Afternoons for Wednesday 27 October 2021

 

1.00 Covid-19 Briefing 

1.20 Hamilton's Covid-19 response 

Hamilton Mayor Paula Southgate joins Jesse from his home town to discuss how things are going in Waikato and what the Government's announcements mean on the ground. 

1:20 Education forges ahead under multiple levels 

Schools remain at the heart of a lot of concern about the levels and steps of the covid response. 

To respond to Government announcement at 1PM and to talk about what teachers are facing on the ground Jesse is joined by the National President of the New Zealand Principals' Federation and Principal of Hastings High School Perry Rush. 

1:30 Bathing in native rākau  

When was the last time you stopped and spent time with a tree? Tree hugger can be used as an insult, but there's a huge body of research that suggests being in nature has a real measurable impact on our wellbeing. Yesterday we spoke to the Christchurch Botanic Garden's head gardener Wolfgang Bopp about the beauty of blossom season there.

Dr Colin Meurk is from Manaaki Whenua, a government research outfit which looks at how we live in environments and he got in touch to remind us of the physical and emotional importance of native trees! 

1:40 Rebel Wilson talks about her first children's book 

Rebel Wilson is an Australian actor, writer and producer who's fulfilled a long time ambition to write a children's book. 

Rebel talks to Jesse about her work, which has just been published, Bella the Brave. It's a story about a young girl overcoming crippling shyness through performing. 

1:55 Afternoons Quiz Robert Kelly

RNZ producer and onetime bookseller Robert Kelly presents his weekly quiz.

 

2.12 Podcast Critic: Paul Bushnell 

Today RNZ's Paul Bushnell talks about  two journalistic podcasts which are completely different in form from each other. He's covering The Long Read from Stuff and Intrigue - Tunnel 29 produced by the BBC. 

2:25 Bookmarks with Brian Boyd 

Today's Bookmarks guest is Distinguished Professor of English Brian Boyd, who is widely recognised as the world's leading scholar on the Russian-American writer Vladimir Nabokov.

Last year he was awarded the Rutherford Medal by the Royal Society Te Apārangi, the first time the award had included the humanities. He retired from the University of Auckland last year to focus on writing books! 

3:10 Time to change the COVID conversation 

All over the world COVID has created an epidemic of tribalism and virtue signaling says Dr Vinay Prasad, an Associate Professor in the Epidemiology department at the University of California in San Francisco. He wants to have a different kind of conversation about COVID, free of shame and blame and entrenched attitudes on all sides.  He has some innovative ideas for getting the vaccine hesitant to get a jab. 

3:35 Stories from Our Changing World

This week on Our Changing World, Claire Concannon speaks to John Barkla of the New Zealand Plant Conservation Network about the threat status of our native plants, and what issues they are facing, and gets an introduction to one of the dark horse contenders for this year’s favourite plant competition.    

3:45 The Panel with Nalini Baruch and Pattrick Smellie