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Nights for Thursday 3 July 2025

8:10 Nominations open tomorrow: Should you run for your local council?

With nearly 1,600 roles to fill, interest in running in the 2025 local body elections seems to be a bit tepid.

Nominations open tomorrow and close 1 August for local mayor and council roles, regional council positions, and local boards.

Anneka Carlson Matthews first ran for the New Plymouth District Council in 2019 as a 29-year old former police officer and small business owner. After serving two terms, she won't be putting her name on the ballot this year.

She joins Emile Donovan to share the highs and lows of serving the community in local government, and to encourage more people to put themselves forward.

Anneka Carlson is a former police officer

Photo: RNZ / Robin Martin

8:20 Wild weather update with Metservice

Metservice meteorologist Stephen Glassey joins Emile Donovan for an update on the severe thunderstorms in Taranaki and other wild weather around the country.

8:25 Are we Kiwi or Kiwis?

After being stumped during Midweek Mediawatch with Hayden Donnell, Emile Donovan calls up Nights' resident sociolinguist, associate professor Julia de Bres from Massey University, to weigh in on whether the plural for a Kiwi (the national identity, not the bird) is Kiwi, or Kiwis.

Watch out for kiwi signs placed along Mākara's roads near the station.

Watch out for kiwi signs placed along Mākara's roads near the station. Photo: Gianina Schwanecke / Country Life

8:30 Philosophy Now: Should we want to live forever?

University of Waikato senior lecturer in philosophy Dan Weijers joins Emile Donovan to ponder immortality.

8:45 Public lighting designer Tim Hunt

Have you ever walked through a city at night and stopped to think about the lighting around you? How it's been designed, and how it's making you feel?

Tim Hunt is a Melbourne-based lighting designer who constantly thinks about how humans interact with light and how better lighting can make our cities safer, more welcoming and more beautiful.

He's on a mission to get more people thinking about the role light plays in public spaces and why good lighting matters.

He joins Emile Donovan.

Lighting mast with lantern on a city street during the day. Lighting of roads and streets, stadiums against the blue sky.

Photo: 123rf

9:05 Nights Quiz

Do you know your stuff? Come on the air and be grilled by Emile Donovan as he dons his quizmaster hat.

If you get an answer right, you move on to the next question. If you get it wrong, your time in the chair is up, and the next caller will be put through. The person with the most correct answers at the end of the run goes in the draw for a weekly prize.

9:25 Can 'biological age' tell us how well our bodies are functioning?

Biological age tests claim to measure how old your body is on a cellular level. It could be higher or lower than your actual age depending on factors like your genes and your life choices. These tests, sold by commercial companies, purport to measure how well your body is working.

But is there any science behind it, or is it just another fad without research to back it up?

Hassan Vally is an Associate Professor of Epidemiology at Deakin University in Australia and is an expert when it comes to interpreting health data. He joins Emile Donovan.

A grey-haired mother sits side by side with a dark haired girl and talks to her.

Up to the age of nine, children can have "magical thinking" so it's helpful for parents to use concrete language in conversations about death and dying, says grief counsellor Benjamin Jensen. Photo: Pexels

9:45 Pacific Waves

A daily current affairs programme that delves deeper into the major stories of the week, through a Pacific lens, and shines a light on issues affecting Pacific people wherever they are in the world. Hosted by Susana Suisuiki.

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10:17 The Detail: It's no longer illegal to be a proudly violent Proud Boy

The terrorist label has been dropped from extremist group the Proud Boys, but its ideology still lurks online in New Zealand. Amanda Gillies reports.

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10:45 The Reading

Tonight, part four of The Three Musketeers adapted for radio by New Zealand playwright Stuart Hoar.

11:07 The Mixtape

DJ and musician Matthew Crawley selects formative songs to soundtrack his life for the RNZ Mixtape. 

Crawley cut his teeth on the Aotearoa music scene when he started volunteering at alternative radio station 95bFM as a teenager. 

He began the Strange News Touring company in 2005 with Reuben Bonner. He was the manager of Auckland's Flying Out Records until 2022, when he left to immerse himself in the promotion side of things. Before that, he was the entertainment manager of legendary bar Golden Dawn. 

Crawley is also the brains behind comedy punk quartet Thee Golden Geese.