Full Show Podcast: 21 December 2025

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News Talks EDB.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
It's Sunday. You know what that means.

Speaker 1 (00:15):
It's the Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkins and Wiggles for
the best selection of grape reeds Us Talks EDB.

Speaker 3 (00:28):
Good morning, and welcome to the final Sunday Session of
the year. Good to have you with us. Coming up
on the show today, Hollywood director Paul Thieg joins me
to talk about his summer thriller The Housemaid.

Speaker 4 (00:38):
Now.

Speaker 3 (00:38):
Paul directed one of my favorite comedies, Bridesmaids, and now
he's back with this adaptation of BookTok Sensation The Housemaid.
The film stars Amanda Seyfried and Sidney Sweeney and it's
a great mix of sexy, fun and thrill. Paul is
probably more well known for his comedies rather than thriller,
so we're going to talk about why he made the
switch and keeping the book talk fans happy. And after eleven,

(01:01):
I'm joined by Key We treated Don McGlashan and me
The Don mcglashon Story as a document hitting cinemas on Thursday,
the fifteenth of January. It's a fabulous Docko. Now, look,
considering Don is a humble guy who doesn't really like
to talk too much about himself, I am interested to
talk to him about how he coped with being the
subject of a documentary and we reflect on his long

(01:21):
and varied career as well. And of course you are
most welcome to text me anytime throughout the morning on
ninety two, ninety two.

Speaker 2 (01:30):
The Sunday session.

Speaker 3 (01:32):
So at this time of the year, it's nice to
reflect on some of the good things that happened throughout
the year. And just days ago the nominees for the
sixty third Hallberg Awards were announced, and quite a few
good things happen this year in sport. There have been
some huge moments, from world championships to domestic and international recognition.
In the annual Halberg Award nominations provide just a snapshot

(01:53):
of the breadth of Kiwi achievement. And what is really
cool to see is how track and field athletes, snow sports,
and a wonderful mixed collection of other sports dominate the
list of contenders for the top honors. It has been
a year where individuals have excelled and teams have done
pretty well, but suffered from inconsistency. I would like to
thank Jordy Beamish, nominated for Sportsman of the Year, for

(02:15):
providing us all with the best feel good moments of
the year. At the World Athletic Championships in Tokyo. He
survived a fall in the three thousand meter steeple chase
semi final, during which Arrival stood on his face and
still managed to come in second. So I thought that
that was going to be my most viewed sports video
of twenty twenty five, but it was surpassed days later
by watching Beamish in the final become the first New

(02:37):
Zealander to ever win track gold at a World Athletics Championships.
It still makes me smile just thinking about the end
of that race. I love going back and watching that
cheers me up immensely. His late kick is a life
lesson on finishing well. Along with the extraordinarily talented Hamishkur
who had another steally year, and the excess of emerging

(03:00):
superstar Sam Ruth, we're all we're seeing this wonderful resurgence
in New Zealand athletics. Alpine and snowboarders are also well
represented among the finalists thanks to elite performances on international circuits.
Alpine ski racer Alis Robinson is on fire at the
moment and I'm told by those in the know that
free skiers Luca Harrington nominated for Sportsmen of the Year

(03:22):
and Finley Melville ives nominated in the Merging category are
very much metal contenders heading into the Winter Olympics. Keep
those names in the back of your mind. But amongst
all the highlights, there's also some soul searching or maybe
CEO searching that needs to be done. In twenty twenty six,
the resignation of three high profile CEOs in major sport,
New Zealand Rugby's Mark Robinson, Netball's New Zealand Netball New

(03:46):
Zealand's Jenny Wiley and New Zealand crickets Scott Weenick Marcus
significant shakeup and the national sporting leadership in twenty twenty five.
Robinson's departure from New Zealand Rugby follows years of navigating
commercial and structural change within the sport and one of
the biggest and messy stories of the year. Wiley's exit
from Netball New Zealand has prompted calls for greater transparency

(04:07):
and a reflection of both governance and performance, particularly in
light of yep all the decisions around the coaching roles
and in cricket, we next stepped down after public disputes
over the sports direction, especially regarding the future of domestic
T twenty formats, suggesting there are deep strategic disagreements about
how the game should evolve in New Zealand. Clearly there's
some uncertainty head for three of our biggest sporting codes,

(04:30):
but these changes also bring opportunities, a chance for fresh
vision and leadership and hopefully better entertainment and performances for fans.
In the meantime. Congratulations to all the Hallberg nominees.

Speaker 2 (04:44):
For Sunday Session.

Speaker 3 (04:46):
Okay, so later in the show, we're going to talk
to Jason Pine about some of his sporting highlights for
the year and also what is looking forward to in
twenty twenty six. Always like to have a bit of
sport to look forward to. You're most welcome to text
on ninety two ninety two if you've got a sporting
highlight from the year, something that brought a smile to
your face. Love to hear from you. Oh, I was
a little bit disappointed that the new Zealand ultra marathon
and trial runner Ruth Cri didn't make the Hellburg list

(05:08):
because she made history this year, becoming the first woman
to win all three UTMB World Series Finals races. All
you need to know about that, if that just sounds
foreign to you, is that she runs one hundred and
sixty kilometers in mountains and wins. It's quite extraordinary. Up next,
brad Olsen joins us to write the economy for the year.

(05:28):
It is twelve past nine.

Speaker 2 (05:30):
Leep, It's simple. It's Sunday, the Sunday.

Speaker 1 (05:33):
Session with Francesca Rudkin and Wiggles for the best selection
of graverys, News Talks, Envy.

Speaker 3 (05:39):
It's fifteen past nine. It's been a big week for
the economy. We've got the good news that GDP is
up one point one percent this quarter, but it's dampened
by the Haifu government debt is set to reach two
hundred and fifty four billion by twenty thirty. It's not
all bad, though. Treachery expects the economy to start winding
up from mid next year. So when can we expect

(06:00):
to see green shirts? Now we're really starting to see
an economic recovery. Inf Metrics Chief Economist Bread Olsen is
with us. Good morning, Brad, Good morning. We got a
lot of information this week, some of it good, some
of it bad. So how do we sum up where
the economy is at at the end of the year.

Speaker 5 (06:20):
Well, in my mind, looking through all of that data,
both the forecast from the Treasury but also the actual
reality of the economy, we're coming into a better place.
We've seen a bit more of a boost in economic activity.
It's certainly not riproaring by any stretches of the imagination,
but we've at least covered in some of that hole
in the economy that we had through the early stages

(06:42):
of this year. Momentum starting to recover, but it's not
recovering as quickly as everyone hoped and expected, and that
means for the government they're continuing to face some pretty
tough choices in terms of how much they're able to
spend and what they have to fund that from. And
with of course the economy not recovering as quickly as possible,
the government's needing to take on a bit more debt

(07:04):
to sort of bridge that divide over the short term.

Speaker 3 (07:07):
The half yet Economic and Fiscal update on Tuesday, it
was a little bit disappointing, signaling we're not where we
kind of thought we wanted to be. What were your
biggest concerns from that data?

Speaker 5 (07:19):
Well, I mean, I think the Finance Minister sort of
highlighted her exasperation with yet another downgrade in the forecast
from the Treasury, not necessarily at all because of what
the government's done or not done, but just simply because
the economy hadn't got going as quickly as everyone expected.
We haven't seen any sort of significant productivity growth or

(07:40):
anything else, so it's just all taking longer and it's
so much more of a grind. But it does mean that,
you know, one of the concerns we continue to have
is that you know, New Zealand will continue to see
these budget deficits remain until effectively the end of the decade.
We're still going to be seeing the government that spends
more than it's earning every year up until about twenty

(08:01):
thirty on the government's preferred measure of obergal x, so
excluding the acc liabilities. What I think that means in
general is that again we've got the sort of much
higher persistent level of government spending compared to say pre
pandemic times that we're just not able to move away
from as quickly or as easily as people hope or expect.

(08:22):
Some people will say, look, the government should be a
lot more cutthroat. They should really pinch back on spending.
They should cut a lot of stuff and get the
books back in surplus. At the same time, other parts
of society will say, well, you can't cut anything back.
That will take real money away from people who are
already doing it tough. And so that's sort of the
very difficult position the government finds itself in heading through

(08:43):
to an election near budget. It's got a lot of
people that want spending, but not quite as much spending
available to do anything with.

Speaker 3 (08:50):
Do you think the government has done the hard yards yet,
you know, in order to get back to that surplus
that's kind of that keeps getting moved out. Do you
think they're going to have to get the ruler ount
in order to reach that, you know, because a lot
of people are saying it's nice to have fiscal discipline,
but they're not. You're not seeing fiscal restraint maybe just yet.

Speaker 5 (09:10):
Well, and this is the thing that I always find
interesting as an economist. Right, you'll sort of talk to
two different people in a day and someone saying, oh,
the government's you know, spinning up absolutely large, when actually
the budget allocations and allowances are considerably smaller than the
previous government. Others will say, you know, this is an
outright austerity, you know, budget and similar, which I mean
when you're spending an extra two point four billion dollars

(09:31):
each and every year feels like sort of an odd
level of austerity. I think it reflects though, that you know,
there are is a continued need over time for government
to find those savings, and they've been quite clear that yep,
they will continue to do that. It's never enough for
some people and it's too much for others. But I
guess also, and this is something that we have you know,
been sort of tossing about ourselves as economists, what would

(09:53):
you do to the wider economy if you were to
not necessarily continue to look for fiscal restraint that's important,
but if you were to sort of really try and
trim things back quite substantially all in one year, you
might be able to you know, achieve a budget surplus
or some similar quite quickly. But what would it do
to the rest of the economy. If you know, for
households and businesses, you saw the government that basically upsticks

(10:16):
and just stop providing that support. Would you, as a
household or would you as a business still be able
to or willing to spend?

Speaker 6 (10:23):
Would you have a job.

Speaker 5 (10:24):
That actually allowed you to do that? So there is
a bit of a trade off over how quickly they
can practically go given some of the other wider economic ramifications.
But and this is probably the big one for the
year ahead, there still seems to be a lot of
spending that government is doing that Really, you go, do
we get a lot out of it? Are the people
out there who are saying, you know what compared to
when before the pandemic came through government spending a lot

(10:46):
of money and by goodness, I'm seeing a lot of
that in my own life. Or are we all just going, man,
we seem to be spending a lot of money and
I have no idea what value we're getting for it.

Speaker 3 (10:56):
You mentioned before, you know how frustrated Nikola Willis, the
finance minister, would have been at the Hayfu and how
a lot of that is out of her control. What
is in the government's control and what is out of
control when it comes.

Speaker 5 (11:08):
Well, coming at a lot of the sort of settings
around the economy the government can influence. So of course
there's some of the direct spending that government does, you know,
infrastructure projects and similar and it was encouraging to hear that, yes,
look the government is taking on a lot of debt
in the next couple of years, but the Finance Minister
did point out, and so did the Treasury Secretary, that's

(11:29):
eighty percent of the seventy two billion dollar increase in
netcore cround debt coming over the four cast period is
going on infrastructure. So yes, we're taking on a bit
more of a mortgage, but by goodness, we're going to
start to continue to see that investment into infrastructure, which
we do desperately need. It's the indirect stuff as well though,
that government has a big influence on. So you look

(11:49):
at for example, New Zealand spending at the moment more
money on New Zealand Super than we do on the
entire education budget. And I think that's one of the
challenges is that over time a lot of that sort
of social spending that government has put out continues to
rise and rise and rise over time, and that means that, look,
you can totally make some little spending changes to a
government ministry here or there, but over the next five years,

(12:13):
the spending on the likes of New Zealand super loan
will total seven point seven billion dollars more than where
we are today. So you're trying to find savings that
sort of stuff, which is vital for people. There's a
lot of people in the community that would say, don't
you dare touch my super don't you dare touch the
benefits that are ensuring my household can continue to live
and eat. But that is costing the country substantial amounts

(12:36):
of money, and so that's the toss.

Speaker 3 (12:38):
But super is kind of like this elephant in the room,
isn't it, brad that all politicians have to actually get
their head around and deal with. We've normally had to
deal with it for decades.

Speaker 5 (12:47):
Well that's where I sometimes find myself quite cynical, right,
because we say it's the elephant in the room, we
say we need to solve it. And look, we've changed
the superagent similar back in the nineties, so it's not
like we've never done it before. But in the current
times it seems to be that sort of thing we're
all totally happy to talk about, but no one's actually
willing to do anything about political And look, I understand

(13:08):
sometimes that's because you can't get the numbers, but in
terms of the actual money, like I do think it
speaks quite substantial volumes when you look at the amount
of money, and people complain a lot, and I sort
of understand this about the amount of money that New
Zealand spends on benefits and similar and there's obviously been
crackdowns and similar this year at pars in comparison to
how much we do on super alone. Like again, as

(13:30):
a country, you look at the priorities that we set
and generally they are reflected by where we put our
most amount of money. We're currently on track at the moment.
Number biggest spend in the country from a government perspective
is health, then New Zealand, then education.

Speaker 6 (13:44):
That's not necessarily.

Speaker 5 (13:46):
What I think if you went out to the general
public and said tell me your absolute must do or
dies where our money should go, if that's the right allocation.
And I'm not saying we get rid of Super I'm
just saying that I still think that if we made
some sensible common approach tweaks, we would find ourselves in
a slightly better fiscal position and able to provide that
support to the people who need it, not so that

(14:06):
everyone who just gets free cash every week.

Speaker 3 (14:09):
Brad, you've spoken about this fine balance that the government
has in order to reduce spending but also make sure
that New Zealanders are looked after and things. If I
was a cynical person, I would imagine that this kind
of approach is going to carry on for another year
until the general election. But then whoever comes to power

(14:29):
that then they may have to make some pretty harsh
decisions then in order to deal with that debt.

Speaker 6 (14:37):
Would that be effected definitely?

Speaker 5 (14:39):
And I think in a sense you'll probably see a
continuation of the last couple of years where you've seen
some pretty big sort of spending and saving initiatives that
of the government has been, you know, running a ruler
over It's interesting right coming into an election year. It's
normally the time that you might expect politicians to open
the check book a bit.

Speaker 3 (14:57):
Roll in the money out put it.

Speaker 5 (14:59):
But of course there's not a lot of money to
throw around this time. I mean, if it's a lolly scramble,
it's you know, it's not necessarily anything more than maybe
some and boiled lollies rather than you know.

Speaker 6 (15:08):
A bigger pick and max.

Speaker 5 (15:09):
So it's pretty limited on this front, and I think
probably regardless, you'll see a lot of talk in the
election campaign I expect about spending promises and similar Those
can be a little bit of a dangerous one for
political parties because if you look even at where you
know the current coalition government is, it had some big
views about where the economy was and what they'd be

(15:31):
able to do before the election.

Speaker 6 (15:33):
The pre election.

Speaker 5 (15:34):
Update that the Treasury does said that look, actually, you know,
things will be pretty fine. Everything will be recovering, the
economy will be getting back on track. That hasn't transpired.
And to be clear, that's not because of who was
in power. That's just because the economy took a lot
longer to recover from those interst rate heights at the
Reserve Bank composed. So realistically, for a lot of political

(15:55):
parties they might be looking at next year and going
I've got to be pretty conservative. I've got to be
pretty limited in how much I promise, because you're right,
whoever is in power not only next year, but in
the years ahead, there's about five years of fiscal consolidation.
We've got to be sort of tapering down that level
of spending over time, because otherwise we will find ourselves
effectively as a country bankrupt, and that's not a position

(16:17):
that we need. Given we know at some point in
the next you know, a couple of years, five, ten years,
there's going to be another natural disaster, a global financial crisis,
something that we're going to have to respond to. And
when we've already got debt above forty percent of GDP,
the regal room, the additional support that we can provide
the economy is more constrained than say a couple of
years back before COVID, when it was closer to twenty percent.

Speaker 3 (16:39):
And Brad just very quickly, what impact do you think
all this information that we've had is going to have
on households in the coming year. We've already seen a
few long term rate hikes. Do you expect these to
continue into twenty twenty six, twenty seven.

Speaker 5 (16:52):
I mean, look, the fiscal forecast and steam will be
a bit of a dampner on households if they look
at it. I'm not quite sure outside of about way
how many people read the entire hyfu. It's bed time
reading for me, but potentially not the country. More importantly, though,
you're right that you know some of these other figures
that likes those long term infrastraight increases, but also the
GDP figure at the end of the year, you know,

(17:12):
I think that does demonstrate that there is a bit
more activity going on. Stets en Z reported that fourteen
of the sixteen industries that they track saw an increase
in the September quarter, so there's a bit more of
a broad based improvement. Businesses are investing. You're starting to
see some more job ads, so I think people will
probably go into some probably a bit naked. It's still
been a big year, but with an expectation that look,

(17:34):
things are starting to look up, but they're certainly not
going to brail away next year.

Speaker 3 (17:37):
Brad Olson, thank you so much for your time this morning.
Very much appreciate it. Have a lovely Christmas coming up
next we're going to be joined by Thomas Coglan, the
New Zealand hel political editor, who's going to be looking
forward to twenty twenty six and making a few comments
about how things have gone this year as well. You're
with the Sunday Session.

Speaker 1 (17:57):
It's the Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin on News Talks.

Speaker 3 (18:01):
AB and Our New Zealand Hero Political editor Thomas Coglan
joins us now. Good morning, Thomas, good morning, thank you
for being with us today on our final show. Christmas,
Yes merror Christmas to you too. Of course, this last
week has brought us some good and bad economic news,
and we are heading into the election year with a

(18:22):
bit of a different sort of electoral system and a
vastly different political landscape to that of the last election.
Polls have been a little bit all over the place.
It's hard to tell how things are going to go
in twenty twenty six. I suppose my question to you
is I feel like we're going to start the year
in campaign mode. I go to the Herald on my

(18:42):
phone and I'm getting National Party ads that look like
campaign ads you've got. You know, Chris Hipkins is very
much in campaign mode as well as are the other
individual parties and part of the coalition. We just we're
going to start the year sort of with a Hessena
rah and it's just not going to stop until this election.

Speaker 7 (18:59):
Yes, I think that's exactly what's going to happen. You're
going to the beginning of next year will be the
caucus retreats, which is the same the same way that
the year begins every year, but obviously an election in
the year. There's a good chance at the National Party
caucus retreat, which is in the in the week of
the twenty twentieth of January, that will be that that

(19:21):
that you're going to get an election date announcement at
that caucus retreat, which is where just in the return
did it in twenty twenty three. Of course she also
quick that day. Christoph Luson is not going to do that.
So basically, the first time Christal Bill lax And pops
up in the new year, he's going to be sort
of giving you a speech saying here's why the government's great,

(19:41):
and also here's the election date. So the first time
you see him, it's going to be a campaigning kind
of an event. And then here's the real bad news
to say is that most people think that the election
date is going to be quite late, and now they
can they can call they can have an election all
the way up into early December. Most people think that

(20:02):
they're going to call it an election for sometime in November,
which basically means you've got most of the next year
spent in campaign mode and then those last few weeks
before Christmas and coalition negotiations for whoever wins. So it's
going to be a very very long, very exhausting year
the New Zealand voters.

Speaker 4 (20:21):
I'm afraid.

Speaker 3 (20:22):
I hope you've got a good summer break planned, Thomas.
How does the coalition need to approach the new year though,
because there is they do need to balance the campaigning
with governing and getting things done.

Speaker 7 (20:34):
Yeah, said, that is correct that they there is a
wee bit of legislation that they need to pass, the
RMA reforms they need to pass before the election, and
they're obviously quite that. They're quite fair that that involves
a lot of Select Committee work getting into the details
of what those changes mean, and so yeah, there is

(20:56):
a lot of governing.

Speaker 6 (20:57):
Still to do.

Speaker 7 (20:57):
There's a budget to put together, so that's sort of
in the middle now. Nikola Willis is in the middle
of putting together the budget, so she will be talking
with ministers about what they want to go into the budget.
She'll also be talking to the ministers about what she
wants to come out in terms of cuts, so it's
sort of starts tekening and obviously budget is made. There
is sort of a convention, an informal, a very informal

(21:19):
convention that after the budget is delivered in the path
that the parties you know, go their own sort of
separate ways in a rhetorical sense, and and and they
fight a little bit more and get really into the
business of campaigning. So you'll probably see a bit of
a shadow campaign at the beginning of the year, and
then after May and the budget is introduced and released,

(21:41):
and you might see a bit more on, a bit
more bifo even between the coalition partners.

Speaker 3 (21:45):
For good News, Thomas Goods, thank you. You described Luckson's
sort of end of the year as a bit bumpy,
which is probably a good good description. How serious was
the leadership challenge against him?

Speaker 7 (21:56):
Yes, it might have been. It might have been away
bit you from mistake actually bumpy and retrospects. Yeah, it was.

Speaker 6 (22:02):
It was.

Speaker 7 (22:03):
I think it was one of those leadership challenges where
people were just asking questions and and people were just saying, well, look,
you know, we could have a leadership change, and what
would you think of that? And so noa's actually hitting
the phone saying like, right, it's on, will you support me?
But people are more just picking up the phone, having
a beer with someone and saying, well, what would you

(22:25):
think if we had a if we had a bit
of a change a changeover. So in that sense, in
that sense, it was real, but it wasn't advanced. I
think it's probably a fair way to put it. And
I don't think it was either. There was never a
sense that this was ready to go to caucus to
actually formally, formally formally do a changeover. So it was

(22:47):
it was in the It was in the realm of hypothetical,
but it was getting pretty real.

Speaker 3 (22:51):
To Pati Marray had probably had the toughest year. Can
they pull it together in twenty twenty six, I.

Speaker 7 (22:56):
Use it's a very open question. I only don't know
the answer to it. And they have had a pretty
tough year, had a very good year to start with
with some and then a good year all the way
until septeen when they won the Tammick and mccoto by election,
absolute thrashing, and that by election and then it all
fell apart. And I really do wonder whether they can
whether they can pull it together, and I think of

(23:17):
it looks like they're going to be busied out of
parliament altogether, they might get a strong sympathy vote. You
recall in twenty seventeen, when some polls suggested that the
Greens might the Greens might disappear from parliament all together.
You had a lot of people sort of crowding around
the Greens and supporting them because they didn't really want
that you meet, Green voice to disappear from parliament. And
so you might see that with Party Mardy, that people

(23:37):
and some electorates decide to swing in behind a Party
Mardi's candidate that they are just to ensure that that
voice doesn't disappear altogether. But there was a real chance
that they completely wipe out and lose all six of
the seats that've currently got or four and a bit,
I guess because of other two diffections.

Speaker 3 (23:56):
And I suppose that in general, Thomas, if you take
a look at the other parties, if you look at
National Labor and Act in New Zealand first and things,
the Green Center steady things as well, how have they ended?
The yeah is is everybody looking pretty steady to head
into twenty twenty six?

Speaker 7 (24:12):
Yeah, like I think, I think the Greens administer to
be a ship they had they had, they had some
real wobbles earlier this term and both they had probably
one of the most difficult parliamentary terms that I've ever
had with MP miss behavior, misbehavior and misconducts. Obviously that
they traditionally had one of their EMPs pass away and
then then they had another MP, Benjamin Door come in

(24:33):
and then decided to quit a few months later. Yeah,
not not not a great term from them, but they
seem to have stabilized things. So I've got Kevin Hagen,
there is chief of staff, which will be will be
a good thing for them in terms of stability and
influenced laters on the app they're doing pretty well at
the moment, very well. A really good term from them
for a first term opposition national Obviously a bit of

(24:56):
a problem there, like they have lost a lot of
support in the last few months, so they'll be looking
to this year overall, I'd say so they'll be looking
to stabilize things and exits had a good last few
months because they had a difficult middle of the year.
They slunched, but now they're back in New Zealand versus
them piling. Well, that that had probably one of the
best parliamentary terms they've ever had when they've been in
the government usually at this point in the political in

(25:18):
the political cycle, and that'd be under five percent about
piling pretty strong around back seam at the moment, so
they're doing quite well.

Speaker 3 (25:24):
Thomas Cochlan enjoyed the rest in the break and the summer,
and we look forward to catching.

Speaker 4 (25:29):
Up with you in the new year too.

Speaker 7 (25:32):
Merry Christmas, Merry.

Speaker 3 (25:33):
Christmas, Thomas, don't forget that. Paul fig is with me
after ten this morning as well. He's the director of Bridesmaids.
He also read lots of TV shows like Freaks and
Geeks and things. Anyway, he's got a very cool new
thriller out. It's out on Christmas Day. It's called The Housemaids.
So he's going to be with me to talk about
that after ten.

Speaker 1 (25:49):
The Sunday Session Full Show podcast on iHeartRadio powered by
News Talks.

Speaker 3 (25:54):
Ab It is a nineteen to ten you with News
Talks ab Right. Construction company Amcrete has just completed New
Zealand's first ever on site three D printed home. They're
quicker to construct, made with a concrete poured by a
computer controlled three D printer. They're also more sustainable. Instead
of going to the landfill at the end of home's life,

(26:15):
it can be broken down and reused and greet Director
Carol Eleen is with me now, good morning, thank you
for your time.

Speaker 4 (26:22):
What I can say some morning?

Speaker 3 (26:24):
Why three D.

Speaker 8 (26:26):
Well look?

Speaker 4 (26:27):
I mean construction. It's one of the biggest probably and
latest developments in the construction industry and it offers quite
a lot. One is obviously reduced price point for much
better quality houses. And it's not really replacing construction industry
and trade. It's just an aiding, an arsenal to give

(26:50):
you more options to do something, you know, to build
a different house.

Speaker 3 (26:55):
So how does it work?

Speaker 4 (26:59):
I essentially the idea is is very similar to matin
a reconstruction. We've been shared and then we fill them
with concrete and we fill them with installation. So if
you if you're sink from design point of view, it
looks it's works pretty much same as the masonry, the
gray masonry them many differences. We have machines set up

(27:23):
on side and we only need a couple of guides
and to look after the build instead of a queue
of the block layers working on site for for a while.

Speaker 3 (27:32):
So you do the basic structure of the house and
then you set it out like you were a normal house.

Speaker 4 (27:38):
Well basically, yeah, yeah, we get the slave done, then
we set up machine print all the wolves, fill them
with concrete and installation, put the roof on, put the
windows in, finish the internals and that's said.

Speaker 3 (27:51):
That house is done, Carol, How big is the equipment
you need to be printing a house?

Speaker 4 (27:57):
Ours hour? We have a gainstipt printer and it sets
up to the maximum of eighteen by twelve meters, so
the printing that allows us to print but one seventy
square meter house. But we're working now on a design
where we print within that space some elements and we
can take them out and make the footprint larger than

(28:19):
the footprint of the printer. So we basically we can
we can do a larger than one sixty s claire
meters footprint.

Speaker 3 (28:26):
Okay, so does it does a three D printed house
look just like any other house?

Speaker 4 (28:30):
It looks there's a different there's a distinct look to it.
We have all our corners who have curved corners, so
it's all nice and smooth. There's no sharp corners, and
it's we can either finish it with the plaster or
we can live with exposed layers, so that that will
have a very distinct city printed looks, which some people

(28:52):
really like. We had a lot of injuries where people
say they want to have that look, but for the
first one, for the prototype, we need more conventional look,
so it's more appealing to a wider selection of people.

Speaker 3 (29:06):
So how long does it take to complete a house.

Speaker 4 (29:10):
The traditional normally it would be about twenty to thirty
days to print all walls, and then the house overall
turn key from start to finish, from digging to handover
would be about four to five months.

Speaker 3 (29:23):
Four to five months. And how much true is that
than if you were building away the boardhouse.

Speaker 4 (29:28):
Yeah, so it's basically the same as with a boardhouse.
And people a lot ask me a what about the cost?
But I rather prefer to talk about value, right, what
it is for your money? So imagine you were buying
a car and you have a great wallut and a
Toyota ut at the same price, right, which one we're
going to shoot? Obviously Toyota, right, because it's a lot better,

(29:49):
more and more durable, and it's a lots longer, so
the same thing. Right, it will cost the same as
a normal house, but it lasts three to four times
longer than normal house, and it doesn't require much maintenance.

Speaker 3 (30:00):
And look, having a concrete house, what does that mean
when it comes to heating and ventilation.

Speaker 4 (30:07):
Because of the concrete walls inside, it has quite a
substantial thermal mass, right, Yeah, what that means is that
it will maintain comfortable temperatures throughout the year. It will
be cool in summer, and it will be warm and
winter because it keeps all the temperature stores inside the house, right,
all the energy it warms up during the day, it

(30:27):
will keep the wall warms there through the night, and
the same with during the summer, so the hitting and
cooling will be less. I think that someone already done
their studies and there are the models. So it's actually
more energy and efficient to have that kind of house
because it's because of the termal mass.

Speaker 3 (30:48):
When I first heard that, you know, you could kind
of get this house sort of erisident thirty days I
was I was thinking and but worried about the tradees.
But as you mentioned, it's going to take four to
five months to complete the house fully, so there's still
plenty of work available.

Speaker 4 (31:03):
Oh ye, coun Yeah, yes, it is into your worker.
Like I said, it's not replacing construction traditional construction. It's
eating to the choice. I mean with us, for example,
with one printer, we're looking at rob about ten to
fifteen houses a year. So if there is a higher demand,
we can bring another machine. But it's not really really

(31:26):
like completely changing the.

Speaker 3 (31:28):
Industry, right, And what is demand like at the moment?
Is there a lot of interest?

Speaker 4 (31:32):
Yes, very strong interest. A lot of people really like
the conceptory, like the look and the idea and the
effect that it's so durable and it's fiery distance of
floody distance, and so it's just a lot stronger than
normal house.

Speaker 3 (31:47):
And you mentioned before you know this is quite a
major development when it comes to construction in New Zealand.
Could you see it being used in otherwise not just
the homes.

Speaker 4 (31:56):
Yeah, of course we've done We've done a few jobs
in commercial space where we do we need some fishure
pieces for Hitous as a as a showcase within the
overall architectural design. So it has many users. I mean
like a conventional CD printing, it's so new and the

(32:19):
opportunities are so fast that people still sort of processing
what can be done. You know, once you used to
do something in the same traditional way, it's hard to
think outside the box and think I can do this
thing thing better and it can give me a better result.

Speaker 6 (32:35):
You know.

Speaker 4 (32:36):
It still progression.

Speaker 3 (32:38):
Oh it's fascinating. Thank you so much for joining us
this morning. Really appreciate it. That was m Creek director
coroll Eline Elaine. I'm still veryuely curious to sort of
see this in action, aren't you. How are you in
stead of three D printer house. It's quite incredible. Anyway,
it is twelve to teen you with the Sunday.

Speaker 2 (32:57):
Session relaxed, it's still the weekend.

Speaker 1 (33:00):
It's a Sunday session with Francesca Rudgan and whitgles for
the best selection of Greg Gray excuse talks.

Speaker 2 (33:07):
It'd be in the US.

Speaker 9 (33:17):
US US.

Speaker 3 (33:23):
Thank you very much. Feel feedback this morning. I've been
talking about sporting moments. So I like talking about sporting
moments because they always feel good and positive and make
us feel good. James text to say Francisa one of
the greatest sporting moments of the year was Adie Severe's
turnover that helps seal and win the game at Eden
Park in Auckland against South Africa in his one hundredth game.
He's definitely in the club. Worth Ritchie and Jonah, thank

(33:46):
you for your shows. Thank you if your text James
y snow he had a good year, didn't It was
nice to see him awarded as well at the end
of the year. And someone else mentioned, Oh, Muzz mentioned Francisca.
Don't forget Hagen Wild winning the trithile on after months
earlier been hit by a truck. I think he's worth
mentioning at least. You're absolutely right, Muzz. And look, often
we sort of talk about our suporting highlights is when

(34:07):
somebody has overcome adversity and I think probably been hit
by a truck and then getting back and winning a
Trythlon is overcoming adversity. So yes, definitely worth a mention
as well. Quite a few people actually mentioned Addie Savia
in their tech so thank you very much for those. Look,
at this time of the year, we will become a

(34:29):
little bit obsessed, well some of us become a little obsessed.
We've become obsessed if we're hosting Christmas about what the
weather is going to do. I do love the way
we start following this. About a week ago you will
have seen articles about you know, what's going to be
happening for Christmas. But look, if you are sort of
starting to get yourself ready and sort of for Christmas
this week, weather forecasts aren't great. In the South Island

(34:54):
Met Service is suggesting it's good to hold celebrations indoors.
Maybe a little bit of rain there. West Coast is
facing the worst of it. Christ and Dunedin should be
mostly fine with some clouds, but they do make you
know things will change. It's a little bit it's still
a little bit too early to accurately forecast the weather

(35:14):
in the North Island. Aucklanders and Northlanders might have to
have a back up plan as well. There's some inconsistent
weather expected on Christmas Day, but well you'll be used
to that. The early weather forecast is sort of still
taking shape. But there is a suggestion that rainclouds are
going to emerge over the Upper North Island in the afternoon.
Lower North Island expect some good conditions in Wellington. There

(35:38):
we go. It's not looking too bad. In Warrington might
be a little bit windy, but you're used to that,
so you know, it's kind of it's time for it
to change, isn't there. So we might all just cross
our flankers in hope it does.

Speaker 1 (35:51):
It is seven to ten the Sunday Session Full Show
podcast on my Heart Radio powered by News Talks.

Speaker 6 (35:58):
I'd be.

Speaker 3 (36:00):
Now, if you've been having a little bit of you know,
a few problems with your workouts recently, and you kind
of you've hit a bit of a and you're really
struggling to kind of push through either at the gym
or maybe on your runs or something. Doctor Chelterlkinson has
some very interesting, scientifically proven advice to help you push
through those moments. It's to do with swearing. So it's

(36:24):
going to kind of depend on how you feel about
swearing and maybe in publican things, or whether you're just
very good at doing it under your breath about whether
you take on this advice. But this is a pretty
interesting science study, so she has got that for us.
Next hour, Ah, this is Sabrina Carpenter. The song is

(36:45):
called Please Please Please. It is from the soundtrack to
the Housemaid and this film is releasing on PRES's Day.
It stars Amanda Seyfried and Sidney Sweeney. It's a really slick,
stylish film. It's filled with plenty of twists and turns,
and it's director Paul Fiek, who is the man behind
Bridesmaids and Freaks and Geeks. He is going to join
us after news to talk about the importance make films.

(37:07):
Four Cinema as well is streaming, so poor Feek is
with us next year on Newstuxie b Please.

Speaker 10 (37:15):
Please please don't bring me in tears, just in my
makea so nice break as wating.

Speaker 6 (37:24):
My e gles and neother.

Speaker 9 (37:27):
I beg you don't embers.

Speaker 3 (37:29):
Me, Mother Trucker, please please.

Speaker 10 (37:36):
Pase have a fun idea pape. Maybe just stay inside.
I know you're craving some fresh air, but the ceiling
fan is so nice and we could live so happily
if no one knows there you're with me. I'm just kidding,
really really.

Speaker 3 (37:59):
Please please don't bring.

Speaker 2 (38:07):
Please, please please don't bring me.

Speaker 10 (38:12):
Here's why I'm justin ha maake of so much breaks
a bats in.

Speaker 6 (38:18):
Mind, he goes in, man, he goes back.

Speaker 2 (38:21):
If you don't embras me, mother truck, please please pa
you god be stupid, don't do it fun on me.

Speaker 11 (38:44):
You don't cry of music, Don't make me hate you?

Speaker 2 (38:53):
Please please please play, please.

Speaker 12 (38:56):
Please please.

Speaker 1 (39:10):
Welcome to the Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin and Wiggles
for the best selection of great reads us.

Speaker 3 (39:25):
This is a Sunday Session. Good to have you with us,
right Hollywood icon Paul Fieg has made a career out
of comedies. He's created or directed the likes of Freaks
and Geeks, Bridesmaids, the US version of the Office, Arrested Development,
and Ghostbusters. Paul's latest film is a psychological thriller adapted
from FRIEDA. Mcfarnen's viral book, tok Hit The Housemaid. Any second,

(39:53):
I'm going to play your clip. So this is just
building the anticipation for the thrill. Here we go. I
do not know how he puts up with her.

Speaker 6 (40:02):
Who's a heart stand.

Speaker 8 (40:06):
Out of here?

Speaker 6 (40:08):
You're leaving?

Speaker 3 (40:10):
No, who's heard me?

Speaker 2 (40:13):
I want you to feel safe here.

Speaker 3 (40:15):
I don't know what I'd do without you?

Speaker 2 (40:20):
Oh my god, what kind of monsters are we?

Speaker 3 (40:25):
The Housemaid is in cinemas on Christmas Day. Pool director
Paul Fieg, thank you so much for your time.

Speaker 6 (40:32):
It is a delight to talk to you, and you
too my goodness, thank you for such an honor.

Speaker 3 (40:37):
What do you love about thrillers?

Speaker 6 (40:39):
I love them.

Speaker 13 (40:39):
They're my favorite thing to watch, you know. I like
high stakes things. I like to lean in, I like
to gasp, I like to be surprised. I like to
feel tension. You know, I'm in the comedy is my
bread and butter, and so it's a bit of a
bustman's holiday for me to watch comedy. But I just
I love the high stakes of a thriller and the
twists and the turns.

Speaker 6 (41:00):
I love it. I just decid, I think it's the
greatest genre.

Speaker 3 (41:03):
Well, you sure delivered a lot of that in the film.
You've got You've got a dreamcast on your hands. You've
got Sydney Sweeney, You've got Amanda Seyfried, you've got Brendan
Skinnerlinar Slenna.

Speaker 6 (41:17):
Thank you, Glenar.

Speaker 3 (41:19):
Was this that your dream team?

Speaker 12 (41:22):
He?

Speaker 6 (41:22):
Truly?

Speaker 12 (41:23):
Was it?

Speaker 6 (41:23):
Truly was?

Speaker 13 (41:24):
I Mean, I've been such a big fan of Sydney's
for a while now. Once I saw in the movie
Reality and I thought she was just She's gonna blew
me away with with what she did in that, And
so that was the moment I was like, Wow, she's great.

Speaker 6 (41:36):
I want to work with her. Amanda.

Speaker 13 (41:37):
I had had coffee with ten years prior, you know,
just a general meeting to see if we would, you know,
could figure out something to do together. It was like,
we love each other, we have to figure the something out.
And then when this came along ten years later, it
was like, ah, we finally I've got the I've got
the role that you're going to kill him. And then
Brandon had just worked with my friend Blake Lively and
it ends with us, and when we were doing another

(41:59):
Cimvil favor, she kept saying, like, you've got to meet Brandon.
You've got to He's the greatest guy. And I was like, okay, okay,
I'm sure he's fine. And then when I had a
meeting with him he walked in, I was like, okay,
he's cast. Like I mean, he's like what a presence.

Speaker 6 (42:11):
That guy has. He's unbelievable and so talented.

Speaker 3 (42:14):
I would also love to mention Indiana l who plays
Nina and Andrew's child, the Young Cec, because because how
often do you get this young talent in the room
that can hold their own with such established adult actors.

Speaker 6 (42:28):
Yeah, Indiana is amazing.

Speaker 13 (42:29):
You know, because it's you know, I've worked with a
lot of kids over the years and had great success
with it, but it's always you're always kind of like, oh, no,
I hope this works out, and you know, we saw
a lot of kids, but honestly, Indiana was the very
first first little actor we saw and she was so good.
It was like nobody could top her and she just
really held her own with with you know, a very

(42:50):
talented cast. So yeah, hats off and hats off to
Michayla Maroney, my buddy who plays a Enzo the Gardener,
who was in another simple Favor. He's a gorgeous man
and a wonderful guy.

Speaker 3 (43:01):
For those who are not familiar with that, this book
went the book that the film has adapted on went
viral on bok talk, and that community can be quite
intense when you know, when it comes to the books
they love. Were you thinking about when you that when
you were turning it into a film, or do you
purely go, Okay, I'm going to make the best decisions
here for a film, not the book lovers.

Speaker 13 (43:22):
Well, you want to you don't want to thumb your
nose of the book lovers. You want you know, to
make sure that they are going to be satisfied since
the book is so big. I mean, it's such a
popular book. It's about the bestseller list for almost two
years now, so you don't want to not pay attention
to that. But at the same time, you don't want
to get so involved in fan service that you're excluding
people who haven't read the book yet. And so my

(43:44):
math is always like, make sure that the book lovers
are getting what they were hoping for out of the book,
but then give them a little bit more so they's
still a surprise. So even if you read the book,
you're going like, oh, I didn't expect that to happen,
or that's that's going beyond what I thought was going
to happen there. And then for people who don't know
the book, you just want them to have a pure
storytelling experience of being surprised. But you know, I always

(44:08):
say like, if you ever read the book yet, buy
the book, then watch the movie and then read the book.
That's the most fun way because you'd be surprising the
cinema and then you'll have fun seeing what we got
it from.

Speaker 3 (44:18):
That's really interesting because I got sent the book and
then I went but everyone keeps telling me that all
this twists and turns. I don't want to ruin the movie,
so I've just iron you, No, I'm not going to
read the book. I've seen the movie and now I'll
go back and read the book.

Speaker 13 (44:31):
Exactly because then you get to like really settle in
with it and all that. No, but thank you, everybody.
Listen there, listen to you.

Speaker 3 (44:36):
There are more books in the series. Would you contemplate,
you know, adepting those as well?

Speaker 6 (44:42):
That would be the hope.

Speaker 13 (44:44):
I mean, it's such a great character of the Housemaid,
you know, the character of Millie that the Sidney Sweeney
plays is I just I love it, and so you know,
never say never.

Speaker 6 (44:54):
It would be nice. We'll see how this one does.

Speaker 3 (44:56):
So how did you come across the story? Did someone
give you the book? Did you read the book? Did
people tell you about it? What grabed you about it?
When you when you stumbled across it?

Speaker 13 (45:04):
Well, apparently it was Sydney found the book and then
kind of approached a Lion's Gate with it, and so
when it came to me, Sidney was attached. So that
was a big thrill for me because I wanted to
work with her. But then when I read the script,
I was just like, Wow, this is kind of got
a lot of stuff in it that I love. You know,
It's a really compelling story that takes a twist and

(45:25):
then kind of goes into direction you're not expecting. And
that's my favorite thing. I love to be in a
movie and go like oh, like you know, like I
can't believe that just happened. That's really fun. And so
as a filmmaker is like the fun of like how
do we set that up?

Speaker 6 (45:39):
How do we make that happen?

Speaker 2 (45:40):
Then?

Speaker 6 (45:40):
How do we get these twisty, turney things going.

Speaker 3 (45:43):
You mentioned before that comedy has been your sort of
bread and butter. Are these similarities between comedy and thrillers
when making a film?

Speaker 6 (45:51):
Yeah, very much so. Thriller's horror, comedy.

Speaker 13 (45:53):
They're all related because they're all about very extreme emotions
being being you know, gotten out of an audience. You know,
a laugh is very close to a scare, is very
close to a stream as close to a gasp. And
if you if you do one of those, you should
do the other thing. The minute you stream at something
or jump from something, you gotta laugh afterwards. And so

(46:16):
it's really fun to elicit that emotion because that keeps
people so invested. You know, I want I want audiences
to watch my movies leaning forward. I don't want people
to be sitting back and like, you know, casual leading popcorn.

Speaker 3 (46:27):
I think that's I think that's so important though, And
I also think you need to see your movies in
a cinema. It needs to be a communal experience. You know,
I still have a very clear memory of who I
watch Bridesmaids with, and I just remember being in this
you know, this this room full of people who were
all laughing. We were all in it together, and it
you feel a lot more connected, don't you. Then if

(46:49):
you're just sort of sitting at home streaming another film.

Speaker 6 (46:52):
Well, this is what makes movies so special.

Speaker 13 (46:55):
And that's why theatrical movies are so important because the
first time you see something like you said, you carry
that with you. So then when you're watching at home
Bridesmaids again, or watching another movie that you had a
great experience in the theater, it's like you're back with
those people again. You're reliving that experience of remembering like,
oh my gosh, this got a giant laugh and oh
we all streamed here and we all, you know, clutched

(47:17):
our pearls here.

Speaker 6 (47:18):
That's very important.

Speaker 13 (47:19):
I love streaming because it gets you to be able
to make things that normally wouldn't be made. But there's
nothing like the theatrical experience. And I'm so happy that
The Housemaid is coming out theatrically, you know, only.

Speaker 3 (47:31):
So do you have that preference for cinema or for
streaming or do you just accept that in you know,
in this day and age, both a mix is good,
you know.

Speaker 13 (47:40):
I mean no shade on streaming. It's great to get
certain projects made, but to me, there's nothing nothing like
having a theatrical movie. That's that's what I've come up
through the business on. You know, all my movies were
that until the last three, which were streaming, and you know,
because of COVID and all that, it was a blessing
that I got to make those movies for streaming. But
I'm thrilled, thrilled to be back in the theater.

Speaker 3 (48:01):
And I think the other thing is a lot of
your films have have stood the test of time and
have quite a following. What gives a film longevity and following?

Speaker 6 (48:12):
Do you think it's characters? It's the human condition.

Speaker 13 (48:15):
It's not about you know, making jokes about culture and
about current you know, media and pop culture and all
that kind of thing. It's about the human condition because
that never changes. You know, our emotions and our feelings
towards each other and our insecurities towards each other, and
all that are universal. And they travel across international borders,

(48:38):
and they travel across time, and so that gives you
the longevity that you want versus something that's just sort
of chasing something that's popular at the moment. You really
want to have a deep connection to characters.

Speaker 3 (48:50):
There are comedic moments in this film, as we would
expect from you, just to just to give us a
moment to kind of you know, take a breath in things.
But if we look in terms of true comedy, where
is that? And I imagine that changed a lot of
your career. I mean, we're not seeing so many straight

(49:11):
out comedies with specialist comedic actors in them in our
cinemas so much anymore.

Speaker 13 (49:17):
Yeah, it is a shame. I mean, it's just it's
a look comedy kind of ebbs and flows. You know,
sometimes people just want straight out just I'm just having
a hilarious time and other times they want higher stakes
and I kind of I'm enjoying this period because I
like the higher stakes you know, movies and the storytelling,

(49:40):
but finding a way to make it fun still. You know,
you want it to be you want to be thrilling
and scary intense first, but then you want that release
of these moments that are funny, you know. And that's
what Hitchcock was so great at doing. And that's why
those movies stand the test of time too, is they
had funny side characters and funny interactions and extreme personalities.

Speaker 3 (50:00):
And it looked like the cast was having a lot
of fun filming this as well. You know, you could
kind of see that. I think especially Amanda had so
much fun with her character Nina.

Speaker 13 (50:11):
Yeah, I mean that's such a The character of Nina
is such you know, if you've read the book, it's
such a fun role because she's so unpredictable and and
you know, Millie never knows who she's gonna be talking
to when she Nina approaches and that's just cating.

Speaker 6 (50:27):
It for an actor. And Nanda just had so much fun.

Speaker 13 (50:30):
The two of us had so much fun, like like
trying different things with her to be to make her
unnerving or to make her like stranger, and then you know,
then Sidney played so well off of her just you know,
Sidney's such a great subtle actor who just really hides
her strengths until they come out and then you're like,
you know, her characters and all her movies always have

(50:53):
a moment where they just kind of really you know,
come out and explode and uh, and that's really fun
to watch her set up that slow burn.

Speaker 3 (51:02):
And I imagine with comedy there's a lot of opportunity
to improvise, to do things differently. Is it the same
when you're working on a thriller, Well, you're happy to
sort of collaborate with your with your actors.

Speaker 13 (51:13):
Yeah, I mean it's a different kind of playing around
on the set. And with comedy you're always trying to
just come up with different jokes and really surprise each other.
A thriller is a pretty tightly scripted thing. You have
to not get off of the off of the blueprint
that you have that is creating the tension. But it's
within the moment to moments that's where you can play
and play with like how you react to something and

(51:34):
how somebody, the look they give or how they kind
of just how they react to the other character in
the moment. That's that's to me is the most fun
of like trying to figure out what can we get
away with in those moments.

Speaker 3 (51:47):
I heard you say that this might be your boost
best movie. What is it about this one that you
think makes it your best work?

Speaker 13 (51:55):
It just accomplishes everything I wanted it to accomplish. It's
very true to the thriller genre, but it's still fun,
and it's very sexy, and it's very you know, it's
an adult movie. It's a grown up move Bee, which
I love, you know, with this great young cast. But
it's you know, it is a it's a mature movie,

(52:16):
but it's still a very fun ride.

Speaker 6 (52:18):
At the end of the day.

Speaker 13 (52:19):
And so you really get taken through a lot. I mean,
people kind of walk out of the movie slightly exhausted
because you really got, you know, taken on a ride.

Speaker 3 (52:28):
Absolutely. I saw it first thing in the morning and
it kind of threw me for the whole day.

Speaker 6 (52:32):
So that woke you up.

Speaker 3 (52:35):
Sure, Paul, It's been an absolute delight to talk to you.
Thank you so much, and we're really looking forward to
the film being out on Boxing Day. Have a lovely Christmas,
thank you.

Speaker 6 (52:44):
So much and the New Zealand I hope to see
you soon.

Speaker 3 (52:48):
That was Hollywood director Paul fig and his new film
The Housemaid is in Cinema's on Boxing Day. It is
twenty past ten News Talks it.

Speaker 2 (52:55):
B There's no better way to start your Sunday.

Speaker 1 (52:59):
It's a Sunday session with Francesca Rutkin and Wiggles for
the best selection of greg reads used talkshit be.

Speaker 3 (53:08):
Christmas is almost here. There are just four sleeps to go,
and many of us still have last minute arrangements to make.
Wickles can help. Their one stop gift shop makes it
really easy to find everything you need in one small space,
and their friendly, helpful, knowledgeable staff can make it even easier.
Wickles has books for all ages and interests, wrapping paper,
tape and gift tags, and of course, if you want

(53:30):
to give the gift of choice, they have Wickles Gift Cards,
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Wickles Gift cards can be brought online right up to
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Merry Christmas and Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

(53:50):
to everyone with books, games, puzzles, toys, gorgeous stationary and
gift cards to give the gift of choice. There really
is something for everyone.

Speaker 2 (53:58):
At Wickkels the Sunday Session.

Speaker 3 (54:15):
It's time to talk entertainment now and I'm joined by
Steve Neil. Good morning, Curta. Starting off with a little
bit of the bests, because they've made quite a prestigious
list for twenty twenty five, haven't they.

Speaker 14 (54:26):
That's right, And it's not my Favorite Movies of the
Year list because that's a different list of prestige. But
this is almost as prestigious. This is former President Barack
Obama's list of his favorite songs of twenty twenty five,
alongside Lady Gaga, Rosalia Drake, Kendrick lamar Is Altered was
on the Beths a song called Metal, not their first
appearance on an Obama playlist, having previously made his Songs

(54:50):
of the Summer list in twenty twenty three. I reckon
it'd be pretty called to get word that your song's.

Speaker 6 (54:57):
On that list.

Speaker 3 (54:58):
Yeah, I think so too good on them. Let's talk
about your favorite movies.

Speaker 14 (55:02):
Of this Oh yeah, so the main and most the
more prestigious list.

Speaker 3 (55:04):
It's Steve's list.

Speaker 14 (55:06):
Yeah, it's It's been a great year for cinema. I
think maybe kind of a little bit of a downer
year in terms of some of the subject material. But
even amongst kind of some of the fairly grim content,
there's also been this real dose of humor that's run
right through it. And I think that considering maybe like
the may half a dozen films that have already resonated

(55:28):
with me this year kind of all have that to
one degree or another. So let's have a look at
my six saves of twenty five.

Speaker 3 (55:33):
I'd give you a drum roll, but I don't have one.

Speaker 14 (55:35):
Let's look. I don't think a prestigious list doesn't have
a drum roll. It just has silence and consideration. Nicole
Kidman's sex thriller Baby Girl sixth was my sixth favorite
film of twenty twenty five. Again, like you know, it
has humor laced through some kind of grunty subject matter.

(55:56):
Number five it was just an accident. This was the
Iranian drama that won the Palm d'Or at KHN this
year about a chance encounter where a group of present
day Iranian citizens think they might have run into their
state sanctioned torturer from years years past. Weirdly like lots
of jokes, so this kind of a bad continues.

Speaker 3 (56:16):
It's a delight in really thought provoking, is there. And
it's actually, Oh, no, I'll let you finish.

Speaker 8 (56:19):
Sorry, no, you go.

Speaker 3 (56:20):
I was just gonna say it's coming back late, jam,
I think that is.

Speaker 14 (56:23):
Coming back back in cinemas twenty ninth of January. Oh,
here's an exception to the rule, because I didn't find
this one particularly funny at all, but I love this.
At the New Zealand International Film Festival, saraht. This is
coming to cinemas February twenty sixth. Starts with a rave
in the Moroccan desert, becomes a journey in both a
literal and a kind of spiritual sense across Morocco, and

(56:45):
some stuff happens that just makes the whole cinema shut
up and stare at the screen and wonder what the
if just happened. Loved it, but yes, there's not many
jokes in this one. Number three and actually all three
of these last films I will note all from Warner Brothers,
which is worth considering the light of the probable Netflix acquisition.

(57:06):
Netflix continue to make movies like this Let's find Out
a Number three Sinners, director of Ryan Kugler's awesome thirties
set musical horror. Kind of positive at the time, like
it was this big risk for Warner Brothers, had a
big budget, It didn't immediately start making its box office back,
but in a year where that's happened to lots of films,
it was kind of I wonder what was what it

(57:28):
was about this one that kind of had it singled
out for that kind of analysis early on. Number two
Weapons This was Zach Krieger's horror follow up to Barbarian
from a couple of years ago, set in a small
town where all the kids except one decided to disappear
one night. Kind of a very much kind of a
modern day folk story, but the very present day American vision.

Speaker 3 (57:49):
Can I guess what number one might be?

Speaker 14 (57:51):
I think can probably guess. You're looking at me. You've
got me all all sorted out, You've figured me out.

Speaker 3 (57:56):
One battle after another. Yeah, absolutely, And it was a
fantastic film.

Speaker 6 (58:01):
Yeah, and like.

Speaker 14 (58:04):
Predictable is not shorthand or undeserving. This movie resonated with
me in lots of different ways. Again, it's funny, it's
also urgent and depicting. You know, a lot of the
worst excesses that are taking place on the streets of
the United States right now. Love this film, and I
would imagine the Academy voters are going to be all

(58:25):
over it in the new year also, So look, most
of these are available to watch now. A couple have
mentioned the coming back to cinemas, the others you can
check out from your couch, and a few other things
that are worth looking forward to in the new year.

Speaker 3 (58:37):
Yeah, because look, if you are if you haven't got
a present maybe for someone specially in your life, and
they love movies and they're like good movies, then actually
it's worth just popping to your local independent or art
house cinema and grabbing them a voucher. Because in January
there is an incredible collection of films coming back. We're
basically heading into awards season, so we're going to see

(58:58):
everything that's kind of gets nominated for a Golden Globes
or Oscars if it hasn'tlready been released. They make the
most of the hype around them and they're going to
release one hundred percent.

Speaker 14 (59:05):
Yes, it's a good time to go to the movies,
and it's also the Northern Hemisphere winter, so there's a
lot of There's a lot on that might sort of
defy our Kiwi summer experience, but it's worth keeping an
eye on what's out. So a few titles you can
check out next month. Sentimental Value. This is the new
film from Joaquim trea On, director of West Person in

(59:26):
the World. I have not seen this yet. I missed
list at the film Festival. I've seen it tick great.

Speaker 3 (59:32):
I love rocking Tria though I love what he does.

Speaker 14 (59:35):
Later in the month is the new Josh Saftie Timothy
schallame starring Marty Supreme. This is another massive Oscar contender,
and it's definitely contender for most annoying press campaign because
Timothy schallamey seems everywhere at the moment and he's extremely
annoying and.

Speaker 3 (59:53):
His character is outrageously I can't I can't remember the
embago on this and what I'm allowed to say about
and what I'm not allowed to say about it. But
it is probably one of the most memorable films I
saw this year for kind of good and bad reasons.

Speaker 14 (01:00:04):
I can't wait to find out more about this. Yeah,
you can also catch the next twenty eight days later
sequel twenty eight years later, The Bone Temple. This is
out on the fifteenth of jan. Kind of just seems
like this is, yes, we just arriving. But they did
make these two films effectively back to back, and so
it might be a bit more of a weight to
see if there's another one and that comes out actually

(01:00:27):
in a great case of counter programming that opens the
same day as Hamnet, which I haven't seen, but I
think you have some.

Speaker 3 (01:00:33):
I have a beautiful film, beautiful just all these films
you're talking about are kind of master classes in filmmaking,
if you know, in a different way. You know, they're
all quite different, but they're all just master classes in filmmaking.
They pick a tone, the art, direction, the costumes, the cast,
and everything about them is just absolutely superb.

Speaker 14 (01:00:53):
So maybe at a time of kind of less distractions
than normal, it's been nice just to give over an
hour and a half or two hours to some of those.
I've just got one note from the corrections departments. Myself
here last week talk about the new Spielberg pack that
was coming, and I got the title wrong because I
just said what was on the billboard, which was anyway,

(01:01:14):
the name of the film's disclosure day. The first teaser
is out and it looks spooky aliens.

Speaker 3 (01:01:20):
Well, they were trying to do that sort of subversive
kind of getting one talking about it.

Speaker 4 (01:01:24):
But what is it?

Speaker 3 (01:01:25):
Kind of marketing plan. We talk about that, like, what
is it? We have no idea, but we're talking about it. Okay,
so it's disclosure day. That's okay.

Speaker 14 (01:01:35):
They probably would have gone with disclosure, but that would
just remind us about that. Michael Douglas to me more
film from the nineties that we don't talk about anymore.

Speaker 3 (01:01:42):
So, considering that you watch an awful lot of film
and TV and things throughout the year, when it comes
to the summer holidays, do you take a break or
do you just ketch up on all the things that
you missed.

Speaker 14 (01:01:50):
I got so much catching up to do, and that's
one of the great things about this sort of year
end list. I just put together the flex Top twenty
and a bunch of those titles of things that I
haven't seen, so I'm looking forward to looking forward to
checking them out.

Speaker 3 (01:02:01):
Awesome. Well, look, put the eighteenth of January in your diary.
That's when we look forward to seeing you back and
have a lovely Christmas. And thank you so much for
all your incredible recommendations and keeping us on top of
entertainment throughout the year. Writy home. As I mentioned earlier,
if you are struggling with your workout at the moment
and you need to push through a physical barrier, Dr

(01:02:22):
Micheld Dickinson has a scientific study that is going to
help you move through this period. It's going to require
a little bit of swearing though. That's next.

Speaker 1 (01:02:35):
It's the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin on News Talks.

Speaker 2 (01:02:39):
At B.

Speaker 3 (01:02:42):
And it is time now for our science study. Doctor
Michel Dickinson, Good morning, Good morning, this is a ant Christmas.

Speaker 15 (01:02:49):
Ever, already stressed out, I thought i'd put you a
science story that you might want to pull out of
the hat in the next few days.

Speaker 3 (01:02:55):
Well, I really reisonated with me because I've actually got
a bit of a might be a surprise to people,
because of course I'm very well behaved on the radio,
but I've got a bit of a body mouth, Francesca.
I know, not in public, just at home or in private,
or you know, in a moment like this where you're
struggling to get up a hell, you know, and you
just feel the need to let go of a few
you know, words and things. And it turns out it's

(01:03:17):
a good idea.

Speaker 15 (01:03:18):
Swearing makes you stronger. Week study we're talking about today
so published this week in the journal American Psychologist. And
they wanted to know, and it's a lovely experiment. And
I always wonder how scientists come up with these things,
but anyway, they wanted to know because you know, sometimes
if you're trying to do something really hard, or like
you're pushing more weight at the gym or something doesn't work,
you hear people swear and grunt. And they were like,

(01:03:39):
does the swearing help? So they did this lovely set
of studies where they took one hundred and ninety two
volunteers and they did some experiments. And the experiment they
did is making them do what's called a chair push up.
And I had to look at the picture of this
because they didn't know what a chair push it was.
But basically, you sit on a chair and then you
put your hands by your side or your hands on
the arm rest, and then you push and hold your

(01:04:00):
whole body so your bomb is off the chair basically,
and you're being held by hand your arms. And they
tested number one how many of them you could do,
and number two how long you could hold yourself up
for before you had to sit back on the chair.
And they said, okay, we're going to do these studies.
We're going to make you do these chair push ups.
We're going to measure how long you're holding yourself up for.
And you've got two choices. One you can say a neutral,

(01:04:22):
non emotional word while you were doing it, So just
fix something that is really boring. Yeah, totally fineapple, all
of those things. And they said, oh, you can take
a swear word of your choice and yell it and
shout it as many times as you want. And how
do you select your swear word? They specifically said, pick
the word that you would use if you bump your

(01:04:42):
head in a cupboard and you hurt it. That was
their definition scientifically, so think of that word. And then
what they did is they measured how long the people
could hold on for. But also they surveyed how they felt,
were they focused or not focus, were they confident not confident?

Speaker 3 (01:04:57):
Were they distracted?

Speaker 15 (01:04:58):
And did they experience what they called flow where actually
there's you know, it's sort of like you don't really
notice what you're doing anymore because you're in the moment
and the good news. So I'm telling you this because
it's Christmas time and stuff is going to be stressful
and you might want to help yourself push through the chaos.
So what they found is swearing increases number one physical
performance in short, intense tasks. So if you've got to

(01:05:21):
move some furniture because people are coming over for dinner,
you just sway your way through it. And it acts
like a mental switch, helping people to stop second guessing
themselves and just simply.

Speaker 4 (01:05:30):
Go for it.

Speaker 15 (01:05:32):
One of the scientists, and I love this, it's delightful
describe swearing as a calorie neutral, drug free, low cost,
readily available tool available.

Speaker 3 (01:05:40):
For when we need a performance boost. And look, I
suppose if you are you know, it is Christmas and
you do have people over, you could always grabe the
nearest cushion.

Speaker 15 (01:05:48):
Or maybe pillow and it's not a public outreage. But
if you just need some help.

Speaker 3 (01:05:53):
I was just thinking, I imagine if we've replaced all
the grunting and tinis, well there would be a nightmab.

Speaker 15 (01:06:00):
Imagine that there's like a whole like eighteen plus version
of tennis. But while I was reading this, there was
another story. There is another story that came out that
I didn't realize, but it studied how people swear and
they found that Australians are the most creative around their
swear words including that doesn't surprise me, No, British and sorry, yeah,

(01:06:20):
British and Americans use classics swearing, but Australians add things
like face to it and to it, and there's a
whole list of ways that Australians have made swearing creative.
So if you want to add that to your repertoire,
then yeah, get stronger, swear more.

Speaker 3 (01:06:35):
I tend to stick to the classics. And look, if
you've got a child who has been listening to this
episode and manages to a few little things slip out
and then and then you try to blame it on
Michelle and the fact that you're getting stronger. I hope
that you know you swore at the time time you
were Also you know, playing a game of tender science.
I'm all for the scientific study, and we can blame
it on that instead of blaming it on me. You're

(01:06:56):
not going to be able to get away with that.
I love it, Michelle. Have a wonderful Christmas that your
children must now kind of be able to understand what
Christmas is all about three year olds.

Speaker 15 (01:07:06):
It's most delightful time. It's going to be our first
Christmas where Santa Israel. So I'm having a magical time.
Oh fantastic.

Speaker 3 (01:07:13):
Well, have a lovely time with your family and we
look forward to catching up with you next year.

Speaker 1 (01:07:17):
It is twenty to eleven the Sunday Session Full Show
podcast on iHeartRadio powered by News Talks.

Speaker 2 (01:07:24):
It be.

Speaker 3 (01:07:27):
Mike vand alson our resident chef is with us. Now,
Good morning, Good morning.

Speaker 16 (01:07:31):
How are we?

Speaker 3 (01:07:32):
I am very good, Thank you. I'm on the countdown. Yeah,
so close, Mike. But today, over the last few weeks
you've been helping us out with our Christmas menu and
you we've finally got to one of my favorite parts
of the meal, which is dessert.

Speaker 17 (01:07:48):
War would be on your Christmas Day table.

Speaker 3 (01:07:50):
I'll take anything. I'll take anything.

Speaker 2 (01:07:52):
Really, I'm not really into.

Speaker 3 (01:07:54):
I don't eat Christmas cakes or Christmas puddings or anything
like that. I'm a bit boring when it comes to
the Christmasy stuff. But I have a very good sweet tooth.
I have a sweet tooth. I'm pretty open to anything.
And then after dessert, I love I love a bowl
of chocolates on the table.

Speaker 2 (01:08:10):
Yeare lovely?

Speaker 6 (01:08:11):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:08:12):
Yeah, you know, will you leave it a little bit?
And then someone brings out some chocolates and and everyone
goes to them because it's not something we normally do
throughout the year, is it?

Speaker 18 (01:08:20):
And that's it, and we're not We're not into Christmas
mince pies or Christmas cakes either, So I don't know,
it's just not part of our not part of our upbringing.
I guess our upbringing was always cheesecake. We always had
cheesecake on the Christmas table.

Speaker 3 (01:08:35):
My partner right now, be going, let's do it, let's go.
My my mother is always used to make a ritz alimon,
which was a Danish dessert, because we when we were young,
we used to have Christmas with a Danish family, so
we that we You know, you create, you create your
own traditions, don't you.

Speaker 17 (01:08:51):
Yes, A lot of the times.

Speaker 18 (01:08:53):
Yeah, I don't know where cheesecake came from with in
regards to our family, it was back then like it
was the crofter's cheesecake.

Speaker 6 (01:09:00):
We wouldn't make it, would buy it generally.

Speaker 17 (01:09:03):
And that would be front and center. And it was
this tiny, little craft cheesecake. I don't know whether they've.

Speaker 18 (01:09:07):
Shrunken and time, I don't know, but it seems so
much bigger than what they do now, not that we
buy them anymore, but you know, it was like, wow.

Speaker 17 (01:09:15):
That little cheesecake spread out throughout our family of five.

Speaker 8 (01:09:19):
I love it.

Speaker 3 (01:09:20):
What have you got for us today? What are your
suggestions today?

Speaker 18 (01:09:23):
So we're not going cheesecake, We're going to go It's
something I've been actually making all of Christmas for a
lot of the parties that have been coming through here.
So it's a Christmas strawberry sponge cake, and I figured
sponge cake as well. It has been It's been an
amazing way to finish the meal because it's super light,
it's sweet, and you've got those all important strawberries, which

(01:09:46):
is you know, not only are they Christmasy and color,
the Christmasy and flavor that Christmasy and appearance Christmas Eve,
and they kind of give you a little bit.

Speaker 6 (01:09:53):
Of acid at the end of the meal. So the
perfect for.

Speaker 17 (01:09:58):
Cutting through all that rich meal that we're about to eat.

Speaker 3 (01:10:00):
Excellent. And the recipe so for the sponge.

Speaker 18 (01:10:06):
Take I've got six whole eggs, pinch your salt, check
that into a mixer and just whist that until it's
just combined. And then add in two hundred and fifty
grams of caster sugar, teaspoon of vanilla paste if you
can get your hands on some middle of paste, if not,
just some vanilla essence, and then crank up your mixer and.

Speaker 17 (01:10:23):
Beat that until it becomes thick, super light, doubled.

Speaker 6 (01:10:27):
In size and volume.

Speaker 18 (01:10:29):
And then you want to take ten tablespoons of flour
and two teaspoons of baking powder. Just run that through
a sieve just to sive that out and lighten up,
and then fold that through your egg mixture. And then
I've got fifty grams of butter that I've just slightly melted,
and then just fold the butter through. Right at the end,

(01:10:49):
I've got two tins. Say, as you're having to cut it,
I find it's just far. So take two centimeter tins
spread your mix between both of them. Make sure you
agrees at first. Fire them into a oven super hot
two degrees. They're going to take about eight to ten minutes,
and what you want is for them to be lovely
like and brown on the top. Take them out, crak
open your tins, fold them out onto like a rat

(01:11:13):
to set aside, just to cool down. While they're cooling,
I've got three hundred grams or threehundred mills of fresh cream,
teaspoon of vanilla paste, two tablespoons of icy sugar. Where
that until it becomes semi firm. You don't want to
go too far, and then take your sponges back. First,
layer down cream, all important punnets of strawberries. So I've
got two punnets, so basically one in the middle and

(01:11:34):
one on top. Cut your punnets, cut your strawberries in half,
put your top on, cream on top, and then go
strawberries on top.

Speaker 17 (01:11:41):
And you've got a little bit of icing sugar left
dust that and it's as simple as that.

Speaker 18 (01:11:45):
You could probably potentially make this cake in about fifteen
to twenty minutes.

Speaker 3 (01:11:51):
I love it. That sounds beautiful, nice and light, and
you've got the strawberries in there. What's vanilla pakes by the.

Speaker 18 (01:11:56):
Way, vanilla pastes, it's basically the extract, so when they
scrape out the pods, so it's all the whole pods,
it's the little pods, it's the seeds and everything. I
just kind of set it with a little bit of
like a gum and it's just a truer vanilla because
you get the little seeds in the ponds.

Speaker 17 (01:12:14):
Thing just essence, which is just liquid.

Speaker 3 (01:12:17):
Thank you so much, Mike, Thank you so much for
your contribution throughout the year. Very much appreciate it. Love
to the whole family. Hope you have a wonderful Christmas
together and we're back on the eighteenth of jan Love
to see.

Speaker 18 (01:12:28):
You in absolutely everyone enjoy your Christmas and they have
a great time.

Speaker 3 (01:12:32):
Thanks so much, Mike. You can get Mike vand Alsen's
recipe at good from scratch dot co dot z or
we'll get that up on our website. Today News Talks
he'db dot co dot MZ, Forward, Slash, Sunday Grab re.

Speaker 1 (01:12:43):
Cover It's the Sunday session with Francesca Rudgin and Wiggles.

Speaker 2 (01:12:47):
For the best selection of us talk, sa'd.

Speaker 3 (01:12:50):
Be eron O'Hara is with us now to talk wellness,
good morning, good money. So last year, when the holidays arrived,
I was so excited to start tearing into the pile
of books that I've been meaning to read. But the
really annoying thing was that while I was reading, about
every ten minutes, I would pick up my phone to
see if there was any news. Of course, it's Christmas.
There is no news. I know that, but I couldn't
stop myself. I just couldn't you know that. I was

(01:13:12):
taken back by how my focus and my tensions band
had diminished. So today you're going to help us to
unplug while we're on holiday.

Speaker 19 (01:13:20):
Yeah, it's actually a really hard thing to do because unfortunately,
we spend most of the time and all year round
connected at every moment of every day, and I think
most people check their phone all the time, even every
notification that comes up. They want to check it that
fear of missing out of what's going on and maybe
missing an important message. And so we've actually got in

(01:13:43):
a real obsession with technology, and for us to disconnect
is actually really really harsh.

Speaker 3 (01:13:48):
Because I didn't even know why I was holding my
phones sometimes go why have you put up your phone,
what are you doing? It was just automatic, and.

Speaker 19 (01:13:54):
I think even on holiday sometimes it can be sit
there and doom, scroll through your phone, has something to do,
but actually it has a real negative impact on our
mental health and well being. And actually having the time
to unplug in the holidays is actually really really healthy
for you to actually have those boundaries, to actually have

(01:14:15):
some time to spend more time with your friends and
family and actually connect and real human person also doing
other things and actually enjoying some time with maybe friends, family, kids,
getting outside and doing more outdoor activities, and also having
that time to improve your sleep quality as well when
we're getting off devices as well as they're such an

(01:14:39):
easy distraction. So just having some good tools and it
can be really challenging because quite often practically we need
devices for just you know, communicating with other people, but
we also have that worry of what's happening and that
guilt if we're not staying connected, of what we're missing
out on as well.

Speaker 3 (01:14:57):
Okay, and what about notifications, because that's a great little
they can be a great little distraction, can't they.

Speaker 19 (01:15:03):
Yes, it's about having some good tools for navigat into
the holidays. So even setting yourself some good clear boundaries
and limits for when you're using their phone. I think
managing the notification so anything you know you don't need
to know urgently, like emails. Generally emails used to not
be something you needed to know urgently. If you can
turn off the notifications, that can actually help you be

(01:15:25):
less likely to check them all the time because you're
not getting the little bang every time that something comes in.
So even turning off what even notifications you don't necessarily need. Also,
another big tapp is sitting and out of office on
your email, so at least you know that they've got
a response. They know you're not online, so they're not
expecting a reply from you straight away, and you can

(01:15:48):
have another contact person that they can contact if that
is possible, so at least you don't feel that guilt
of not replying to someone instantly because they know you're
having a break.

Speaker 3 (01:15:59):
My producer took her she went on holiday a week ago.
I did her run. She left early and she took
she takes her email off your phone. You know who
work email off your phone. She just make sure that
she can't just quickly double check things all and that's a.

Speaker 19 (01:16:11):
Good boundary even with social media as well, Like it
might be that you take Instagram or TikTok off your phone,
it'll still be there when you want to go back
to it next year. So even if you have a
break from those sorts of apps and just actually delete
them off your phone so you don't have the temptation there,
and then you can actually find fine, You've got so
much more time to do other things.

Speaker 3 (01:16:32):
That's the thing. And what you hope is that just
sort of rolls into the year once you click back
into routine again.

Speaker 19 (01:16:36):
Yeah, and then hopefully you can keep a little bit
more boundaries going into the new year, because I think
it's just more the more we're online, the more we
want to be online, and we kind of have that
flow of being connected all the time. So if we
even start the year or end twenty twenty five worth
being a bit more disconnected from technology, then we can
start the new year feeling a lot more refreshed and
recharged for.

Speaker 3 (01:16:57):
The year to come.

Speaker 1 (01:16:58):
Erin.

Speaker 3 (01:16:58):
Thank you so much for your contribution. It's lovely to
have you on the show. We look forward to seeing
you next year. Have a wonderful Christmas. Thank you for
your text is a few here. I'll get you that.
Hang on, We'll take a break. I'll be back in
just a moment. It is five to eleven.

Speaker 1 (01:17:12):
The Sunday Session Full show podcast on iHeartRadio powered by
News Talks.

Speaker 3 (01:17:17):
Ab right watching the Don mcgression documentary. Anchor me the
Don McGlashan story is just a fabulous, drawn down memory road.
In bands and as a solo artist, Don is a
large part of the fabric of cultural life in New Zealand,
and it has been for decades now, so it is
about time that a documentary was made about him. Is

(01:17:40):
it yet a fabulous watch? It's out mid January. Don
mcglashon is with me Afternoons on life, music and being
the subject of a film. Back shortly.

Speaker 2 (01:18:11):
Sunday. You know what that means.

Speaker 1 (01:18:13):
It's the Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkins and Wiggles for
the best election of great Reeds US.

Speaker 2 (01:18:19):
Talk set me.

Speaker 3 (01:18:27):
Coming up this hour on the Sunday Session, Jason Pine
chairs his favorite sports moments of the year, Megan announces
her top travel destination for the year, and Joan talks
us through her list of the best fiction books of
the year. I received a hilarious text. Actually we were
talking about Michelle was talking about the use of swearing
to push through difficult physical moments and a text to

(01:18:49):
text we just say my father, who was a farmer,
was famous for being able to swear continuously for ten
minutes without repeating himself. It was an experience as a
kid to hear maybe his few Australians in his time,
and that's where the creativity came. Thank you very much
for your text. You are most welcome to text anytime
throughout the morning. On two ninety two.

Speaker 9 (01:19:09):
The Sunday Session, anchome me anchome me ellmel de blusy
anchome me anchome me ellmeil blasy.

Speaker 3 (01:19:29):
Don McGlashan is one of our most loved musicians and songwriters.
From Blam Blam Blam to the Front Lawn to the
Mutton Birds. Don's music is the soundtrack for many generations
of kiwi's. Yet up until now, Don hasn't agreed for
his story, the story behind his music, to be told.
That's all about to change. Some documentary maker Shirley Horrix
has twisted his arm and anchor me. The Don mcglashon

(01:19:52):
Story is coming to cinemas early next year. The man
himself now joins me in the studio. Don McGlashan, so
good to have you here.

Speaker 12 (01:19:59):
It's good to be here.

Speaker 3 (01:20:00):
How did you feel when you first saw the docco.

Speaker 12 (01:20:03):
I was pleasantly surprised because I was a ungracious in
the build up to it. I remember, because you know,
I'd have these talks with Shirley Horrock's the director, and
I'd say, surely, you know, surely there's somebody more interesting
than me that you can make a documentary out of.
But she is so determined she made this thing. And

(01:20:26):
I think it's really cool. It's got it's a sort
of a time capsule of that time in New Zealand,
and there's all sorts of cool posters of other bands
and you get the sense of the color and energy
that was happening at that time.

Speaker 3 (01:20:39):
Oh everything, the fashion, the venues. I think a lot
of New Zealanders will be watching that and just reliving,
you know, yeah, different generations.

Speaker 12 (01:20:49):
You're not talking about my fashion.

Speaker 9 (01:20:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:20:52):
I was just like, oh, big hair, and I like,
I can remember the thing that over the T shirt
look and all this kind of thing. Nahs. I was
loving it. Why now, though, why did you say yes
to Shirley.

Speaker 12 (01:21:04):
Various people have asked to do some sort of documentary
either on me or on the Mutton Birds or the
front lawn or the Blams in the past, and they
just they just have never been made and surely turned up.
And there's something cool about about the way she viewed it.
I think a lot of people when they make a
music documentary there they have a kind of lens that

(01:21:25):
they look through, which is a bit like New Zealand's
Got Talent, you know, sort of. It's there's a lot
of stuff about the business and about nearly making it
and making it and how did that feel when you
nearly made it and all that sort of stuff, none
of which interests me very much, and it doesn't interest
her very much either. So we ended up well, she
ended up making this documentary, which I think is more
about being a songwriter in this place and the way

(01:21:50):
I write songs and what motivated me to get into it,
and you know, it's it's kind of a different approach
than you'd get in lots of music documentaries, and I
think that's what appealed to me about it.

Speaker 3 (01:22:01):
I did enjoy listening to you talk about songwriting, what
makes a song for you all. I suppose, how does
the song challenge you?

Speaker 12 (01:22:13):
I would yeah, I mean, it'd be lovely to be
able to just just write a pop song, you know,
in the in the amount of time it takes to
play it, and then it goes out and it's you know,
it's sort of effortless. I've never been one of those writers.
I tend to. I tend to get to ideas and
then I sort of play around with them, let them

(01:22:35):
sit and percolate for a really long time. There's a
kind of a there's a journal of ideas that I
that I call my compost, and out of that compost
there's a song going to grow. And and they end
up I think. I think they end up being stories
that sort of tap into my subconsciousness. Quite often, I

(01:22:56):
don't really know where they're going to go. I start
with a story, I start with the car driving along
the road, and I don't really know what it's doing
and why it's driving. And then I think that's that's
led to a whole bunch of songs that people come
up to me after the shows and they'll tell me
what a particular song meant to them and what landscape,

(01:23:17):
what the landscape really is. They'll tell me. They won't
tell me, they won't ask me, you know, what were
you thinking when you talked about that particular hillside or whatever.

Speaker 3 (01:23:26):
But they've taken it to be their own right, they've
had their own relationship with it.

Speaker 12 (01:23:31):
They'll say, I'll say, well, actually, I was thinking of
you know a place up near Silverdale and Auckland. I said, no, no, no, no, no,
it's Nelson, and I love it.

Speaker 3 (01:23:40):
I'm not going to argue the people are telling you
what you were thinking when you write your songs. Do
you think it's the story that makes them so memorable?
The story of the words and the melody together obviously
play a part. But I don't know.

Speaker 12 (01:23:51):
I mean, it's all of that is just it's not
been it's not been a strategy that I've adopted so
that so that I can, you know, write songs that
people would like. It's just the habits have evolved over
the years. And I guess. I guess when I when
I hear a song on the radio that really stops
me in my tracks and I have to pull the

(01:24:11):
car over and park so I can listen to the
rest of the song, it's because there's something true in
it because there's a moment in there that I go, oh,
I've felt that, you know, I've felt exactly the same
thing that that songwriter is trying to get across. And
and that's I think that's why I still have a
lot of hope for songs, because you know, AI can't

(01:24:34):
write those sort of moments, and there's still room for them.
There's a lot of terrible songs out there, but in
amongst all that sort of ghastly stuff, there's a few
a few things which sound like they're written by a
real person.

Speaker 3 (01:24:46):
It's about connection, isn't it an empathy and you know,
real human emotions. Yeah.

Speaker 12 (01:24:52):
And if you if you you know, as a songwriter,
if you see something and then you and then you
try to get it into a song, and then you
perform it to people, and and you perform it in
such a way that somebody out there sees the same
thing that you saw. I think that's when you've done
your work.

Speaker 3 (01:25:10):
You mentioned before the bands you have blame band Blam,
the Front Law and the Mutton Birds, and that the
documentary takes us through these years and things. What makes
a band work?

Speaker 12 (01:25:21):
Ah, it's a good question. I think that arguments are good.
I think that if you've got a band where everybody's going, oh,
that's a fantastic idea, you know, then it's not that
there's not going to be the sort of chemical reaction
that you need. But when you've got people that are
people that are into different kinds of music and they

(01:25:46):
sort of spark off each other, and I think that's
when it really works. The Mutton Birds was like that
because we all had quite different musical tastes and there
was a sort of even diagram with a tiny, little
sort of intersection in the middle of it, and that
was the music.

Speaker 2 (01:26:00):
That we made. You know.

Speaker 3 (01:26:02):
The one thing that sort of struck me when I
was watching this documentary is, you know, blam Lam it
came to an end after a terrible accident, but you
were just about to sign to a label an Australia,
on the verge of kind of making it big and
the Front Lawn once again hugely successful in the UK.
You're being offered tours in a TV show that other
bands would have jumped at, but you turned it down.
So it kind of strikes me that you've done what's

(01:26:24):
best for you as an artist in what you would
rather do rather than just jumping at every opportunity. Is
that a fair thing to say with hindsight?

Speaker 12 (01:26:35):
Yeah, I wouldn't.

Speaker 20 (01:26:36):
You know.

Speaker 12 (01:26:36):
There are times in my life when I imagined myself
to be a really hard nosed, you know, success oriented guy,
But looking back, I never was that guy. I might
have kidded myself that I was that guy, but I
just I couldn't do it. And so I think it's
one of the cool things about coming from from here,

(01:26:58):
because you can never really get too big for your
boots in a place like this. I've got you know,
I've got relatives, and I.

Speaker 6 (01:27:09):
Got up.

Speaker 14 (01:27:09):
I used to go up to go to the farm.

Speaker 12 (01:27:12):
My sister's got a farm, and they be there be
other farmers around, and other people from the district around,
and they'd say things like, you know, sort of are
you famous, you know? And I'd say, no, not not really,
and they say, no, you're not really. You know, you're
in New Zealand, you know, And I think that, Yeah,
I think that that's the the the.

Speaker 2 (01:27:36):
You know, the.

Speaker 12 (01:27:39):
The things like things like the front Lawn being offered
a TV series and us turning that down was sort
of just a natural expression of the fact that we
were always just trying to make the best work, which
trying to trying to do something good and and whatever
we were offered didn't seem like it was going to
lead us in that direction. And uh and and a

(01:28:03):
whole bunch of those sorts of decisions over the course
of mine creative life, which you could call self sabotage
if you wanted to, or you could call them, or
you could call them sort of you know, going for
the creative fork in the road rather than the other
fork in the road. And what they've ended up with
is a creative life where I can do what I

(01:28:23):
want and I'm not inconvenienced by anything. I'm not inconvenience
by what you know, my management and my record company
want to do, you know. Or I'm not mobbed by
people in the supermarket. I can be sometimes I get mobbed,
but by one person. It's pretty hard to be mobbed
by one person, but.

Speaker 3 (01:28:42):
They give it a go.

Speaker 17 (01:28:43):
Ye.

Speaker 12 (01:28:44):
When I hit one of my songs, I tend to
crouch down in the produce aisle until the song's finished.
So and the only embarrassing thing is when someone else
comes around into the produce aisle looking for asparagus or something,
and they see me crouching down and wonder why I'm
doing it.

Speaker 3 (01:29:00):
I think though all of us can be slightly different,
maybe at work than we are at home. But I
think when you're in a musicians more exaggerated, and you
say in the film as well that maybe you were
an idealized version of yourself on stage. You know, that
was the show, that was the performance, This was I'm
a musician. And then when you sort of would sit
and look in the mirror, that was sort of a
slightly different person, which kind of goes to what we're

(01:29:21):
talking about. You know, we expect you to get up
and perform and entertain us and put on a show,
and yet, as you say, you sort of come off
and you go back to being a dad and a
partner and day to day life and things.

Speaker 12 (01:29:33):
Well, yeah, I mean that's exactly right, and that that
is something that the New Zealand's Got Talent lens doesn't
help you learn about. I remember, you know, when I
was little, I played a drum solo at the some
school music event and I came home and I was
a bit down, and my mum said, what's going on?

(01:29:54):
I said, Ah, you know, all those people just were
clapping and now they're not there. And she said, she said,
that's going to be the rest of your life. It's
going to be like that less.

Speaker 3 (01:30:04):
But I mean it has been an extraordinary and far
from over. And it seemed from when you were a
young person too. I mean you learned every instrument under
the sun and always had fingers in different pies and things,
and of course the door opened for you to start
composing for film and TV, which I think was just
such an opportunity for you because you're brilliant at it

(01:30:27):
and you can see in the you can see in
this documentary the joy that you get from it as well,
whether it's a children's show or whether it's you know,
working on a film and things. I wondered, being a
multi instrumentalist, does that help you compose for film and TV?

Speaker 12 (01:30:44):
Yeah, it did, And I think that's it's actually why
I got my first gig on a TV series because
I was about eighteen and I had had had two
friends who were more much more established musicians, Wayne Lead
and Keith Hunter. Keith was was a director, one of
the directors on this TV series, and what they needed

(01:31:06):
was somebody who could play a few instruments because they
were making up the score for this Cops and Rubber series,
which is called Mortemer's Patch. I'd never done any of
that sort of thing before, but the fact that I
could come along and play something on the guitar, play
something on a horn, play something on the piano, meant
that they didn't need to hire other instrumentalists because it

(01:31:28):
was a pretty lean organization. And we did all the
recording in a kind of dubbing suite in a TV studio,
so we didn't have a music studio. So I think
it kind of I sort of stumbled into doing that.

Speaker 3 (01:31:41):
I hadn't realized you'd started quite so really.

Speaker 8 (01:31:43):
Yeah, and that.

Speaker 12 (01:31:46):
There's so many people in this country that you do music,
but they do something else as a way of keeping
body and soul together and feeding the kids.

Speaker 3 (01:31:54):
Which is great, right, because you can make a career
out of it.

Speaker 12 (01:31:58):
Yeah. I mean, you could lament about it, but there's
so many good things about it. So it keeps you grounded,
stops you, it stops you from sort of, you know,
getting too headed about it all. But I'm being lucky
that the other thing that I've done has always been
to do with music because the film industry was going
through a bit of a blossoming period when I was
getting going.

Speaker 3 (01:32:19):
You mentioned in the film that you didn't really have
any idea when you were young with a music would
be a career for you or not. What else would
have you done?

Speaker 12 (01:32:28):
I always thought, I don't know. I always thought that
I could get into teaching or something something else. My
dad wanted me to be a civil engineer because he
felt that that was the only the only proper vocation,
you know, And he used to take me, you know,

(01:32:49):
when I when I was a teenager, he used to
take me to survey somebody's new subdivision and I'd hold
the staff for him when he made his survey readings.
And and that's part of what Envy of Angels is about, actually,
that that thing. And certainly when I came back from
the UK and that you know, we've done well in

(01:33:12):
the UK, but it didn't feel like that we achieved
what the record company wanted us to achieve, and we had,
you know, we went millionaires. Certainly, when I came back,
I thought, better do something else, you know, But but
music kept coming back, and people kept offering me things,
and the cool thing about this place is that collaborations
arise sort of organically. You're not waiting for your manager

(01:33:33):
to call up with a possible job. You just meet
somebody in a restaurant or on the street and I'll say,
I'm doing a film. I've just seen you and i'd
forgotten about you, but would you do the music for it?
And all that sort of stuff just keeps happening in
this place because it's so small.

Speaker 3 (01:33:48):
It's not so bad, is it.

Speaker 17 (01:33:50):
Now?

Speaker 3 (01:33:50):
I know that you spend half your time here now
and half your time in Canada. Where are you having Christmas?

Speaker 8 (01:33:54):
This year?

Speaker 12 (01:33:55):
I'm going to go back and have a white Christmas
in Vancouver, although you never didn't even know whether it's
going to be going to be snowy in Vancouver. It's
got it's the city itself has got skifield, you know,
immediately above it, in the hill, in the mountains above it.
But about once a year you have a huge dump
of snow and the whole city just grinds to a halt.

Speaker 3 (01:34:16):
That may happen this year, wonderful. We'll have a lovely Christmas.
Thank you so much for joining us, Thank you.

Speaker 12 (01:34:20):
Merry Christmas to you too.

Speaker 3 (01:34:22):
Anchor me. The Don McGlashan story is in Cinema's Thursday,
fifteenth of January. The panel is up.

Speaker 1 (01:34:27):
Next Sunday with Style the Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin
and Wiggles for the best selection of Greg Reeds please talk.

Speaker 3 (01:34:37):
Say and it is time for the panel and joining
me today, we have Free Bun and hairlawyer Liam here,
Good morning, Good morning do you and we have journalists
if you produced some commentator Iron Gardner, Hi, Irene Hi there.
Good to have you both with us. Okay, we've got
a lot of information this week Liam about the economy.
We had the HAYFU and the GDP figures we're released.

(01:34:59):
Was it what you expected?

Speaker 8 (01:35:02):
Yeah, I mean it sort of reflects what I've seen.
I mean, I'll be pretty bearish on the economy. Have
you pretty depressed the scare about it as a small
business person, But you know, long last, I do kind
of feel that there the green shirts are here and
it's reflected and what's sort of quite modest GDP growth,
which is just you know, it's not great, but it's

(01:35:23):
a mild ahead of where we were midyear, right, and
so so it looks like there is their bank's decision
to hold straight round and cut again might be it
might have been the right one, and you know, let's
just hope that next year is a good year.

Speaker 3 (01:35:37):
Are you feeling the same, Irene?

Speaker 16 (01:35:40):
I think people are feeling all kinds of things. It's
still very, very tough for a lot of people, obviously,
and you know, you don't want to sort of gloss
over that, but it is Christmas time and I don't
want to be grinchy, So you know, let's hope that
it is a little bit of good news, although it
does seem to depend a little bit which economic expertuous
slightly different things.

Speaker 3 (01:35:59):
Well, I think I think they're all suggesting that we're
not it's not a rip roaring recovery we're heading into that.
We're just we're taking our time. But it feels like
we have kind of peeked around the corner, you know.

Speaker 16 (01:36:09):
And it's been an expression yesterday I actually sorry, z'd
be listenings. I'm overexposed. I did Tim's panel yesterday with
Shane Henderson, who's a local body politician, and he used
an expression the boardroom are happy, but the kitchen. So
the board table is happy, but the kitchen table isn't
happy yet.

Speaker 3 (01:36:30):
Well, I think this is the thing thoughly and we
get all these statistics and it's great information to have,
but it does only give us a broad view. It
doesn't tell us about how how New Zealanders are feeling,
how they're coping day to day. Doesn't talk about the
distribute distribution of wealth, you know, or tell us how
happy we are, does it. I mean so, so there
still needs to be a lot of listening done by
politicians going into twenty twenty seven.

Speaker 8 (01:36:50):
People people will never really be all that happy. I mean,
I don't think even of a really good times that
people are that happy.

Speaker 6 (01:36:57):
No, it's not really.

Speaker 8 (01:36:58):
I mean, look, here's the thing that's you know, the
economy could could be a lot better than to say,
as the green shirts, you know, it's not time to
celebrate or also happy about it. But these things lag
right and so it takes time for investment to flow
through again. But when you start to have businesses, and
what I've seen is you start to have businesses borrowing again,

(01:37:19):
not so much for retrenchment or to be defensive, but
borrowing again to invest and to expand again, that takes
a little whild work its way through and maybe it
starts in the starts with the boort room. But if
the boardrooms are happy, then there's nothing but the kitchen
table later on. And so, like I said, I think
you'd be an idiot to oversell it or to be

(01:37:42):
premature about it. But I suppose the way I kind
of feel about it is that we're finally able to
catch it breath after what's been a pretty prolonged and
pretty miserable year so far with the economy.

Speaker 3 (01:37:53):
Liam, someone gave me it told me a great quote yesterday.
I'm going to share with you. You can't wait till
life isn't hard anymore before you decide to be happy.

Speaker 8 (01:38:02):
Well, you're right, it's like having kids, right, say, it's
not the right time. It's not the right time. It's
never the right time. It's never the right time. You've
just got to make your best of what time you have.
Your hundreds get right?

Speaker 16 (01:38:16):
Well, I was going to be cheeky and say that
Liam probably hasn't lived long enough to experience a time
when people were all happy about the economy.

Speaker 3 (01:38:24):
Sure is that possibly?

Speaker 16 (01:38:28):
I can desardly remember it?

Speaker 3 (01:38:33):
Really, are you feeling positive about twenty twenty six?

Speaker 12 (01:38:37):
Uh?

Speaker 16 (01:38:38):
Well, My two industries are screen and media, and they're
both very tough because of you know, a totally broken
business model because of the international streamers and techers being
allowed to operate here entirely without regulation, which is possibly
going to relate to a later topic to the day.

Speaker 3 (01:38:58):
Yeah, no it is, but that was one of the categories.
You know that when it was looking at the GDP
there were was it sixteen categories and I think fourteen
who were on the Emperor and that was one of
the categories that wasn't Irene. So you know, obviously.

Speaker 16 (01:39:11):
It's very concerning to me personally, but I think broader too,
because we're talking about you know, the New Zealand voice
and keeping New Zealand and this alive, and that is
actually very important and it's all very well to have
all this wonderful streamed content and so on and so forth.
But if we end up with nothing about New Zealand,
where have we got to?

Speaker 3 (01:39:33):
Okay, let's talk about that. Because we are seeing an
increasing number of film and also sport moving to streaming platforms,
and the Oscars said that they will exclusively be on
YouTube from twenty twenty nine, which is which is a
really interesting move. I think, Irene, what do you make
of it?

Speaker 16 (01:39:51):
Well, you know, it's going where the audiences are, and
so there's an inevitability about it. But you know, I
mean there's two things. Just as a human being, I
kind of think, are we really better off now with
all of these millions of choices? When it used to
be for free? Just got you know er one night
in La Lord the next night, and Edge of Darkness
the next night, and it was all wonderful and free,

(01:40:12):
and now it's all over the show and there's no
human shared experience. However, So that's you know, the personal argument.
But yeah, I also would be happy if YouTube were
paying tax in New Zealand and contributing to the industry
that it's plundering.

Speaker 3 (01:40:28):
Did you have any thoughts on this?

Speaker 8 (01:40:29):
Lam Convenience will always win. I mean there are serious downsides,
and Arenes articulated them, And well, I mean, part of
it's just the loss of a shared national life, right
and because of the shows that we watched together that
the people of microhort, the millennials, the sort of older millennials,
sort of that last generation where everyone had watched the

(01:40:50):
same thing and you had these same captural touch points,
but in particular was a sport because the world of
sport is so wide. You know, when when the machinery
of broadcasting sport is as such that you know, you
only hear a few sports that are broadcast like rugby cricket,
that the broadcasts really really well, you know everyone, it's

(01:41:11):
a part of our shared national life, part of our
shared national conversation. Now, like I like it. I love
American sports, and we're streaming, there's you know, you get
access to American sports so much of it, like on
Disney Plus right now, I think the Chicago Bears and
the Green Bay Packers, and it's so convenient to be
able to watch. So there's a lot more consumer choice
and and that convenience is always going to win out.

(01:41:34):
But let's not pretend that actually we are going to
lose our distinctiveness. The fact is that when you break
down barriers to become more homogeneous, you can't have it
both ways, and it's you's just going to take the
good with the bad.

Speaker 3 (01:41:47):
But here's what I find really interesting. I mean, apart
from Netflix, all the other streaming services essentially are now
following traditional television. They don't release a whole series all
at once. So they come along and they go traditional
television for you're on the way out. No one's going
to wait a week to watch a show. That's ridiculous.
So they put all their content, realize that people bring

(01:42:09):
on it in a day and then they've got nothing
else to watch. So now that's what they all do. Oh,
it's express, you'll get it once a week.

Speaker 18 (01:42:14):
So we watching a notebook.

Speaker 3 (01:42:16):
Yeah, so we are now watching traditional television on streaming services,
you know, in the same way that we watch digital television.
We're watching it on streaming services.

Speaker 16 (01:42:24):
And the TV guide that the listener doesn't work, so
you have to make a little notebook of what's coming.

Speaker 17 (01:42:30):
Yes and no.

Speaker 8 (01:42:31):
I mean like the key difference I think, and when
I try to explain to children about watching my kids
that are watching and what there was like, because they've
got no concept of it.

Speaker 2 (01:42:39):
Right was there?

Speaker 8 (01:42:40):
They ended? If you missed that, you missed it, that
was it. You miss your chance. You don't have to
wait until I was a repeated and then you might
be able to see it, so you know, and that
is the key difference. It is the convenience that I
think will always went out as their ability to pull
it up on demand and and and you know you're
you're right. The workout that actually keep us watching. They

(01:43:03):
want to they don't want to go on all at once.
They want to keep us on the hook. But the
fact is that you can watch it when it's convenient.
And so to me, when I try to explain what
Peerie is like to my children, it's similar to explaining
about how if you wanted to find something out you
had to go to the library and get a book
and look out the you know what the population of
Paris was, and if the book were there, you couldn't

(01:43:24):
get an information. It's that alien term that's like that
you couldn't just you can't just pause and watch and
rewatch and things like that. So that we are in,
we are in the streaming is going to be yet.

Speaker 3 (01:43:36):
Oh look, so nice to keetch up with you before
the end of the year. Liam here and Iron Gardner,
thank you so much both of your contributions to the
panel throughout the year. Have a wonderful Christmas and we
look forward to seeing you in twenty twenty six. Up next,
Jason Pine with Sport.

Speaker 1 (01:43:54):
It's the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin on news talks
at b.

Speaker 3 (01:44:00):
And joining us for the last time this year on
the Sunday session. Jason Pine, good morning, good morning. This
will be your last? Is this your last weekend sport
for me?

Speaker 8 (01:44:08):
No?

Speaker 3 (01:44:08):
No, no, no, no, you're hanging.

Speaker 2 (01:44:11):
Around to.

Speaker 6 (01:44:13):
Look.

Speaker 11 (01:44:13):
They tried, they tried to say, look, we're not we
think you're done, but I said no, I think there's
another Saturday and another Sunday. So yeah, no, no, I'm
going to carry on.

Speaker 3 (01:44:21):
I'm back next Sunday. But it's a different show. It's
not the Sunday session, so look, I'll be here too,
So there we go. Excellent. Can you just tell me
what have been some of your favorite sort of heartwarming
moments of the year in sport?

Speaker 11 (01:44:33):
Jeordi Beamish was my favorite. I think it's so good
and like it didn't look like it was going to
be when he fell at that steeple in the heats
and got trodden on, I think will most most athletes say,
well that's me, I'm done. But he got back up,
sprinted away and caught the field and then made the
final and then won the final, first ever Track World

(01:44:54):
Championship medal by a new Zealander. Incredible from Jordy Beamish
and such an understated guy too. You know, afterwards it
was like I'd be I don't know, I'd be celebrating
for about a month. He seemed like he was just
sort of oh, yeah, okay, well champion.

Speaker 14 (01:45:06):
Yeah that's good.

Speaker 3 (01:45:07):
That's what I came for.

Speaker 11 (01:45:08):
So yeah, he's a guy I really enjoyed enjoyed that,
and I must say I also did, even coming from Wellington,
And much as it pains me to say it, I
thought what Auckland FC did this year was just magnificent
in terms of on the field obviously, but more so
off the field, creating this environment that I don't think
is equaled in New Zealand sport right now, certainly not domestically,

(01:45:29):
where you turn up to an Auckland f C game
and then when you finish you say when's the next one?

Speaker 14 (01:45:33):
Because I've gotta have more of this?

Speaker 3 (01:45:34):
Yeah, And we should mention that the Phoenix haven't finished
work yet. I that they've got a game this afternoon
as well. I completely agree with you about Drody Beamish.
If I needed cheering up, I just go and watch
that final. There's something about that late kech there's a
life lesson than that. You just keep pushing on. Just
when you feel like you're done, you just keep pushing.
But he just made it look so easy. It was
like here he comes, here, he comes on, he's still coming.

(01:45:54):
It was just I just loved it as well. Put
the smile on my face. Hey, if you're looking forward
to twenty twenty six, there's a bit going on when
it comes to sport, isn't there. It's quite exciting.

Speaker 11 (01:46:04):
Yeah, Winter Olympics in the early part of next year.
Alis Robinson's on the show this afternoon. Incidentally, she's in
some amazing form. Heading into to that, We've got the
Commonwealth Games, albeit truncated next year, and of course the
FIFA World Cup as well, with the All Whites there
for the first time since twenty ten games against Iran,
Egypt and Belgium in June. So yeah, those are those

(01:46:26):
are the sort of the World Cup, I guess, the
more global events.

Speaker 14 (01:46:28):
But then we've got the All Blacks.

Speaker 11 (01:46:29):
How Francesca, how are you and I going to be
feeling when we chat for the last time before Christmas
next year about the All Blacks?

Speaker 14 (01:46:35):
With the Rugby World Cup looming large? What is your prediction.

Speaker 3 (01:46:40):
I'm not making your prediction a year out, but I'm
hoping just more consistency will be at play. Let's just
leave it there, shall we.

Speaker 11 (01:46:46):
All write that down and I'll pass that on consistency.
Could you be a bit more consistent you blokes? Oh?

Speaker 3 (01:46:52):
I love it? Hey, bit of are you talking cricket today?
They've been a bit of cricket on this week.

Speaker 11 (01:46:56):
Yes, absolutely. It will keep eyes on what's happening at
bay Oval and also across the ditch in the Ashes.
I mean cheap as Australia could win the Ashes in
the next couple of hours, couldn't they. They'll go three
mill up with to play. Yeah, England has just been
so disappointing, haven't they. Yes, I've got cricket on this afternoon,
as I say, Elis Robinson, and just a bit of
an unseasonal look at rugby as well. At the World

(01:47:17):
Cup next year, the Under twenty World Cup, they're lowering
the tackle height. You can't tackle above the sternum at
the World Cup next year. At the moment it's the shoulder.
So what does this mean? Are we down the track
of actually this becoming a new law across all Rugby,
so I want to chat about that after after midday
as well.

Speaker 3 (01:47:34):
Thank you so much, Jackson. Have a fabulous Christmas and
I will see you back next Sunday, no doubt. It
is eighteen to twelve The.

Speaker 1 (01:47:42):
Sunday Session Full Show podcast on iHeartRadio powered by News
Talks FB, Travel.

Speaker 2 (01:47:49):
With Winny Woo tours Where the World Is Yours book Now.

Speaker 3 (01:47:53):
Megan Singleton, blogger at large dot com, joins us.

Speaker 21 (01:47:55):
Good morning, good morning, and Merry Christmas.

Speaker 3 (01:47:58):
Merry Christmas to you too. Gosh, you've been some places
this year, haven't you. Oh, I've been.

Speaker 21 (01:48:02):
I've had the most wonderful year. I went to Mexico
right out at the beginning of the year, Cancun, Mexico City, Carbo,
went four times to the United States and then Thailand,
and I took a girl's trip to Raratonga. So I
just thought, out of all of the places, which would
be my pick.

Speaker 3 (01:48:21):
To your favorite? If something somebody was thinking about a
trip next year, what would you regard.

Speaker 21 (01:48:26):
Well, it's come down to two for me, Boston or Kosamui,
and I went for my number one pack for next
year would be ko Samui.

Speaker 3 (01:48:38):
Okay, tell me why I loved it.

Speaker 21 (01:48:40):
Okay, so it's it's obviously in a Thai island. It's
in the Gulf of Thailand. You can get to it
from Singapore or Bangkok, but you can. It's still really affordable,
so you can find five star resorts there that are
not going to break the bank with like a pool
that you can just step out of your own room
and straight into the water and walk around to the
swim up bar. There are beaches, lots of beaches, so

(01:49:04):
you choose your beach and your resort you want to stay.
And I've written a blog post about which one we
stayed at and I loved and I would totally go back,
but part of me is like, oh, but there might
be another one that's cool as well. They're lined with restaurants.

Speaker 20 (01:49:17):
You can be as busy as you like.

Speaker 21 (01:49:18):
You can go out on the water and you can
do all water sporty things, or you can just have
the daily bliss of cheap massages. I loved the food,
which was everything, Like if you've got a fussy family,
you could still do burgers and pizzas, but you can
lots of delicious Tai food. Of course, there's markets for shopping.
There's like their cultural activities and shows. You can do

(01:49:39):
a tour around the island to get some views and
do some temple cultural stuff. And so that is my
pack for twenty twenty five.

Speaker 3 (01:49:48):
And as you say, pretty easy to get there. Pretty yeah.

Speaker 21 (01:49:51):
So if you didn't want to go to Bangkok first,
you could actually just go direct from Singapore in two hours,
which is easy for us kiwis. Or if you do
Bangkok as we did and have four days there and
then you'd fly down in about an hour and a half,
you can also get there from home, so you know,
make it as a stopover or as a trip that

(01:50:12):
you're adding on to one of those big places. Make
those places to stopovers and make I would honestly make
Ko Samui six at least nights. We stayed for four
and it definitely wasn't long enough.

Speaker 3 (01:50:23):
I love it, Okay, I'll buy a lot of ticket
and I'll put it on the list of Megan Hey,
thank you so much for your contribution throughout the year.
Have a lovely Christmas and we look forward to catching
up with you in the new year. Thank you you too.

Speaker 1 (01:50:35):
It is twelve to twelve books with Winkles for the
best Election of Greek Reads.

Speaker 3 (01:50:43):
Joe McKenzie, good morning, Hello for the last time, this
last time this year, hasn't it flowing?

Speaker 2 (01:50:49):
Sure? Right?

Speaker 3 (01:50:51):
We have got a fabulous list of what you regard
as some of the best fiction books from the year
for our readers today. Take it away, Okay.

Speaker 20 (01:50:59):
The first one is called Buckeye by Patrick Ryan, which
is one of those small stories which make a big impact.
It's set in a small town in Ohio, and actually
the title of the book comes from the Buckeye, which
is the state tree of Ohio, and it's a nickname
of one of the characters in this story, so that's
where it comes from. And it starts at the very
end of the Second World War when two strangers get

(01:51:19):
so caught up in the celebrations that they have a
romantic encounter that then haunts them through future generations. And
it ends at the start of the Vietnam War in
the sixties. It's a gentle, lovely, small town, small people
book and I loved it.

Speaker 3 (01:51:35):
I'm reading this at the moment. I'm loving it. To
tell me about Red Star Down by dB John.

Speaker 20 (01:51:41):
This is a sequel to a terrific thriller called Star
of the North, which I highly recommend, but you don't
have to have read that to read this new one.
And it's based around some very high level current politics.
Putin's running Russia, Kim Jong un is in North Korea,
and a real estate developer has just taken over at
the White House. And it's built around some real incidents
which actually did happen. Listeners might remember a few years

(01:52:05):
ago that one of Kim Jong UN's family was poisoned
at Kuala Lumpur Airport. That it was a very public
killing of someone from that family, and a version of
that makes it into the story. So it's primarily about
a CIA agent who believes his sister was kidnapped by
the North Koreans years ago, and she's determined to find
a way to get her back. As thrillers go, I

(01:52:26):
think it's just marvelous.

Speaker 3 (01:52:28):
Wild Dark Shaw is one of my favorite books from
this year. It set me down this massive deep dive
I started sort of investigating seed banks. Yes, as you might.

Speaker 20 (01:52:37):
So, it's Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaughey, and it's
set on an island between Tasmania and the Antarctic where
a father and his three children are living on the
island and their custodians of a seed bank. And one day,
in a terrible storm, a woman washes up on the
shoreline and it's a mystery where she's come from and why,
because they are so remote that she couldn't possibly have

(01:52:58):
just been passing and popping in. So they take her
onto the island and they bring her back to health
and they look after her, but it becomes apparent that
she's come looking for something and it's something that they
just might not want to give.

Speaker 3 (01:53:11):
It's really really good. Yeah, No, I loved it.

Speaker 20 (01:53:14):
Tell Me about the Lack of Light by Nino Haratush Willie,
who is a writer from the country Georgia, which back
in the day, of course, was part of the Soviet Union,
and then once they disentangled from that, they had a
civil war which went on. And this is the story
of four girls who grow up together, become young women,
they become a stranged over time, one of them becomes

(01:53:35):
a renowned photographer, and twenty years after her death, there's
a retrospective of her art of her photographs in an
art gallery in Belgium, and the other three friends come
and meet up for the first time in many years
and as they walk around through the exhibition, they see
photos of their time together and the backdrop of the
war that was going on behind them.

Speaker 3 (01:53:56):
It's really really good. And to finish up a Kiwi story, Yes.

Speaker 20 (01:54:01):
A Beautiful Family by Jennifer Trevellian. I read this about
a year ago and I still think about this book.
It's set on the north coast of Wellington in nineteen
eighty seven, where ten year old Alex and her family
are on their Great Kiwi summer holiday. But things aren't
going so well for the family, her teenage sisters being troublesome,
her mum's distracted, dad doesn't seem to know what to

(01:54:21):
do with himself, and there's a number of plot lines
which gently ease their way and then shockingly converge in
the story. But the really clever thing is that it's
written from Alex's perspective, and she's ten and she can't
understand everything that's going on around her, but you, as
the adult reading it, can and you can see what's
about to happen.

Speaker 3 (01:54:40):
It's really really good. Joan, thank you so much. We'll
put all these recommendations up on our website, but thank
you so much for your contribution to the Sunday Session
this year and all the amazing book recommendations. We look
forward to seeing your news. Thank you for having me
have a fabulous Christmas. Yes you two.

Speaker 1 (01:54:58):
The Sunday Session Full show podcast on my Heart Radio
powered by News Talks at BI.

Speaker 3 (01:55:06):
Thank you so much for joining us today on the
Sunday Session, and thank you so much for joining us
throughout the year. It's wonderful to have your company and
always appreciate your texts and things. Thank you very much
to Tira for producing the show today. The Sunday Session
is going to be back on the eighteenth of January.
We also have a new episode of Great Chats out tomorrow,

(01:55:26):
which is a podcast which has some of our favorite
interviews from the month. So if you want some good
interviews to listen to over the summer, check out the
Great Chats podcast. You can get that at iHeart or
wherever you get your podcasts from. I Hope you have
a wonderful Christmas, have a lovely time with family and
friends and your loved ones. If you're having a bit

(01:55:46):
of a break, hope get to put your feet up
and enjoy things. If you are just ramping up at work,
because Christmas is your busy time, and summers your busy time.
Then I am thinking of your take care. I'll be
back next Sunday morning, though with a slightly different show,
but looking forward to catching up with them. Take care.

Speaker 4 (01:56:04):
And then.

Speaker 10 (01:56:06):
Wednesday Toast and Snoopy our hero salute in his house,
and then with the roar the mote on their ways.

Speaker 9 (01:56:15):
No one may meet on some other day.

Speaker 2 (01:56:21):
Brassmas Space Spells.

Speaker 1 (01:56:55):
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