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"There is nobody who fails to be interesting"

26 Nov 2023

On Saturday, Kim Hill brought the curtain down on a 38-year career at RNZ. After making her name as an unparalleled interviewer, she switched places and let Sunday Morning's Jim Mora ask her questions. Video, Audio

Sunday 26 November 2023

Available Audio (7)

8:10 Kim Hill: The Jim Mora interview 

On Saturday, Kim Hill brings the curtain down on a 38-year career at RNZ. After making her name as an unparalleled interviewer, she switches places and let Sunday Morning’s Jim Mora ask her questions. 

Kim Hill Final Interview

Photo: RNZ / Marika Khabazi

8:40 Ali Hill: The Nutrition Edition 

Dr Ali Hill from Otago University's Department of Human Nutrition joins us once again. This time she looks at the link between fructose and obesity and also the dangers of fried rice syndrome. 

Close-up of fried rice with shrimps. (Photo by Brisbois / Wikholm / Photononstop / Photononstop via AFP)

Photo: BRISBOIS / WIKHOLM

9:00 Mediawatch 

This week Mediawatch asks the country’s most powerful media watchdog why it is now calling for new laws to hold the media to account - and looks at why music journalism is vanishing from our media.  Also - how the media covered the long process of forming a new government. 

Mediawatch looks critically at the New Zealand media - television, radio, newspapers and magazines as well as the 'new' electronic media. Photo:

9:40 Catherine de Lange: The best exercise for the mind 

Most of us feel better once we get the blood pumping a bit, but are there exercises that work better for our mental health than others? 

Catherine de Lange is a science author, specialising in bioscience. She has written the book Brain Power: Everything you need to know for a healthy, happy brain.  

She digs into the science behind exercise and our mental health. 

Happy active senior women exercising, stretching arms overhead in exercise class. (Photo by CAIA IMAGE/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY / NEW / Science Photo Library via AFP)

Photo: CAIA IMAGE/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

10:10 Anna Ptaszynski: The strange and interesting world of sport  

If you've ever wondered what David Attenborough has to do with yellow tennis balls, why Victorian doctors feared the outbreak of 'bicycle face'; or what led ancient Egyptian athletes to have their spleens removed, the book 'Everything to Play For’ has your answer. 

It’s the brainchild of Anna Ptaszynski and James Harkin, both senior editors and scriptwriters for BBC quiz show QI (Quite Interesting). 

Anna joins Sunday Morning to tackle sport’s weirdest rules, its most unlikely heroes, and promises to cover everything from pole-vaulting priests to professional pillow-fighting.  

Anna Ptaszynski  book composite

Photo: faber

10:40 Daniel Oppenheimer: The Benefits of Handwriting 

Perhaps this year’s letter to Santa will reap more benefit than just what’s under the tree on Christmas morning. 

Daniel M. Oppenheimer is a professor of psychology at Carnegie Mellon University in the Department of Social and Decision Sciences.  He discusses if the pen is indeed mightier than the laptop. 

Left-handed woman writing diary, close-up of hands with pencil and notebook. (Photo by IGOR STEVANOVIC / SCIENCE PHOTO / IST / Science Photo Library via AFP)

Photo: IGOR STEVANOVIC / SCIENCE PHOTO

11:10 Terry Hayes: bestselling author returns with “The Year of the Locust’   

‘I am Pilgrim’ was a worldwide bestseller in 2013 and THE Christmas present of the year. Nine years later Terry Hayes, now 72, is gifting his readers a follow up: ‘The Year of the Locust’.  

He returns to the world of intelligence with another spy novel, but this time with completely new characters.  

Hayes is a former journalist whose investigative work has led him to knock on the doors of the criminal underworld. His writing was noticed by the Mad Max film director in 1979, which led to a screenwriting career and a momentary, glamorous life in Hollywood. One million words later, Terry speaks to Jim.    

Terry Hayes The Year of the Locust author and book composite image

Photo: Bantam

Photo: Supplied

 

We get regular enquiries about the dynamic show theme for Sunday Morning. People ask about the composer. She is 18 years old, and the daughter of the host! Rebecca Mora is studying music composition at Auckland University, but while she was still at school, Jim asked if he could listen to what she was working on in her spare time one day. He thought right away that what he was hearing sounded great for the radio. In 2020, Rebecca was the Supreme Winner of the Shakespeare Globe Centre New Zealand’s national contest for composition. (It was to mean a trip to the Globe Theatre itself, to compose stage music there, but Covid put paid to that.)

‘Hatstand’ is the title of Sunday Morning’s music theme (feel free to suggest another), and it has been re-energised! Karyn Hay was listening to it one Sunday, with her husband Andrew Fagan (former lead singer of the Mockers and ardent sailor). “This needs re-mastering to bring out its full flavour,” Andrew said to Karyn. Rebecca has now done that with RNZ’s legendary Andre Upston, who has produced many famous musicians in our studios.