic tale.
I'm sure that you're proud of all your books, but
does this one? Is this a special achievement to you?
This one?

Speaker 20 (40:19):
I think, I think this is the best book that
I've ever written or could write at the time. I
never get nervous for anything that I do, but I
was really nervous publishing this book because it felt it
was kind of a vulnerable place to be in, you know,
knowing that you can't do any better, so that if
people don't like it, it's like I don't have anything

(40:40):
else to offer. And that was then, obviously, But now
I've started writing a new book, so I'm in love
with that.

Speaker 21 (40:46):
I did feel nervous about it.

Speaker 2 (40:48):
Your next Beast book is on its way, Yeah.

Speaker 20 (40:51):
Yeah, hopefully, I mean it's I haven't stopped traveling. I
think the tour began last June and I haven't stopped.
I don't stop until this December, so it will be
a year and a half of touring, which is a
long time.

Speaker 2 (41:04):
Were you anticipating that.

Speaker 21 (41:05):
No, definitely nice. I mean it's unusual.

Speaker 20 (41:08):
The last book we begin at the end that was
That was kind of a best seller and a big book,
but because it published during COVID, I didn't get to
travel anywhere. I had to do all of the events
on zoom, which was fun, but it was you kind
of felt slightly detached.

Speaker 21 (41:24):
I was unprepared for the amount of traveling. But I'm
really enjoying it.

Speaker 2 (41:28):
It must be lovely though, Actually engaging with your readers,
people who've enjoyed this book so much.

Speaker 20 (41:33):
Yeah, it's a really special thing actually to go around
and meet the different readers and from different countries. I've
been I think I've been on I will have been
on about seven American tours by the time we finished
this year. So to set the book there and then
go and see the places for the first time where
the story is set has been really special as well.

Speaker 2 (41:52):
We'll talk about that in just a moment. You talk
about Patch being inspired by Vince in your own childhood.
Can you talk me through that and the impact your
own childhood head on you.

Speaker 17 (42:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (42:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 20 (42:02):
So I was writing the book and I was writing
some scenes where Patch has been abducted and he's being
held in the dark in the basement, and I found
it really difficult to write those, and I didn't really
work out why. But then I was thinking back through
my life all the good and bad things that have
happened to me, and I kind of traced everything back

(42:22):
to being I was around ten years old and there
was an adult that came into my life after my
parents divorced, and he was violent with me, and one
evening I was asleep and he pulled me out of
bed by my arm and broke my arm. And he
kind of panicked and didn't want to get into trouble
and so sent me back to my bedroom and told

(42:43):
me to not make any noise and to stay there
until the morning, and in the morning to tell my
parents I had done it playing football. So, as a
ten year old, I had this really long night in
a lot of pain, not being able to make any noise,
and then afterwards kind of felt different. I felt a
bit like the first ten years of my life I
was a normal kid, and then all of a sudden,

(43:04):
everything was different and I stopped. I've doing well at
school and got into trouble and my life just took
a complete detour. And it was something that informed the
character of Patch, who is who you know, goes through
some trauma when he's thirteen and then and spends kind
of the rest of the story trying to find his
way back again.

Speaker 2 (43:23):
Is it true that you leave school without any qualifications?

Speaker 21 (43:26):
Yeah, nothing at all. Yeah I am.

Speaker 20 (43:28):
The night before my economics exc I went out and
got really drunk and messed up my examine. I got
a grade N, which my my economics teacher said stood
for no future, which is the meanest thing I think
a teacher could possibly say to a student.

Speaker 2 (43:44):
Then, at nineteen, you were mugged and got stabbed, and
this also had a huge impeckt on you.

Speaker 14 (43:49):
It did.

Speaker 21 (43:50):
Yeah, yeah, I was out.

Speaker 20 (43:52):
I was just out in London one morning working and
someone came up and mugged me for my phone and
we had a bit of a fight and I was
stabbed three times. And it was Physically I was okay.
I lost some blood and had some scars and stitches,
and mentally I was completely unprepared for what came next.
And I didn't know what PTSD was, and I had

(44:13):
no experience of it. I didn't as a kid, as
a ten year old, I'd learned if something bad happens,
you don't ask for help. So I was trying to
deal with this terrible thing on my own and didn't
know how to. And eventually I ended up in the
library and I borrowed a self help book of writing
a therapy book, and that was That was the first
time I'd written anything since school, and the first time

(44:34):
I'd written kind of creatively. And yes, it had this
terrible thing that happened. I, without a doubt wouldn't be
sat here now talking to you about this book.

Speaker 2 (44:44):
But before you got to writing, you became a stockbroker,
which I did say is quite random considering this story.
So you did go back to school, you got qualification,
and then you became a stockbroker.

Speaker 21 (44:59):
I did well.

Speaker 20 (45:00):
I just by chance picked up a newspaper and there
was a picture of a stockbroker, and there was a
photo of a guy with a ferrari and I think
he had a yacht or something, or a private jet.
It was one of those pictures that you look at
and you think this.

Speaker 21 (45:12):
Can't be real.

Speaker 20 (45:13):
And I thought straight away, I'm going to be a stockbroker.
You know, I want this life. I'm quite impulsive. So
I went and paid for my exams and studied really
hard and passed them. And then and then got a
job in the city. And I started out doing client entertaining,
which was going out and drinking lots of clients and
staying out all night.

Speaker 21 (45:31):
And I was really good at that. And then my
boss said to me, I really.

Speaker 20 (45:38):
Wanted to work on the trading desk, and he said,
if you lose ten thousand pounds, you stopped trading.

Speaker 21 (45:42):
That was kind of my limit.

Speaker 20 (45:43):
And on my first day I lost a million pounds
and didn't tell anyone because as a kid, I'd learned
if something bad happens, don't tell anyone. So I got
myself into a world of trouble because it's illegal, and
ended up in having to pay back half of it myself.
So I was twenty four and in half a million
pounds of debt. So it wasn't a successful venture into

(46:05):
the city.

Speaker 2 (46:06):
Oh my god. So what happens to a stockbroker when
they lose a million dollars?

Speaker 20 (46:11):
They get into loads of trouble, and then if they're
very lucky, they have a forgiving boss who half of it.
So I got to pay back half of it. And
I spent about five years working that debt off and
paid it all back. And then was nearly thirty and
kind of looked back over my life and thought, what
is the one thing that I keep turning to when

(46:31):
I'm in trouble, what makes me feel better, What's helped
me more than anything?

Speaker 21 (46:34):
And it was writing.

Speaker 20 (46:36):
And so at thirty, I quit my job and kind
of upended my life and sold my house and my
car and yeah, and began writing. And then like thirteen
years later, I now am sat here talking to you.
So it wasn't like a quick process. I wrote a
couple of books that did well critically but didn't sell

(46:57):
all that well before we begin at the end.

Speaker 21 (46:59):
Kind of changed my life.

Speaker 2 (47:01):
I did laugh in one interview, talk about your brother
who questioned your career decisions every two When you told
him that you were going to be a stockbroker, he
told you that you were rubbish at maths and then
de spain to become a writer. He said you couldn't spell.
Has he backtracked on questioning your ambitions as a writer. R.

Speaker 20 (47:20):
It's so funny because he hasn't actually he doubles down.
He's one of those like, you know, he's very he's like,
we're very close, and he's very proud of me. But
I think both of us can't quite believe, you know,
that I'm an author. It just it just seems really bizarre.

Speaker 2 (47:37):
Is it an overstatement or sort of a bit grandiose
to say that writing saved your life? Or is that
how you did manage to deal with all these big
traumatic life events.

Speaker 21 (47:48):
It's with it.

Speaker 20 (47:49):
It sounds kind of sensational, but it's without a doubt true.
You know, I felt like after being stabbed and after
losing the money two terms in my life, I felt
suicidal and and really.

Speaker 21 (47:59):
Didn't know what to do. You know, I was trying everything.

Speaker 20 (48:02):
I was prescribed antidepressants and I didn't want to take them,
and I did have and problems. I was drinking and
taking drugs, and you know, I was in a really
really bad way. And I can't kind of overstate how
much writing saved me. You know, I don't know where
I would be without it, possibly not here. Certainly I
wouldn't have been you know, I wouldn't have changed my

(48:24):
life in the way that I did, and I was
very unhappy in the city, so I probably would have
left there.

Speaker 21 (48:30):
But I don't know. It's been really difficult because I think.

Speaker 20 (48:34):
Financially, by the time I paid the debt back, I
was starting to earn good money, and I had everything
that I thought made me successful. You know, when you
have an image when you're young. You know, a nice house,
nice car, you're on a good job. And I had
all these things, and I was married and there was
a baby coming. You know, I had everything. I ticked
every box. But I was just so desperately unhappy. And

(48:55):
that was quite frightening, I think at the time, because
I thought I didn't know what was wrong with me,
but I knew it was something and it was something serious,
and I knew I had to do something about it.
But it seems so extreme, you know, because everyone kept
telling me writing was a hobby, and I think everyone
thought it was kind of crazy. Certainly my friends in
the city thought I was insane, you know, when I

(49:16):
said I'm quitting my job and I'm going to write
a book. And I think the average salary for an
author in the UK is seven pounds, which you know
is so far below the living wage, and that is
probably what I earned for years from writing. So I
worked three jobs and missed a lot of my kids
growing up and felt like I had done this big,
kind of selfish thing.

Speaker 2 (49:35):
And now you're touring a book for two years. Let's
talk about the novels because you see a lot of
them in America, and you are quite often told people
expect you to be American because you write such a
convincing American story. Why did you choose to see the
box in America?

Speaker 20 (49:52):
So it's always the ultimate compliment when people are surprised
that I'm not American, because it means I've done my
job right and they kind of haven't really considered me,
and they've just thought about the characters, which is what
I want. So when I did writing as therapy, originally
after I was when I was nineteen, the self help book.
It taught a technique where you write about the trauma.
So you take the stabbing and you write about it.

(50:14):
But there were these rules that you had to follow,
So you have to change the people involved to fictional characters.
You have to change the outcome to something you can control,
and you have to change the location to the last
place you were happy. And at nineteen I look back
to find, you know, where I remembered being really happy.
And my parents fled up when I was quite young,

(50:36):
and I'm really close with my dad, and I missed
him terribly. All of a sudden he wasn't around, and
he took my brother and I to Disney World in Florida.
So when I was looking for my happy place to
set my writing, it was America. And so my life
could be falling apart in London in the UK, but
I could mentally travel four thousand miles. I could leave

(50:57):
my desk, travel away, leave all my problems behind, and
just have this huge kind of blank canvas to tell
my stories on. And it really works, and it's still
work today. You know, every time I sit down, I
need their escapism.

Speaker 2 (51:10):
Chris, it's not just the sitting and the dialogue and
the characters that you write that are so convincing, but
also the fact all the colors of the dark. It
happens over such a long period of time, and there's
a lot happening in those years, and just in society
and historically clearly a lot of research has gone onto
this book a lot of time in the library, I think.

Speaker 21 (51:27):
Yeah, well, I was working in the library.

Speaker 20 (51:29):
It was one of my many jobs I did while
I was writing, and probably my favorite job that I loved.
The library I used to do baby rhyme time, and
which I loved so like singing the rhymes to all
the kids while they climb all over you.

Speaker 21 (51:40):
It's really fun. So whenever I had free time in
the library, I would use all the resources, you know.

Speaker 20 (51:46):
I would read endless nonfiction books and travel guides, and
I would look at old newspaper archives and I would
kind of learn about the nature and geography and all
of the news that was going on at the time.

Speaker 21 (52:00):
You know, I really immersed myself in it.

Speaker 20 (52:03):
And the book took four years to write, and I
think probably half of that, you know, is because I
spend so long kind of crafting every scene and making
it feel as authentic as possible.

Speaker 2 (52:15):
So I was writing quite an obsessive thing, for.

Speaker 6 (52:17):
You, I think.

Speaker 20 (52:18):
So, I think it's really hard to let go. It's
really hard to move forward when I'm working on a paragraph,
like I need it to be perfect, and it can
often take me. Like there's a scene in the book
where Patch gets a job in a mine. It's a
really brief scene. I think it ended up being a
paragraph long. But it took me a month to write
it because I learned everything that was to learn about

(52:41):
mining and Missouri in the seventies and eighties, and I
overwrote the scene and then cut it and cut it,
and I kind of do that for every scene in
the book.

Speaker 2 (52:49):
How do you feel about Universal Pictures developing all the
colors of the dag. It's an interesting one, isn't it?
Because as a reader, I'm very I'm fond of these characters,
and you get quite pretty I mean I get quite
pretictive over these characters in this book. I didn't even
write it. So how does it feel for you?

Speaker 21 (53:05):
Yeah, I get it.

Speaker 20 (53:07):
I think that although like, they mean everything to me
and my stories could not mean more to me, I'm
not precious about this process, like editorially, I know some
authors that find it really hard to be edited. But
I love it because it's a fresh set of eyes
coming in and they can see things that I'm too
close to see. So the same is true of TV.

(53:29):
You know that I understand that it needs to exist
in a different format. It's never going to be the book,
and it shouldn't be the book, you know. I've read
episode one and two and it's kind of really faithful
yet original at the same time, and I'm really excited
about it.

Speaker 3 (53:45):
You know.

Speaker 20 (53:45):
I'm going to watch it like you know, when it
gets made. I'm going to watch it like a fan,
you know, like I would any piece of television, and
try and kind of disconnect slightly from the book that
I've written.

Speaker 2 (53:55):
Chris, thank you so much for your time to die.
Very excited that you were coming to the Auckland Writers Festival.
I look forward to seeing you on your in the
panel the scene of the Crime. I shall be attending
and looking forward to it.

Speaker 21 (54:07):
Thank you so much. I can't wait to come and
see that.

Speaker 2 (54:10):
Was author of All the Colors of the Dark, Chris Whittaker.
As I mentioned, he's heading here for the Auckland Writers
Festival from the thirteenth to the eighteenth of May. For
more information head to Writers Festival dot co dot MZ.
And if you haven't already read the book, I highly
recommend picking up a copy. And I forget that we're
going to learn all about homesteading. After eleven with Gillian
Swinton it is twenty two past ten. Yours News Talks

(54:32):
at b Sunday with.

Speaker 1 (54:33):
Style the Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin and Wiggles for
the best selection of great reads News Talks Evy.

Speaker 2 (54:42):
If you're looking for a great book recommendation, lock no
further than Jones Picks at your local Wickles. Joan is
their head book by and she's also the Sunday book
reviewer on this program. Her job is to find the
books that you'll love, and over the years she's read
literally one hundreds in search of the latest and greatest,
such as one hundred Days of Betty by debraah Oswald,
a fictional account of a woman looking back over her

(55:04):
life on the eve of her one birthday. It's warm, wise,
and wonderful. The books joon choosers are all exceptional in
their own way, and that's why Jones Picks takes the
guest work out of deciding what to read next. Check
out the Jones Picks section and every wik Call store
or online for your next best book. Happy reading with books, games, puzzles, Toys,

(55:26):
Gorgeous Stationary and Jones Picks. There really is something for everyone.
At wik Calls.

Speaker 1 (55:32):
The Sunday Session.

Speaker 2 (55:50):
Time now to talk entertainment, and I'm joined by Steve Neural,
editor at Flex dot Code on INZ and some good
news for Pink Floyd fans, Steve.

Speaker 22 (55:59):
Some good some some good news for fans of good
music movies, not just Pink Floyd fans, because I kind
of don't think I am a Pink Floyd fan, to
be perfectly honest. One of those acts that I couldn't
tell you when I deliberately listened to them, and probably
don't think there's anything in the catalog that's interested me
for like for forty years or something. Okay, so far

(56:24):
to go to such a good sale. However, they made
what I reckon is maybe the best music movie ever made,
which is Pink Floyd Live at Pompeii. And I had
one of the best experiences I've had in the cinema
for years the other night going to see this. It's
been remastered, re released, and it's playing an Imax.

Speaker 2 (56:43):
Oh fantastic.

Speaker 22 (56:44):
So it's on the biggest screen you can see it
and with the best sound system you can hear it on.
That applies to Auckland and to Lower Hut also, but
it is in cinemas all around New Zealand with a
bunch of sessions today. It's on for a very limited time.
What makes this such a good watch is that it
kind of sounds like a concert film.

Speaker 3 (57:02):
It's not.

Speaker 22 (57:02):
They go to the Amphitheater at Pompei, the ruins of
the Amphitheater and play to nobody. So they just got
up there with a film crew. It's all shot on film.
It's shot in nineteen seventy one. It looks incredible. There's
these it's nerdy as hell to say what I'm going
to say, but there's these lovely kind of like long
slow dolly shots and crane shots. Because it's seventy one
and shot on film, it looks incredible, it sounds amazing,

(57:24):
gets a bit kind of shofy. There's some like buzzy
editing techniques. But then as well as the band performing
and they're in real top form here, it's easy to
kind of forget that they would go on to kind
of become the sort of big, bloated, larger than life
band that werelied on I guess more like concepts and
props and staging than necessarily the interplay between the band members.

Speaker 2 (57:46):
Because they filmed this before their release Darts Out of
the Moon to they.

Speaker 22 (57:52):
So as well as there's probably like half a dozen
kind of key musical sessions like sections to this film.
They're great to watch, particularly particularly the drumming of Nick Mason,
which is you can't take your eyes off and playing.
But then it's intercupled stuff like them sitting in the
canteen a I think Abbey Road and like talking about

(58:12):
the custom pires they want to get. It's spinal tap as.
And then also some footage which purports I'm not sure
if one hundred percent is or not if it's the
versions you hear on Dark Side of the Moon, but
it's it's them making individual contributions to Dark Side of
the Moon, like I'm going to punch my guitar solo
or now and that that's really cool to watch as well.

(58:33):
But really it's this. This is a classic of the genre.
It's great to watch watch songs come come to life
here and it's this band that's really on the precipice.
They're about to become the biggest rock band.

Speaker 6 (58:47):
In the world.

Speaker 2 (58:48):
Okay, so it's on in cinemas around the country, but
if you haven't to have an Imax close by. It's
also playing there, which I imagine.

Speaker 14 (58:54):
Would be right.

Speaker 22 (58:55):
And I can't recommend this enough because as well as
you know, as well as this looking looking, you know,
looking as good as Oppenheimer does on the Imax screen,
it's also been mastered for that surround sound environment the
sections of the sections of the film, for instance, with
the bands playing and the sounds actually like moving around

(59:17):
the room, you're really kind of there with them while
they play. I had such a good time at this.

Speaker 2 (59:22):
Now let's stick with the theme of music films and
music documentaries. Some good news for Marlon Williams fans this week.

Speaker 22 (59:29):
Yeah, a documentary A Long Time in the making comes
to cinemas this week. So it's pretty rare opportunity to
see two really good music films in cinemas at the
same time. But Marlon Williams an Two Worlds documents Williams's
path to making his most recent album. The Albums are
t Wekaweka, an album that's recorded in today, which Williams

(59:54):
isn't fluent, and so the film traces his I guess
grappling with this idea and what it means for him,
as well as the process of writing this material, and
I guess kind of reflecting on why an artist at
his staged in his career would choose this kind of project.
You know, it's not just a it's not just an

(01:00:18):
interesting idea for a record. It's a process that sends
them on a bit of a journey of self discovery
and sees Williams like reflecting with the loss of his
own cultural identity and so other stuff swirling in there
as well. Look, it's just great to spend nineteen minutes
in his company. Is such a charismatic dude. There's a
reason why he's a star, and this film continues to

(01:00:41):
continues to illustrate that.

Speaker 2 (01:00:43):
Yeah, I couldn't agree more and very much looking forward
to it. That's out May first, isn't it.

Speaker 3 (01:00:46):
Yeah, it is, and.

Speaker 22 (01:00:48):
Directed by Ursula Grace. Williams has done a fantastic job
of kind of capturing a very complex story over a
number of years and making them for something ready cohesive
and powerful.

Speaker 2 (01:00:59):
Thank you so much, Steve. We'll talk next week.

Speaker 6 (01:01:01):
Now.

Speaker 2 (01:01:02):
You've probably read during the week that a new color
that doesn't exist in nature has been found. So how
do we do this? How do we know this? Michelle
Dickinson explains the science behind it. Next, it's twenty eight
to eleven.

Speaker 1 (01:01:17):
It's the Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin on News.

Speaker 3 (01:01:20):
Talks at B.

Speaker 2 (01:01:23):
And doctor Michelle Dickinson is with us now with our
science study of the Week. Good morning, Good morning. This
is interesting, this whole idea of us experiencing a new color.

Speaker 17 (01:01:35):
Yeah, well not us, just five people.

Speaker 2 (01:01:37):
Well probably never a few humans.

Speaker 17 (01:01:40):
Yes, yes, So scientists have just found out they're calling
a new color. They've called it ololo, and it can't
be experienced naturally, and so that's why only five people
in the world have ever seen it and probably will
ever see it. And if you want to read it,
it's published in the journal Science Advances this week, so

(01:02:01):
you can see all the experiments that they did. But basically,
this new color, well, let's go back. Let's forigret how
we see color. So humans can see color because in
the back of our retina we have three types of
photoreceptor cone cells. So in high school you might have
learned about rods and cones. So the cones help us
to see color, and we've got three of them, the
S cones, the M cones, and the L cones, and

(01:02:22):
they're all tuned to different wavelengths of lights. So yeah,
s one see sort of short blueish wavelengths, your M
cones see the medium greenish wavelengths, and your L cones
see their long reddish wavelengths, and combining all of those
together is how we see in color.

Speaker 9 (01:02:37):
And that's all great.

Speaker 17 (01:02:39):
And what we've realized is natural light is so mixed
that actually the M cones, the ones that see green,
they're never activated on their own. So usually the type
of light that we see around us means that the
m and the L cones are always activated together because
they've got a bit of a sensitivity overlapped. And so

(01:03:00):
scientists realize that we have never seen the world when
just our m cones are activated, and so they went,
let's just do that where it gets a bit frightening.
I didn't think I volunteered for this. So basically, they
scanned the back of the eyeballs of five volunteers and
they did a map of all of the cones in

(01:03:20):
the back of the eyeballs, and I were able to
identify which type was WITCH, and so they found all
of the m cones and then they used a laser
a green laser, and it was so precise and so
powerful that they were able to shine this laser only
on the m cones, so they didn't activate the s
or the l's, so for the first time in these

(01:03:41):
people's lives, only the m cones were activated.

Speaker 9 (01:03:44):
And they asked them what they saw, and.

Speaker 17 (01:03:47):
The volunteers like, they didn't have any words for the
color that they can see. They described it as life changing,
the most intense. Some of them called it a peacock green,
like that really intense blue green color. But they were like,
but it's not that it's stronger, it's different. They didn't
have any words for it. And then just to prove

(01:04:08):
that it is because of the m cones, they wobbled
the laser a little bit, which meant that some of
the other types of cones got activated, and immediately that
magical color was lost and they saw basically the green
if you think of the green laser light, they saw
that standard green color again. So yeah, they basically shone
lasers in people's eyes so they could see this new
olow color and the people said it was mind blowing.

Speaker 2 (01:04:31):
I'm lucky them, lucky people. It just feels a bit
mean to do something like this, Michelle and tell us
how amazing it was an ingo, but never mind, none
of your leave to experience that.

Speaker 17 (01:04:43):
It's amazing what it's done. It's allowed scientists to understand
more about how our color vision actually works at a
cellular level, and what the cones actually do. It's also
helped us to understand a little bit about degenerative I
conditions like macular degeneration and why that because some of
that affects the cones, and why that might happen. But
get this, then the scientists are like, hold on. What

(01:05:04):
we could do is not only help people with color blindness,
but we could allow humans to experience what's called tetrachromacy,
which is where you get to see almost in like
four D color, which is what some insects do. And
it's sort of a bit like sci fi. See, scientists
got a little bit over excited, I think, and now
they're talking about doing the next level of color so
we could see in four D color. So yeah, some

(01:05:25):
good stuff color blindness, maybe we're understanding more about it,
and some weird stuff tetrachromacy. If that's the next thing
we want to see, it might be coming.

Speaker 2 (01:05:33):
Thank you so much. For talking us through that, Michelle,
much appreciated. We shall talk to you next week. It
is a twenty one to eleven and our resident chef
here on the Sunday Session is with us. Next, Mike Bendalsen.
He's been having a few issues with his chickens. They're
no longer laying eggs. So yeah, we've got a classic
for you. Next, Chicken cocko Fan.

Speaker 1 (01:05:53):
The Sunday Session Full show podcast on iHeartRadio powered by News.

Speaker 6 (01:05:58):
Talks itb.

Speaker 2 (01:06:00):
Yeah with News Talks about This is a Sunday Session.
Mike vander Ellison is with us now, our resident chef.
Good morning, good morning. So busy week on the farm
this week.

Speaker 23 (01:06:09):
That was we well next week actually, we've got a
lot of events coming up that require eggs, and so
I thought I'll give our chickens a little bit of
pampering because I haven't been laying a lot. Later, so
I went and I cleaned their hearts out, put on
some nice straw, laid some more straw in their little
nesting boxes, got them some nice brand new nibble wheat

(01:06:33):
to feed them, and I even cleaned the water out,
and I gave them some budgies.

Speaker 2 (01:06:38):
From the garden and they repaid you. How Mike, we have.

Speaker 23 (01:06:43):
Twenty six chickens, and in the last ten days, guess
how many eggs I have received from those twenty six chickens.

Speaker 3 (01:06:51):
Oh, twenty six, we got ten?

Speaker 9 (01:06:57):
How many?

Speaker 2 (01:06:59):
How many eggs would you? I know that you grew
up on a poultry fundn't you? Yes, you know something
about this. So how many eggs would you expect a
day from a chicken?

Speaker 23 (01:07:08):
I would expect at least one.

Speaker 2 (01:07:10):
Okay, so twenty sacks wasn't too bad a guess.

Speaker 23 (01:07:13):
Right, Yeah, so I'm going, I'm going. There's only one
chicken out there that's Lane. So it got me thinking
about it might be time to replace part of that flock.

Speaker 2 (01:07:22):
Okay, so how do you how do you do?

Speaker 24 (01:07:25):
You?

Speaker 9 (01:07:25):
Just do?

Speaker 2 (01:07:25):
You just sit and watch and work out which chicken
is the lucky chicken to make it cowl.

Speaker 21 (01:07:32):
I've got.

Speaker 23 (01:07:32):
I introduced two young ones not so long ago, so
I pretty much know which one is a Lane and
which ones are not. And so yes, the next week
they potentially will be getting moved on. So it started
me thinking about what are we going to do with
the chickens? Because they asked they're old pot roasters. You
know that they're not your most tender sort of chicken.

Speaker 2 (01:07:51):
They're moving on but coming back in a different in
different state.

Speaker 23 (01:07:56):
Okay, they're coming back in a delicious way.

Speaker 2 (01:07:59):
So they're going to go back in a delicious way.
So what did you come up with?

Speaker 3 (01:08:03):
So perfect for old old birds?

Speaker 23 (01:08:08):
And even back in the day when this dish was invented,
it was actually for the roosters. So it's called chicken cocovan.
It's a traditional French dish, and going by the weather
today and what's coming tonight, it's actually probably quite a
perfect dish for a daylight today.

Speaker 2 (01:08:24):
Wouldn't mind it if it turned up on the doorstep
at all, Mike.

Speaker 23 (01:08:28):
The chicken or the cocovar the cocovan, of course, yeah,
absolutely you could have. You could have twenty four of
mine if you want. So you don't need to go
out and curl all your chickens out of the back
and you're in your roosty mess. Just go to the supermarket,
get some large chicken thighs bonin and what we want

(01:08:48):
to do start the soft is to marinate chicken. So
take chicken thigh seasoned up, little bit salt, litt bit
of pepper, chuck them into a container, and then cover
them with red wine. So that's the most important part
of cocovar is the red wine. Make sure the nicely
covered is going to take coup of cups to cover
those chickens. Put them into the fruit and then let
them sit. If you've got time, you could put some

(01:09:11):
garlic in there, you could put some baillies in there,
you can put some time in there, some peppercorns, and
preferably leave them overnight. The longer they marinate, the more
they're going to take in that red wine color and
also the flavor. So next while that's marinating, heat up
your oven one hundred and eighty degrees. And then the
other components are twelve baby onions, so like your little

(01:09:31):
pickling onions. Yep, peel them, tuck them into a roasting
tray along with some mushrooms. So I've just got button
mushrooms like container button mushrooms. Toss them into a roasting tray,
a little bit of all, little bit of salt, and
fire them into the oven one hundred and eighty degrees.
We're just going to pre cook those. So about ten
minutes after that, pulled them out then heat up a
cast iron pan. Add in some rations of bacon. So

(01:09:52):
I've got six freshings of bacon into their cast iron pan.
Cook them until it's nice and crispy on the outside.
Remove them from your pan, and then chop them up roughly.
Now in that same pan, remove your chicken from the
marinate a little bit of oil. Fire them into that pan,
and cook off your chicken. So basically everything's getting pre
cooked for this dish. Cook it off until it's nice

(01:10:13):
and colored. Maybe season them up a little bit more,
and then take those chickens once the colored, put them
into the casserole dish. Cover them with your chopped up bacon,
Cover them with your onions and your mushroom. Pour in
that red wine that's been marinating. And then I also
get like a little oxocube. Maybe fire one of them
with probably about a cup of water and some parsley.
Cover that and some tinfoil. Fire then into the oven

(01:10:36):
one hundred and eighty degrees. It's going to be about
forty minutes. After forty minutes, take the tin fall off
and fire it back in for another twenty five minutes.
And what you want is you want those juices to
rejuice down and the top of the chicken just to
color up a little bit. And then I would serve
that with a generous amount of either parsonate mash. I'm
still going on a bit or parsons also potato mash.

(01:10:58):
Spoon your cocovar over the top, and garnishap maybe with
a little bit more Italian parsley. And that is cocova
done simply and really really taste. Using up those old birds.

Speaker 2 (01:11:09):
When you get new chickens, when you get your new
young ones in, how long does it take you for
they're giving you an egg day?

Speaker 23 (01:11:15):
Well, you got to separate them because the chickens is
a real pecking order that goes on, and those chickens
in that you would be amazed to see the chickens
are quite bullies, or they are bullies compared to younger chickens.
So check them in, separate them out. A half day
chick from half day to when they start laying, I
would have to say about nine to ten weeks.

Speaker 2 (01:11:35):
Okay, you've got a bit of a short You've gotta
have a shortage on your hand. Then, Mike, best of
luck with that. We look forward to hearing how things
are progressing with the chickens. If you would like Mike's
chicken cocovan recipe, got a good from scratch dot co,
dot and z, or you can head to news Talk
zb dot co, dot in z, food Slash Sunday. Throughout
the day, we're going to get all our stories, interviews, recipes,

(01:11:57):
everything up there. If there's an interview you'd like to
share with a friend, that's where you can do it from.
It's really simple, right last week Aaron spoke about the
importance of jumping in our lives, and this week it's
sort of a little side piece, a companion piece for you.
We're going to learn how to jump with confidence. Pelvic
Floor Chat is up next. It is twelve to eleven,

(01:12:18):
a bit simple.

Speaker 1 (01:12:19):
It's Sunday, the Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin and Wiggles
for the best selection of graverys News Talks.

Speaker 2 (01:12:26):
Endb Yeah, we're all about wellness.

Speaker 3 (01:12:29):
Now.

Speaker 2 (01:12:29):
We're joined by Erin O'Hara. Good morning, Erin, good morning,
Very excited you're going to talk about the palervic floor
today because last week we're talking about the importance of
jumping and I did say you well, both men and
women can have issues with their powervic floor, so we
might need to dipe that up before we do a
bit of jumping.

Speaker 17 (01:12:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 25 (01:12:46):
Absolutely, we talked about jump exercises and obviously if you've
got a weak palvic floor, that can make it really
challenging to be doing any jumping exercises. Obviously that would
cause things like leakage, which is never very comfortable when
you're trying to do jumping exercises. But povloc floor dysfunction
is actually really common, not just a woman, probably a

(01:13:07):
little bit more common with women, but also men as well,
particularly after anything like a prostate surgery, as there'll be
a weakness within the puloc floor because the powvers is
the home to all the organs that include the bladder,
the uterus, the prostate, and also the rectum as well,
so it kind of holds everything together, and the pulvic

(01:13:27):
floor can have either a weakness or a tightness, which
actually creates quite different symptoms. But it's the ability of
really how those parvot floor muscles are working together to
create that tightness, but also being able to relax the
muscles as well.

Speaker 2 (01:13:44):
So give us an idea of the signs and symptoms
of a weak or underactive polvic floor.

Speaker 25 (01:13:49):
Yeah, so when there's a weakness within the parvoc floor,
who particularly notice things like incontinents which could be urinary
or fecal, particularly if you're doing things like laughing or
sneezing or coughing or jumping or exercising. Also other things
like a palvic heaviness or a prolapse is common. Any

(01:14:10):
decreased sensation during intercourse, or having any difficulty and sort
of contracting those muscles would really relate to having a
weak palvic floor when it comes to signs and symptoms
of tight pelvic floor muscles. So when they're over contracting,
that maybe a difficulty starting or stopping urination, or having

(01:14:32):
struggling to start and stop urination. Also pain on intercourse,
maybe pouting in any of the palervic sort of area,
whether it's sort of tailbone, lower back, round sort of hips.
Also an urgency to go and urinate a lots you're
kind of wanting to go all the time because you're
not really had that same sort of control of all

(01:14:52):
those muscles, and that's where those muscles are really important
in how they work on contraction. But also relaxing relaxing
the muscles as well. Now if you do yeah, So
if you do think you do have any of these
sort of symptoms, I think the number one thing is
probably going and seeing a pavoc floor physio or specialists

(01:15:14):
so they can actually assess what is going on and
assess the muscle tone, the strength, the coordination of those muscles,
and then they can really identify what sort of parvoc
floor dysfunction could be there.

Speaker 2 (01:15:26):
Okay, and then how do we handle it? How do
we deal with it? What can we do about it?

Speaker 25 (01:15:30):
Yes, so you're usually puvoc floor physios will give our
exercises to do at home. Also, you can actually do
things yourself at home, so things what we call Keegel exercises,
which you could google and find out how to do those.
But it's contracting and holding those muscles for a few
seconds and then also consciously relaxing those muscles. Now, the

(01:15:53):
muscles of the key girl muscles would be kind of
like you would hold on. So if you're busting to
go to the toil and you're holding on, those are
the muscles that you're using to hold on. So you're
just practicing using those Usually it's not a good idea
to practice doing the exercise as well you're on the
toilet because you could cause some urinary tract infections. But

(01:16:14):
instead just doing them as exercise, either laying on the
floor or sitting in a chair. Also having really good
postures important for your pervic floor, maintaining a healthy weight,
and also if you hour overweight, maybe losing some excess
body fat so there's not so much weight on the palvis. Also,
bowel movements are really important to make sure you're supporting

(01:16:36):
the pervioc floor. So when there is chronic constipation, obviously
that's going to put more heaviness and load and strain
on the pervic floor muscles. So by preventing constipation through
things like eating fruit, vegetables, fiber and having enough water
as well.

Speaker 2 (01:16:51):
Thank you so much, Aaron, appreciate your time.

Speaker 1 (01:16:53):
This morning The Sunday Session Full Show podcast on iHeartRadio
empowered by news talks at be.

Speaker 2 (01:17:03):
Coming out but next hour. Deillian Swinton is trying to
live life as self sufficiently as possible on her two
point seven hectare property in central Otago along with her
partner Hamish. They need a lifestyle that harks back to
a time when people lived as simple a life like
her grandmother did on an island in the Outer Hebrides.
She's written a book. It's called The Good Life, a
self sufficient living and modern homesteading guide. She is going

(01:17:25):
to talk us through what homesteading is all about next
and look. Last night Toto finished up the New Zealand
tour with a gig in Christ which I hear. The
shows were long and filled with the hits and tight
and just epics. So if you went, this is for you.

Speaker 1 (01:18:06):
Welcome to the Sunday Session with Francesca, Rudkin and Wiggles
for the best selection of great reads news.

Speaker 2 (01:18:21):
Good to have you with us on the Sunday Session.
I'm Francesca with you until midday. Coming up this hour
Pioneers in the studio to talk football. Megan's got all
the info on the best way you can earn airpoints
off a credit card, and Joan has some terrific local new.

Speaker 17 (01:18:35):
Fiction for us.

Speaker 1 (01:18:37):
The Sunday Session.

Speaker 2 (01:18:40):
Jillian Swinton's first experience of home setting came from childhood
visits to her grandmother's farm in Northern Scotland. Now based
in Central a Tigo, Jillian and her partner Hamish live
on a two point seven hectaar property, embracing their own
journey of living a self sufficient and more simple life.
Jillian has shared her own story of homesteading with tips
and tricks in her new book The Good Life, and

(01:19:03):
Jillian Swinton joins me. Now, good morning, Jillian, thanks for your.

Speaker 9 (01:19:05):
Time, thank you, thank you for having me here this morning.

Speaker 2 (01:19:08):
Tell me what is homesteading?

Speaker 26 (01:19:11):
Oh gosh, it's a big question. I think home setting
is quite a big umbrella term. But for us here
on our we Central Intago lifestyle block, it's just trying
to grow as much food as we can, working with
our community and our neighbors and learning together and sharing
all that beautiful produce and trying to leave the land
a little bit better than how we've taken from it.

(01:19:34):
So yeah, it's just those three key principles for us.
So a lot of preserving, a lot of gardening, a
lot of time in the kitchen. But it's all kind
of a little bit self sustaining.

Speaker 2 (01:19:45):
Yeah, But that's the great thing about homesteading. It can
look different for everybody, and you kind of just do
what you can exactly exactly.

Speaker 26 (01:19:54):
We you know, this is our first refarm that we've
bought together. So before that, we've been in rental properties,
or we've been in working accommodation, and there's been this
invisible threads through it all where we've always either been
on a really tight budget and had to make the
most of what we had, or we had a little
backgarden where were able to grow a little bit more produced.

(01:20:15):
But wherever we've been, we've kind of always been on
this journey. So it doesn't really matter where you are,
you can do a little bit of something.

Speaker 2 (01:20:23):
Your love of homesteading in the simple life stems back
to your childhood in Scotland and you spent your summer
holiday on the family farm in northern Scotland.

Speaker 26 (01:20:31):
Yes, yes, my grandmother's from the outer Head be Days,
so a lot of family time spent out there.

Speaker 2 (01:20:37):
You talked about your grandmother Kate being your inspiration. Tell
me about her.

Speaker 26 (01:20:41):
Oh gosh, well, you know, I guess she'd probably be
laughing at all of this stuff now, because you know,
homesteading to her was just life, you know.

Speaker 9 (01:20:51):
But my childhood spent on the farm.

Speaker 26 (01:20:53):
There was a lot of feeding lambs, there was a
lot of digging up pete or spuds. Yeah, going for
cockles and filling the freezer with the abundance. So she's
always been living that lifestyle. And it wasn't at until
I sat down and trying to, you know, flesh out
the bones of this book that I was like, oh, huh,
We've kind of always been doing this on some form

(01:21:15):
or another wherever we've been.

Speaker 9 (01:21:17):
So yeah, it was really interesting to look back on that.

Speaker 2 (01:21:19):
And I now that I know that your family's kind
of trackling away at how you've become Kaide in a way.

Speaker 9 (01:21:25):
Yes.

Speaker 26 (01:21:26):
Yes, when my parents came out for Christmas a couple
of years ago, and they spent most of the time
either doing laundry or digging up spuds, and whenever we
went away somewhere, I don't know, to Cromwell for some
wine or something, I would always be worried about, you know,
the animals here, and my mum would definitely agree that
I had turned into my grandmother Van.

Speaker 9 (01:21:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:21:49):
So how does a Scott end up living in rural
New Zealand? What wrote you here?

Speaker 26 (01:21:55):
Yeah, it's a long story, but I guess I've finished
university pretty young at twenty one, and then I just
went as far away as I could without coming another
way back around, And yeah, I fell in love with
New Zealand and then I met a good Southland farmer
and here we are, fifteen years later, still here.

Speaker 2 (01:22:14):
You've obviously always been interested in living self sufficiently and sustainably,
but did you see it going this far? Did it
start out as a goal to be a little more
sustainable and then snowball?

Speaker 8 (01:22:26):
Oh?

Speaker 9 (01:22:27):
We really don't know where like it's stemmed from.

Speaker 26 (01:22:29):
I think my partner, he's proper Kiwi farmer number eight
wire ingenuity, and I'm just quite a frugal Scottish person,
So I think that combination really catapulted us on this
journey of you know, trying to do every like not everything,
but as what we can on our own, try and
save some money. And yeah, of a sudden we've got

(01:22:50):
two and a half hectares and sheep and bees and
it's just kind of snowballed.

Speaker 3 (01:22:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:22:55):
What do you love about this way of life?

Speaker 4 (01:22:58):
Oh?

Speaker 26 (01:22:58):
I think you know, my favorite things are the meals
that we can say we grew everything on the plate.
There's just something it's not bragging, but it's just something
to be proud of everything on this plate for dinner.
I think these dinners don't have to be too flash,
but with like sausage, spuds and beans. You know, it's
it's it makes me proud that we did this.

Speaker 2 (01:23:19):
Is it time consuming? Jillian? What kind of ours do
you puting in preeping and preserving and running the land,
et cetera.

Speaker 26 (01:23:25):
Yeah, yeah, it can take up a bit of time.
But I say in the book, you gotta do what
you love. So there's lots of things that I don't
enjoy and I don't do that, but I do enjoy
preserving and I do enjoy gardening, So those are things
that I would be want to do it anyway. So yeah,
we just kind of lean into that. And yeah, it
does take up a bit of time. Yeah, what don't

(01:23:46):
you love doing?

Speaker 3 (01:23:48):
Oh?

Speaker 26 (01:23:49):
Just like anything with the chainsaw or anything too noisy,
Like I just leave that to Boss.

Speaker 9 (01:23:56):
He can do what he wants out there. But if
it's just something I can put.

Speaker 26 (01:24:00):
An audio book on and chip away something, it's just
something methodical with my hands, like whether that's preserving or gardening.

Speaker 9 (01:24:08):
Yeah, I'm in my happy place.

Speaker 2 (01:24:10):
I mean, it's worth mentioning that both you and Hamish
also work full time as well as running your family,
and somehow you've found time to write this beautiful book.

Speaker 9 (01:24:18):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we am. Oh gosh, I think we've
just got a bit of energy. We don't have a TV.

Speaker 26 (01:24:24):
You know, you've got to do something, So we're doing
what we love.

Speaker 9 (01:24:29):
I think if we didn't enjoy it, we wouldn't be
doing it.

Speaker 26 (01:24:31):
But yeah, if I would love to not work full time,
but unfortunately in twenty twenty five we kind of got
to do that with a lifestyle block. There are things
that we do to try and make it a little
bit easier, like we sell our excess spuds and some honey,
but that just goes back into the seed mund fund.

Speaker 2 (01:24:49):
Yeah. The book is broken up into seasons. Which season
is your favorite?

Speaker 9 (01:24:56):
Probably now, probably Autumn.

Speaker 26 (01:24:57):
I really enjoy just the slowing down of autumn where
we are as well in Central We've got the beautiful
colors popping up and the fires on and it's just
cozy meals and we aren't in the doldrums off winter yet.
You know, everything's just it's still nice and sunny in
the afternoon. We've still got things we can potter around

(01:25:19):
with outside. This slowing down season is definitely my favorite.

Speaker 2 (01:25:24):
It was interesting when I was reading your book, I
was thinking about a book i'd called called Wintering by
Catherine May and it's sort of a book about the
power of rest and retreat in difficult times and appreciating winter,
all the dark season as a moment to look after ourselves.
And you mentioned that too, to sort of lean into
that season just to rest. You can't do much in winter,
that's fine.

Speaker 26 (01:25:44):
Yeah, And that's the main part of that. Like we're
trying to work with the seasons, not against them. And
you know, winter's pretty big winter in Central with the
fire on pretty much until November, you know, so it's
a big summer, big season.

Speaker 9 (01:25:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 26 (01:26:00):
Winter is definitely is a time to sit down by
the fire and catch up and all your reading and
just take.

Speaker 9 (01:26:05):
Jobs off slowly.

Speaker 26 (01:26:06):
We're all we're still doing something, but it's not the
full tilt pace of summer in autumn.

Speaker 1 (01:26:11):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (01:26:12):
We've lost a bit of this way of life through
the generations, haven't we. Most of us would just think
that we're far too busy to be thinking about homesteading.

Speaker 9 (01:26:19):
Yes, yes, I think so.

Speaker 26 (01:26:21):
But I think well, now with the cross of the liveing,
I think people are looking for something that they can
actually action to make life a little bit easier, And
like growing a few spud plants or some extra herbs,
or preserving those herbs in the freezer into herbs bombs
do make a difference. And I feel like having something
that you can actually do to make life a bit easier,

(01:26:44):
it's definitely something that can be done anywhere. And so yeah,
I think I think now is a great time to
start and just get your hands in the soil or
do something actionable to make life a little bit easier.

Speaker 2 (01:26:56):
As you say, encourage us a little bit more to
give this a go. It doesn't have to be an
all or nothing approach. What else can we do? What
else could we think about doing?

Speaker 26 (01:27:08):
I've all, you know we're going to winter, so now
it's a good time to kind of reevaluate. But I
think just starting, you know, people are already thinking about
what plant next year, and I would just I always
say it starts with your shopping trolley, like what are
you putting in your shopping trolley that you could probably
grow a few plants at home. And you know, not
everyone has a massive garden, but you don't necessarily need

(01:27:29):
a big garden to do something productive. And if you're buying,
you know, tins of tomatoes each week. Maybe plant a
few extra tomato plants and say you can preserve a
few tins next year. You know, it doesn't have to
be now. It's always kind of looking ahead and planting
those seeds in your brain as to what you can
do or what you can replace. But just having a

(01:27:50):
look at what you have in your shopping trolley and
seeing if you can do any of that at home.
It definitely, it definitely does add up. And yeah, like
I said, you don't have to have a farm to
do that.

Speaker 2 (01:27:59):
Is there anything that you haven't mastered? You still relying
what are you still relying on shops for?

Speaker 9 (01:28:05):
Oh my gosh, I think carrots are my nemesis.

Speaker 2 (01:28:09):
I have an issue with carrots too.

Speaker 26 (01:28:11):
Yeah, I think every gardener has their nemesis plant. And
I think it's good. I think it's good to have
something that kind of keeps you humble.

Speaker 9 (01:28:18):
So we are improving with the carrot fees.

Speaker 26 (01:28:20):
But yeah, like I'm still happy to buy them, but
one year, one year, I won't have to buy them,
and that that's coming.

Speaker 9 (01:28:27):
I'm hoping.

Speaker 2 (01:28:29):
It can sound like quite isolating, but this is a
this is a community activity for you, isn't it. It's
not just about you and your partner Hamish. You work
alongside and you find like minded people in your community
and you're able to sort of share goods and batter
and things.

Speaker 26 (01:28:46):
Yes, I mean the book, there's the you know, self
modern self Sufficient Guide, But I think self sufficiency in
this time only can really happen if you, you know,
reach out and involve other people. Like it's about community.
We share quite a lot of appliances and project with

(01:29:06):
our neighbors, and we'll often get together if somebody's doing
something new to try and learn together. And it's really
cool that we find those people. We're lucky to have
find them in real life. But we've also met people
online that we can have those conversations with in times
of need when we're struggling with something. But yeah, it's
finding people that you can do this with and I

(01:29:27):
think that's a lot more fun and I think it's
actually a little bit more sustainable to do it that
way in this time.

Speaker 2 (01:29:34):
Is it kind of an ever evolving way of life
for you? I'm sure it's quite a learning curve, isn't it.

Speaker 26 (01:29:40):
Oh gosh, Yes, I mean, like We've always been preserving
or doing something along these lines in some shape or form,
and I think we can get easily overwhelmed now that
we have the I guess the space to do it all,
but we just don't have the time to do it all,
so we really have to evaluate what we need to
do and that kind of limits it overwhelmed. But yeah,

(01:30:01):
there are times, so there's definitely I would definitely say,
like February March, it can get overwhelming, where the garden
just pumping and there's not enough from the fridge and
it relies on somebody doing something with that project. But
we love it like we won't be doing it if
we didn't enjoy it.

Speaker 2 (01:30:16):
Jillian, you're not just frugal, but you're also very practical.
I was really surprised, but really pleased to see at
the back of the book the emergency supplies and boxes
and just reminding us all that, you know, life in
New Zealand can be a little unpredictable. Some of us
have been through a lot of you know, have been
through natural disasters and are well prepared, but a lot
of us aren't. And you've got a great little list
here for making sure that we're organized.

Speaker 6 (01:30:39):
Well.

Speaker 9 (01:30:40):
Coming from Scotland and moving to New Zealand, I can't.

Speaker 26 (01:30:43):
Yeah, amount of natural disasters has panicked me a little bit,
and I think doing something productive with that emotion was
just actually making the boxes rather than just thinking about, oh,
I need to get an emergency box. That was just
sitting down one day and writing a list and be like, right,
let's just do it. Have them there, make a plan
with everyone in our house. And it's just kind of

(01:31:05):
like having insruan. It's like once you've got it, you're like, sweet,
we're sorted. Well, not sorted, but I just know that
if there was an emergency, we've got those things that
we can grab and go and everyone our house knows
where they are and what to do with it. So
it's just one less thing that keeps me awake at night.
And yeah, it's something that we're always working on, whether

(01:31:26):
I see something somebody else is doing, or talking to
a neighbor or talking to our friends up in North
Island who have been through it. They've given us some
real practical advice. So it's a kit that's always evolving,
but it's nice. It's definitely a good feeling knowing that
it's at the back door ready to go.

Speaker 2 (01:31:41):
Gillian, thank you so much for your time this morning
and for the book, a beautiful book, and for sharing
your homesteading journey with us.

Speaker 9 (01:31:47):
Oh, thank you very much. Thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:31:50):
That was central to Tigo homestead of Gillian Swinton. He'd
like to read more about her life and journey. Her
new book is called The Good Life and it's in
stores now. Up next, we've got the panel on the
Sunday Session.

Speaker 1 (01:32:02):
Relax, it's still the weekend. It's a Sunday session with
French Escar, Rudgin and Wiggles for the Best Election of
Great Reads US Talks.

Speaker 9 (01:32:10):
That'd be good to have you.

Speaker 2 (01:32:12):
With us is twenty three past eleven, and joining me
on the panel. I have got singing a journalist and
editor Joe mccarell. Good morning, Joe, Good morning, Pajeska and
new zelland Herald senior writer Simon Wilson, Good morning, Simon.

Speaker 6 (01:32:25):
Hi there, Francesca, Hi Joe.

Speaker 2 (01:32:27):
Good to have you both with me talking about the
Hikoi four house. Should ordinary kiwis have more of a
say in our health system and those who also work
in the health system, do you think that they will
be listened to.

Speaker 6 (01:32:41):
Simon, well, I really like this this cause, and I
like the idea that behind it, People's inquiry into the
state of the public health system. Glenn Colhoun is one
of the initiatives. Is argued that the health service is
too important to be left in the care of politicians.
And you know, I think a lot of politicians might

(01:33:04):
breathe a sigh of relief at that idea and think, gosh,
it is nothing but trouble for us. We don't know
how to fix it. Maybe there is another way if
we take it away from the political sphere. They may
not be quite so happy with Calhoun's observation that politicians
have been one of the main causes of the breakdown,
But you know, I would have thought pretty much everybody

(01:33:24):
in this country understands that we have a broken system.
It is really important that we do a lot more
to fix it. We bring in a whole lot of
fresh ideas, and if we can take it away from
the ridiculous political arguments and fine ways in which the
medical clinicians, medical professionals and patients and the public more

(01:33:47):
directly involved in establishing priorities and work systems, it's hard
to see a downside, given how badly the current setup
has failed.

Speaker 2 (01:33:57):
Joe, do you think the health can ever become by partisan.

Speaker 27 (01:34:01):
I think it absolutely should, and I don't see why
it couldn't. I mean, it is both partisan. It's something
that seven UW Zealander. I think, you know, as I
completely agree with you, Simon. We all want to see
a functioning health system. I absolutely support the idea we
should be listening to people who work in the health
system because.

Speaker 9 (01:34:18):
What we've got now is this.

Speaker 27 (01:34:21):
You know, every election term, the next government comes in
and they say the others did it all wrong, and
so much time and energy and hot air is wasted
on politicizing it, whereas what we should be doing is
looking at the best practice overseas, seeing what we can
do here. I mean, the challenge is the money, you know,

(01:34:41):
I mean, so much of it does boil down to
the fact that I mean they talk about the health
system being you know, indeficit, and it's not, it's underfunded,
but I mean that money is coming from a smaller
pool of young people to fund the health needs of
a sort of cashed up.

Speaker 17 (01:34:58):
Pool of old people.

Speaker 27 (01:34:59):
And that seems a really, really difficult and nuanced challenge yeah.

Speaker 6 (01:35:05):
I also think one of the problems we have is
that and I know I'm guilty of this when I
write about the health system that it's easy to use
the shorthand hospitals to mean the health system. But public health,
primary health care, the care that's given in the community, doctors, nurses,
public health services in other ways are really critical to

(01:35:26):
the whole system. And they are underfunded. And if they
were better, better organized, better funded, and better supported, there
would be less pressure in the hospitals. And you know,
so there's money well spent there that we tend not
to spend because it's preventive rather than you know, it's
the fence at the top rather than the ambulance at

(01:35:48):
the bottom. The money tends to go to the ambulance.

Speaker 2 (01:35:51):
It's interesting. I mean, I tend to listen to the
frontliners and people who work, you know, spend their days
working in this environment when you know, to get a
real feel for it, Simon. But you get a bit
of a you can get mixed messages. Some tell you
that it has been neglected and definitely more money needs
is about the money and you need to invest more money.
Other people will tell you no, not necessarily, we just
need to do things differently. It's hard to sometimes know

(01:36:13):
where land and it's probably different for different areas of
our health system and going to guess.

Speaker 6 (01:36:18):
That it's a bit of both as well. Yeah, yeah,
it's interesting you know that this HIKOI is a van
painted up by Nigel Brown, the artist. They'll be in
Auckland tomorrow in the Domain from twelve to two and
then after that at the Menu Mariah and they are
hoping to meet with members of the public and talk
who will they hope will talk to them about their

(01:36:40):
stories and the health system. They want to get a
kind of public record going, so people want to talk
to them. That's how they can do.

Speaker 2 (01:36:47):
And look, I think Joe that that is going to
resonate because people just want to be listened to. This
would be heard.

Speaker 27 (01:36:55):
People want to be heard, and people have real first
hand experience of the health system that from their own experience,
from the experience of a member of their family, and
so that experience is absolutely should be part of what
is being listened to here, because yeah, I listened to
the front Line's listened to real people's experience and I mean,

(01:37:15):
you know it's the money. I agree with you franchise.
Script's not everything, but it is part of it. You know,
we're going to have to be realistic that first first
world healthcare does.

Speaker 2 (01:37:25):
Cost Overnight, we saw some beautiful photos and moving images
coming out of Rome, of course, for the for Pope
Francis's funeral mass. Interestingly, though, this week the Vatican had
to sort of say to people, could you please stop
taking selfies with the late Pope? And the fact that

(01:37:46):
we've even had to ask this simon kind of took
me a little bit by surprise. I would have thought
everybody would have known that it would be kind of
sort of a slightly disrespectful thing to do. Is you
walk in silence? You know through Saint Peter's viewing the Pope,
that you would sort of jump out of line, step up,
take yourselfief yourself or am I just am I just

(01:38:08):
old fashioned?

Speaker 6 (01:38:09):
It's very hard to know if there are any limits
to when you're allowed to take a photo these days,
isn't it. You know, everybody wants to establish I was here,
and I guess that's this is just an example of it.
It feels it feels as if it's in poor taste
to me as well, And I'm absolutely with the Vatican.

(01:38:34):
You're what you would want to stop everybody doing it,
and therefore you've got to stop all the individuals doing it.
You can't have said a few do it. But it's
part of a culture of you know, establishing yourself in
history in that way. And I'm not sure taking photos

(01:38:55):
is the worst thing about.

Speaker 2 (01:38:57):
Phones actually, but just being but just yeah, but just
being there? Isn't that enough to establish yourself?

Speaker 5 (01:39:03):
And it?

Speaker 2 (01:39:03):
Do you need a record? Do you need to have
that actual record?

Speaker 3 (01:39:05):
All?

Speaker 2 (01:39:06):
You couldn't you have just taken one outside of the
Basilica with hundreds of thousands of people surrounding you as silent.
I don't know. I don't know. I just think that
there was ever a time to practice mindfulness and just
be there in the moment and take in your surroundings.
I would have thought that, you know, this was it.
I don't know whether I would have stood there, Joe
for hours and hours and hours on end to get

(01:39:27):
in there and spend more of my time taking a
photo than actually kind of enough.

Speaker 27 (01:39:33):
I look, I have always always hated and been very
uncomfortable with selfies and pictures went with things like you know,
the skulls and the catacombs and the killing fields of
Cambodia where there are the piles of bones. I mean,
you know, these are not props, these are actual people.
I think it is gaulish. I think it is disrespectful.
I think it is dehumanizing. The only reason I can
see people doing it is just chasing likes online. But

(01:39:55):
I would sort of say that is quite a tradition
in Catholicism and actually across lots of different faiths and
cultures of you know, gilded skulls and mummified body parts
being on display. So I guess maybe this is just
how people are.

Speaker 2 (01:40:12):
Well, Simon, can you, Oh, we seem to have lost Simon.
We seem to have lost Simon. But Joe, can you
remember a particular time when maybe you sort of taking
a photo of something and you went, maybe this isn't appropriate,
or you did it very quickly.

Speaker 27 (01:40:28):
Well, actually, I genuinely take very few photos because I
find that so takes you out of the moment that
you're trying to capture, and I'd really rather be in
that moment. I know it sounds a bit smug and annoying,
but and sometimes I'm sorry I don't take more photos.
But I find that thing where people are taking photos everywhere,
especially selfies, to position themselves in the story. It's just

(01:40:48):
a weird saltzism. That's a factor of modern life, Simon.

Speaker 2 (01:40:52):
Can you recall any time that you've sort of taken
a photo and then thought to yourself, gosh, hang on
a minute, I'm not really sure I should be doing this.
This isn't hugely appropriate.

Speaker 6 (01:41:00):
Yeah. I don't tend to get my camera out in
that way, I mean my phone, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:41:05):
Yeah, so yeah, I.

Speaker 6 (01:41:09):
Suppose I'm old fashioned enough to Yeah, I like to
think I'm looking at this now and I don't want
to put anything between me and it. Yeah, but I
actually think that's that's not a great thing.

Speaker 5 (01:41:20):
Really.

Speaker 6 (01:41:20):
I mean, there's nothing absolutely nothing wrong with recording an experience.
You know, you don't remember them all, and having the
record is a good idea. But but you're quite right there.
You've got to have some sense of personal limits.

Speaker 3 (01:41:35):
Surely.

Speaker 2 (01:41:36):
I think if the Vatican should have made it clear
very early on if they didn't want people doing that,
they should have absolutely been aware of the fact that
a whole lot of people were going to I did
a bit of a I did a bit of a
mausoleum tour one stage in my life, and I was
removed from Lenin's Mausoleum and Red Square. We weren't out,

(01:41:56):
We're only allowed. Only a few of you were allowed
and at a time, and it was guarded by you know,
there were armed guards and things in there, and you know,
you didn't bring out you can't in those days. I
didn't have the phones, but you did not bring out
your camera. But I was removed because at the time
there was an awful lot of sort of rumors about
you know, embalment and things like that, and that he

(01:42:17):
was that that had to sort of remodel parts of
his face, his nose and his ear and various other things.
We'd heard all these rumors. We've gone in there, like
a little close to the glass because I was trying
to ascertain whether the air had fallen awful or not.
And that was deemed highly inappropriate. And I'd like to
apologize for that behavior, which was a good thirty years ago,

(01:42:38):
and I was promptly removed from the mausoleum. So really
I can't talk. We've all know, we all do things
inappropriate at the times.

Speaker 6 (01:42:45):
There is a new context now I think that because
of phones, so many of the rules have changed. It's
not so long ago you weren't allowed to take a
photo in an art gallery, and that art glories all
over the world realized they couldn't stop that happening. So
now you're encouraged to do it. They've just been you know,

(01:43:05):
there's a new reality now people do take photos and
you've got to assume funerals and bodies at the far
end of what's acceptable.

Speaker 2 (01:43:21):
Yeah, although accept the mind and Lisa, but that's only
because it causes it's a crowd control issue. And I
think that's the other thing told with the Vatican. They
were probably like, we don't have time for you will
stop and take your selfie. We need to keep moving here.
So there's a practical side to it as well.

Speaker 9 (01:43:34):
Just keep moving people along.

Speaker 2 (01:43:36):
Just keep moving people along. From that terrible Simon Wilson.
Joe mccarell, thank you so much for joining me today
on the panel. Coming up next to Jason.

Speaker 1 (01:43:45):
Pine, it's the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin on News
Talks at b.

Speaker 2 (01:43:55):
And coming up at midday Jason Pine with Weekend Sport
and he is in the studio with me. Good morning,
good morning, you are in Auckland for the football. I
imagine it's a beautiful day, I'm told, but look at
this on this really this is a typical drizzly Auckland day.

Speaker 28 (01:44:09):
It actually has improved on us, say has this?

Speaker 11 (01:44:11):
Yeah?

Speaker 28 (01:44:11):
I flew in quite early and as I was feeding
the parking meter outside ZB towers, why don't I get
to park incident?

Speaker 2 (01:44:19):
Oh you're joking? Are you serious?

Speaker 28 (01:44:22):
I didn't mean to bring that up.

Speaker 2 (01:44:23):
On my gosh, you just give me your keys when
you go on air, and when I finished, I'll go
and bring your current's no one here. It's the weekend,
that's true, But by park in Hoskins Park if you want,
I would never ever dare.

Speaker 28 (01:44:36):
Now this afternoon Auckland f C take on Perth Glory.
The result now doesn't matter because last night Melbourne City,
who were the only team who could catch Auckland f
C at the top of the table for the regular
season silverware this is the Premier's plate, couldn't win. They
drew so last night around eleven thirty Auckland f C
were confirmed as regular season winners.

Speaker 2 (01:44:57):
Amazing in their very first season. It is remarkable, isn't
it amazing?

Speaker 28 (01:45:01):
Yeah, just a remarkable story.

Speaker 2 (01:45:04):
You did you you're in the know with the ball
in the team. Did you have any idea that there'd
be this good, that this could potentially be the outcome?

Speaker 3 (01:45:10):
No?

Speaker 28 (01:45:11):
No, I quite honestly know. At the start of the season,
everybody makes their predictions. I thought they might be good
enough to make it into the top six, into the playoffs.
But we never really knew, even the players you talk
to them others, we didn't really know because we didn't
know each other. The club didn't have any sort of history.
There was no indication of what would happen. But ever
just home runs here, there and everywhere.

Speaker 2 (01:45:31):
You know, and it's only been one season, but you
think to yourself, gosh, where would be without them?

Speaker 3 (01:45:36):
Yeah?

Speaker 28 (01:45:36):
You know, correct, they're part of the they're part of
the New Zealand and particularly the Auckland sporting ecosystem now.
So yeah, so they play this afternoon, regardless of the
result against Perth, they will be presented with the Premier's
plate after the game. Today. It is here in Auckland.
It's been flying over because this always seemed like it
would be the most likely outcome, So yeah, even in

(01:45:56):
the right.

Speaker 2 (01:45:56):
Going to be a part of it. It's going to
be a great celebration.

Speaker 28 (01:46:00):
It'll be great. I just can't wait. And for the
fans who have had to wait a long time for
a football team to come back after the ill fated
New Zealand Knights kind of went, you know, belly up
and sort of two thousand and six, two thousand and seven.
Been a long time waiting and it just shows the
appetite for the game here in our biggest city. So yeah,
I'm going to chat to the CEO, Nick Becker after midday.

(01:46:20):
A couple of the players on the show as well.
So quite a bit of football Round eleven of Super
Rugbies in the books. Good luck picking the top six.
We know the Crusaders and the Chiefs are going to
be the top two. Good luck picking the top six
because everybody else, apart from probably the Fiji and Drewer
are still in contention with three or four games to go,
so we'll cover that off. But of ice hockey on
the show this afternoon, ow ice Blacks are in action.

Speaker 2 (01:46:43):
And what else have I got?

Speaker 28 (01:46:44):
Oh, probably some other things as well.

Speaker 2 (01:46:46):
I was thinking about this the other day because I
think that this, you know, this first round of Super
Rugby it finishes at the end of May, and I
was going, it's just a month away. Are we already there?

Speaker 14 (01:46:55):
We nearly?

Speaker 28 (01:46:56):
Are we nearly are?

Speaker 6 (01:46:56):
Yeah?

Speaker 28 (01:46:57):
And then there's the playoffs obviously, and then it won't
be too long before we're talking about all black selection,
those test matches against France and July and yeah, and
you know, and then we'll be on to the second.

Speaker 14 (01:47:07):
Half of the year.

Speaker 2 (01:47:10):
They will wonder what happens. Thank you so much, Jack Jason.
Find us back at midday with Weekend Sports eighteen to twelve.

Speaker 1 (01:47:17):
It's a Sunday session full show podcast on iHeartRadio powered
by News Talks a B Travel with Windy Woo tours
Where the world.

Speaker 6 (01:47:27):
Is Yours for now.

Speaker 2 (01:47:29):
Megan Singleton is with us to talk travel. Good morning,
Good morning. I like today's topic. It's a very sensible one.

Speaker 24 (01:47:38):
Well, you told me to do it, Yes, that's why
I like it.

Speaker 2 (01:47:43):
Well, I think maybe the reason I told you to
do this was because you'd been talking about wise cards
and great ways of paying for your travel when you're traveling,
and then you mentioned airpoints and for me, I have
just never been able to find a way to gather
enough airpoints to make it sort of a meaningful impact
on my travel. Yeah, I think you've got to go

(01:48:04):
all in on one program I used to years ago,
decades ago. You could kind of get enough to get
yourself around the country and things quite easily.

Speaker 3 (01:48:13):
You know.

Speaker 24 (01:48:14):
Come on, you must fel to either you don't have
credit cards or you're not using them smartly. No, here's
the thing, Okay, all right, So firstly, let's just say,
don't get a credit card unless you're going to pay
it off every month. Okay, Just that just clarifies us
for all the financial things I'm about to say to
people now. But so I actually switched my credit card

(01:48:37):
provider when Air New Zealand and B and Z parted
ways years ago, and so I moved all my accounts
over to the Westpac and started up a business credit
card there and a personal credit card there. At the time.
I think I might have had AMEX, but I've dropped ems.
But they are also an Air New Zealand airpoints collector
and you can collect on A and Z and New

(01:48:59):
World now, so I just quickly run through them. I
know we don't have long but there's various levels of
earning depending on what type of card you've and obviously
what type of card you've got depends on what annual
fees you pay, so you do need to factor that in.
Like the AMEX card Platinum is going to be more
expensive to run than perhaps the fifty dollars A and

(01:49:19):
Z airpoints low fee Visa card is, but you'll earn
an airpoint for every seventy dollars you spend on Amex,
whereas you'll have to spend two hundred dollars to earn
an airpoint on those low fee cards.

Speaker 26 (01:49:31):
Right.

Speaker 24 (01:49:32):
So, now New World have joined the party. They've just
announced as of the thirty first of March that five
New World dollars will equal five air New Zealand air points.
But I did a quick tot up and that would
be about a six hundred dollars grocery spend to get
your five airpoint dollars. Now, don't be confused between airpoints
and status points.

Speaker 2 (01:49:53):
Okay, he's still with me, Diana, I'm.

Speaker 24 (01:49:55):
Listening, Okay, So look, it keeps me loyal because I
am gold. I got within Cooey a sniff of Elite
and then it dropped away. And here's why because status
points expire and airpoints don't when your gold and so
status points are earned in a separate way. So once

(01:50:15):
you get once you've spent enough on your credit cards,
especially if you've trying to jump up to Elite, Air
New Zealand will cap that. And I haven't earned status
points on my Elite pursuit for about two years. On
my credit card spend, I've got to earn it all
on flights. So it's all right for me because I
can travel around the world and I can choose my airlines,

(01:50:37):
and I deliberately choose if it's not a New Zealand
or choose a Star Alliance airline like United all off
Tanza or Air China or Singapore Airlines, depending on where
I'm going.

Speaker 17 (01:50:46):
And another trick is to.

Speaker 24 (01:50:47):
Get your travel agent if they can to book you
an Air New Zealand ticket on a Star Alliance aircraft
and then you might get more points and status points
with that. But I always make sure it's my Air
New Zealand points that are registered, like not my United mileage.
Plus I don't collect those, so I'm really all on
the one program.

Speaker 14 (01:51:08):
Brinnan.

Speaker 2 (01:51:08):
I don't have to pay for domestic flights at all brilliant?
Are you going to put that up on a blog
for us?

Speaker 7 (01:51:13):
I'm going to check it on Facebook.

Speaker 24 (01:51:14):
I could put it in a blog, but look, it's
likely to change next week, so I'm going to put
this all up on my Facebook page Blogger at large
and then people can have a good old read.

Speaker 2 (01:51:23):
Through that brilliant. Thank you so much, Meghan. We'll catch
you next week.

Speaker 1 (01:51:27):
Books with Wiggles for the Best Election.

Speaker 21 (01:51:30):
Of Great Reeves.

Speaker 2 (01:51:33):
And joining me now is Joan McKenzie. Good morning. You've
got a couple of Kiwi books for us this morning.
Yes I do, which is wonderful? Tell me about nineteen
eighty five, a novel by Dominic Hoey Is it? How
I say? I believe?

Speaker 3 (01:51:44):
So?

Speaker 2 (01:51:45):
Okay? Cool yep.

Speaker 16 (01:51:46):
Unsurprisingly, it's set in nineteen eighty five. It's a bit
of a giveaway at the time of the bombing of
the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland, and it's also set on
Crummer Road in Grayln before Grayln was so gentrified, so
it's a very very different world. And our lead character
is a young boy. He's about eleven or twelve years
old around the start of this story. His name is

(01:52:08):
Obi which comes from Star Wars, and Obi is a
bit of a video gamer and the family are very
short on money. He lives with his mum and dad
and his sister and his best friend's a guy called Al.
Mum is an addict and dad's unemployed and things are
just a bit hopeless. Mum's always on a dad to
go and get a job. But dad's a poet, he
has a soul of a poet, and he's a romantic

(01:52:30):
and he's far too busy doing other things than to
have time to go to work. So they live in
this house and what they need is money, and Obi
decides to enter a competition for a video game which
has a reasonable prize, which he wants to win. And
then a guy comes to stay with them who's a
friend of his father's who's just got out of prison,

(01:52:52):
and he has a map in his backpack and his
belongings which appears to be a map to some treasure,
and so Obie and Al believe that they can get
this map and go and find the treasure.

Speaker 2 (01:53:02):
It's really lovely, oh fantastic, And tell me about high
heels and boots.

Speaker 16 (01:53:07):
This is by Rebecca Hater, who is a journalist she
worked for a yachting magazine. She is a sailor herself.
She decided to turn her back on the big city
and bought a property down in Golden Bay, which her
property was only accessible by driving along the beach. She
spent seven years down there, And she was a city
girl who went to the country. And as the subtitle

(01:53:28):
sets theirs, she was a city girl with a lot
to learn. She had sheep, she had chocks, She had
a large property which required an enormous amount of inventiveness
and hard work and dedication. But the other reason that
she went there was because that's where she grew up
in the area, and she had a lifelong issue with
her mother which she was very determined to try and resolve.

(01:53:52):
And moving down there and living in the area where
her mother had been such a respected woman, she was
the local doctor, she found that she was able to
sort things out in her own mind and in her
own life, and lived this extraordinary life for seven years
on this property, which essentially feels to me like it's
in the middle of nowhere.

Speaker 2 (01:54:08):
And look, we always dream of doing that, don't we.
I you know, I dream of doing that. But then
I always love to read the stories and hear the
reality of it. Would if I read this book, would
it make me want to do it?

Speaker 23 (01:54:17):
Or put me off?

Speaker 16 (01:54:18):
Or it made me tired?

Speaker 2 (01:54:21):
I think that answers that. Thank you so much, Joan.
Those two books there were nineteen eighty five and novel
by Dominic Hoey and also High Heels and Gum Boots
by Rebecca Hater Or talk next week, Joan. It is
seven to.

Speaker 1 (01:54:33):
Twelve the Sunday Session full show podcast on iHeartRadio powered
by News Talks.

Speaker 3 (01:54:40):
I'd be.

Speaker 2 (01:54:42):
Thank you very much for joining us this morning on
the Sunday Session. Thank you very much for your tech.
Some of you are outraged that Jason Pine has to
pay for his car park. Don't you worry. We will
get that sorted. I'm going to go and move his
car into the car park now. Do you know what
if you just drove around and tried to get in
a smipe car probably would have worked. I don't know
if you dried that, but anyway, I shall take care
of that. Don't you worry about a thing? Have I

(01:55:05):
got time to quickly finish with text yet? Francisca loves
your panel discussion about inappropriate or not photography? My hobby
is taking photographs, and I know that I'm at fault
for always looking for the angle and the photo op.
What's the light doing, how's the weather behaving? Do I
want crowds to document their response or do I want
a low human number of people and what's on display

(01:55:25):
for myself? There's definitely a difference between soaking up the
atmosphere and standing apart as the observer. Never take selfies.
Don't want to contaminate the view. Thank you very much
for your text, and next week we have got David
Nichols on the show. Of course, the author of books
such as One Day and You Are Here in Us
and started for ten and of course he's adapted many

(01:55:46):
of those for the big screen and small screen as well,
So we're going to be talking about his latest book
and his career here on the Sunday session. Really looking
forward to talking to him and for you to join
us as well. They get a carry for producing the
show today. Enjoy the rest of your Sunday, See you
next weeks.

Speaker 26 (01:56:07):
Know the.

Speaker 5 (01:56:11):
Plan never.

Speaker 3 (01:56:18):
Where was it?

Speaker 2 (01:56:18):
Black Back? Finding a World of the Ordinary?

Speaker 18 (01:56:29):
Oh yeah, lay me down.

Speaker 6 (01:56:33):
On the edge of your.

Speaker 18 (01:56:34):
Knife, staying drunk on your by.

Speaker 5 (01:56:39):
A angels up in.

Speaker 18 (01:56:39):
The clouds, Watchel.

Speaker 5 (01:56:41):
That's not when we found them.

Speaker 15 (01:56:46):
You got me kicking the Stay.

Speaker 6 (01:56:56):
Up in the.

Speaker 1 (01:56:58):
Know. For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin,
listen Life and You Talks it Be from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio

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