Saturday Morning for Saturday 5 August 2023

8.10 Gez Medinger: an insider's guide to long COVID

London filmmaker, marathon runner and investigative journalist Gez Medinger was infected with COVID 19 in the first months of the pandemic and has suffered post-viral symptoms since.

His YouTube channel, originally about running, old cars and bikes, has now become a valuable resource for long COVID patients, with over a hundred videos exploring the latest long COVID research. 

In an unusual patient-doctor collaboration Medinger co-wrote The Long Covid Handbook with immunologist Professor Danny Altmann.

Long Covid Support Aoteraroa has lived experience of patients and information.

8.35 Emojipedia founder Jeremy Burge

Face with Tears of Joy, Skull, Melting Face, Eyes.

Emoji have been called the first language born of the digital world, with over 3,000  "picture characters" available to add emotional nuance to written communication.

They first appeared on Japanese mobile phones at the turn of the millennium and are now an everyday part of the way we communicate. 

Jeremy Burge has been called the "Samuel Johnson of emoji". Ten years ago he founded Emojipedia, an online reference site of emoji characters and their meaning. He was also a member of the Unicode Emoji Subcommittee, which is responsible for reviewing requests for new emoji.

He currently writes a Mobile Tech Journal and has a popular TikTok channel about living on a narrow boat. 

9.05 Former US Judge Nancy Gertner on Trump's charges and chances

Former U.S. federal judge Nancy Gertner was appointed to the bench of the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts by President Bill Clinton in 1994, retiring in 2011 to teach at Harvard Law School, and is working on a book featuring interviews with people she imprisoned.

Gertner is in New Zealand for the Criminal Bar Association conference, discussing, among other things, Donald Trump's chances of being re-elected, should he be convicted. 

10.05 Dr Roderick Mulgan: how to build your immunity 

Aged-care doctor Dr Roderick Mulgan has a long-held interest in preventative medicine, with a research focus on inflammation, longevity, immunity and the role of functional foods.

His new book, Build Your Immunity For Life, examines the role of lifestyle and diet in boosting immunity and protecting against infection. 

He is also the author of The Internal Flame: New Insights into Silent Inflammation, and Eat Yourself Healthy. 

10.30 Dr Cady Coleman: the loneliness of life in space 

Beyond our romanticized vision of space exploration is a day-to-day life of physical and social isolation and confinement in an unnatural environment of microgravity and artificial light.

New documentary Space: The Longest Goodbye follows NASA psychologist Dr. Al Holland, tasked with studying and mitigating the threat loneliness poses to missons. 

It's a particularly urgent task as NASA intends to send astronauts to Mars in the next decade - a voyage that will entail a three-year separation, with no real-time communication with Earth.

One of the subjects of the film is Dr. Cady Coleman, a former NASA astronaut who has spent more than 180 days on the International Space Station, separated from her husband and her young son Jamey.

Space: The Longest Goodbye screens in Auckland,  Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin as part of Whānau Mārama: New Zealand International Film Festival. 

11.05 Anna Funder: how George Orwell wrote his wife out of his story

All That I Am and Stasiland author Anna Funder’s new book Wifedom rewrites the life of her literary hero George Orwell to put a main character back in the story.

Blending forensic research, fiction, life writing and criticism, Funder reveals the importance of his wife Eileen O'Shaughnessy.  Eileen's financial and practical support allowed him to write, and her own literary talent shaped his work, including Animal Farm.

Written over six years, the idea for Wifedom came after the discovery of six letters in 2015 from O'Shaughnessy to a friend, their contents contrary to all the biographies written on Orwell.

 

Books featured on this show:

The Long Covid Handbook
By Gez Medinger and Professor Danny Altmann
Published by Penguin
ISBN: 9781529900125

Build Your Immunity for Life: Diet and Lifestyle Choices to Protect against Infection
by Dr Roderick Mulgan 
by Calico Publishing
ISBN: 9781877429576

Wifedom: Mrs Orwell's Invisible Life
By Anna Funder
Published by Hamish Hamilton
ISBN: 9780143787112