Full Show Podcast: 16 August 2026

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News Talks EDB. Welcome to the Sunday Session with
Francesca Rudkin and wiggles for the best selection of great
reads used Talks EDB.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
Good morning and welcome to the Sunday Session. I'm Francisca Rudkin.
Wonderful to have you with us today. I have got
the loveliest guest for you after ten. His name is
Tom Daily, Yes, Britain's most decorated Olympic diver. He has
now retired and has begun a new career as a knitter.
You might remember him sitting in the stands in between
dives at the Tokyo Olympics knitting up a storm. While

(00:50):
he has now turned his love of knitting into a business.
And here's the host of a new knitting reality show,
Game of Wool. He is with me after ten. After
eleven and Extraordinary New Zealander joins me. Former sas soldier,
helicopter pilot and adventure Remark Law is with me to
talk about his memoir Lucky You're Tough. Mark was also
one of the first pilots to land on for Carli

(01:10):
White Island in twenty nineteen, during an eruption and a
desperate bid to get to give the victims an opportunity
to fight for their lives. That rescue mission impacted Mark
in many ways, and he shares his story after eleven
And of course you're most welcome to contact us this morning.
You can text on ninety two ninety two the Sunday session.

(01:31):
So as you may have heard this time. A week ago,
ZB turned one hundred years old and on Friday we
threw a little party to celebrate. The Prime Minister came,
made a speech. He was brilliant, He was smart, very funny, relaxed.
He roasted us respectfully, and he took the mickey out
of himself beautifully. It was a great speech, well delivered,
and it had everybody in the room asking, so where's

(01:54):
this guy being. But here's the thing about being human.
We're just not always on. It's hard to always say
the right thing, articulate ourselves well, and be relatable, even
if you are a politician who is expected to do
it every day. And that's why I like Luckson. He
hasn't completely turned into a political talking point robot, not quite,
I know, politics should be about policy, not personality. But

(02:16):
personality has always mattered. As I've said before, whether it
was John Key's easy going style or just sinder Ardune's
empathy or Winston Peter's theater. How politicians communicate is just
as important as what they say, and on Friday night,
Luxon was probably the best communicator in a room packed
full with communicators. I said it last week. The MMP
referendum debarkle was blown out of proportion. Then there was

(02:38):
the Prime Minister's message to rot uer businesses, true to
National Party of view but poorly articulated, and a more succinct,
less patronizing version eventually followed. But with less than ninety
days to the election, these hardly seem meety enough incidences
to trigger a crue and destabilize the party, and it
seems enough national Caucus members agree. For now Luxen was

(03:02):
able to stare down his detractors, but having to defend
his leadership for a second time in four months a
good look for the party. It implies internal division, and
with no one believing Chris Penk went into the caucus
meeting as a lone wolf, it's clear not everyone believes
Luxon is the best person for the job. So what
does he do now? First, you've got to shut the
door on the leadership question completely. No more speculation, no

(03:22):
more caucus drama, no more legs to journalists. If National
is going to win on November seventh, Luxon needs every
MP looking outward, not over their shoulder at the person
sitting next to them, and he needs to simplify the campaign.
Don't make it a referendum on Christopher Luxen. Make it
a referendum on what National has delivered and what it
intends to do next. Focus on the economy. The costs
are living jobs or in order health, and getting governments

(03:44):
spending under control. These are the bread and butter issues
that determine how people feel about their lives, and Luxan
needs to rediscover that version of himself voters elected in
twenty twenty three. Confident, optimistic, focused and practical. Less political noise,
fewer unnecessary fights, more evidence that the government is getting
things done. But most importantly, National needs to lock united,

(04:05):
not pretend to be united, actually be united, because right
now voters need a reason to trust this team to
run the country. Luxon has won, but the battle inside
National now he has twelve weeks to win the one
that matters.

Speaker 3 (04:20):
The Sunday Session.

Speaker 2 (04:22):
Can to hear your thoughts. You can text on ninety
two ninety two. It is eleven past nine. Up next,
we're going to look at AI, what it means to
go rogue, and how we're preparing for how quickly AI
is learning to be human. You're with the news Talks EDB.

Speaker 3 (04:36):
Keep it simple, It's Sunday.

Speaker 1 (04:38):
The Sunday Session with Francesca Rudgot and Whig calls for
the best selection of great release news talks eNB.

Speaker 2 (04:46):
Good to have you with us. So in recent weeks,
we've seen multiple stories of AI models breaking out of
containment and going rogue. We've seen top tech companies Open
Ai and Tropic and Meta all have issues during routine
security testing. It naturally raises the question just how much
is AI capable of International research is underway to try
to fe get that out and to better understand what

(05:08):
separates AI from humans. Multiple AI labs around the world
are part of the study, including University of Auckland computer
scientist Dr Matthew Egbert. He joins me now to explain
what they're working on. Matthew, good morning, Good morning, Okay,
let's start. Are you talking me through this research that
you're involved in. What are you hoping to understand or learn?

Speaker 3 (05:30):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (05:31):
Great, So, as you mentioned, I'm really interested in this
question about what the differences are between natural forms of
intelligence and artificial forms of intelligence. We're building all of
this technology that's increasingly reminding us of ourselves and its
abilities to do things that we thought only humans could do,
and so I'm really interested in what the similarities are

(05:51):
between how AI does these things, but also and the
way humans do things, but also the difference.

Speaker 5 (05:58):
So it seems to.

Speaker 4 (05:58):
Me pretty obvious that although AI reminds us of ourselves,
it's really a different kind of thing than we are.
It doesn't have the same sort of perspective or the
same kinds of things, like its own goals or desires
that you and I as human beings have, And I'm
really interested in trying to figure out what those differences are.

Speaker 2 (06:16):
We know AI is very capable, but this is about
seeing if it might ever act on its own, like
whether it might actually be able to develop its own goals?
Is that right?

Speaker 3 (06:26):
Yes?

Speaker 5 (06:27):
Yeah, that's right. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (06:28):
So we've got in you know, the history of technology,
We've got lots of examples of technology that's not done
what we've expected it to, and I think that AI
technology that's emerging is just giving us yet another example
of this. It's hard to predict what technology is going
to do, how society is going to interact with technology,
And yeah, what we're seeing now is is very impressive

(06:50):
technology doing things that we don't necessarily expect, and it's
really hard to predict what it's going to do next.

Speaker 2 (06:56):
Do you imagine though, that it might ever act on
its own?

Speaker 4 (07:01):
Yeah, it's an interesting question. So enough technology doesn't need
to doesn't need to act.

Speaker 5 (07:07):
On its own.

Speaker 4 (07:08):
Yeah, yeah, it doesn't need to act on its own
or have its own goals to be potentially you know, dangerous,
or to do things we don't want it to. My
personal perspective is that artificial intelligence is really radically different
from human intelligence. That it's not it doesn't have motivations,
it doesn't have goals, it's not deliberately lying to us
or any of.

Speaker 5 (07:28):
These kinds of things.

Speaker 4 (07:29):
Sometimes it seems like it's doing that, and other researchers
might say, oh, no, it really is. It really has
these properties, it's really human like it's it's acting like
it has its own goals.

Speaker 5 (07:40):
Therefore it has its own goals, and part of the PCT.

Speaker 4 (07:43):
The purpose of the project that we're working on is
to try to give a little bit more context to
these kinds of debates back and forth between scientists that
have one opinion or the other and try to inform
those debates so that we can, I don't know, draw
some more solid conclusions about are these kinds of things intentional?
Do they have goals of their own, do they have
values of their own? All these kinds of really interesting questions.

(08:03):
It seems like people have their opinions now, but how
can we inform those opinions so it goes beyond an
opinion to you know, some sort of evidence based or
theory based perspective.

Speaker 2 (08:14):
The last few weeks we have been hearing about these
cases where AI has gone rogue has been the word
that's been used. But if we look at like the
open AI case, did it really go rogue or did
it just very diligently find a way to do what
it was asked to do?

Speaker 5 (08:30):
Yeah, well, that's sort of exactly the question, isn't it.

Speaker 4 (08:33):
All of this technology at some level is doing exactly
what we've told it to, right, We build the technology,
we design how it works. You know, these AI models
are trained on lots of data, but then they start
doing things which again are hard to predict or hard
to explain why they're doing precisely what they're doing. And
so as humans, we like to ascribe agency to things.

(08:56):
So in one of my classes, I build these really
simple robots. They're just a couple of wheels and motors
hooked up to light sensors and there's like almost no
AI to the middle. They're extremely simple things. But as
soon as you start playing with them and experimenting with them,
you start ascribing agency to them. You think, oh it's
angry or oh it's afraid, and these kinds of things.
And we really tend to think of other things, even

(09:18):
things we know to be inanimate, as being lifelike or
having intentions or emotional states. And we're doing that also
with AI now the way we do it with so
many other things.

Speaker 5 (09:29):
And so this idea of going rogue.

Speaker 4 (09:31):
All the language we're using for describing AI is again
this very sort of human anthropomorphic language right where we're
describing it in terms of escaped.

Speaker 2 (09:39):
Yeah, yeah, it's escape, But actually I don't think the
AI never left open Ayes machine. It just excess some
information it shouldn't have.

Speaker 5 (09:49):
Yes, that's right.

Speaker 4 (09:50):
So we're giving the AI different abilities to you know,
go out onto the internet retrieve information, and now not
just perhaps go out to retrieve information, but to be
able to take actions in a sense right to do
things online to cause things to happen. And because it's
such a new technology, it's not clear what will happen
when we give that kind of path to to these systems,

(10:11):
and it's it's important we you know, think long and
hard about how we give power to these systems and
try to do so in as careful way as we
possibly can.

Speaker 2 (10:20):
And that's a really interesting point. So and it brings
us back to this research to how important and like case,
how urgent is this research.

Speaker 4 (10:29):
Yeah, another another good question. In a sense, it does
seem quite urgent. And what seems to me particularly urgent
is sort of the idea around caution around the use
of the technology and trying to be.

Speaker 5 (10:42):
Deliberate about what we're doing.

Speaker 4 (10:45):
But as I mentioned before, I think all new technology
is hard to predict in terms of how it's going
to work and what it's going to do. And so
it's just important that we think about these things and
try to try to be intelligent about it, even though
it's going to you know, behave in ways that we
have hard time predicting.

Speaker 2 (11:03):
Matthew, I sort of. I can't help but wonder, considering
that sort of humans have always been concerned our inventions
could get the better of us for the centuries, should
at least sort of started thinking about this a bit
more earlier.

Speaker 4 (11:19):
Yeah, I mean that would be great, but we have
to sort of, you know, the cars that we're given.

Speaker 2 (11:24):
I'm sure there's people like you who have been.

Speaker 4 (11:28):
Yeah, I think there are people that have been interested
in the fundamentals of cognition, you know, for thousands of
years and trying to understand these things that we're trying
to study. So, just to be clear, our project is
not explicitly about figuring out how to how to wrangle.

Speaker 5 (11:43):
AI or to ensure that it does the right thing.

Speaker 4 (11:46):
It's more about, again, trying to figure out these fundamental
differences between human intelligence, human minds even and artificial intelligence.

Speaker 5 (11:56):
And yes, it would be great if we had a great.

Speaker 4 (11:58):
Theoretical understanding of these things before we built the technology.
But one of the things that happens is as you
build the technology, you learn about the subject matter. Right,
there's this strong connection between building technology and doing research
where each sort.

Speaker 5 (12:11):
Of drives the other.

Speaker 4 (12:11):
So it's very difficult, even impossible to think it all
through and know exactly what you want before you've done
the research, before you've built the technology.

Speaker 2 (12:19):
Yeah, and it's moving so fast, isn't it.

Speaker 5 (12:22):
It's moving so incredibly fast.

Speaker 4 (12:24):
And I guess this is maybe one of the things
that I find the most concerning because, as you rightly
pointed out, we've got technology that's given us cost for
concern repeatedly in the past. But what's new or what
continue The trend that continues is this.

Speaker 5 (12:37):
This speed of development.

Speaker 4 (12:38):
Right, We're getting this new technology that's more and more powerful,
and it's coming faster and faster.

Speaker 5 (12:45):
And how as a society do we deal with that?

Speaker 4 (12:47):
It seems like the things that we have set in
place are accelerating that advance for better or for worse
the other And as a society, I think we need
to think a little bit more about how can we
flow that down if we want to or do things
in a more considered way.

Speaker 5 (13:02):
But man, it's a challenging problem.

Speaker 2 (13:05):
It certainly is, and is it something that you hope
will come out of this research that maybe it will
help in terms of thinking about regulation and laws and
things for AI.

Speaker 4 (13:13):
Yeah, so we're not going to be directly contributing to
regulation rules or anything like that, but we do hope
to provide some theoretical understanding of what we mean by
these ideas of agency and goals and purposefulness that allow
people to talk about these things in a more informed way,
and by understanding the subject matter better then hopefully be

(13:36):
able to produce better forms of regulation and laws.

Speaker 2 (13:39):
Doctor Matthew Igbert, thanks so much for talking us strough
All that really appreciate it. I'm sure that we will
speak to you again soon. It is twenty three past
nine the Sunday session. Okay. The All Blacks have wrapped
up the Club Tour matches of their Greatest Rivalry Tour
with a fifteen to nineteen win over the Bulls in Pretoria.
They now begin preparations for the first test against the

(14:00):
Springbok next Sunday Morning News Talks. Thereb's lead rugby commentator
Elliott Smith is with me now.

Speaker 6 (14:06):
Morning, Good morning, Francesca from loftus Erstfeld.

Speaker 2 (14:10):
Now, as I just mentioned in the introduction, that's the
last of the club games before the first test against
South Africa. What have you made of the All Blacks
over these matches.

Speaker 6 (14:19):
Well, I think we've seen them builds and add a
bit to their game every time. There's obviously been a
lot of changes between the fifteens that have run on
and the twenty threes overall from the Stormers to the
Sharks and then change back to a hybrid sort of
for the last game here against the Balls. But I
think what the All Blacks will be happy with is
that they haven't taken a backward step across those three games.

(14:41):
They've taken a step forward. I think in each of
those games. Tonight was supposed to be perhaps the toughest
opposition they would face out of the club sides. Well,
they put the balls to the sword with a pretty
good attacking performance and apart from the occasional laps of play,
I think they'll be pretty happy with what they've got
in the books out of tonight's game.

Speaker 2 (14:58):
Will these games impact the team selection we see against
South Africa next Sunday or do you expect Renny to
select a similar side to we saw in the home tests.

Speaker 6 (15:09):
Yeah, I think it'd be relatively similar, but I think
there are spots up for grabs, and Dave Rennie has
sort of hinted that they've had a plan in place
for the first Test because they've had to work backwards
and figure out where each player needs to play in
the three club games. But I think there are a
few players that have put their hands up, especially tonight,
for a Test Jersey next week. Anton Signa was awarded

(15:32):
the matter of the Match medal. He was exceptional tonight
and I think he has to be in the twenty three,
probably off the bench next week. Peter Luckey adds so
much with ball in hands, a great roaming player, so
he might have put his hand up for a bench
spot and the other one will be far Begain Holland.
Now I'm not sure he's up to Test rugby minutes
as yet, but he doesn't look far away coming back
from his shoulder injury. He had a very good game

(15:54):
tonight as well. So there are three players that I
think have put their name up for consideration for Dave
Rennie in that twenty three for next week. So while
he probably has most of the starting side, if not
all the starting side. Locke, I think there are certainly
players that perform well tonight that will find themselves on
the bench.

Speaker 2 (16:11):
I mean, it does a step up next week, isn't it. Elliott?
I mean, what are you expecting from the Spring Brock
And I mean a lot they haven't been playing a
lot of their players haven't been playing in these club games.
They'll be fresh and ready to go with whereby we
look a little bit fashed and beaten.

Speaker 6 (16:24):
Yeah, absolutely well, the All Blacks, you know, have had
three games to warm up, and the Spring Blocks had
and a test against Argentina last week, but a lot
of those players also won't back up for next week.
They've got so much depth. South Africa at the moment
best team in the world, World champions twice over over
the last few years, and Russy Erasmus has the kind
of depth that means he could probably put out a

(16:44):
different sides week to week and still be you know,
you know favorite so for winning these games. So it'll
be a major step up for the All Blacks. You know,
last year we saw them belted in Wellington. Are really
poor performance. Probably the Nader of Scott Robertson's tenure. They
were woeful that night, so there's a bit of herd
in that All Blacks camp still, but coming to southampt

(17:06):
and beating them here is one of the toughest tasks,
if not the toughest in world rugby for the All Blacks.
Only of it did win a series once here and
that was wrapped up here at Loftus Vierzsfeld in nineteen
ninety six, so that speaks to how tough it's going
to be. And the spring Boxer are playing some incredible rugby,
so the All Blacks will happen to be better. But
we've seen some signs I think over the last few

(17:27):
weeks that's they can't put pressure on South Africa, but
they're going to have to be right on the top
of their game.

Speaker 2 (17:33):
Richie Manger has been called over as injury cover. What
role do you think he might play in the side
next week.

Speaker 6 (17:43):
I don't think you'll play any role in the All
Blacks test side next week at Johannesburg. I think he'll
be forced to wait. He'll probably play in that last
tour game. They've got awkwardly between the first Test and
the second they played the Lions at Alice Park and Johannesburg,
so he'll play that. Dave Reddy has all but said that,
so he won't play next week. But what it does
do is bring him into camp. He was out here

(18:04):
about an hour ago doing the victory lap with the
All Blacks, so he's arrived in camp, he's got his gear,
he's ready to go, so he'll start putting some pressure
on and asking questions. But I think it'll be a
slow introduction, barring injury for Richiemulonga back into this test site.

Speaker 2 (18:19):
How have you found this greatest drivery tour so far?
Is there an appetite for these extended like tours that
include the club matches?

Speaker 6 (18:27):
I think there is absolutely and I think the fact
that's the first and thirty years has built the scarcity
and no one ever thought this would happen again. You know,
the crowds haven't been as good as they would have
liked it these fixtures, which is a shame, but there
are approps, a few price concerns and cost of living
things here in South Africa that have got behind that.

(18:50):
Amena hasn't been the crowd success it might have been,
but there's a lot of sense that this tour is happening.
A lot of talk about the spring Box in the
streets and around town and various other things. So it's
been fully embraced, a lot of respect for the all
blacks over here in South Africa, and that's reciprocal as well.
So I think it's a fantastic idea. Yeah, the scarcity

(19:13):
will mean that, you know, South Africa comes to New
Zealand and twenty thirty and assuming it's a success, you
all blacks, so we're back here in twenty thirty four.
This is the kind of thing that most players will
only be able to do once in their career too
or properly to South Africa. So it's a once in
a Korea sort of thing for a lot of players.
And I think it's been embraced by the public for sure.

Speaker 2 (19:32):
Thank you so much, Elliot. I am sure that we
will talk to you next week. Thank you too for
your texts, clear text to say thank you. Frinch you
it's good for your positive and realistic comments about christoph
luxon your whole opinion piece is balanced and thoughtful food
for thought about the way forward outside the beltwaye New
Zealanders just want to get on with our lives and
for our country to be the best we can be.
Somebody else asked when I mentioned the party, somebody else

(19:54):
asked if Hipkins was there. I believe he was probably invited.
Ginny Anderson turned up though Label Winston was there, and
there were a few others. Ah, it was a good party,
lovely I sculpture. Now the text diffrom Ben ib Ai
is the future and that future is now embrace it
will be left behind Broke. I completely agree with you, Actually, Ben,

(20:16):
I've spoken about this before of how I sort of
venturing into understanding AI better. I'm doing a ASB zero
AI bootcamp for business at the moment, and I'm purely
doing it so that I understand how a small medium
sized business can incorporate it in. And here's what's really
interesting about the course is every step along way when
you do something, they are constantly talking about confidentiality, privacy, ethics, trust, hallucinations,

(20:38):
and at the end of the day, a human needs
to make a decision. So, you know, I think there's
a lot of you know, the more you learn about
it and how to use it, people are being very
realistic about what it can do and making sure that
you're keeping it in check the whole way long, but
it is. It's a really fascinating am I really enjoyed
talking to Matthew a little earlier. You can text any
time throughout the morning. Ninety two ninety two. It's nine thirty.

Speaker 1 (21:05):
It's the Sunday Setch with Francesca Rudkin on News Talks
that Be.

Speaker 2 (21:10):
It's time to talk politics and I'm joined by a
political commentator, Bridget Morton. Good morning, Bridget, good morning. Okay,
So recently Christopher Luxin had been more confident, his performances
had been improving, and then there was just one bad
week and it seems like one or more members of
his party pounced. What did you make of this week?

Speaker 7 (21:30):
Well, I think it's a pressure cooker. You know, we're
sitting at eighty something days out from the election. On
current polling, a number of Luxant's caucus will lose their seats.
A number of them will be also contemplating whether they're losing. Also,
being mega minister, it's a first term minister. I think
for many of them that there is a real level
of concern.

Speaker 8 (21:50):
So anything that.

Speaker 7 (21:52):
Kind of goes you know, off message or off piece
actually does sort of create a little bit of a
bigger ISO's reaction than what may be rational or maybe
something that we would have expected.

Speaker 2 (22:03):
So what damage has it done?

Speaker 8 (22:06):
I think there is sort of the key damages.

Speaker 7 (22:08):
Of course, anytime you're talking about yourselves and not talking
about what matters to voters and you know, costs of
living in the economy, the key things that people are
saying over and over again that they need government action on,
you know, that is where the key damage is.

Speaker 8 (22:23):
Of course, it also looks mes see.

Speaker 7 (22:25):
I think you know, you look at every opinion piece
this week, the weekend opinion papers are almost all talking
about this leadership debacle and also how you know that
will affect national They're not talking about other issues, So
I think there is going to be some damage there.
The key thing is is lux and going to be
able to really demonstrate that he's not going to make

(22:48):
some of those same mistakes he made in the previous
couple of weeks, you know, with the sort of renewed energy.

Speaker 2 (22:54):
And if we do look forward, what does National now
need to do. I mean, as he said, it's about
not focusing on ourselves and focusing on the election and
actually completing the parliamentary term.

Speaker 7 (23:06):
Yeah, and there's a big work program that they want
to get through before the end of the parliamentary term.
We've basically got sort of a month's worth of sitting
left to get through some pretty major pieces of legislation,
key things that were part of their delivery. The key
ones I think probably being the rm A reform bills.
I think that's been a key part of their platform.
So for them, they need to look like they've got

(23:27):
that well managed, that they're disciplined, and that they're focused
on actually getting that through. I think also, you know,
there's been a lot of noise and a lot of
discussion about what's sort of happening in politics, but ultimately
we know that campaigning actually means being on the doorsteps.
This means being out where the voters are, and I
think you need to see that sort of renewed energy
I think from National mpace to really go back and

(23:49):
reconnect with as many voters as possible.

Speaker 2 (23:52):
I just would I would like your thoughts on this.

Speaker 9 (23:54):
Though.

Speaker 2 (23:54):
We've seen Chris Bishop, he has spoken to the media
and he's kind of put it to bed Erica Stanford
is kind of actively avoiding the media. Is that a
good idea.

Speaker 8 (24:02):
Yeah, I think it's always tricky.

Speaker 7 (24:04):
I think in these circumstances know what to say because
every sort of sort of word you use or don't use,
I think gets pounced on. And you saw that, particularly
when you saw the sort of live videoing of every
MP as they came through Wellington Airport on Tuesday night
or Wednesday morning. And you know whether or not Stanford
silence there was a sign of something or not a

(24:24):
sign of something. So I do think it's really triggy
to navigate. I think it is better to just actually
make one clear statement, make it fourth right, and then
you move on. And I think you've actually seen Luxeon
do that this week. He has made his quite short
statement following the caucus vote, but since then he has
actually reusrated many times at every press conference at actually

(24:47):
is there to talk about what the announcement is or
what the voters are asking about.

Speaker 2 (24:50):
Bridget To party Marie are launching their election campaign today
and Gisbon where are they at as a party? They
say that they've moved on from all the chaos. Do
you think that's the case.

Speaker 7 (25:02):
Well, ultimately they've still got two MPs that are now
running as independence or ones running under a party brand
that is not theirs, so they still have a level
of dysfunction that they didn't have going into the last election.
I think what we've also seen is that they haven't
got a lot of media or a lot of pack

(25:22):
up in the last couple of months. Of course, it's
quite difficult, I think with the Maldi electorates to really
accurately kind of pull them. But I think there'll be
a number of people worrying that party about whether or
not they've still got the moment and behind them, and
whether they could actually lose some of their seats, not
just to might have mend a cup of key who
looks like she might retain her seat, but also back
to labor.

Speaker 2 (25:43):
That would be interesting to see. Well, there is a
lot of noise out there, Bridget. It's quite hard to
cut through, isn't it in the political area.

Speaker 8 (25:50):
Yeah? Absolutely, But I mean this is election time.

Speaker 7 (25:52):
Every election there's this, and every sort of little mistake,
little sort of word that apoliticians say has always much
absolutely amplified during an election.

Speaker 2 (26:02):
Love you to talk to your Bridget and enjoy the
rest of your Sunday. Thanks so much of your time
and don't forget the coming up after ten. Olympian and
celebrity knitter Tom Daily is with me. It is twenty one.

Speaker 1 (26:13):
To ten for Sunday session full show podcast on iHeartRadio
powered by News Talks AB.

Speaker 2 (26:20):
Thank you very much for your text, Hi franchise, I
always enjoy listening to you and thank you for your
comments through our prime ministers. You're disgusting that he has
been put through what he has twice now over his leadership.
We are privileged to have him as our prime minister.
Thank you very much. Someone asks where you could listen
to the speech on Friday. I'm not sure it's for public.
For the public. Gosh, it was good though.

Speaker 10 (26:39):
He held the room.

Speaker 2 (26:40):
Yeah, the room in his hands. It was very funny. Ah, Francisca,
thank you for your positive and realistic comments. Uh what
else here? Somebody else said to the media the key
drivers of this mess. Surely every party has their problems,

(27:01):
but actually the coalition has done a tremendous job over
the past three years. It's unfortunately the average VOTO thinks
of themselves without looking at wider issues of what's going
on around the world, and actually it's been and what's
been achieved in the last three years. Change of government
is not going to fix the living crisis which is worldwide.
And Malcolm, that is exactly exactly what the coalition now

(27:25):
needs to do. They need to they need to show
us that, right, that's what they need to do. They
need to to tighten up, get rid of all the
internal sort of you know, you know, discussion and actually
just tell us that that's sort of what the case is.
So thank you very very much for your texts there.

(27:46):
There is a new episode of the Little Things Out
the Wellbeing podcast I do with my friend Lou Airy,
where we talk to experts about a range of issues
in order to break through misinformation out there. Hey, this
week we're talking about information and information feels like it's
the new focus when it comes to talking about health
and wellbeing. Right, it's kind of like the new cholesterol.
We just hear the word a lot, and the wellness

(28:07):
industry has definitely jumped on the bandwagon. There are all
sorts of products out there that offer to help with
your inflammation. So we've done a podcast and we've worked
out we're sort of trying to find out what is inflammation,
what's the difference between a cute, chronic and low grade
inflammation and we should and shouldn't we worry about it
and how to deal with it. And that is all
covered with Professor Roslind Kemp from the University of Targo.

(28:30):
So that is on our podcast The Little Things on
iHeartRadio wherever you get your podcast. It's a great chat.
It is seventeen to ten.

Speaker 1 (28:40):
Fearless, focused informed. It's the Mike Hosking Breakfast.

Speaker 2 (28:44):
James Dolan is the strategic director of the Hotel councils W.
So someone turns up in a hotel room and pace.
It doesn't matter what you call it or how you
do it, does it.

Speaker 11 (28:52):
Acts doing something a little bit different. They're not creating
a new tax, but they're the first party to acknowledge
the fundamental problem. We have a huge amount of tax
is collected from tourists, but not enough of it goes
back to the local communities that host the tourists. Saying
they're not going to create a new one dollar charge,
They're just going to share out some of the central
covered attacks. I welcome the idea. Isn't the first major

(29:15):
political party to acknowledge the problem.

Speaker 1 (29:17):
Back tomorrow at six am, the Mike Hosking Breakfast with
Mayley's real Estate News Talk ZEDB.

Speaker 3 (29:23):
Relax, it's still the weekend.

Speaker 1 (29:25):
It's a Sunday session with Francesca Rudgin and Wiggles for
the best selection of Greg reads used Talk ZEDB.

Speaker 2 (29:41):
New Zealand Fashion Week kicks off in Auckland tomorrow this event.
This year's event marks twenty five years since Daint Piere
Stewart founded the event in two thousand and one. New
Zealand Fashion Week owner for Oz Ali is with me
now for Oz good morning, Thank you for your time.

Speaker 3 (29:57):
Oh, good morning, Francesca.

Speaker 2 (29:58):
Tell me about this year's event. What is the vision
for Fashion Week twenty twenty six.

Speaker 12 (30:04):
Oh, I think celebrating the twenty five ye Rea, since
you know when first game theaters started at It's probably
one of the largest events we are holding, with both
New Zealand Pacific international designers also participating for the first
time in a very exponential scale.

Speaker 2 (30:25):
Tell me a little bit more about that. Because you
have owned Fashion Week for five years now, how has
it changed and developed in that time.

Speaker 12 (30:33):
Well, I think we've been responsive to both the current
economic climates that's affecting the designers in New Zealand as
well as the sort of the retail struggles, but also
realizing that the market for New Zealand designers is beyond
New Zealand like in Australia and abroad. So I recently

(30:54):
visited India with the Prime Minister and signed an MoU
with the Fashion Design Council of India. What that allows
us to do is take for New Zealand designers to
India next year for Luckmow Fashion Week and giving them
access to one point five billion population. Even if we
took one percent of that, that is a massive market
compared to New Zealand. And in exchange, we are hosting

(31:16):
this year for Indian designers that is going to showcase
in New Zealand but use the New New Zealand backdrop
and images to drive tourism and hospitality as well as
collaboration with New Zealand designers. So that's happening on Tuesday
night and so we're very very lighted elitd that that

(31:36):
is happening and this is just the beginning.

Speaker 3 (31:39):
So we're excited.

Speaker 2 (31:41):
Oh it sounds amazing because it's been quite a hard
five years, hasn't it. I mean two years ago you
were forced to cancel the event. You came back last
year with a sponsor. Is the event now in a
strong position?

Speaker 12 (31:53):
I think so. I think, you know, the decisions we
took post COVID for suspending the first one and obviously
canceling and I think twenty twenty four has led us
to be where we are today and extremely grateful for
both the you know, the local government with you know, Tatucky, Auckland,
et cetera, giving us continued support over decades. But this

(32:15):
year was a little bit special that we managed to
attract some major events boost funding from the federal government,
which has allowed us to sort of, you know, be
a little bit more strategic and sort of making the
event fire more financially stable from a cost perspective wise,
but also for years to come in terms of the

(32:36):
structure of the event. So yeah, it's not easy, but
from what we've seen from ticket sales this year, you know,
we've surpassed the last two years.

Speaker 2 (32:46):
Oh fantastic. What more would you like to do with it?
If you're looking forward? Is there more development to come?

Speaker 13 (32:53):
I think so.

Speaker 12 (32:54):
There is going to be a special announcement tomorrow with
a formation of Fashion Design Council of New Zealand. You know,
I've often said since acquiring Fashion Week that I'm the
current custodian of it and what I've love to see
as a vision for Fashion Week to be owned by
the New Zealand industry.

Speaker 13 (33:11):
And so we're.

Speaker 12 (33:13):
Initiating some of the steps and hopefully it depends on
the structure we set up. It allows a bet of
fashion philanthropy and people that can act as patrons and
you know, very generous benefactors. They can support the event
in the industry going forward. But in the meantime it's

(33:34):
under my home and I have a formidable team that's
working very, very tirelessly to making sure this event is successful.

Speaker 2 (33:41):
This sare as you said, it's really all about celebrating
the twenty five years this festival, and you've also explained
some of the ways that the Fashion Week is able
to help designers beyond just the week. But I wonder
if we could talk a little bit more broadly about that.

(34:02):
Is it still an important platform for our designers.

Speaker 12 (34:07):
You know, it has media sorry, it's it's got recognition
around the world, meaning it's it's the official New Zealand
Fashion Week.

Speaker 13 (34:14):
Secondly, I think you know it's it's.

Speaker 12 (34:18):
Once a week and obviously we've initiated this amazing partnership
with Krushish New Zealand, so we're doing a second, much
smaller event in christs which later in the year to
catch those designers that cannot participate in the main week
and particularly south on it with krish which booming. The
idea is to provide the platform to you know, enhance,
promote and advocate for our industry that you know has

(34:41):
a lot of perseverance, right like you know they're they're resilient.
But despite being resilient and pushing things, unfortunately sometimes they
make critical decisions that they end up closing their stores
and we've seen a bunch of closures now. So all
we can do is help them be a voice reach
whether they're buyers, whether we live in the world of

(35:04):
social media and influencers, how can they get the brand
across various islands, you know, across the good Australia. It's easy,
it's only three hours, but we think the whole world
is there waiting for New Zealand designers and we've seen
that our New Zealand designers have gone abroad and being
extremely successful. So all this is doing is saying, yes,

(35:24):
while we acknowledge how good the industry is in New Zealand,
but in which struggles, let's not quit. Let's let's work
together as a team and keep pushing the limits, because
that's what.

Speaker 3 (35:34):
New Zealanders do.

Speaker 12 (35:35):
Like you know, we never quit and a lot of
rugby matches are won in the last five minutes of
the rugby games. So is that my mentality?

Speaker 2 (35:44):
Is it particularly beneficial as a platform for e merging
designers as well?

Speaker 12 (35:49):
Yeah, I mean we've We've got Dan Awa to form
a Viva Creator creative director. You know, he is all
about emerging designers. He's all about people giving them the platform,
the voice, and the opportunity. And I'd love for you
to come and see it this year because you will
see a huge amount emerging designers. So and we've also
removed the barrier. We're not charging designers any application fee

(36:12):
to come in. But for the designers that are not
quite ready to go out in the large scale, we're
combining them with the other more mature designers and doing
collaborative shows. So yes, we're nurturing them. And as obviously
as the owner of the White Cliff, I'd love to
see not just White Cliff students, but all the other
university students having access to an opportunity like the Fashion

(36:33):
Fashion Week platform. So the graduate Show, the Walk, the
Line for aspiring young kids who wants to get into fashion,
all of those themes are there.

Speaker 2 (36:41):
Oh look, I wish you all the best for the week.
Have a fantastic week, and thank you so much for
being with us this morning.

Speaker 12 (36:47):
Thank you Francesca.

Speaker 2 (36:48):
That was New Zealand Fashion Week owner ferroz Ali with
me there. So as he said, so all kicking off
on Monday. Just jump online you'll be able to find
the schedule if you're interested to pop along and check
it out. It is six to.

Speaker 1 (37:00):
Ten the Sunday Session full show podcast on my Heart
Radio powered by News Talks.

Speaker 2 (37:06):
At Coming up next here on News Talks, he'd be
the lovely Tom Daily is with us to talk about
life after being an Olympic diver, how he's found not
only solace but a new career in knitting. And we're
going to talk about his reality TV show it's called
Game of Wool. Great title, right, this is his first

(37:27):
TV hosting gig. So Tom Daily is with me next
and we're going to finish the hour with a little
bit of John Farnham. Can you believe that next month
marks the anniversary of his breakthrough album Whispering Jack. It's
making me feel a little bit old anyway. To celebrate,
John Farnam has announced a limited edition version of the
hit album. It's been pressed on black and white vinyl,

(37:49):
individually numbered from one to two thousand, five hundred. So
there we go. If you're a big fan, you might
want to get your hands on one of those. Back shortly.

Speaker 3 (39:00):
It's Sunday. You know what that means.

Speaker 1 (39:02):
It's the Sunday Session with Francesca Rutgers and Wickles for
the best selection of great reeds U stalk zeb.

Speaker 2 (39:15):
Yes, this is a Sunday session. Love you to have
you with us. Tom Daily is best known for his
talents jumping off a diving board. Tom has five Olympic medals,
making him Britain's most decorated diver. He's also one of
Britain's youngest ever Olympians, having first competed just fourteen years old.
But these days Tom is somewhat of a celebrity knitter.

(39:38):
If you cast your mind back to the Tokyo Olympics,
you will remember Tom going viral for knitting in the
stands between events. Tom now owns a knitting brand and
has even been known to knit creations for celebrities. Since retiring,
he's been doing some TV work, which naturally led to
him hosting Game of Wool Britain's Best Knitter. It is
the most delightful show. And Tom joins me now from

(39:59):
his home in La Tom Daily, Good morning.

Speaker 10 (40:02):
Good morning.

Speaker 14 (40:03):
Yes, it's the summer holidays here in Los Angeles, so
my kid home from school as well, so it's chaos,
as many parents can relate.

Speaker 2 (40:11):
One of my enduring memories of the Tokyo in the
Paris Olympics are shots of you knitting in the stands.
How did knitting start for you?

Speaker 14 (40:22):
I mean, knitting came into my life just before lockdown
actually as a way of me being able to relax
and unwind.

Speaker 10 (40:28):
But it didn't really start for that reason.

Speaker 14 (40:30):
It started as a way of me being able to
stop going around and going to museums and going to
markets and running around and racing around on weekends because
my coach said that on the weekends I was too
busy and she wanted me to find something that I
could sit down, relax and come in more recovered on
a Monday. So then my husband said to me, because
he's a filmmaker and works in film, TV producer, writer, director,

(40:54):
there are lots of actors while they're waiting on set
would knit. So I was like, you know what, Okay,
I'll get my knitting needles and my yarn and went
onto the YouTube university and taught myself how to knit
from some YouTube tutorials. Became pretty obsessed pretty quickly, and
I loved it, and before I knew it, it became

(41:15):
my mindfulness. It became my meditation, and it became my
way of switching off from the world around me and
taught me to slow down, be present, be in the moment,
and I genuinely think it became my superpower.

Speaker 2 (41:28):
Did it heaven impact? When you were knitting between events?
What did that? What did that do for you? How
did that help your performance?

Speaker 14 (41:37):
I mean being able to sit and knit in between events,
because when you're going especially at an Olympic Games, there
is so much going on, and going into an Olympic
Games like Tokyo for example, in the height of COVID there,
we weren't allowed to socialize, we weren't all we were
allowed to do was go to the pool and train,
go back, eat and be in the food hall for

(41:57):
such a small amount of time, go back to the
room and sit and wait to compete. So there was
so much time to overthink. So it allowed me to
get out of my head. So and while so many
of my competitors were sitting there thinking about their competition,
thinking about the things that could go well, the things
that could go terribly, I was excited to get back
to the room to be able to knit because there

(42:18):
wasn't anything else that I could do.

Speaker 10 (42:20):
I was able to like put my time and energy
into something else.

Speaker 14 (42:23):
And I think any other knitter or crochea out there
will be able to relate to the fact of that
feeling that you get when you're able to just sit down,
whether it's in front of the TV, whether it's listening
to music, whether it's with a cup of tea, whether
it's in the garden, whether it's you know, just sitting
in your living room, wherever it is, your safe space
to knit or crochet.

Speaker 10 (42:43):
It just gives you that feeling that like no other.

Speaker 14 (42:46):
And you know, some people, for some people that might
be going for a walk or reading a book, But
for me that was knitting.

Speaker 2 (42:54):
You really took to knitting. It's not just a hobby,
and I wonder if this is just a bit of
your personality, Tom, I mean, to take a side hobby
and really launch into it with everything you have. I mean,
I imagine that's what you kind of you know, you
need to give it. You're all, if you're going to
be a successful Olympian, right, would I be creaked in

(43:14):
that assumption?

Speaker 15 (43:16):
Yeah?

Speaker 10 (43:16):
I mean, you know, I'm quite the I'm quite competitive.

Speaker 14 (43:19):
I mean, I think you have to be competitive to
be an Olympian at a certain point. But you know,
I like to put if I do anything, if it's
worth doing, it's worth doing right.

Speaker 10 (43:27):
Is a motto that I like to live by.

Speaker 14 (43:29):
It's something that my husband's mum used to live by
as she's sadly passed away now, but it's something that
we kind of live by day day by day, and
it's something that we instill in our kids as well.
If it's worth doing, it's worth doing right. So if
we're going to try and do something, and we try
and do something, you know, as we try and put
our best effort into something. For me, with knitting, it

(43:53):
also really helps it if you enjoy it. Like I've
been so lucky to find things that I've enjoyed, you know,
I've also found things that I really didn't enjoy. Like
most people think of me as an Olympian.

Speaker 10 (44:03):
Oh, you must have really enjoyed like doing pe.

Speaker 14 (44:06):
I don't know if you call it pee in New
Zealand as well. Yeah, okay, cool, but like you must
have really enjoyed pee at school. And actually no, I
hated it like most sports I hate, Like there's I
don't I hate, like I'm names.

Speaker 10 (44:19):
I know, it's like almost like swearing for New Zealand.

Speaker 14 (44:22):
But like you know, rugby when we were when we
had to do rugby at school, it's just not me.
I'd like rugby and football and all of those sports
that you.

Speaker 10 (44:31):
Had to do at school. I just like in cricket
just really wasn't for me.

Speaker 14 (44:36):
Like and I was more into gymnastics and diving and
all of like the Olympic sports. You know, I could
get behind like running and athletics and you know, all
of the things that took a little bit more like
skill and like little bit more like throat, like even
archery and.

Speaker 10 (44:51):
Things like that. I could get behind.

Speaker 14 (44:52):
But it was like the things that were like full
contact sports that just weren't for me. So it was, yeah,
I don't know, whatever it was, if I enjoyed it,
I wanted to put my all into it.

Speaker 2 (45:02):
Absolutely interesting when you see before though, you know, if
you get do something, it's worth doing it well. But
does that mean because I would imagine you have to
let go of perfection a little bit. If you're a
knitter or a crochere, you just have to accept that
sometimes when something is handmade, it might not be quite
you know, its perfect is of course.

Speaker 10 (45:25):
I mean, it's not necessarily time to do it.

Speaker 14 (45:27):
It's not necessarily if it's worth doing, it's worth doing well.
It's worth doing right in terms of it's worth taking
the time.

Speaker 10 (45:36):
To not rush it.

Speaker 14 (45:38):
It's worth taking the time to be able to you know,
it's not just like oh, that'll do It'll be like,
you know, I'm just going to actually enjoy.

Speaker 10 (45:46):
The process of doing that, you know.

Speaker 14 (45:48):
And that's something that I've with knitting taught me a
lot actually, with being able to take some of the
lessons that I learned into diving. For example, knitting, you
make a mistake and you have to unravel everything before.
In any other like thing in my life, if I
had to start from the beginning, I would get really frustrated.

(46:08):
But I would actually get excited about starting from the
beginning because I wasn't starting from scratch. I was starting
from experience, and I was able to start from the
beginning and learn from my mistakes and start again and
do something new with it. So that was something I
was able to do with diving. I was then able
to try new things not worry about trying those new
things because I was like, you know what, I'll try

(46:28):
something new and if it doesn't go right, I get
to start again and not make the same mistake twice.
And I know it sounds silly that you kind of
get stuck in your ways, and you know, as you
get older as an athlete, but when you start trying
new things, even if it's with knitting and things go wrong,
you just learn that actually trying new things is actually okay.

Speaker 2 (46:46):
Yeah, no, I don't think I don't think that sounds
silly at all. So you now host Game of Wool.
This was one of your first big hosting gigs. Did
you love it?

Speaker 10 (46:55):
I absolutely loved Game of War.

Speaker 14 (46:56):
Game of War for me was like a dream come
true to be able to be part of a knitting community,
to be able to talk about knitting all day every day,
for it to be some.

Speaker 10 (47:05):
Kind of common petition, and you know, it was so
much fun.

Speaker 14 (47:09):
And the group of knitters that we had was just
they were all so supportive of one another. And I
think that's the amazing thing about the world of knitting
and the world of craft is that everybody wants to
support one another. And that was what I found when
I first started knitting as well, is that you have
a question about knitting, or you want to learn any technique,

(47:29):
or you're stuck with something, you go online and everybody's
willing to help you. And I think that's something that's
really special. And I think that's something that Game of
Wall really highlights, is that everybody is willing to help
one another and there isn't that animosity within like towards
each other.

Speaker 10 (47:45):
And I think that's something that's really special. And so I.

Speaker 14 (47:49):
Hope people are enjoying it over in I mean it's
been out in the UK for a while now, but
I believe it's out in New Zealand now just now.

Speaker 2 (47:56):
And look, I completely agree with you. I think this
is one of the loveliest feel good shows on TV.
It just reminds us that, you know, we can be
you know that humans can be good people even when
they're in the middle of a competition and things. You know,
as you say, they're also support of each other. I
have to discuss your outfits. Ye spectacular?

Speaker 13 (48:16):
Oh thank you?

Speaker 2 (48:17):
Were you responsible for any of these yourself? Who made
these wonderful creations that you got to wear?

Speaker 10 (48:23):
Yes?

Speaker 14 (48:24):
So I work with my stylist James Yardley, who I've
worked with for ten to twelve long time now twelve years,
and we were like, we know, we wanted to be
able to show people what you could do with nitwear,
with crochet, and show the different things that people can make.
So we worked with lots of independent designers, lots of
people that had just recently graduated from Central Saint Martin's,

(48:47):
which is a fashion school in the UK, lots of
custom made things, all handmade. There was also a couple
of archival Stella McCartney pieces towards the end of the
show as well. And the finale, which is probably the
thing that was the most unconventional, let's say, to wear,
was an archival Stella McCartney piece, which was quite interesting

(49:10):
to have to wear around the yarn varn because it
wasn't the most practical thing to wear. But in the
first episode, actually the thing that I was wearing was
made by Sheila, one of the judges, which was interesting.
So because I came into the arm barn, she was like,
is that laffetite? And I was like, yes, it is,
and she was like and she was like, I made that,
and I was like, oh, well, there you go.

Speaker 2 (49:31):
What like surprise, oh wonderful. I think a lot of
people probably a kind of surprised that we've turned knitting
into massy reality TV. I'm not a knitter. My mother
was a knitter, but interestingly my daughter, my teenage daughter,
is really good at knitting and crochet. She's right into it.

(49:51):
What has the audience been for this show?

Speaker 10 (49:55):
Yeah?

Speaker 14 (49:55):
Surprisingly, Actually the audience has skewed very young, and you
know that it has been like a very wide ranging thing.
It's very cross generational, and I think, like you say,
knitting is something that people reminisce. It's like, oh, my
grandma used to knit and she taught me when I
was younger, and I haven't done it in ages, and
then a grandma might teach a granddaughter or a grandson

(50:17):
how to knit, and.

Speaker 10 (50:18):
So there's all of these different age ranges.

Speaker 14 (50:20):
But we found it in the UK that there was
a big, big group of eighteen to twenty four year
olds that were watching this show because I think there's
a big group of gen Z and younger that are
wanting to kind of not being anti technology, that's not
so much the word, but they're wanting to slow down.
They're wanting to do some more of the what are
typically known as the grandma hobbies, if you like, the

(50:41):
ones that are being able to make things by hand,
to slow down and be something more creative and have
that outlet that's not.

Speaker 10 (50:48):
Just sitting in front of a screen.

Speaker 14 (50:50):
And I think that's something that's really special about this
craft is that each stitch is made with love, and
each stitch is like perfectly imperfect, and when.

Speaker 10 (50:59):
You finish it, you're able to either wear that thing.

Speaker 14 (51:02):
That you spent those hours and hours and hours making
or gift it to someone else. It's just something so
special about being able to hand over something that you've
poured so much love into.

Speaker 2 (51:11):
Yeah, no, I think it's wonderful seeing this revival and
handmade crafts and sort of tradition and things. Again, Tom,
you retired from diving for good after I come back
at Paris in twenty twenty four. How is life are you?
Post computed of sport?

Speaker 10 (51:25):
I feel like it's busier than ever, honestly.

Speaker 14 (51:27):
I mean, like I said earlier, I've got two kids
of three and eight years old. In fact, a three
year old in the just a second ago, like well
in mid interview just came over to me, had too
much fruit bar in his mouth and just spat it
into my hand. So I managed to hide that from
you while I was.

Speaker 2 (51:45):
Did not notice the thing.

Speaker 14 (51:46):
Yeah, so I currently am holding a handful of fruit
bar in my hand. So yeah, parents might be able
to relate to that. But it is a very you know,
like life outer diving.

Speaker 10 (51:56):
I mean, it's been great.

Speaker 14 (51:57):
I mean I'm very I feel so fortunate and lucky
to have found a new career that I like, love
just as much as I love diving. In the fact of,
you know, being able to make knitting my next career,
like and game of all being part of that, but
also made with love my knitting brand of you know,
being able to develop you know, patterns and yarn and

(52:18):
like being able to spread my love of knitting for
as many to as many people as possible. That's something
that I feel extremely passionate about. And you know, I
now live in Los Angeles with my husband, my two kids,
and you know, my husband sacrificed a lot to live
in the UK for me to compete and train with
my syncro diving partners and be part of the team there,

(52:39):
and now his industry is out here, so you know,
he's like, is my turn to be to be in
the mix of it?

Speaker 10 (52:45):
And I'm like, you know what fair? And you know,
California isn't exactly a bad place.

Speaker 14 (52:48):
You know, the weather's pretty pretty fantastic compared to the UK.

Speaker 2 (52:51):
Ah look so lovely to talk to you, and thank
you so much for your time. And I'm very excited
to see that even though in Game of Well season
one has just started, it's very exciting to see that
it has been renewed for a second season. So well done.

Speaker 14 (53:04):
Yes, we just finished filming the same and season actually
so but it's very exciting. I think I believe it's
on Sky's Living Channel at seven thirty pm on Sunday, so.

Speaker 2 (53:13):
Look at you go. I love it. Tom, really nice
to meet you. Take care, go and get rid of
that chewed up I know it.

Speaker 10 (53:23):
Thank you, thank you.

Speaker 2 (53:25):
Good They gotta love them And as Tom said, you
can indeed catch Game of Will on Sky's Living Channel
on Sunday. It's seven thirty pm and I forget that.
Mark Law former essays soldier helicopter pilot, an adventurer is
with me after eleven this morning it's twenty one past ten.

Speaker 3 (53:42):
There's no better way to start your Sunday.

Speaker 1 (53:45):
It's a Sunday session with Francesca Rutkin and Wiggles for
the best selection of great breeds US talk say.

Speaker 2 (53:54):
The wick Cales recommends Catalog is a treasure trove of
great ideas for things to read and do as winter
really bites. The wick Calls recommends Catalog is the launch
pad for the new Wickles Top one hundred, which which
is thirty seven titles new to the list this year
with some great suggestions for what book to read next.
Thousands of readers love them enough to vote for them

(54:14):
on the list. Chances are you will too. In the
same catalog, Wickles has twenty percent of all Lonely Planet titles.
Start planning now for your next great trip. And for
those who love their games, the Wickles game of the
month is Tower Stack. It's easy to learn, but impossible
to play quietly. Everyone's talking about it online and this
is the perfect weather for some indoor fun with books.

(54:36):
Tower Stack the game of the Month, Gorgeous stationary Puzzles,
Gifts and twenty percent of all Lonely Planet. There really
is something for everyone at Wickles.

Speaker 3 (54:47):
The Sunday session.

Speaker 16 (54:52):
Set all the time I was falling in love.

Speaker 8 (55:00):
Now I'm only falling apart. I can do a total
eclipse of the hu.

Speaker 2 (55:12):
This week, of course, we saw a total eclipse and
that prompted people to play songs about eclipses, whether they
are about the moon or the sun or about your heart.
And some of the most streamed songs in the UK
during the solar eclipse were Chris Staples Dark Side of

(55:33):
the Moon, Pink Floyd, Escape, This Eclipse, Delta, Goodroom Eclipse,
Bonnie Tyler. Look, I think at the end of the day,
people just google for anything that's got the title clips
and mooning it right. But then I do think maybe
people also were looking for a wonderful excuse to play
a bit more Bonnie Tyler because it was we only
lost her five weeks ago, so maybe people were just
feeling a little bit sentimental. My producer did point out

(55:54):
that she doesn't think an eclipse needs a soundtrack. Maybe
you could have just stood there in awe of nature
and watched it. But no, it turns out it had
quite an impact on what people were listening too. It
is time to talk entertainment now, and I'm joined by
Steve Neil.

Speaker 17 (56:10):
Good Morning, Good morning. That Bonnie Tyler has giving me
flashbacks to old school, the two thousand and three Will
Ferrell comedy with there's that covers band, the Dan Band,
who would do like kind of bad kind of wedding band.

Speaker 2 (56:22):
Covers Your memory is way, way too good.

Speaker 13 (56:25):
There's a word that.

Speaker 17 (56:25):
That inserts into most of their songs that you can't
sayn the radios. But it's something needs you more than ever.
It's anyway, okay, we'll go.

Speaker 2 (56:32):
It's bringing back the memories.

Speaker 17 (56:34):
We're all streaking.

Speaker 2 (56:35):
I I really want to talk to you about the
Anthony Bourdain biopic. It's called Tony. It's out this Thursday,
on the twentieth of August, and it's had There's been
a lot of hype and a lot of interest in
this film.

Speaker 17 (56:49):
Yeah, I was hanging out for this and I was
pretty impressed with what I saw. I guess the kind
of tricky thing here is that the Anthony Bourdain that
we see in this film is pretty unlikable character. That's
kind of the point. It follows him for a summer.
He's nineteen, it's nineteen seventy five. It's kind of build
as the summer that changed his life when he turned
from just a guy who we see is just a

(57:09):
massive liar and sort of has like very high views
of himself, but is also lacking sorely lacking in real
kind of confidence and self belief and his dreams of
being a writer. But finds himself in a kitchen and
Cape cod and what he discovers there kind of sets
the tone for, you know, the incredible career in life
that he goes on to have further down the line. However,

(57:31):
we also kind of see a lot of the demons
that he's going to struggle with for his whole life
in this film.

Speaker 2 (57:37):
I love the fact that they've just picked a small
part of his life, because I think his life has
been too big and there's too much to try and
capture it in one film.

Speaker 17 (57:44):
I totally agree, And you kind of, you know, he's
such a familiar character. It's such a familiar looking and
very specific looking person that by just seeing him when
he's nineteen can kind of get around some of that
memoric career that already plagues biopics. Some already find it
hard to you know, when you side by side the
screen portrayal of the person that you know. So this

(58:05):
is stuff that if you've read Kitchen Confidential, I think
this is kind of covered in some of his memoir
But yeah, it's sort of him really sort of understanding
what the notion of family and camaraderie is. And I
got to say, like the camaraderie of a kitchen that
he discovers I think is also kind of a bit
of a foreshadows a little bit of the camaraderie that he's
going to find later in his life.

Speaker 13 (58:26):
With his heavy drug use.

Speaker 17 (58:27):
So it's sort of it's ups and downs, But the
performance is a really great, really great performance by Antonio
Banderas as a mentor can do kind of no wrong,
I guess at the stage in his career, and also
note Leo Woodell, who was a standout in the sicily
season of The White Lotus.

Speaker 13 (58:46):
It's really good.

Speaker 17 (58:47):
He just a total pos.

Speaker 2 (58:49):
And recently in Tuna, which I really enjoyed you as well.

Speaker 17 (58:52):
And yeah, you know, I think showing his range because
in Tuna he is very you know, kind of soft
and relatable, and here he's just that alpha guy that
everyone's encountered it.

Speaker 2 (59:04):
Yeah, totally. Serials seem to be the subject of a
couple of new TV shows, but sort of they're both
handled in completely different ways. And Furious in the Shards.

Speaker 17 (59:14):
Yeah, that's true both on Disney Plus so Disney Plus
Home of the Serial Killer in twenty twenty six, it seems.
But let's start with Furious. This is the, I guess,
kind of grittier, harder, and more contemporary of the two shows.
Set in the present day. It's kind of loosely based
on the eighties thriller Black Widow, in which Theresa Russell
played a woman who kind of kept marrying rich husbands

(59:36):
and bumping them off for their money. And I sort
of played for no one really believed in that show
that a woman would do that, in that film, that
a woman would do that that was kind of the
I guess the feminist angle of that film, but a
very kind of male centric view of women. And here
there's really strong female characters, but it's a post Epstein thriller.
And the protagonist here that the serial killer here is
someone that is chopping their way through a list. She's

(59:59):
a victim of sex trafficking. She's chopping her way through
the list of powerful men have wronged her. So it's
kind of a really interesting setup, and it already does
dive into the I guess lack of willingness for certain
sekness of society to look too hard at the men
that have been doing this stuff. I've been digging this
on a much lighter Vein The Shards is the team
up that should have happened a long time ago between

(01:00:20):
author Brett Easton Allis and producer Ryan Murphy. Two dudes
who loved the Embrace of the Camp sit at high school.
Another very autobiographical Brett Eastern Alice piece. It starts a
character called Brett Allis. Although it claims to fiction, and
these high schoolers are not your typical high schoolers. I
think this is sort of trying to teach you for
your a thing or two shown that in the eighties

(01:00:42):
kids in Beverly Hills that were privileged were as badly
behaved as anyone's ever seen. So along with the kind
of high school politics, coke use, and sports cars on
your sixteenth birthday, there's also a serial killer running around here.
So two very kind of different takes on it. One
already campy and colorful, too many needle drops. Maybe Furious
is heavy and you might just want to do one episode.

Speaker 2 (01:01:04):
I just laughed when I started the shards and started
him within thirty seconds. I didn't know anything about it.
Within thirty seconds, I was like, this is a bread
each now this number, isn't it surely.

Speaker 17 (01:01:12):
Introduced the fact that the promittic main character introduces himself
as Brett Allie with in the first sentence after a
title card which says this is the characters of Fictional
was a first great gag to start it. I mean,
think about American Psycho less than zero. He puts himself
into his work. Maybe a little bit less on American Psycho,
but that shows the sort of line between is this

(01:01:33):
historically historically accurate and real or is this like a
kind of a fever dream.

Speaker 2 (01:01:38):
That that sense, and also just that incredible attention to
creating the cultural sort of putting it into a cultural context.
You know, he will tell you what they're wearing. He
doesn't doesn't show you. He has to still tell you
everything what they're wearing, and what they're eating and what
they're drinking, and you know, all the sort of thing.

Speaker 17 (01:01:55):
And that's an American psycho thing, right. It's like the
list of the social status by lists of things. And
as you noted before before we came on air, like
the NEPO Baby casting of this really works well because
this is a show about rats and Beverly Hills. They
are all sons and daughters of powerful people. And part
of the fun of this as well is like guessing
who's that person in real life? Who's that movie producer.

Speaker 2 (01:02:14):
Cindy Crawford's daughter looks exactly like her. She's just like, oh,
there's Minnie, Cindy. She's amazing. Thank you so much, Steve.
So the film is Tony. That's the Anthony Budain biopic
that's out this Thursday, Furious and the Shads. You'll be
able to work them out if you can't remember which
is what you'll work it out pretty quickly if you
flick at them on and they're both on Disney Plus.

(01:02:37):
Thank you so much, Steve. We'll catch you next week.
The second episode of one hundred Years of ZB podcast
has dropped. Hosted by Mike Hosking, the series is bringing
me the iconic names, the famous sounds, the moments and
the stories behind the ZDM name. In today's episode, Mike
examines the decision in nineteen eighty seven to change one
ZB into news and talk station. You can find those

(01:02:57):
episodes now on iHeartRadio or where either you get your podcasts.

Speaker 1 (01:03:04):
It's the Sunday session with French Jesca Rudgin on News
Talks it Be.

Speaker 2 (01:03:10):
It is time to talk science and with her science
study the week, doctor Michelle Dickinson joins me. Now, good morning,
Good morning. You've got an unusual one this morning.

Speaker 18 (01:03:19):
I read this and I was like, there's one experiment
I wish they did and they didn't. And I almost
got to the end of this journal, I was like,
I can't believe I read this and you didn't do
this anyway. It is published in the journal Frontiers in
Plant Science, and scientists have just taught letters to make
their own meat protein.

Speaker 2 (01:03:36):
But I just I can't get my heat run this once.
You're going to talk me through this one slearnly.

Speaker 18 (01:03:40):
So many things anyway. Look, I am a meat eater,
so I am not one of these meat alternative people.
But those who are, you've got your veggie burger equivalent,
say it doesn't and if they't meet before they've gone,
it doesn't taste the same. There's something about it. They've
tried the texture, they've tried everything else. The thing that
is missing is something called myoglobin. Myoglobin in protein stores

(01:04:01):
oxygen inside our muscle cells, and it's basically what makes
meat taste so great. It's got an iron rich he
molecule that is the red color and meat the metallic
place that tastes that savory umami flavor. It's the thing
that vegetables just don't bring it to you. And so
these scientists went, I wonder if we can make vegetables

(01:04:22):
create this meat protein. So they did. Basically, they found
that chloroplusts are excellent protein factories. And so what they
did is they use what's called a gene gun, which
literally is what it says. They basically took tiny gold
particles coated with DNA which has the pig my globin gene,
and they just fired it willingly at the leaves of

(01:04:42):
young tobacco and lettuce plants, and some of this DNA
entered the chloroplast. A new gene became incorporated into the
DNA of the lettuce or the tobacco plant. And then
these plants were grown to maturity, they produced seeds, and
then their offspring inherited this new miglobin gene, producing chloroplasts.
So then they've got this whole group of like daughter

(01:05:05):
and plants that are producing pig myoglobin.

Speaker 2 (01:05:09):
Right, So they.

Speaker 18 (01:05:10):
Crushed the tissue they prove that it had the diaglomaed
in there. They were like, cool, now we've got pig
meat producing letters all right, my.

Speaker 2 (01:05:17):
Gosh, right so bad.

Speaker 18 (01:05:19):
And they were like, well, let's just make sure that
this is working. But actually that didn't gives it the meat.
He tasted this heme that's captured in the middle of
this protein, and what they found is actually only thirty
five percent of these had had the heme in the middle,
so it probably isn't going to taste its meaty as
you would like. So they go, okay, well, next thing
we've got to do is make sure that they can
capture the heme better. So there's work to do. But

(01:05:41):
basically my big question in this was does it taste
like meat? Is this a pork like lettuce? And they
never tasted it? Oh, And I was like, well, what
is the point in.

Speaker 2 (01:05:52):
The study exactly?

Speaker 18 (01:05:53):
How did I read all ten pages of this research
and nobody went, let's just.

Speaker 2 (01:05:57):
Try a leaf?

Speaker 10 (01:05:58):
Did it work?

Speaker 18 (01:05:59):
So I don't know how it tastes, sorry, but it does.
The theory is out there and basically it says we
could produce plants have this microlobeen in there. Maybe you
don't want to eat a pork tasting lettuce, whatever, but
you could then crush that up and put that into
some of these meat alternatives and maybe they would taste
more meating. But it was really disappointed that I got
through this whole study.

Speaker 2 (01:06:20):
But I think they've gone a little way to go.

Speaker 18 (01:06:21):
But let us I mean, maybe we're growing this life.

Speaker 2 (01:06:24):
Well, there's a lot of people out there that go,
you know, you get to the end of sumthing and
you go on another piece of litters.

Speaker 18 (01:06:28):
Yeah, maybe it's your protein into and maybe for people
if we're thinking about how do we get more protein
into people. This maybe this is a way of sneaking
in crushing up some less I'm not sure. Keep it
out for the crushed up litters. But what I liked
about it is this gene gun. I'd never heard it before,
and like you just blasted and cells into another plant
and you just go there you go, and it took

(01:06:48):
it out a boom.

Speaker 2 (01:06:49):
Thank you so much, Michelle.

Speaker 1 (01:06:51):
The Sunday Session Full Show podcast on iHeart Radio powered
by News.

Speaker 3 (01:06:56):
Talks it Be.

Speaker 2 (01:06:58):
It is a time for our recipe of the Week,
and we're joined by Mike Thender Alison.

Speaker 15 (01:07:03):
Good morning, Good morning, Ah.

Speaker 2 (01:07:06):
I love the fact that you've just kind of gone
on want it's just dragging on. I think we all
need a bit of a comfort dessert tonight and you've
come up with a goody.

Speaker 15 (01:07:14):
Isn't that especially tonight?

Speaker 19 (01:07:16):
I think it's going to be there's maybe not up
in Auckland, but Sydney down south, it's going to be chilly.

Speaker 2 (01:07:21):
Cold snappers rolling in, isn't it.

Speaker 14 (01:07:25):
So?

Speaker 15 (01:07:25):
What's better than a warm fire?

Speaker 19 (01:07:29):
Yeah, bowl of ice cream and a delicious apple cobbler?

Speaker 2 (01:07:36):
What is a cobbler?

Speaker 15 (01:07:39):
Cobbler? Probably similar to a crumble.

Speaker 19 (01:07:41):
I would imagine kind of first came about in America
around the eighteenth century, and it was because the European
settlers came over with their fruit pies.

Speaker 15 (01:07:51):
So I'm like, oh, this is these are quite nice.
I like these fruit pies.

Speaker 19 (01:07:55):
But because the the American colonies, they lack the ingredients
and the equipment they would you'd often need to make
a pie.

Speaker 15 (01:08:06):
So what they'll do is they'll do the bass the
same as the pie.

Speaker 19 (01:08:08):
They put the fruit into the bass, but instead of
putting puff pastry on top or going through that process,
they will just take like a rough biscuit dough and
they will just rip off this biscuit dough which was
easy to make, and just put like bits of broken
biscuit dough on top of the cobbler, and then they'll
fire that in the oven and when it came out,

(01:08:30):
the top became golden and uneven, giving it kind of
a cobbled appearance, hence the name cobbler.

Speaker 2 (01:08:36):
And does it matter what kind of apple, what type
of apple that they would.

Speaker 19 (01:08:40):
Use, Like the Americans, they love peach cobbler, which I
you know you mentioned sweet on sweet, too sweet, but
I tend to go for tart like like Grannysmith apples.
For this particular recipe, I'm using brayburns, which kind of
is a is a beautiful balance between the two. You

(01:09:02):
can also add like a lemon curd into your cobbler,
like you say, you quite often in your fridge you
might have some lemon curd or some of that lime curd.
Add that in to add a little bit of tartness
to the cobbler. So it's not just sweet on sweet berries.
So I imagine like a Kiwi will make an apple crumble,
you do the same thing, but the topping is slightly different.

Speaker 15 (01:09:22):
So yeah, it's a good, good change.

Speaker 2 (01:09:25):
Take a through it.

Speaker 19 (01:09:26):
So to prepare that the important part, which is the
cobbler topping, what you want to do is whist together.
I've got half a cup of milk, which you want
to whist together with one egg. Just place that aside,
and then I've got two hundred and fifty grams of flour.
Mix half a cup of raw sugar with that into
a bowl, and then one hundred and twenty grams of

(01:09:48):
butter that's been chilled and cubed or you could grate
it into that flour. Then you get in there with
your hands and just mix, rub the butter through the
flour until it starts to resemble brea crumbs. At that
point there add in some baking powder, so it's a
teaspooner baked powder. I've got some vanilla extract, a teaspoon

(01:10:08):
of that, and a pinch of salt. Then you take
your milk and egg mixture and just slowly start to
add that in, just working it with your hands into
it basically comes together into a wet dough. You might
get a spatcher, and at that point the end result
is the mix that is quite running, or it might
be a little bit runny, which is no.

Speaker 15 (01:10:27):
Problems at all.

Speaker 19 (01:10:29):
Set that aside, turn your oven one hundred and eighty
degrees fan bake, and then now it's time to make
the thill in itself.

Speaker 15 (01:10:35):
So I've got sex braid and apples.

Speaker 19 (01:10:37):
Which I'm going to peel and I'm going to cool,
and I'm going to cut them into large wedges and
then fire them into a medium pot. Over the top,
I go caught a cup of water, tablespoon of honey,
teaspoon of vanilla, half teaspoon of cinnamon, tablespoon of raw sugar.
Bring that up to the heat over a medium heat
and cook that until basically all your liquid has evaporated.

(01:11:01):
Then take a twenty two centimeter round oven proof dish,
add your apples into the bottom. If you're going lemon curd,
you could go lemon curd. Just drib like dollop some
of that lemon curd over the top of the apple
at that point, and then we take our all important
cobbler topping and basically you just kind of you fire
the cobbler and leaving some gaps in between so that

(01:11:25):
you can see down.

Speaker 15 (01:11:26):
Into the apple.

Speaker 19 (01:11:27):
And so what that does, as the apple is baking,
the juices of that apple will rise up over the
top or over the sides of that cobbler, giving it
that real sort of crunchy side and crunchiness to the
to the cobbler itself. And it also kind of reduces
the apple down and it all becomes one and sticky
and delicious. Sprinkle maybe a little tea spoon of sugar

(01:11:48):
over the top of that, and then fire it into
the oven. So one asy that's going to take about
forty minutes. After forty minutes, pull it out and serve
that with.

Speaker 15 (01:11:58):
Some nice vanilla ice cream. Or some soft cream.

Speaker 5 (01:12:01):
And a nice cup of tea.

Speaker 2 (01:12:04):
Sounds divine. Thank you so much, Mike. You can get
that recipe a good from scratch dot co dot inz,
or you get head to newstalk zb dot co dot
in zed forward slash Sunday We'll get that recipe up
for you today. It is twelve to eleven Grab Recover.

Speaker 1 (01:12:18):
It's the Sunday session with Francesca Rudgin and Wiggles for
the best selection of gravers used Talk ZEDB.

Speaker 2 (01:12:26):
It is time to talk wellness and I'm joined to
buy Erin O'Hara, Good morning, Good morning. I really like
today's topic. We're going to talk about what to do
if you feel like you're just constantly on edge, if
you're emotionally exhausted, you sort of feel like you are
stuck in survival mode.

Speaker 15 (01:12:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 9 (01:12:44):
I think so many people feel like this in modern
day life, trying to run around all day taking the
kids from to to frow and also running a job,
and running around doing so much thing, so many things,
and trying to do everything. And I think when you
live in that state of high stress all the time,
it's hard on your nervous system. And the thing with
the autonomic nervous system. It's like the contray role center

(01:13:07):
of the body, so we really need to keep it
in this balance and has an ability to oversee involuntary
processes like heart rate, your digestion, your breathing, and it's
all about how it regulates between the two branches. So
we have the sympathetic nervous system, which is your vital flight,
which is really helpful in a time of acute stress

(01:13:29):
when you really need to leap into action to get
something done. Obviously we don't want to stay in that state,
or the parasympathetic nervous system, which is our rest and
digest which really helps to calm down. So when we've
had those moments of acute stress, we can then calm
down and rEFInd the balance. And that's how this autonomic
nervous system works is it's always about finding homeostatus, of

(01:13:52):
finding that balance. When we're in chronic stress. What happens
is this on button stays switched on and we stay
in this sympathetic nervous system where we're in fid or
flight all the time, which means we've got.

Speaker 2 (01:14:04):
High cortisol levels.

Speaker 9 (01:14:06):
Adrenaline rushing around the body and we feel like we're
rushing around on adrenaline all the time, which then makes
it really hard to wind down.

Speaker 2 (01:14:13):
Well, as you say, you might not feel like it's
adrenaline at the time, it's just it just feels stress.
It just feels you're on edge the whole time, doesn't it.

Speaker 9 (01:14:21):
Yeah, filling on edge all the time might mean that
you start finding that you've got a little bit of
anxiety in the background, or maybe it's that you find
it really hard to fall asleep, which shows that you're
really in sympathetic nervous system if you just can't shut off,
your brain, can't feel relaxed when you're going to be,
it feeling more irritable than you usually would or snappy
and reactive. Also, rapid heartbeat, digestive issues, constant fatigue, difficulty concentrating.

(01:14:48):
These going to be all signs that we're stuck in
that sympathetic nervous system where we've got a dysregulated nervous system. Now,
ways we can bring it back into balance, like you
can do some instant reset sort of tools, And one
that's really good is taking a pause, taking two breaths
in and then a really slow excel out is a

(01:15:09):
really good way to kind of.

Speaker 2 (01:15:10):
Create through the nose out through the mouth.

Speaker 9 (01:15:12):
And through the nose out through the mouth, a nice
little reset. Also noticing three things that you can see
without labeling them as good or bad, So just looking around,
kind of resetting where where your mind is at, feeling
noticing two physical sensations, so like standing on the ground
and bum sitting on the seat, so you're actually connecting

(01:15:32):
to your physical body. And then also creating a statement
that kind of brings you back into that mindset of
being in the moment. So these are good things to
do in the moment of feeling extreme stress. But actually
when it comes to kind of getting the nervous system back,
regulator is what you're doing every day. So things like
prioritizing sleep. Sleep is like the magic for resetting the

(01:15:54):
nervous system, keeping up with some regular movement. Because even
though when we're exercising special if we're doing something hard
like running, we're in sympathetic state. But it helps us
to actually come back into a sympathetic state and down
regulate the nervous system as well. Singing, humming, chunting, these
sorts of things are great for the vagus nerves, so

(01:16:14):
they help to stimulate the vagus nerve, which can help
to bring us back into sympathetic nervous system. So kind
of funny, your thing that you love to do. And
then breathing and meditation always helpful.

Speaker 2 (01:16:25):
But always a little bit harder.

Speaker 9 (01:16:28):
When you're really stressed, you're really anxious and stress. The
worst thing that someone can say to you is just breathe.

Speaker 2 (01:16:34):
Just breathing to have it.

Speaker 9 (01:16:36):
It's not going to happen.

Speaker 2 (01:16:37):
So it might be that you stared, do you know
breathing technique.

Speaker 9 (01:16:40):
There may be a big hum and then you go
out for a little bit of a walk and you
reset yourself the way.

Speaker 2 (01:16:47):
I love it. Thank you so much here and appreciate
all that advice. It is five two eleven.

Speaker 1 (01:16:54):
The Sunday Session Full Show podcast on iHeartRadio powered by
News Talks.

Speaker 2 (01:17:00):
Be Mark Law has had an extraordinary life. Former sas soldier,
He's also worked in civilian security and some pretty interesting
places around the world. He's a helicopter pilot, a hunter
and adventure racer. He also owns Carhune, Zealand and. On
the ninth of December twenty nineteen, he got the call
for Carrie White Island was erupting. Along with colleagues and

(01:17:22):
other helicopter pilots. Mark flew to the erupting island to
rescue any survivors he could find. They were able to
comfort the engine and flew twelve stranded survivors off the
island and after authorities. This was all, of course, when
authorities announced there'll be no official rescue coming. Mark was
awarded the Bravery Staff for his actions, and yet not
long after the Carhouni Zeland was fined two hundred thousand

(01:17:43):
dollars by work Safe. Mark has written a memoir along
with Ron Crosby, and he is with me next here
on News tops B.

Speaker 3 (01:18:10):
Welcome to the Sunday Session with Francesca.

Speaker 1 (01:18:12):
Rudkin and Wiggles for the best selection of great reeds
used talk.

Speaker 2 (01:18:24):
Coming up this hour on the Sunday Session. Ever thought
about retiring on a cruise ship. Meghan has been looking
into having a retirement gap year on a cruise ship
finding on the Warriors halfback headache or with another injury
to Luke Metcalf last night, and Joan has a book
that profiles Diana, Camilla, Catherine and Meghan and their influence
on the modern UK monarchy.

Speaker 3 (01:18:46):
The Sunday Session.

Speaker 2 (01:18:48):
It's seven past eleven December the ninth, twenty nineteenth. Former
NZ SAS soldier Mark Law became a national hero after
learning that for Cai White Island had erupted. Mark led
a daring and dangerous rescue miss mission alongside his colleagues.
Mark flew to the island and comforted the injured and
flew twelve stranded survivors home. Mark's actions ultimately saving lives

(01:19:12):
after authorities decided no official rescue would be sent. Mark
was awarded New Zealand's second highest bravery honor, the Bravery Staff,
for his actions that day. However, the less than twelve
months later, Mark's company, Carho New Zealand, was charged and
fined by Work Safe for past tours on the island.
Mark has written about his incredible life and that day
in his book Lucky, You're Tough and Mark Law is

(01:19:34):
with me now.

Speaker 13 (01:19:35):
Good morning, Yeah, good morning, friendship.

Speaker 2 (01:19:38):
Lovely to talk to you. I want to ask first up, though,
why did you write this book with Ron Crosby? Because
I don't think it's because you wanted to write a
book about yourself and your life.

Speaker 20 (01:19:50):
Yeah, you're right there, No, I wasn't I wasn't sort
that keen on writing a book or a story about
any parts of my life. Really, it was just Ron's
persistance that following the outcome with Work Safe, that you know,
he really wanted to help.

Speaker 13 (01:20:10):
And he thought by.

Speaker 20 (01:20:13):
Putting his good skills to work and writing a book
it would be He thought it would be helpful. And
so he was on to me for a little while
and he sort of wore me down, him and his
wife Maggie. So in the end, you know, he sort
of convinced me and thought that you know, the public
should would like to know, particularly about what island and
then what followed with Work Safe. But he thought that,

(01:20:34):
you know, over ten years proceeding there, Ted Linton heard
a few stories as him and I sort of did
various things and say, yeah, you thought, oh I've got
a book.

Speaker 2 (01:20:46):
Oh my goodness. There are a few stories, that's for sure.
But look, let's start with Sakari White Island and that rescue, because,
as you said, the book is in part a response
to the Work Safe penalty of almost two hundred thousand
dollars on your helicopter business, and that related to who's
past tours on Forakari. How has that decision one that

(01:21:07):
shocked a lot of New Zealanders impacted you as a
person and the business.

Speaker 20 (01:21:14):
The other decision was when it finally you know settled
and we were you know, the it was. It's had
a well, I continue to have quite an impact. I
think me not so much. You know, you just accept
that some things you just you can't push forward on.
Some things you can sort of you know, move left

(01:21:35):
or right and progress. But the the fine itself, it
causes an issue, particularly when you're wanting to improve your
business and buyer money and do things like that. Have
you got something sitting in the background as far as
some checks go with finances, it's a real hurdle. So

(01:21:57):
it has been a problem since then. And so yeah,
it'll be good to get that one off your back. Obviously,
you just you know, you know, put your head to
work hard. But it's a big number, and it also
is you know, it's really it's a problem, you know,
when you want to try and grow your business financially.

Speaker 2 (01:22:16):
Mark, what are your memories of that day, December ninth?

Speaker 20 (01:22:24):
Pretty clear, pretty vivid. I recall most things. Yeah, as
you know, you get older, you sort of forget some
finer points some different aspects, but now pretty clear on
the day, I can I can recall, you know, when
I saw the plume as I was driving back down
to Fokatani. Yeah, you can clearly remember, you know, flying

(01:22:45):
out from Fakatani fifty k's out towards the island and
seeing the plume sort of eight nineteen thousand feet dark.
I can saw recall real clearly, you know, flying into
the crater, flying around, looking at the broken helicopter, and
then you know, and then all of a sudden realizing
that there was people there, and I can clearly see
that the figures of people, and then making them out.

(01:23:08):
So the rest of the recovery and the rest of
the day are pretty clear.

Speaker 13 (01:23:13):
So I have been able to recall that easily.

Speaker 2 (01:23:17):
And you've written about it really so well in the book.
Did you have any idea of when you were traveling
out to the island what you would find.

Speaker 20 (01:23:26):
No, I was expecting to find Timbarrow's helicopter because I
knew that one hadn't made it off, or he had
another machine out there that had just got off before
the eruption, So I knew there was going to be
a helicopter there. I wasn't one hundred percent sure about
the boats. Obviously it's towards the beginning of a busy season,
so you know there's maybe two three boats max. So

(01:23:49):
I was expecting a boat. But other than that, I
had no idea.

Speaker 2 (01:23:56):
Other people involved have spoken about your leadership on that day,
just your calmness in such a horrific environment. Where did
that come from? Where does that come from? Is that
your nz sas training and experience kicking in.

Speaker 13 (01:24:12):
There's a bit of that.

Speaker 20 (01:24:13):
There's probably quite a bit of that, but you know,
you you should have shaped up. I've been shaped up
from the beginning. You know, as it is growing up,
there's lots of different things you experience, and I think
you know, once the sort of get into trouble get
out of trouble, you sort of you know, start to
round out a little bit and you can sort of
handle things a little bit differently when you're first either

(01:24:34):
scared or versus a bit of blood or break a
leg or some wins and losses, and some of that
went through into the regiment and you know there's you're
under lots of pressure with training, so lots of things
go on, so that just sort of like starts to
polish that up, and then a lot of things that

(01:24:54):
happened thereafter once I was out of the regiment, They've
sent a lot of pressure of events, and yeah, you
learn to get more done when you're you know, in
that space calm. I mean, it's sometimes it's you know,
it's hard to think that you could become. But things
go better if you're settled into you just you know,

(01:25:16):
diligently or quickly working through constructive you know thoughts, plans
and what you're going to do and what you're not.

Speaker 13 (01:25:22):
Going to do.

Speaker 2 (01:25:22):
Were you surprised there was going to be no official
air rescue on the day.

Speaker 13 (01:25:27):
Yeah, yeah, I was.

Speaker 20 (01:25:29):
I think in New Zealand, you know, everyone default, So
you know, you break your leg down a bank and
roll your car, you're ring the rescue helic couples and
they arrive. But the reality of it is depending on
the severity of the nature of the event in our cases,
a disaster like that, and there's a lot of perceived
risk and danger. You know, then you start to see

(01:25:51):
the other side of the aircraft or help coming. You know,
it comes down to whatever's in there in their stand
uperating prosiegures or the procedures of helping people, et cetera.
And yeah, when they didn't turn up, I don't have
much time to think about it. But thereafter, obviously I've
had a lot of time to think about it. So

(01:26:12):
you know, I just for me, it's just you're a
peacetime country. You know, not a lot of people there
are going to react and get up to the pointy
end of pressure or we lives might be at risk.
And that's certainly, you know, other than the police, you're
probably not going to see much of that in New Zealand.

Speaker 2 (01:26:32):
I mean, I can't imagine anyone in New Zealand. I
don't think anyone in New Zealand would have been comfortable
leaving people there without giving them the opportunity to survive.
And that's why you went, wasn't it.

Speaker 20 (01:26:43):
Yeah, No, absolutely, and I reckon most New Zealanders would
go or want to be there, just it was difficult
because obviously the best way to get there was the Helles.
We had a couple of Helles when we got on
the island, and you could see the people when you
were right there beside them, and you could see, you know,
they're just terribly hopeless and just so needed someone. You know,

(01:27:07):
most New Zealanders faced with that or sitting beside them
or holding them or caring for them. Yeah, they're definitely
going to you know, all they want to do is
get them to a better place.

Speaker 13 (01:27:16):
You know, So I don't have any doubt.

Speaker 20 (01:27:18):
It's just you know, we're fifty k's off New Zealand
and interrupting you know, volcanoes. So yeah, it was it
was just fortunately that we're all home and we had
the hellies there.

Speaker 13 (01:27:31):
They went out on another job and we could go.

Speaker 2 (01:27:34):
Would you do it again?

Speaker 13 (01:27:36):
Yep?

Speaker 2 (01:27:37):
Yeah, I'd love to talk to you a little bit
more about this military service that you did. You joined
the military after leaving school. Where did your interest in
the military service come from.

Speaker 20 (01:27:47):
I was pretty keen on the military yet as a
young fellow, were always playing body Calboy's Indians, and and
then you know, we were I was always sort of
fascinated with hearing a few stories from Grandad and and
you know, I was always hunting, love guns and the
and then we sort of got to involved. You know,
then you start reading things a lot of Command of

(01:28:09):
magazines at the time, and and then was sort of
got exposed to. I sort of really liked the Special
Force type things that LRDG and the guys, you know,
the Clippers and World War II, the first part of
LEESBS and and then some of the stories coming out
of Africa Slew Scales and obviously and then we not

(01:28:31):
long after we had a TV. I remember seeing the
Sees rescue the Osages and the Rani and embassy sege
in London and I was like, oh man, this is
this is where I want to go. So there was
always a focus there, you know, following all that sort
of those reads and watches.

Speaker 2 (01:28:47):
And you were determined to join the New Zealand says
and at the age of eighteen you were the youngest
candidate at that point to finish the selection course. Is
the selection course the hardest thing that you've done mentally and.

Speaker 13 (01:28:57):
Physically physically It to be one of them.

Speaker 20 (01:29:03):
Yeah, mentally it would have fine, but my feet fell apart.
And so that was a really good test of, you know,
the mental side of sort of resilience, that's for sure.
I think in business later on and family and issues
that you know, all New Zealanders are exposed to. I
think that that probably got some of the biggest mental challenges.

Speaker 13 (01:29:26):
But yeah, no, it's pretty hearty.

Speaker 20 (01:29:28):
The New Zealand's Essays selection is is definitely heartier than
the British one I did. Yeah, it's not a lot
of food there. It's pretty relentless. They've got some really
good activities that sort of can really sort of grind
you down. And it's the long days. You certainly got
to like work and you sort of want to like,

(01:29:49):
you know, you've got to like being comfortable to get
through that, sure do.

Speaker 2 (01:29:55):
I was fascinated reading about the jobs you had in
civilian security, first sett and Gola for a diamond trading company,
and I'm going to be honest with you, Mark, it
was a little bit like, you know, like a film script.

Speaker 13 (01:30:07):
Really there's that blood diamond.

Speaker 20 (01:30:12):
I think someone's said to me, that's like that bloody
that's like blood diamond film.

Speaker 13 (01:30:17):
Actually, it.

Speaker 2 (01:30:20):
Sure felt like the wild West out there.

Speaker 13 (01:30:22):
What was that like? Ah, yeah, it was a while
where you know, there's a war going on.

Speaker 20 (01:30:27):
You obviously didn't see that every day in Lawanda and
we were working. But then when we moved out of
Lawanda up into the North area to fly cashup and
bring diamonds back that's when you saw the sort of
the military side of it. But in Luanda it was
incredibly lawless and there's a huge amounts of you know,
death and injury going on there as well. So yeah,

(01:30:51):
it was a very you know, millions millions of people
stacked into a tiny place. You know, we were carrying
a lot of cash around, up to a couple of
million in the car on the vehicles, you know, and
then transporting the equivalents and diamonds between safe houses and
under out to the airport to transport back to UK
or Belgium, and then moving cash up country and little

(01:31:12):
planes and meeting up with our buyers up there with
little tiny little house compounds and they just flat out
buying diamonds just twenty four hours a day. Yeah, so
there's a lot of people wanted to They knew you
carried cash or diamonds, you know, so there was a
lot of people that wanted to have them more than
you and that was always going to involve gunfights. So

(01:31:33):
there's a lot of cot cash and transit operations went
down from numerous ODI interviews there that were always getting
hit and then you just sort of could be into
receiving serious crime there just by being you know, white
or Westerner going about business. So yeah, it was. It
was very lawless when I was there.

Speaker 2 (01:31:52):
In the book is filled with a lot of life
threatening events that you went through, but a lot of
them you would expect in the situations you were in,
like what you were just describing. However, there is one
event in here, and I'm going to thank you for
the photos because they kind of gruesome. I think you
know what I'm talking about, And that's when you were
doing adventure racing and you were doing the God's Own
Race and you got yourself a flesh eating disease. Yeah,

(01:32:16):
that was pretty gross, Mark.

Speaker 20 (01:32:20):
Yeah, that was it is gross. It was pretty nari
in the end. So yeah, I mean nearly took my life,
just about topping my leg. But thank goodness for you know,
amazing staff and Tiano and Vicago and lastly and Dunned
and you know sort of kept me alive and you know,
keep me intact. But yeah, it's brutal, that neckartizing fasciatis.

Speaker 2 (01:32:44):
How long does it take to recover from it?

Speaker 20 (01:32:49):
It took me a couple of weeks in hospital before
us moved up to White Kaddow and then I went
through a skin graft there, so I was in there
for about a week, got out at home, and yeah,
it took a long time for the sort of swelling
to go down, and I was on crutches for a while,
and so you know, it probably took a good year.
I reckon before you know, the skin heeled properly and

(01:33:12):
you're be able to get around.

Speaker 13 (01:33:14):
So yeah, it was a it was a long one.

Speaker 20 (01:33:16):
I think it was probably reasonably mobile without the crutches
in about two months. Yeah, but it was just it
was just I had to keep a sock on for
a year, just the full sort of the up to
your knee sock, just to try and smooth out the
skin and help the skin graft.

Speaker 13 (01:33:30):
So but you know, it was it was. It was brutal.

Speaker 2 (01:33:34):
Mark just one of the amazing stories in the book.
There's so much that I haven't even been able to
touch on it is. It is definitely a book filled
with many many good yarns and incredible story. So thank
you so much for agreeing to write it with Ron Crosby,
and love you to talk to you.

Speaker 13 (01:33:48):
Thank you so much, thank you very much for having
me on and just have a nice day.

Speaker 2 (01:33:52):
Same to you. Mark's book was called Lucky You're Tough
and it is in stores this Tuesday. I said, some
incredible stories in there, and yes he has very good
recollection of what happened on the Curry White Island that
day as well. That's all in there. Twenty two past eleven.
Up next to the panel Sunday.

Speaker 1 (01:34:10):
With Style the Sunday Session with Francesca Runcin and Wiggles.

Speaker 3 (01:34:15):
For the best selection of great reeds, Please talk Zevy.

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Sunday session, it is time for the panel, and this
morning I'm joined by broadcaster and journalist Wilhemina O'Keeffe. Good morning,
Good morning, also joining us resident economists at Ope, his

(01:35:23):
partners Ed mcnight high.

Speaker 13 (01:35:25):
Ed get a franchisque.

Speaker 2 (01:35:27):
Nice to be here, Love you to have you both
with us. Willhelmina, can I start with you? How damaging
do you think this week has been for Luxin and
maybe the National Party as a whole heading into an election.

Speaker 8 (01:35:36):
Yeah, one hundred percent.

Speaker 21 (01:35:37):
I sort of feel like we've lived about a thousand
years in this news cycle, so I can only imagine
how National feels.

Speaker 8 (01:35:42):
At the moment.

Speaker 21 (01:35:43):
I think that it's been really damaging for Luxen personally.
Obviously he had the confidence vote back in April. The
second one now just reinforces this idea that his on
care because has really been questioning whether he's the right person,
and of course this is an unprecedented thing that's happened here.
I think though, for the party as a whole, I
think that the damage to National's probably slightly more contained

(01:36:05):
than it is the small damage for Luxe. In the
party's polling, it's remained pretty resilient, which suggests that National
could actually be more popular than its leader, which obviously
means it's pretty dicey for Luxin. So perhaps the focus
moving forward into the election is just about partying. Sorry,
pardon my goodness, I think campaigning that's the word for me,

(01:36:30):
Campaigning as a team, as a whole team, as opposed
to just voting for the leader.

Speaker 2 (01:36:35):
I think they prefer to be partying. Wilhelmina some reason.
That word just a scaling No, no, you're just you're
just charging to the end, don't you. You're charging to
the evening of November the seventh. How do they move
forward from it and limit the damage? Do you think?

Speaker 11 (01:36:49):
Ed?

Speaker 22 (01:36:50):
Well, I think the main thing is they have to
stop all of the leaks and they've got to get
really right behind them. I actually think Luxeon's done an
okay job and trying to fend off some of the
media questions because obviously everyone wants to know what was
happening in that caucus room, who voted for her, and
there's going to be quite a few questions, I think
for the next couple of days, and I think he's

(01:37:11):
doing quite a good job at fending those questions off
and trying to limit the oxygen within this story. But
now the National MPs have to get him behind him,
stop the leaking, express one hundred percent confidence in him.
And if they don't do that, then I think Chris
Hipkins is going to be able to point at the
National Party MPs and say they think that we're in disarray,
but look at those jokers over there.

Speaker 2 (01:37:32):
I think you're right ed. They need to very quickly
switch up this general election from being a referendum on
Christopher luxeen to being a referendum on what National has delivered. Right,
You've got to move on from the discussion about the
leader and everyone needs to be looking outward.

Speaker 22 (01:37:48):
Oh one hundred percent. I went and saw Erica Stanford
speak the other day in her capacity as Education Minister,
and I thought she had some really good points and
some interesting things to say about the increase in achievement. Now,
of course they're going to say that, right, they're going
to come out there and say that they inherited a
mess and that they're improving things. But from listening to her,

(01:38:09):
I was like, Okay, it sounds like you've got a
convincing story to tell. But if we're all sitting here
talking about Christopher Luxon and if he's going to get
rolled directly after and who's really behind him and who
had the knifs out, well then we're not going to
hear what they want to get across.

Speaker 2 (01:38:23):
So well, I mean that the importance here is that,
as Ed was saying, they look unified, they don't not
pretend to be unified. You actually have to be unified.
Bishop of course has spoken to the media. Eric Standra
isn't being quite so available to just knock these questions
off once and for all. Is she doing herself any
favors with the way she has acted since the failed coup?

Speaker 11 (01:38:46):
Yeah?

Speaker 21 (01:38:46):
Look, I think that she's damaged herself somewhat, mainly because,
like you say, of just how she's handled the speculation
as a whole. I think what I was really surprised
about is obviously she has come out afterwards after this
caucus meeting, saying that Luxein had always had her full support,
but why didn't she say it when it actually mattered
in that moment before the cour meeting, which sort of

(01:39:07):
leaves that to interpretations. Either she was considering a challenge
and backed away, or she wasn't but handled the politics
poorly enough to make everything everybody think that she actually was.
So I think her best move now is to just
stop talking about the leadership altogether become one of Luxin's
sort of most visible effective lieutenants or one of his

(01:39:27):
strongest supporters, which ironically, I actually think is the best
way to protect her own leadership prospects, because if National
ends up losing in November, the leadership question will always
answer itself, and Stanford can just legitimately put her hand
into the ring and come forward because obviously at the
polls it just wasn't strong enough to get over the line,
and his leadership wasn't strong enough. But if National wins,

(01:39:48):
she still remains on his good side, still one of
his highest profile ministers, and then potentially down the track
a future leader. So she's got to play it really
carefully now. But if she does she'll put herself in
a good position.

Speaker 2 (01:40:01):
Either of you think that Chris penkated it on his own.

Speaker 8 (01:40:05):
No, a scapegoat.

Speaker 2 (01:40:08):
Scapegoat is what I'm thinking. Let's talk about the metaglasses
because they seem to be popping up a lot more
when it comes to just articles about it, but also
looking at crime which is taking place, and we're seeing
that people are sort of being convicted of filming people

(01:40:30):
in places and things like that when they're not aware
that it's happening. What level of privacy do you expect
when you are out in the public head.

Speaker 22 (01:40:40):
Well, it depends where you are, right So if I'm
in the gym changing room, I expect quite a lot
of privacy, even though it's in a public place, because
I'm getting my kit off and neither I nor anybody
else wants to see that. But if I'm out on
the gym floor, I expect less privacy, and there'll be
people with their phones out filming themselves for social media
or so that they can correct their form. And if

(01:41:01):
I'm in the background of their shot, well it's a
public place or good, so it does a little bit situational.
It also depends on like whether you're just in the
background of you know, somebody taking a photo at the
beach of the scenery. And if I'm in the background,
well I don't expect much privacy. But if they've got
their phone out specifically filming me, then I think that's

(01:41:22):
a bit weird.

Speaker 13 (01:41:23):
I'd be like, well, that's that's quite odd.

Speaker 22 (01:41:25):
I wouldn't expect somebody to do that.

Speaker 2 (01:41:27):
Here's the thing you're talking about, someone holding up a
phone and making it obvious they're filming. What if they're
wearing a pair of these glasses that can film you,
and you have they are hiding the fact that they're
filming you. They're not making it, you know, like I
wouldn't even really, they're not making it obvious that they're
filming you.

Speaker 15 (01:41:47):
I see.

Speaker 6 (01:41:47):
I think that.

Speaker 2 (01:41:48):
I think that's still. That's sort of another like if
you see someone's got their phone up and there filming themselves,
I just duck behind them at the gym, get out
of the way, you know what I mean. It's like
I'm getting out of here as far as I possibly can.
But that's obvious and you can see that, and their
intention is clear. But when if someone's wearing a pair
of you know, ninety nine dollars. You know, the glass
that they got from Kmar that enables them to film

(01:42:08):
you without making it clear that they're actually sitting there
filming everyone. That just feels creepy to me.

Speaker 22 (01:42:14):
Yeah, I think that's a fair point. That's where I
reckon that gyms and polls should probably put some specific
rules in place that maybe you should, Like, there's no
good reason somebody should have metaglasses on in a changing room, right,
so I think it'd be fair to say we're not
going to have those, we're going to ban those from
certain areas. But on the gym floor, you've got less
expectation of privacy, so you just don't have them.

Speaker 2 (01:42:37):
Do you feel comfortable about them?

Speaker 13 (01:42:39):
Will?

Speaker 2 (01:42:40):
No, not at all.

Speaker 21 (01:42:41):
I just think that they are another tool for potentially
creepy people with bad intentions to do creepy things with
bad intentions. Look, as a journalist, I've obviously been out
in public spaces filming in public spaces. But like you say,
the difference is is people can see the cameras. If
they feel uncomfortable about being in that shot, they can
come up and say, hey, look can you not film me?

Speaker 8 (01:43:03):
All good, no problem, because Obviously it's legal.

Speaker 21 (01:43:05):
To film in a public place, but to actually record
someone and not have them know that, to me, it's
legally it feels like a very gray area because you
legally can't record people or record a conversation or record
an interaction without both parties knowing that you're recording.

Speaker 8 (01:43:23):
I just think it's weird.

Speaker 21 (01:43:24):
And I know that some people have said that, you know,
the glasses should have a red light that turns on
that it's recording. But look, even if you've got a
small red light on a pair of glasses, you.

Speaker 2 (01:43:33):
Know you're on your own world.

Speaker 21 (01:43:34):
Sometimes when you're walking along the street, you're not actually
paying attention to the tiny little light on the top
left hand corner of a pair of glasses.

Speaker 8 (01:43:41):
I just think it's yuck.

Speaker 2 (01:43:42):
It just gives me that one of them does have
a little light on them. They have tiny lights, but
they're like tiny little I think, when's the tiny little
blue light. It's not like it's flashing going high act.

Speaker 21 (01:43:52):
It's a big red arrow being like, hey, there's some
dude filming you.

Speaker 2 (01:43:58):
Exactly, they come attacked with a tiara that has sort
of fairy lights on it that flash or something like
that. I don't have to wear a high viz. That makes sense.

Speaker 13 (01:44:08):
Oh will it?

Speaker 2 (01:44:09):
We've solved us. This was very easy. Well I mean it,
o'kethan ed McKnight. Thank you so much for being with us,
really appreciate it, and thank you for your texts. Someone
text and responding in response to my chat with Mark
Law Francisca, that works safe, That that works safe when
after this guy is appalling and speaks to all that's
wrong with the small minded nippicking that goes on with authorities.

(01:44:31):
What a fantastic and brave New Zealander who we should
all celebrate. Thank you for your text, Tony. It is
twenty four to twelve.

Speaker 1 (01:44:43):
It's the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin on News Talks
a B.

Speaker 2 (01:44:49):
Jason Pine is with you at midday with Weekend Sports.
He's with me now, good morning, good morning. Okay, So look,
Metcalfe kicked the ball, grabbed his hammy and we all went, oh.

Speaker 16 (01:45:01):
No, never a good look. Never a good look when
someone clutches for their hamstring like that. And I don't know,
I'm not a great lip reader.

Speaker 2 (01:45:11):
But I know what he said said, So what does
this mean for the Warriors.

Speaker 16 (01:45:16):
Well, I mean it's not ideal, I know, but it's
not as though there aren't players who can step into
that jersey. I mean, it's so unfortunate for Luke Metcalf
who's only just come back. As we know, he's had
to be patient, he's waited. He was terrific last weekend
and was playing well yesterday. Look, we don't know how
long he'll be out for hamstrings, are I mean, they're

(01:45:37):
hard to judge straight away, aren't they. But you'd have
to think of this two or three games anyway. There's
a couple of guys to come in. I think greater
than that though. Francesca is the way the Warrior has
played again over in Brisbane put forty on the Broncos.
The forwards are just absolutely tremendous this year.

Speaker 13 (01:45:54):
They are so good.

Speaker 16 (01:45:55):
And look, yes, you'd like to have Luke McCarthy, you'd
like to have everybody there, But I don't know. I
just feel like this side it's an exciting time here,
you know, I want to drink it, and not that
we can really, we don't have the power to do that.

Speaker 2 (01:46:09):
But I know where you're going.

Speaker 16 (01:46:12):
Yeah, yeah, but I can't wait to see what plays
out over the rest of this month and into September.

Speaker 2 (01:46:18):
And of course we had the All Blacks. They wrapped
up with the club matches as part of the Greatest
Rivalry Tour. Do you think that's been a good start,
good prep for them heading into the Spring book next week?

Speaker 13 (01:46:28):
Yep, yep, I do.

Speaker 16 (01:46:29):
I think it's given them a lot of a lot
of clarity around around team selections. I think they kind
of knew anyway, and they've got clarity around that, but
a bit of competition for places, exposing a lot of
guys to South African conditions and opposition. Now the fun begins. Really,
you know, we ramp up again three four, five times
as much for next week.

Speaker 13 (01:46:47):
So yep.

Speaker 16 (01:46:48):
I think they've got a lot out of it, and
now they'll use the next week or so to the
best of our ability to get ready for Test one
at Alice Park.

Speaker 2 (01:46:54):
Who's on the show?

Speaker 16 (01:46:56):
I have got Neil Barnes on the show, assistant coach
of the All Blacks after midday, Kevin Campion Warriors legend
after one to talk the worst and lots of cause,
lots of space for the very learned z B Weekend
Sport audience to play their part as well.

Speaker 2 (01:47:11):
Fantastic looking forward to it. Jason Pane will be back
at midday.

Speaker 1 (01:47:14):
It's a Sunday session full show podcast on iHeartRadio powered
by News Talk ZB Travel with Wendy Wu tours where
the world is yours For now.

Speaker 2 (01:47:26):
It is time to talk travel. We're joined by Meghan Singleton.

Speaker 13 (01:47:28):
Hello.

Speaker 8 (01:47:30):
Hello.

Speaker 2 (01:47:30):
I love your topic today because I can remember was
it one World a cruise ship or something that it
kind of announced the world the world many years ago,
like buy an apartment and then you can kind of
retire on our ship and look, Okay, it's an interesting idea.
I think I thought it was an interesting idea before
we hit things like coronavirus and stuff like that.

Speaker 23 (01:47:49):
Oh yeah, andrus and Nora virus and just ruins my
whole segment.

Speaker 2 (01:47:53):
Okay, no, no, but just forget that, forget all that. No,
but I think it's a really interesting idea, and so
you can.

Speaker 23 (01:47:58):
I'm calling it the retirement gap year, because how cool
would that be to think, right when I turned sixty
five or whatever age you've to say you're going to retire,
I'm going to.

Speaker 8 (01:48:08):
Take a gap year.

Speaker 23 (01:48:09):
And now some people, as we know, buy a camper
van and tiki tour around the country or around Australia
or wherever they going to go. What about a year
of back to back cruising or as you say, buy
an apartment on one of these cruise ships. And so
I've crunched some numbers on how to do it, how affordable,
how much you would need to spend, and it's actually

(01:48:30):
surprisingly doable.

Speaker 8 (01:48:31):
I'm getting pretty excited.

Speaker 23 (01:48:33):
At I haven't spoken to my husband yet, who does
actually suffer from sea sickness.

Speaker 8 (01:48:36):
So it might not really work.

Speaker 10 (01:48:38):
For us, but I think it's going to work for others.

Speaker 2 (01:48:41):
Okay, taught me through it.

Speaker 8 (01:48:43):
Okay.

Speaker 23 (01:48:43):
So if you see some people, especially if they've come
out of the travel industry, they're retiring, but what they've
loved about what they did for work was putting itineries together.

Speaker 8 (01:48:52):
Some people love.

Speaker 23 (01:48:53):
Spending months and months doing research on where you want
to go. Some people want an agent to do it
all for them. That's fine, but I love the idea
of doing my research.

Speaker 8 (01:49:02):
So you would do.

Speaker 23 (01:49:03):
Back to back cruises onto all your bucket lists to
nations like I'd be putting Alaska in there. I'd have
a Christmas Markets river cruise. I might do the Amazon whatever,
and I would fly do these cruises. I'd work out
all the itinerary timings, and then i'd have a little
bit of budget for maybe Airbnbs for a week or
even a couple of a month if I wanted somewhere.

(01:49:25):
You just have to be wearing visas, Okay, so we're
just going to take that out of the equation because
it spoils the drama.

Speaker 8 (01:49:31):
And yeah, and so then I would do all these cruises.

Speaker 23 (01:49:34):
But I've got some sort of good number crunching for
ways to save some money. Like repositioning cruises are super affordable,
usually really long, Like they might need to be bringing
a ship save from Alaska to New Zealand to start
the summer season down here, and you could be finding
yourself cruising all the way down the Pacific, you know,
around Tahiti, coming all the way down to here, and

(01:49:57):
you could be spending a month on something really affordable.
So I've worked out that for two people to comfortably
cruise back to back for a year, and that's going
to include all your food obviously, all your transport, about
one hundred and sixty to two hundred thousand. Okay, you
could rent your house out, you could maybe decide you're

(01:50:19):
going to squirrel that money away for your gap year.

Speaker 8 (01:50:22):
I love it.

Speaker 23 (01:50:23):
Now you're talking about buying the apartment on the World,
which is a good starts at three point five million
US dollars.

Speaker 3 (01:50:31):
Reach.

Speaker 23 (01:50:32):
But I have found another cruise ship that sells residential
apartments called Villa v Odyssey, and they started about two
hundred K. And then you pay a monthly fee that
covers like the food and the other onboard things. And
that's even doable. But what you are then you are
on that ship. You're stuck on that ship. You're doing
their itineraries. You don't have any say in it. So
I think I quite like my first option, which is

(01:50:53):
just open up the map and decide where you want
to go, choose different cruise lines. I've given a list
of like the medium priced cruise lines. We're not talking cheap,
and we're not talking inside cabins, because you could do
it for cheaper than what I've just said if you
didn't mind inside cabins.

Speaker 8 (01:51:09):
But no, I want a balcony.

Speaker 13 (01:51:10):
Thanks.

Speaker 8 (01:51:11):
Yeah, how fun.

Speaker 2 (01:51:12):
I love it. And this is all in a blog, Yes,
I think it is okay. Blogger at large dot com
is where you will be able to read all about it.
Thanks for the text stuff, he said Francesca. I had
the privilege of meeting Mark after Mark law after war
Birds over one acre at easter one hell of a
humble and interesting guy you could talk to down to
earth and talk openly of his experiences. Great intov this morning.

(01:51:36):
Thank you very much. Stuff. I wonder do you have
his black Hawk down there?

Speaker 13 (01:51:39):
Didy.

Speaker 2 (01:51:39):
I didn't get the chance of talk to him about
the helicopters. I would love to have done that. Anyway,
It's all in the book. Read the book. It is
twelve to twelve books.

Speaker 1 (01:51:49):
With Wickles for the best election of Greg Reeves.

Speaker 2 (01:51:53):
It is time to talk books. And joining me now
is Joan mackenzie Headbook by at Wickles. Good morning, Hello,
Linda Laplant has a new book. She well, yes she does.
She's back.

Speaker 24 (01:52:04):
What I will say about this book, which is called
The Governor, is that it was first published in nineteen
ninety five, and then I think they made it into
a TV series. I vaguely remember, but it does stand
the test of time and the publisher, as they sometimes
do these days, they do it with Kristin Hannah as
well they've reissued it for a new, I guess modern audience. Okay,
but old times like me might remember that Linda first

(01:52:28):
made her name with the just outstanding book series called
Prime Suspect, which featured Jane Tennyson as a young policewoman
who made her way up the ranks. And that was
made into a TV se Helen, Yes, yes, and it
was real appointment viewing on a Sunday night, do you remember?

Speaker 2 (01:52:43):
Yes?

Speaker 24 (01:52:44):
And I can still remember the impact that series had
on me. It was really something and Jane Tennyson's name
became firmly established as one of the I guess great
modern literary characters. So in this new or perhaps not
so new book, Helen Hewitt is another young woman out
to make her mark. She's in her early thirties. She's
working in the UK prison system and she's just been

(01:53:06):
promoted to the job title of governor. And soon after
that they put her in charge of a prison, which
is a highly political location for the prison authorities, and
actually what they're doing is hanging her out to dry.
But she goes in there, and she's young and fearless,
and she takes on the prisoners and the resentful staff
and ultimately the area's prison management. And of course she

(01:53:28):
runs into all of the things that you'd expect, misogyny,
the politics, the isolation, having to prove herself to be
better than everyone else. And it's really interesting to see
how her thoughts about punishment and incarceration and rehabilitation change
during the course of the book. I've always loved Linda's books,
and this is very on theme.

Speaker 2 (01:53:47):
Okay, fabulous. The Four Wives of Windsor by Simon Vigar.

Speaker 24 (01:53:52):
He's a longtime royal watcher, and he's been around long
enough to have watched the evolution of the modern monarchy
from even before Diana through to the very different institution
that it is today. And he goes behind the palace walls,
looking at the private tensions and the public battles and
all the stuff that you read about in the tabloids
and the magazines, and the shifting alliances that have shaped

(01:54:13):
the House of Windsor in the last forty years. And
he says that a lot of the change has been
brought about by four women, which is the Wives of
Windsor of the title, and you can guess who they are.
There's Diana, there's Camilla, there's Catherine, and there's Megan, and
so much has been written about these women that if
you're a royal follower, he has some fresh insights into
the context of their times in the family. For instance,

(01:54:36):
Diana was the only one who came from an aristocratic family.
The others all had to get in and really learn
on the job. Queen Elizabeth was fiercely protective of the
monarchy and its traditions, and some listeners may remember the
furroi that erupted after Diana's death when she refused to
fly the flag at half master at Buckingham Palace, and

(01:54:57):
people thought the Queen was out of touch and disrespectful,
but there were well established traditional reasons as to why
she made that decision. But here come Diana, Camilla, Katherine
and Meghan changing everything and it's a really interesting look
at that female and feminine and I guess in some
ways you would say with Diana, certainly the emotionally intelligent

(01:55:19):
approach to the monarchy which had largely been absent.

Speaker 2 (01:55:21):
Prior to her. I know that Harry and Meghan haven't
behaved well when it comes to their family, but I
look at sometimes at the treatment of Meghan, and then
I look at Prince Andrew, or the former Prince Andrew
and his behavior, and I think, really, are we going
to get so upset about this woman compared to the
other behavior that you know, we've learned so much about

(01:55:42):
that's taken place in the royal family.

Speaker 24 (01:55:44):
Yeah, no, you're not wrong. I'm just grateful reading this
that I am not part of the monarchy and I
don't have to put up with this degree of group because.

Speaker 8 (01:55:52):
It must be just awful.

Speaker 2 (01:55:53):
Absolutely, Thank you so much, Jones. So that was The
Four Wives of Windsor by Simon Viga, and that first
book was the Reissue to the Governor by Linda Laplant.
Thank you so much for talking next week.

Speaker 1 (01:56:04):
See you then Day Session full show podcast on iHeartRadio
powered by News Talk ZEDB.

Speaker 2 (01:56:13):
Thank you so much for your company this morning and
your texts. I'm going to finish with one from Bruce.
He said, Hi, Francesca. With all that has been said
about our political parties and how much they apparently hate
each other, there's a photo of the z B celebration
with Hosking, Jinny Anderson, and Mark Mitchell arm in arm
along with a couple of others. It was nice to
see a bit of humanity within the political system. Bruce,
There's actually a lot of it. And I don't know

(01:56:34):
if you heard my interview with Kitty Allen. I know
a lot of you aren't a huge fan of hers,
but at the end I said to her your favorite politicians,
who did you enjoy working with the most? She pretty
much listed national ministers, you know, so any she did
make the point there is a lot more work that
goes on across party lines and people realize we do
work with Picture a lot, and we do. There is

(01:56:55):
a lot of respect Cis. You know, got to put
a bit of theater on is and there there's a
bit of a show as well, so that that takes
place next week. Sam the track man is going to
join me in the studio, so look forward to catching
up with him. You enjoy the rest of your Sunday.
Up next, Jason Pine. Take care.

Speaker 1 (01:57:25):
For more from the Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin. Listen
live to News Talks it B from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.

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