Navigation for Saturday Morning

Saturday Morning for Saturday 7 October 2023

Add all to playlist

8.10  Kim Stanley Robinson: imagining the future and finding hope

US writer Kim Stanley Robinson spends a lot of time imagining the future. 

The author of more than 20 novels, including his best-selling The Mars Trilogy, he's considered one of the greatest writers of contemporary science fiction of our time.

More recently the committed environmentalist has turned his attention back on Earth, putting his mind and imagination to climate change in his acclaimed book The Ministry for the Future. It lays out what's been described as a chilling yet hopeful vision of how the next few decades on Earth might unfold.

Author Kim Stanley Robinson

Author Kim Stanley Robinson Photo: Sean Curtin

9.05  Untouchable Girls: The Topp Twins in their own words

They're a familiar double act, beloved by New Zealanders for decades for their down-home, distinctive brand of music and comedy.

Dames Jools and Lynda Topp, aka The Topp Twins, have a memoir out - Untouchable Girls: The Topp Twins' Story.

Full of photos, anecdotes and memories, it tracks their lives and careers from country girls growing up in Waikato to politically-active, award-winning entertainers, responsible for creating such legendary characters as Camp Mother and Ken and Ken. The pair, who say they have a telepathic bond, also detail their individual battles with cancer.

The twins busking in front of a store in Wellington (PHOTO: Mark Wilson)

The Twins at a Springbok tour protest in Auckland 1981. Jools and Lynda can be seen in the front row at far right with their friends Shar, Nik, Shane, and Linden (PHOTO: Gil Hanly)

The Topp family enjoying a rare day at the beach in Hawke's Bay, circa 1961 (PHOTO: Topp Collection)

The Ginghams travel the word - postcard from the Untouchable Girls documentary (PHOTO: Sally Tagg and Diva Productions)

Rural radicals at Te Henga (Bethells Beach), early 1980s (PHOTO: Anne Crozier)

Prue and Dilly (PHOTO: Sally Tagg, used with permission from Are Media)

Performing at Sweetwaters in the early 1980s (PHOTO: Graham Hooper)

Lynda and Jools in 1979 (PHOTO: Romi Curl)

Lynda (left) and Jools on the road during the Peter Garrett tour (PHOTO: Larry Ross)

Lynda (left) and Jools on Auckland Harbour in the 1980s (PHOTO: Bruce Connew)

Lynda (left) and Jools in the only dresses they were happy to wear (because they had dogs on them) (PHOTO: Topp Collection)

Lynda (left) and Jools as Belle and Belle Gingham in Avoca, Iowa (PHOTO: Arani Cuthbert)

Dames Jools and Lynda Topp, Kiwibank New Zealander of the Year Awards (PHOTO: Carlo Gomez)

Camp Mother reclines on a chair while Camp Leader prepares for some tennis (PHOTO: Sally Tagg)

10:05  Can man-made ivory save the elephants?


Professor Jochen Mannhart is a physicist whose scientific work could prove to be a conservation game changer.

Every year tens of thousands of African elephants continue to be hunted down and killed by poachers for their ivory tusks.

Working to find ivory alternatives, Professor Mannhart and his team at the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research in Germany have reproduced the chemistry of a real ivory tusk, opening a potential new market in synthetic ivory and help save an endangered species ... or at least that was the hope.

Photo: AFP

10.35  Kiwi film-maker lifting the lid on California's pistachio wars

Pistachio nuts have become a popular snack around the world but a new documentary about where they come from and how they're farmed might make pistachio lovers think again before shelling their next nut. 

Dunedin film-maker Rowan Wernham has teamed up with US journalist Yasha Levine to tell the story of a bitter battle being waged in California where 90 percent of the world's pistachios are produced.

Pistachio Wars is an investigative documentary into billionaire pistachio farmers and water barons Stewart and Lynda Resnick, who it's alleged are flagrantly bending the parched state's political system and privatising water to feed their vast farming empire in the desert. 

Pistachio Wars co-directors, Rowan Wernham and Yasha Levine

Pistachio Wars co-directors, Rowan Wernham and Yasha Levine Photo: Pistachio Wars

11.05  New Zealand Chamber Choir marks 25 years with national tour


New Zealand's premier national choir is celebrating its 25th anniversary by embarking on a national tour this month.

The Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir will be reimagining Mozart with a new arrangement of Mozart's Requiem by Robert Wiremu.

Voices - founded by Dr Karen Grylls, who is also Music Director - made its debut at the 1998 New Zealand International Arts Festival and in its 25 years has toured around the world, picking up dozens of international awards along the way.

Voices New Zealand, our premier national choir, celebrate their 25th anniversary

Voices New Zealand, our premier national choir, celebrate their 25th anniversary Photo: Courtesy of Choirs Aotearoa NZ

11.30  Homegrown TV and the push to put middle-aged women on our screens

Frustrated by the lack of decent roles for middle-aged women, actor Robyn Malcolm and veteran screenwriter Dianne Taylor decided to do something about it.

The pair put their heads together to create After the Party – a six-part drama series set in Wellington which premieres on TVNZ at the end of the month.

Its main character, played by Malcolm, is a woman in her 50s whose world implodes when she accuses her husband of a sex crime and nobody believes her.

After the Party will premiere on TVNZ 1 and TVNZ+, October 29 at 8.30pm

After the Party, TV series written by Dianne Taylor, starring Robyn Malcolm

After the Party, TV series written by Dianne Taylor, starring Robyn Malcolm Photo: Mark Rogers

Books featured on the show

The Ministry for the Future
Kim Stanley Robinson
ISBN: 9780316300131
Published by Orbit Books

Untouchable Girls - The Topp Twins' Story
Jules and Lynda Topp
ISBN: 978199100638
Published by Allen & Unwin NZ

 

Music played in this show

Song: Seasons Change
Artist: Future Islands
Time played: 8:55am

Song: Find a River 
Artist: The Mitchell Twins
Time played: 10:05am

Song: Les Fleurs 
Artist: Minnie Riperton
Time played: 10:30am 

Song: Hildegard von Bingen
Artist: Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir with Horomona Horo on taonga pūoro.
Time played: 11:05am

Title: Follow That Star
Artist: Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir & Karen Grylls
Time played: 11:35am