Nine To Noon for Friday 30 August 2019

 

 

09:05 World Rugby "The focus is on women"

World Rugby says for the second year running, more girls have begun playing rugby globally than boys, and that 40 per cent of the sport's 400 million fans globally are female. The sport's governing body says it's heavily focussed on advancing women in rugby and its flagship 15s and sevens Rugby World Cup competitions and tournaments will no longer include gender in their titles. In the last year, World Rugby's international federation's Council has gone from no female members to 17. New Zealander Katie Sadleir is a former New Zealand Olympic and Commonwealth synchronised swimmer and sports administrator, who is now General Manager Women's Rugby at World Rugby.

09:25 Driverless future. New Zealand AV ace Dave Ferguson 

Wellington born Dave Ferguson is the co-founder and president of Nuro which has created the R1, an unmanned self-driving vehicle, custom-built to transport goods. Dave has worked on robotics and machine learning for nearly 20 years and one of his algorithms was used for long range autonomy on NASA's Mars Rovers. 

09:45 Pacific correspondent Johnny Blades

Johnny and Lynn look at Australia's battle to keep China out of the Pacific and the latest in the West Papua protests.

10:05 New Zealander's new life in France. Jennifer Andrewes

Living part of the time in France, part in New Zealand, Wellingtonian Jennifer Andrewes shows it is possible to live the dream. Putting the breaks on the daily grind and stepping off the corporate ladder, taking her young family with her, Jennifer upped sticks to a small village in the most south westerly corner of France, in the Pyrenees.  Jennifer has written about her search for a new life - indeed a double life - in a love letter to the village of Quillan.  Parallel Lives - Four Season in the French Pyrenees grew out a popular blog about her time there.  Eventually, Jennifer bought a house in a village of just fifty people. Lynn Freeman hears Jennifer's story and asks about the impacts in-comers like her are having there.

10:35 Book review - The Art of Racing in the Rain by Gareth Stein

Lisa Finucane reviews The Art of Racing in the Rain by Gareth Stein, which is published by HarperCollins.

10:45 The Reading

‘The Complete Male Chauvinists’ and Idler’s Pipe Dream’ by Owen Marshall, read by the late Ray Henwood. Mr Henwood passed away in Wellington on Monday.

11:05 New music with Grant Smithies !!!

Yes, their name looks like a typo, but Brooklyn dance-punks !!! (Chk Chk Chk) make a fine racket, so we'll be hearing two tracks from their new album Wallop. Also, a great new single from Wellington's Secret Knives, and an unlikely team up from two influential dead guys: James Brown and The Notorious B.I.G. 

11:30 Sports commentator Brendan Telfer 

Brendan takes a look at the 31 strong All Black Rugby World Squad and whether it is good enough to win the Rugby World Cup for a third time in a row. Also, Rory McIlroy, the Irish golfer who pocketed 23 and half million dollars for winning one golf tournament this week. Should we feel comfortable about that or is it clearly excessive?.

11:45 The week that was with

Te Radar and Melanie Bracewell wrap up the week with some of the more humourous stories of the last few days.