Afternoons for Thursday 11 July 2019

1:10 First song: Mousey performs Extreme Highs

What a great day for Christchurch based indie-folk musician Mousey! She recently released her first single Extreme Highs, and has TODAY been nominated as a finalist in the 2019 Apra Silver Scroll Award.

Mousey joins us from the Christchurch studio today to perform for us LIVE. The video is here

1:15 Glaucoma month: Get your eyes checked

There's a group of Kiwis out there who may be close to losing their sight - but they don't know it.

Most people only see an optometrist if they think they need glasses, so many New Zealanders with glaucoma are legally blind before they have any symptoms. 

It's Glaucoma Awareness Month and there's a big push for people to get their eyes checked before it's too late. Professor Helen Danesh-Meyer is here to explain the disease. 

1:25 Mongolia's game day

Mongolia. It's not a country many of us probably think about that often but for those who do, today is a special day. 

It's the beginning of Naadam [nard-dim], the country's annual National Festival of Games. Mongolians living all over the world travel home for the event, which includes wrestling, archery, and horse riding. 

Matthew Hooton is the Consul for Mongolia and tells us more about it.

1:35 Illustrator Donovan Bixley asks kids to create a Flying Furballs character

Now, a chance for creative kids to be a part of a literary adventure. 

Donovan Bixley is one of the country's most acclaimed illustrators and behind the Flying Furballs series. 

To celebrate the release of the latest addition in the series, Breakout - which comes out today! A drawing competition has been announced which will see kiwi kids come up with a new cool character. Donovan will pick the winner and he's here to tell us what he'll be looking for.

 

1:40 Great album

 

2:10 Music Critic: Yadana Saw

Yadana Saw, RNZ's Music Producer joins us from the Wellington studio to discuss the finalists for the 2019 Apra Silver Scroll Awards.

 

2:25 NZ Biography

Sir Tom Clark is one of New Zealand's most celebrated ceramicists, having transformed the Crown Lynn company from a modest conglomerate of brick and pipe manufacturers into a tableware colossus.

He was also a gifted racecar driver and yachtsman who was a big part of New Zealand's ascent to the upper echelons of world yachting.

Margaret McCLure joins us to talk about his life and times.

3:10 Link 3

 

3:15 Your finances with Mary Holm: Should KiwiSavers and share investors bail out?

The NZ sharemarket just keeps on growing. The average investment in a NZ share fund doubled in value between March 2009 and March 2014, and then doubled again by May this year, says financial journalist and author Mary Holm.
 
This is great for not just share investors but many people in KiwiSaver - all those in middle or higher-risk funds. 
 The worry is that after such a long period of growth, a downturn seems inevitable. Should people move their money before the crash?  Mary advises against it. Nobody can time share markets well, and you could miss out on further big gains. Research shows that people who move in and out of the market, trying to time it, end up with much less than those who stay put.
 
Mary looks at NZ share market numbers since the 1980s. When the market fell, there was almost always a healthy gain of 13 to 24% in the following year. The exceptions are the 1987 crash and the 2008 global financial crisis, but even then things came right within two years.
 
This is not surprising, Mary says. In downturns, shares tend to be "oversold" and people realise there are bargains to be bought, pushing the market back up. Internationally, markets that have done really well often then do really badly the following year, and the reverse.
 
The best way to cope with up and down share markets is to ignore what's happening, Mary says. Keep drip feeding into your investment - which happens automatically in KiwiSaver - and you'll do well.
 
However, if you realise you couldn't cope with seeing your investment drop for a while, gradually move now to a lower-risk investment, and stick with it - regardless of what the markets are doing.

 

3:35 Eyewitness - A Corkscrew Mind

In Eyewitness today; the story of one of the world’s most significant inventions and of the man who made it. Producer Justin Gregory tells the tale of Colin Murdoch and the fountain pen that changed the world.

 

3:45 The Pre-Panel Story of the Day and One Quick Question

4:05 The Panel with Irene Gardiner and Shane Te Pou