Sunday Morning for Sunday 17 October 2021

8:12 Covid-19: 'New Zealand remains in a privileged position' 

Not letting Covid-19 rip through our communities has left New Zealand in a privileged position compared to England and many other countries, says London-based Kiwi doctor Will Rush. 
Rush is an Emergency Medicine Consultant who is working at the Royal London Hospital, which has been hit hard by Covid-19. He's seen the worst of things on the front line.
The father of three trained in Auckland and worked at Middlemore before shifting to the UK.
He says the UK lost its grip on the pandemic right from the start and never had control, while New Zealand has remained in a far better position with Covid-19 due to a mixture of good luck and good management. 

8:25 Cemetery tour brings life to history in Akaroa 

Akaroa's annual French Festival was set to take place this weekend, but the much-loved event, which attracts thousands of fans every year, has been postponed for the first time since its inception in 1998 because of Covid-19. 
However, New Zealand's most French town is continuing with celebrations of its own. 
Descended from both the French and early English settlers in Akaroa, Linda Sunderland is the Chairperson of the Comte de Paris Descendants Group, a member of the Akaroa Cemeteries Group and owner of Akaroa Guided Walks. Today she is taking a group on a guided walk through the historic Akaroa cemeteries to find out about the early history of the picturesque township. 

8:39 The Weekend Panel with Brigitte Morten and Tim Watkin 

Joining us on the Weekend Panel this morning are Brigitte Morten, a lawyer for Franks Ogilvie, and Radio New Zealand's Executive Director Podcasts & Series, Tim Watkin. Among other topics, they'll be discussing New Zealand's first-ever Vaxathon, the hit Netflix series Squid Game, and people littering while we are trying to keep New Zealand beautiful.    

9:06 Mediawatch

Mediawatch looks at how Australia is confronting big tech companies like Facebook and Google - and even making them pay for news. Also  - a surprising survey about funding pharmaceuticals - and New Zealand turned to a telethon this weekend to get vaccination rates up.

9:37 Do dogs really miss us when we are gone? 

Most dog owners tend to worry, at least a little, about their pets when they're left alone. But do dogs actually miss people when they are left at home to protect the family patch? 
The way dogs respond to humans upon return would suggest they do miss us, but then again, dogs also know how to play dead... 
However, science is now helping to find an answer to the question of whether dogs miss us.  
Bunny, a sheepadoodle, has been trained to communicate using a sound board with large buttons keyed to different words. And she has started asking questions about her owner's whereabouts. (You can watch Bunny have casual conversations on her social media sites.) 
Federico Rossano, director of the Comparative Cognition Lab at UC San Diego, joins the show to look at whether dogs do miss people when they're not with them. 

To enroll in the study, people can use either one of these links: https://how.theycantalk.org or www.theycantalk.org

10:04 Calling Home: Alex Jones in Tel Aviv 

As someone who is involved in the tourism industry in Tel Aviv, life has been something of a roller coaster for Cantabrian Alex Jones in recent times. 
However, things are starting to get to normal in Israel now, thanks in part to a mass distribution of third Covid shots. 
Alex, who lives in the centre of Tel Aviv with his wife, Linor, works as the VP of an Israeli-Palestinian tourism/educational cooperative called Green Olive Collective. He has also recently started working part-time as a course coordinator at Tel Aviv University, which he attended (gaining a Masters of Arts) before starting out with Green Olive Collective. He's Calling Home this morning. 

10:25 Why some people need less sleep than others 

Ever wondered how some people are able to function optimally on just a few hours' sleep, while others still find themselves feeling a lot less than ideal after a solid eight hour shift?
Those lucky people who thrive on limited but more efficient sleep ('short sleepers') could be benefiting from a gene mutation that allows them to live healthily on only four hours' sleep a night.  
Professor Ying-Hui Fu is a UC San Francisco professor of neurology and a pioneer in the study of sleep and genetics. She joins the show to discuss the science behind sleep and why it is so important for all of us. 

10:40 Jeffrey Halley: money and markets

Jeffrey Halley, Sunday morning's financial adviser, joins us. Jeffrey's a kiwi in Jakarta and Singapore who is the Senior Market Analyst for Asia Pacific for the OANDA corporation. He analyses the state of the world economy for Bloomberg, Microsoft, the BBC, Reuters, CNBC and the New York Times.

11:05 My Current Song: The Black Seeds, 'Let the Sunshine Through'

The Black Seeds are the sound of summer for many Kiwis. As frontman Barnaby Weir puts it, when you hear one of their songs, it can only be one band.
The eight-piece, Wellington-based band have just released the second single off their forthcoming seventh studio album, Let the Sunshine Through, and it's every bit the New Zealand summertime banger. 
Weir, who wrote the song pre-lockdown, joins Jim to discuss the new track, having hope and positivity in music, and the prospect of (hopefully) playing some big gigs over the summer.  

11.19 Newcastle's Saudi owners "a regime that chops journalists up" 

The Saudi Arabian-backed £305m takeover of the Newcastle United Football Club has been described as a new low in football's corruption by money. 
The takeover finally took place last week after 18 months of wrangling relating to Saudi Arabia's human rights record and accusations of pirating sports broadcast rights.
However, it appears Newcastle fans are largely indifferent to their new owners' alleged , with the prospect of a big cash injection igniting thoughts of a return to the club's glory days. (Newcastle haven't won a major trophy since 1969.) 
Tom McTague is a London-based staff writer for The Atlantic. He says Newcastle's sale to Saudi Arabia highlights something quite depressing about the state of Britain right now.  

11:42 How to eat yourself happy over summer 

Annabel Langbein and daughter Rose have collaborated again and will release their second cookbook tomorrow, the aptly-named Summer at Home. 
Following the success of their 2018 collaboration Together, the mother-daughter team are back with more delicious, simple recipes. The book was written during summer 2021, when Rose returned home from New York to escape the pandemic and the family reconnected over shared meals. After three years of life in the Big Apple, she is now living next to Annabel and husband Ted in a cabin on their Wanaka property. 
Rose joins us to discuss Summer at Home and the special relationship she shares with her Mum.