Afternoons for Tuesday 24 December 2019

1:10 Christmas Eve house band: Gray Bartlett, Carson Taare and Mark Dennison

Music legend Gray Bartlett is in to sing some classic Christmas songs during our first hour, with special guests Carson Taare and Mark Dennison.

1:17 Dunedin's heartache on display in special exhibition

Objects telling stories of Dunedin heartache are being exhibited at Otago Museum as part of the Museum of Broken Relationships exhibition, which has travelled the world and is now in New Zealand for the first time.

1:27 Invercargill man's homemade electric bikes go global

After struggling to get on his bicycle due to a bad hip, Invercargill man Bill Blakie used his number-8 wire ingenuity to create a low-to-the-ground three-wheeler electric bike.

Since building the first one in his garage in 1996, Bill has constructed more than 40 of the bikes, and sent them as far abroad as Switzerland and the Ukraine.

1:35  Virtual reality to help people with autism

A team of students from Auckland University are developing on a virtual reality system that could help people with autism. The technology, which is called Socius, aims to create simulations to help people on the spectrum better navigate social and professional situations.
 

2:10 Pip Adam - how to keep track of the books you read

Writer and reviewer Pip Adams gets through a LOT of books in a year and has been looking at great ways to remember what you read! She also gives us a sneak peak of some new titles we can look forward to in 2020.

2:25 Original Kiwi Christmas Songs

We play the best songs from our Christmas song competition, You can listen to them all any time on our RNZ Christmas Spotify playlist.

The winning act was Beachware, with their song 'Take Away The Tree which you can purchase at BEACHWARE's Bandcamp. All proceeds go to Rainbow Youth to support queer, gender diverse and intersex youth.

 

3:10 A Christmas Quiz for Christmas Eve

It's Christmas Eve and all around New Zealand families have Christmas trees up adorned with shinny ornaments, a Christmas pudding prepared for the big feed tomorrow and stockings ready for presents.

But have you ever stopped to ask why? For Christians, Christmas Day is a celebration of the birth of Christ, but there are so many other traditions that go back hundreds of years.

We thought today might be a good day to test your knowledge of all things Santa Claus and Christmas. So we are going to do a Christmas version of Mastermind if you will, with a Christmas quiz you can join in.

Who better to play our game than the man known as Mr Christmas, James Cooper. He hosts a popular website called Why Christmas? You can take the Christmas Quiz here.

3:30 Spoken Feature: Eyewitness

In Eyewitness, a scheme that took a struggling fruit industry from rot to riches.

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

4:05 The Panel with Jo McCarroll and Alan McElroy