Afternoons for Thursday 6 March 2014
1:10 Best song ever written - Phil Toms of Auckland nominated 'Happy' by Pharrell Williams
1:15 Your place - Matarangi in the Coromandel - purpose built as a seaside holiday town.
2:10 Famous songwriter Les Andrews dies - Gray Bartlett: Les Andrews, famous for his song about the opening of the harbour bridge, entertaining the troops in the second world war, and a voice of talkback radio in the 60's, has died at the age of 96. He performed for troops in the Middle East with the Kiwi Concert Party, and was the host of shows like Personality Squares, Tinker Tailor and Music in 3D. He never lost his passion for music, and sponsored up and coming artists like baritone Teddy Tahu Rhodes and tenor Simon O'Neill. Musician and promoter Gray Bartlett was along for the ride with Les Andrews on many of his concerts in the 60s and 70s,
2:20: Collecting tractors - Peter Johnstone: Peter Johnstone has never given up his love of model tractors. Not just any tractors but the mighty, mostly red Massey Ferguson tractor. He's been collecting them for 60 years and now has amassed more than 300 of them and they are proudly displayed in a glass cabinet in his home. A retired farmer, he has spent more than his fair share of time working on Massey Fergusons too. Now visitors come from all over to see his collection.
2:30 Reading: Bruce Ansley's readings from his 'Memoir of New Brighton Boy' have been charting the seaside township's history in the middle of the 20th century. But today, Bruce is talking about some of the friends he made in childhood when every possible moment was spent on the beach. That's 'Gods and Little Fishes'.
BOOK: Gods And Little Fishes: A Boy And A Beach by Bruce Ansley Pub: Longacre (6 Nov 2009) ISBN-978-1877460418
2:45 Feature album - Nothing Like the Sun - Sting (1987)
3:12 Scientists Back at Lake Rotomahana - Dr Maurice Tivey: The same scientists who found remnants of the Pink and White Terraces under Lake Rotomahana, south of Rotorua, are back the scene to learn more about geothermal activity on the lakebed. For the first time, temperature measuring equipment is being used to measure exactly how active the systems beneath the lake are. An American geologist, Dr Maurice Tivey, from the Massachesetts based Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, pioneered the technology.
3:20 Marine Reservce - Alison Ballance: It's 39 years since New Zealand's first marine reserve was created at Goat Island, near Leigh. By the end of this year the network of marine reserves will have expanded to 43. To mark Seaweek, Alison Ballance is finding out what a few Wellington locals think of marine reserves, and joining a marine reserve monitoring team as they find out how 22 years of protection has benefitted fish and other marine life off Kapiti Island.
3:30 Coal Miners Strike - Pail Shuster from BBC Witness: In March 1984, coal miners across Britain went on strike over planned pit closures. One former miner recalls the clash between strikers and police in 'the Battle of Orgreave'.
4:06 Jane Clifton is on the Panel with Peter Elliot today: The future now of central Christchurch, why no age purchase restriction when you buy the simpler Lotto purchases at checkouts; research out that says wealthier people appreciate music more, Len Brown's proposed local income tax in Auckland so the better off can help pay the rates of the less well off; did Judith Collins have a conflict of interest or not? And we return to one of yesterday's stories, the one reported all over the world about how a high-protein diet is as bad as smoking cigarettes in middle age and may well kill you, and we discover these research findings being roundly criticised.