Whether you're stuck in traffic or stuck at home, RNZ's Tim Watkin has some ideas for an escape, with the best of this week's podcasts.
Photo: RNZ
Hitting the road for Labour Weekend can be, well, a bit like hard labour. You know what's ahead: The traffic, the frustration, the whining of children or friends, the arguments. And more traffic.
But RNZ has got your back. There is a way to escape while you are stuck on the road or stuck someplace watching the rain fall, with your hopes for a fine holiday weekend dashed.
So where to go? This week's RNZ podcasts offer you a range of destination for your holiday weekend.
You could travel to Napier in 1915 and the scene of a murder that captured the imagination of the nation. Alice Parkinson had just shot her fiancé, like a scene out of a CSI episode. But it wasn't a simple murder case and she became a cause celebre - a woman wronged - and it was her case that changed the laws of the land:
Or you could try the Ureweras a year later, when top cop John Cullen led a raid against Rua Kenana and made a name for himself - in infamy. And that's not to mention his crimes against the environment, which the Department of Conservation are still fighting today:
You could head to East Transvaal, South Africa in 1970, where Sir Colin Meads - then more commonly known as Pinetree - went into a ruck and came out with a broken arm... and famously kept playing. You can find out what Meads was trying to do when the break happened and why he didn't go off:
And while you're in Africa, you can debate which are the best books that continent has produced. Or at least, you can hear Wallace Chapmen and Jim Flynn banter their way across Africa, discuss who is "not brilliant", who offers an "unparalleled insight" into Islam and maybe get an idea for a good read:
If the catwalk is more your style, you can hear what it's like to walk the fashion runways of the world with Sudanese Kiwi model Mary Maguet and Malaysian-Chinese model Jin Ng. They're models with opinions about diversity and beauty:
If the exotic is more to your taste, how about Mesoamerica around 8000 BC. Have a laugh with the case of Right on the Night, as they make the case for this new-fangled agriculture and argue whether that old-fashioned hunting and gathering wasn't a better idea.
If Shanghai in the rain sounds like your thing, then you could go there with author Heidi North-Bailey and dive into her new book about a complicated love story set both in China and New Zealand.
Or, if you want to dive more literally, you can go swimming with the fishes - in this case, Australia's great white sharks. It's a story of where the come from, where they go and what they're made of:
By which time you should have made it, wherever you are going. Or the sun should be coming back out. Have a great Labour Weekend.
