Saturday Morning for Saturday 12 March 2022

This week's episode is being hosted by Colin Peacock, who is filling in for Kim Hill.

8.10 Tracey Martin: inside the process of creating a new public media entity

Response has been mixed to this week's announcement that RNZ and TVNZ will come under a new media entity. With much detail still to be revealed, many questions are as yet unanswered. 

Broadcasting Minister Kris Faafoi says he expects the new entity to be operating by July next year and that it will see more services provided online. 

Former New Zealand First MP Tracey Martin led the Business Case Governance Group that provided Faafoi advice ahead of the decision to create the new entity. 

8.22 Gideon Defoe: the stories behind the world's extinct countries

Not all nations last, and as author Gideon Defoe points out sometimes it’s for the best.

In his new book An Atlas of Extinct Countries, Defoe explores the fascinating and sometimes outlandish stories behind territories that didn’t make the cut. And as Defoe explains, the reason for their demise isn't always a result of international diplomacy or brinkmanship, it’s often just lunacy.

The book examines the fates of 48 deceased states, such as The Islands of Refreshment, which was a failed experiment as a pit stop in the Atlantic Ocean, and The Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace, which ended in 1864 with tens of millions people dead.

  

9.05  David McWilliams: 'The global economy is like a tube of toothpaste' 

When Irish economist David McWilliams spoke to RNZ in October 2020 - roughly six months into the pandemic - he said it was time for governments to spend and ignore warnings to the contrary. 

Eighteen months down the track, Covid-19 is still wreaking havoc and recent world events have thrown the economy into further turmoil. McWilliams says there is a current obsession with intervention in economics, but sometimes letting the world recalibrate on its own is the best thing to do.

Based in Dublin, McWilliams is an economist, author, and broadcaster. He hosts a weekly podcast The David McWilliams Podcast and is the founder of the Kilkenomics economics and stand-up comedy festival.

 

9.45 Simon Fenwick: taking table tennis to the next level

Years in the making, the Waitemata Table Tennis Club in Auckland recently opened a purpose-built table tennis stadium to the tune of $2 million. The modern building replaced the previous stadium that had been built by volunteers in the 1970s using second-hand materials.

The project came to fruition thanks to the help of Simon Fenwick, an architectural designer who in the 1990s travelled around the world playing table tennis. Fenwick is also the former chair of Table Tennis New Zealand.

Following the success of the Waitemata stadium build, Christchurch-based Fenwick is now receiving calls from clubs around the country who want to improve their facilities.

 

10.05 Playing Favourites with producer Alan Jansson

Alan Jansson is arguably best known for his role in helping to create OMC’s 1995 smash hit ‘How Bizarre’, but more than a decade earlier the producer and engineer was pioneering New Zealand electronica as a founding member of The Body Electric.

Formed from the ashes of Wellington punk band The Steroids in 1982, The Body Electric started as a two-piece with Jansson and Andy Drey, who were later joined by actor Garry Smith on vocals. Despite being largely ignored by radio, their debut single 'Pulsing' was a hit, and spent 27 weeks in the charts.

Almost 40 years on, Flying Nun is set to re-release The Body Electric’s 1983 album Presentation and Reality, plus The Body Electric 12” with four remastered tracks from the same era. 

11.05 Julian Oliver: opening up communications technology for all

Now installed in central Berlin is a fully functional, open source cellphone tower that, in luminous hot pink, asking to be noticed. It’s the work of New Zealand artist, activist and ‘critical engineer’ Julian Oliver who returned to Upper Hutt when Covid-19 struck. 

‘Pink Cell Tower’ accepts connections from any mobile phone, assigning them a new phone number and allowing them to text and call others connected to the network for free, entirely in private.

Considering engineering to be the most transformative language of our time, Oliver’s work is concerned with opening up communications technology, working against the surveillance of our lives. Oliver’s ingenious useable sculptural works explore both the liberation and threat technology provides, making visible what global private entities try to keep hidden.  

 

Books mentioned in this show:

An Atlas of Extinct Countries
By Gideon Defoe
Published by HarperCollins
ISBN: 9780008393854

 

Music featured in this show:

Pulsing
The Body Electric
Played at 10.07am

Good Vibrations
The Beach Boys
Played at 10.21am

We Love You
The Rolling Stones
Played 10.28am

Kick out the Jams
MC5
Played at 10.37am

Tiny Little Human
The Scum Frog
Played at 10.47am

How Bizarre
OMC
Played at 10.57am

Endless Time
The Weather Station
Played at 11.30am