1:10 Best Song Ever Written - Cassandra Chadwick of Auckland has chosen 'Telegraph Road' by Dire Straits

1:20 Eight Months to Mars - World Rugby player of the Year - All Black Kieran Read

Kieran's Music selections

ARTIST:     Tom Petty
TITLE:        Into The Great Wide Open
COMP:    Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne        
ALBUM:    Anthology: Through The Years  CD 2 / Track 13
LABEL:    MCA  170 177

 

ARTIST:     Coldplay
TITLE:        Hurts Like Heaven
COMP:    Guy Berryman, Jonny Buckland, Will Champion, Chris Martin, Brian Eno        
ALBUM:    Mylo Xyloto  -  Track 2
LABEL:    Parlophone  875532

 

 

ARTIST:     The Killers
TITLE:        Runaways
COMP:    Brandon Flowers, Dave Keuning, Mark Stoermer, Ronnie Vannucci, Jr.    
DUR:        4' 00"
ALBUM:    Battle Born  -  Track 2
LABEL:    Island  371187

2:10 The Tangiwai Disaster: A Christmas Eve Tragedy - 60 years since the terrible tragedy at Tangiwai…  we'll talk to Graham Stewart, the cadet New Zealand Herald photographer who took the photos that conveyed the horror of what happened  that awful day.  The images he captured that day are in  a book called, The Tangiwai Disaster: A Christmas Eve Tragedy.
2:20 The Mayflower of NZ - Stan Hansen - Most of us can name the ship that brought the first actual group of Europeans to settle in America. The Mayflower. But the name of the ship that brought the first non-missionary settlers to New Zealand? Settlers intending to stay, not just go whaling and sealing. The brig Active sailed into the Bay of Islands in 1814 with Reverend Samuel Marsden. Most of us know that from our history lessons.  Thomas Hansen captained the ship that sailed from Sydney. What we don't recall is that the Active also brought the first group of non-missionary settlers here. The descendants of Thomas Hansen want to remind us of that. The Hansen family has loaned an intricate replica of the Active to the Waitangi National Trust in the Bay of Islands to help remind us all about this chapter of our history.  Stan Hansen is the great great great grandson of Thomas Hansen and talks with Jim Mora. The link:http://www.the1814hansenfamilysocietyinc.org/media.html

2:30 Reading - Jean Betts reads 'Christmas Lilies' by Sally Champion.
A family Christmas is just not Christmas without at least one major stand-up row. And our story this morning does not flinch as it traces a  tale of seasonal family bonding.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
MUSIC DETAILS      
'Pastoral Symphony' (Handel) from the album 'The Best of Baroque' EMI CDZ 7 62526 Tk.4 Dur: 1:00

2:45 Feature album - Songs in the Key of Life - Stevie Wonder (1976)

3:06 Feature Interview - US Air Force predator drone pilot, Brandon Bryant - Jim Mora talks with the man who flew the drones until one day he couldn't do it anymore .. combat by remote control. US Air Force predator drone pilot, Brandon Bryant watched a child die from a drone strike and decided he'd had enough. Brandon Bryant's now speaking out about the torment of his job and the value of the drone programme.

3:35 Loneliest Christmas Tree - Veronika Meduna - An unruly hundred-year-old spruce on subantarctic Campbell Island is the world's loneliest tree. When scientists studied it to find out about environmental conditions of the past century, they found a surprising Christmas connection.        

4:06 On the last regular Panel of the year, tomorrow it's our grand finale on locale down near the Captain Cook Wharf in Auckland, and on today are Michele A'Court and Steve McCabe. The new alcohol sachets, the sheer cost of the Len Brown enquiry, Nigella's purported cocaine-taking and the implications of the police decision to investigate historical drug consumption. The revelations about Kim dotcom analysed, the racist tweet about AIDS that lost the high-flying woman her job. The decision by New York to ban e-cigrattes and why. And whatever else we have time for, we have one or two whatevers we may get to.