09:05 Patients 'terrified of mesh' driving fear of hernia surgery

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Photo: 123RF

Fear of transvaginal surgical mesh is driving patients to avoid modern hernia repair surgery says Christchurch Hospital surgeon Steven Kelly. He says surgical repair is the only effective treatment for abdominal hernias, and surgical mesh is the best option for long-term health. Mr Kelly's comments have been published in the latest issue of the New Zealand Medical Journal.

09:20 Oysters: Tests as nervous wait continues

Ministry for Primary Industries is currently testing wild oyster beds near Stewart Island to find out if the culling of farmed oysters has stopped the spread of the bonamia ostreae parasite. Kathryn Ryan speaks with Bluff Oyster farmer Rodney Clark, Operations Manager for Bluff Oyster Management Company and Wild Oyster producer Graham Wright of Barnes Oysters, and MPI Response Manager David Yard.

Wild Oyster Testing

Photo: Cawthron Institute

09:30 Capturing the huts of Scott and Shakleton

As the beginning of the Antarctic season gets underway, Nelson painter Sean Garwood talks to Kathryn Ryan about his oil painting project recording the intimate detail of life in the huts of Scott and Shakleton. His paintings are now the focus of a book, a Christchurch exhibition that's just opened, and an official set of New Zealand Post, Ross Dependency stamps.  

09:45 Pacific correspondent Mike Field

Why the American ambassador doesn’t need to lecture the Pacific on nuclear explosions; in Samoa the famed Aggie Grey’s Hotel is being sold to a group of Chinese and New Zealand developers; and an Australian scientist discovers a giant tree living rat in the Solomon Islands.

An artist's illustration of the newly-discovered giant rat, Uromys vika.

An artist's illustration of the newly-discovered giant rat, Uromys vika. Photo: Velizar Simeonovski/The Field Museum

10:05 Graeme Simsion & Anne Buist: Two Steps Forward

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Photo: supplied

Australian husband and wife writers Graeme Simsion and Anne Buist have teamed up to write a book together after very successful individual careers. Graeme is the author of the runaway hit The Rosie Project, its sequel The Rosie Effect, and another book The Best of Adam Sharp. Anne Buist is a psychiatrist, chair of Women's Mental Health at the University of Melbourne, and the author of the Natalie King psychological thriller series.
The couple are great walkers, and it was while walking the Camino trail from Cluny in France to Santiago de Compostela in north-west Spain, that the idea for the book they've written together was conceived. Two Steps Forward is a feel-good story of late-blooming love, the movie rights for which have been bought by Ellen DeGeneres and publishing rights sold in a number of countries.

10:35 Book review

Unity Books Review: Elmet by Fiona Mozley, reviewed by Kiran Dass.

10:45 The Reading

Embracing the Dragon by Polly Greeks (Part 10 of 10)

11:05 Music reviewer Grant Smithies​

Many years in the making, Wellington band MarineVille's fourth album Penguins Ate My Chips is such a ripper, a record company in Austria has just released it on vinyl, declaring it "an instant kiwi classic". We play two tracks, followed by a couple of gems from Lower Hutt synth-pop maestro Disasteradio and New Orleans soul singer, Aaron Neville.

11:30 Sports commentator Brendan Telfer

An embarrassing number of defections of top rugby league players from the Kiwi Rugby League World Cup squad, the first of a four-match netball test series between New Zealand and Australia and what happens to the world's most famous and successful football club, Barcelona, if Catalonia declares its independence from Spain?

11:45 The Week that Was with Te Radar and Irene Pink

A lighter look at the stories of the week including the 7-day gummy bear cleanse (yes it is real) ; and the  coughing fit, the prankster and the falling back-drop, why British Prime Minister Theresa May wasn't laughing at her party's conference.