Full Show Podcast: 23 March 2025

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

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

Speaker 1 (00:15):
It's the Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin and Wiggles for
the best selection of great reads.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
News Talks EDB.

Speaker 3 (00:28):
Good morning, Welcome to the Sunday Session. I'm Francisco bocing
with you until midday. We have got a cracker of
a show for you today. Ben Alton is with us.
The godfather of modern stand up comedy. Ben has also
carved out a career as a TV writer, working on
shows such as The Young Ones and Blackadder. He also
created musicals We Will Rock You and The Beautiful Game

(00:48):
with Andrew Lloyd Webber. These days, however, he's a bit
bewildered with the world. We find out why after ten.
After eleven, we're joined by Jojo Moyes. It's more than
likely you've read one of JoJo's books. She's sold over
fifty seven million books and has had a number one
one hits in twelve different countries. Her latest book is

(01:09):
called We All Live Here, and she joins me to
talk about dealing with fame, writing relatable stories and why
forgiveness is so difficult and as always, your most welcome
to text anytime throughout the show. On ninety two ninety
two the Sunday Session, So this week we saw Health
Minister sim In Brown's true colors and they were a

(01:30):
little bit patronizing. Brown said he wanted medical offices of
health to stop writing about issues like fast food and
leading adveracy advocacy campaigns on public health issues. Instead, he
said their focus should be on technical advice and immunization campaigns.
The thing is promoting health and preventing disease by assessing

(01:51):
a community's health needs and the underlying social factors impacting
health and well being. Is what medical health officers do
and is a core part of their job, and it
comes with an obligation to talk about broader health needs
such as the impact of alcohol, tobacco, or fast food.
Bron clearly has preferences he'd rather they spoke about, like immunizations.

(02:14):
Increasing the immunization rate has been a key priority and
target from the government since taking power, and progress is slow.
But I'm not sure that telling public health doctors to
stay in their lane and laying dictated by government is
going to keep them on side. Public health officers haven't
been banned from speaking out about what might be best

(02:34):
for their community or region, but they've been told that
any advice they want to offer will need to be
signed off at a national level. Association of Salaried Medical
Specialists executive director Sarah Dalton told me on EARLI edition
this week, the Brown is overstepping the mark. She says,
there are widespread concerns at attempts to silence doctors excuse me,
preventing them speaking about public health and patient safety issues.

(02:59):
She acknowledges we need to be sensible, but should also
respect the significant training and responsibilities our senior doctors hold
under legislation. It's also an odd thing for Brown to
focus on. Look, maybe he wants a big Mac next
time he drives through Wonakah, but calling out a declined
application for McDonald's was a poor talking point. It was

(03:20):
declined more because of location, not the advice of a
off medical officer of health. There is so much more
to focus on when it comes to our overwhelmed health system.
The government should refer to its own list of priorities
when reflecting what the public is more interested in, like
reducing the weight times and eds and providing more primary

(03:41):
care and cutting through surgery weightlists. These are the issues
we should be laser focused on, not creating an environment
in which those with health expertise and knowledge can no
longer speak freely. And as for Brown commenting that people
should be able to make their own decisions when it
comes to their health and what they choose to eat, well,
yes they should, and they do all the time based

(04:03):
on good information, including from you guessed it, medical experts.
We rely on doctors our gps to do the preventative work,
supporting people to make good decisions for both themselves and
our health system. As the Ministry of Health said in
their briefing to the new Minister of Health in January,
enhancing our focus on prevention is essential to create the

(04:23):
best possible chance of good health across the life course.
So maybe we should just leave doctors to it. If
doctors aren't allowed to give broad advice on health, I'm
not sure who is.

Speaker 2 (04:36):
The Sunday session, So ken to hear your thoughts.

Speaker 3 (04:38):
You can text on ninety two ninety two coming up
shortly the Heathrow Airport shut down. It's been called a
huge embarrassment. What went wrong? We'll find out. You're with
news Talks eb it is eleven past nine.

Speaker 2 (04:50):
Relax, it's still the weekend.

Speaker 1 (04:52):
It's the Sunday session with Francesca Rudgin and whitggles for
the best selection of great breeds.

Speaker 2 (04:58):
Use Talks' be thank of your text.

Speaker 3 (05:01):
Oh my gosh, Fens because Simon is right on the money.
What we need is least bureaucrats lecturing us on what
we can can and can't do. They should stick to
their knitting. But that's the point. They are stitting to
their knitting. This is what medical offices of health to do.
This is what our public health doctors do. This is
their job. This is their knitting. That's what I'm saying.
And I can understand why doctors are already concerned. If

(05:22):
you're starting to tell people that you know, okay, yep,
this is your job, but actually prefer you didn't do it,
and everything you say has to come through us, and
we'll say, you know, we'll tick the box as to
whether that's appropriate and fits our fits our brief, and
we won't talking about it or not. Then I can
imagine that there's an awful lot of other people within
the health system who are going to get very concerned
about speaking up anyway, keep the text coming, ninety two,

(05:44):
ninety two. So it turns out vaping may not be
our silver bullet to a smoke free future. A study
by health researchers here in An, Australia analyzed twenty five
years of data looking at the impact vaping had on
the smoking trends of fourteen to fifteen year olds. It
shows that while e cigarette companies argue vapes are replacing
smoking in young people, this is not the case. University

(06:05):
of Auckland recent search. Fellow doctor Lucy Hardy was part
of the research team and she is with me now.
Good morning Lucy, Good morning Prancesca. Hey, can you talk
me through the findings of the study. What have you
found about the smoking habits of these young people since
dapes was introduced.

Speaker 4 (06:21):
Yeah, So what we did is we looked at a
sort of twenty five year period, so it's quite a
lot of data. It's a really big study, and we
looked at the decline and smoking rates before the advent
of vaping and what happened afterwards, and what we would
expect to see if vaping had been sort of contributing
to a decline in smoking among this age group was

(06:44):
that the slope or the scale the rate of decline
would actually have increased. But what we found is that
it actually has slowed rather than sped up. So what
this means is that we hypothesized that vaping as part
of the sort of social norms we've got quite high

(07:07):
rates among this age group in New Zealand may actually
be leading young people to be experimenting with smoking rather
than sort of being pushed away from it.

Speaker 3 (07:17):
And I wonder too, if there's a lot of vapor
going around, the people who were smoking who found a
little bit like outsiders for a while there suddenly.

Speaker 2 (07:25):
Died so much.

Speaker 4 (07:27):
Yeah, I mean this study is specifically fourteen and fifteen
year old, so they do actually have really low rates
of smoking. Anyway, what we're really concerned about is sort
of that experimentation that leads on to, you know, down
the track that we might see smoking becoming more popular
or just more acceptable in a way that it hasn't

(07:49):
been for quite some years.

Speaker 3 (07:51):
Is this finding what you expected?

Speaker 4 (07:54):
Well, I guess. I mean, I do a lot of
research that looks at the marketing of these products, and
it's really clear to me when you do a deep
dive into what the industry is doing, that they're really
targeting young people. So in some respects, it's not a
surprise at all, because I can see they use social
media influences and really glamorous advertising to really target young people,

(08:18):
because that's really where you make your money. If you
can get young people when they're young, you've potentially got
a lifetime of addiction and consumerism. So it's not a
surprise to me, but it might be a surprise for
other people that had also been thinking that previous research
was showing that it was displacing smoking for these young people.

Speaker 3 (08:43):
You found a couple of things. Obviously that smoking wasn't
decreasing as fast as you'd hope, but you also found
that a ninefold that there was a ninefold increase in
daily vaping from twenty fifteen to twenty twenty three with
this age group. What do you put that down.

Speaker 4 (08:58):
To, Well, there's a number of factors. One of the
advertising and marketing that I just mentioned, but another one
is that we've had really lenient vaping restrictions in New
Zealand and so in fact, there was almost maybe just
over a two year period where there was no restrictions
at all, and I think that's just really normalized vaping

(09:21):
as part of New Zealand culture. We just were too
slow to act, and when we did act, it was
really weak, and we just need to really ramp up
what we're doing to protect young people. It's got implications
for their vape use but also for smoking. So this
data gives us good evidence to make those changes really confidently.

Speaker 3 (09:40):
Do you think this evidence will be enough to encourage
them to act on youth vaping?

Speaker 4 (09:46):
Well, I would hope so, but I'm just not sure
if we just haven't seen very strong or decisive action
in this space over subsequent governments, So we really need
to advocate. People need to advocate for those changes.

Speaker 3 (10:02):
As a parent of teenagers, and you know, just take
off like you wouldn't believe. I'm very worried, and I
think a lot of other people are that we've just
missed the boat around policy and vaping.

Speaker 5 (10:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (10:17):
Absolutely, I'm a mother myself. I've got five teenagers, so
I've got a lot of anecdotal evidence to support of
the sort of academic research I do as well. But
I think, you know, like I said, we're slow and
there's so much more that we could be doing. We
can be looking at other jurisdictions how they're managing this
as a so for instance, in Australia they've got a

(10:38):
sort of pharmacy only model. There's things that we can
do which would be much more effective. Unfortunately, the most
effective thing we can do to reduce smoking would have
been to introduce some of those measures that were repealed
in twenty twenty three, like the smoke free generation low

(10:59):
nicotine products and reducing their availability. And we really could
do the same things with faping as well. I can't
think of an the product that is so sold so widely.
I mean you can get it in alcohol outlets, convenience stores, supermarkets,
there's hundreds of specialist stores. It's really widely available and
really cheap. So we could increase the prices to sort

(11:21):
of push it out of the range of these young
fourteen and fifteen year olds.

Speaker 3 (11:26):
Just finding lucy. This study completely contradicts a twenty twenty
study that said vaping might be replacing smoking in young people.
It's essentially looking at the same data. How we come
to a different kind of conclusion.

Speaker 4 (11:39):
Well, for Stutus, we've got an extra sort of five
years on top of that, so we just know more.
We've seen, we've got much more to go on. Vaping
has been around for a lot longer. But what we
also did is we took a much wider period of
time before that study as well, so we took since
nineteen ninety nine, so we've got really long, you know,

(11:59):
a wide range of data that we can model what
we would expect to see rather than just using us
a period of time.

Speaker 3 (12:08):
Doctor Lucy Hardy, thank you so much for your time
this morning. Appreciate it. The Sunday session, the UK government
has ordered an urgent investigation to the fire and power
outage that shut down Heathtory Airport on Friday. The outage
and disruption has been called a huge embarrassment. To talk
us through the impact. UK correspondent in the Brady is
with me now.

Speaker 6 (12:28):
Good morning, Good morning, Francesca. Great to speak to you again.

Speaker 3 (12:32):
Nice to talk to you too. What has been the
reaction by the government and authorities around the closed closure
of on Friday?

Speaker 6 (12:39):
I think people are shocked and embarrassed that this has happened.
I mean, where was the backup? Where was Plan B planed? C?
There was nothing in place, and the end result is
he throw shuts for twenty four hours. Thirteen hundred and
fifty one flight did not fly on Friday, one hundred
more or council today. It's a national embarrassment. The government

(13:00):
has moved very very quickly now to call an urgent investigation,
so we'll wait and see what comes out of that.
But ultimately right now, the knock on effect this will
roll into the middle of next week because there are
so many planes and crews out of place all over
the world, and the airlines will be picking up a huge,
huge tab for this. Three hundred thousand passengers affected and

(13:23):
a lot of these people will be in hotels tonight
picking up dinners and drinks and everything else and taxis
and the airlines will be liable for that.

Speaker 3 (13:33):
Would you have thought a place like Heathrow would have
an emergency backup, would have an emergency backup? P Is
this a huge issue for them?

Speaker 6 (13:40):
It's beyond embarrassing. I mean, I've always thought of Heathrow
as a small town in West London. It is that big.
There are so many people work there, so many airlines,
so many offices, and the guts of two hundred thousand
people every single day transiting through. It's Europe's busiest airport.

(14:01):
And I think if one good thing comes out of this,
perhaps the government will go and put in some diesel
generators around the airport so that if anything like this
ever happens again, will not result in that number of
flights being canceled. It is so so embarrassing, but look

(14:22):
that's where we are at the moment. There's no great
leadership here, there's no planning, and I think it's opened
up people's eyes to the lack of kind of intelligence
in so many businesses in the UK.

Speaker 3 (14:36):
Right now in the counter Tira police leading an inquiry,
but so fad there's no indication of anything untoward.

Speaker 6 (14:42):
Right Yes, so we haven't got to the root cause
we know that the substation caught fire. There was a fire,
a transformer was badly damaged and the fire split into
this kind of cooling oil. Twenty five thousand leaders of
a witch caught fire. Now the suspicion is that, you know,
could this have been done nefariously? Could a foreign government

(15:05):
or foreign agents have been involved, which you know in
decades ago you would have thought this was like very
fanciful stuff out of a TV drama. But we've seen
a lot of strange things happening on UK streets in
the last decade and a half. So the police are involved,
counter terrorism police in particular, investigating what has gone wrong here.

(15:26):
But they haven't found any smoking gun yet, so it
could be that it was just a lack of investment,
or you know, a defective transformer that has just caught light.
But it is extremely strange that this has happened at
the one substation that happens to provide all of the
power for London Heatthrow Airport. So a lot of questions

(15:49):
have been asked. We'll wait and see what the police
come up with.

Speaker 3 (15:51):
You mentioned before that you know this disruption is going
to continue on into the week in so many canceled flights.
Is there any indication of what the cost of this
disruption will be.

Speaker 6 (16:04):
I think when it all shakes down, it will be
tens of millions of NZ dollars. It's going to be very,
very expensive, and I think privately, while they haven't said
it publicly, the bosses of the airlines will be absolutely livid.
I mean, I have friends who are CEOs of airlines
in this country. I've not spoken to them today, But

(16:25):
I know they've been under huge pressure since COVID to
get back into the black, to start making money and
start making profits, and a day like this could wipe
out months and months of hard work.

Speaker 3 (16:37):
Yeah, no, I agree, it's going to be. It's going
to be sort of a You're going to have your
tourists who want compensation, then you're going to have the airlines,
and you're going it's just going to go on and
on and on, and it's going to be a quick
result to this.

Speaker 6 (16:52):
No, there's no quick results. But you know what, I
feel really really sorry for the people who were wanting
to come here. We need tourists. Britain is really kind
of on the brink of a recession. Now we need
money coming in. And then you think of all the
people who've been working so hard the last five or
six months saving for holidays. I've got a huge trip

(17:13):
coming up the end of May. I'm heading to South
America to run a race in Peru. And had that
happened on Friday, that had I been traveling Friday, that
would have just wiped out my entinery completely. And I've
been training for this race for eighteen months. So think
of all the people who were heading off on honeymoons,
family events, weddings, funerals, you know, baptisms. Yeah, two hundred

(17:40):
thousand people affected in one day.

Speaker 3 (17:42):
Crazy. Thank you so much for your time though it
was in the brady there. Local politics is up next.
It is twenty seven past nine.

Speaker 1 (17:53):
It's the Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin on news Talks
at b.

Speaker 3 (18:00):
And joining us as took politics. New Zealand Herald Political
New Zealand Herald, the Political editor Thomas Coglun. It's a
mouthful sometimes.

Speaker 7 (18:09):
Thomas, A mouthful, a lot of words in there.

Speaker 8 (18:14):
Good morning, Good to have you with us.

Speaker 3 (18:16):
Look, there is no doubt the government is working very hard,
but they have been struggling to control the narratives in
a positive light. But this was a better week for them.

Speaker 7 (18:25):
Yeah, it was often. I often get to the end
of the weekend when it comes to write, comes time
to write that column on a Friday, and I think,
you know who who's sort of ended up on top
this week. I have to say most weeks, most weeks
this year, I thought the opposition has probably had it.
I think the lunches, the lunches have been a bit
of a disaster this year obviously, then anything you've had

(18:46):
the reshuffle, which seems to have been propped in by
the health system, and then the Andrew Bailey to the situation.
So I think you'd have to say that most weeks,
what we've had eight weeks really since the political year
got under way in Earnest at the end of jam,
most weeks this year probably been got on the opposition's way.
I think this week was sort of remarkable because I
really think the government probably up on top. It's been

(19:07):
a recess week. Obviously, there hasn't been too much politics,
so read into that way you will, but the Prime
Minister's trimp to India was clearly a success. Starting those
trade talks. It's a really that's a really really big
deal for New Zealand. It is pretty difficult to get
in there to the table on that. Obviously, you know,
we don't have a deal yet, and and any deal

(19:28):
that we do get, if we get one, might involve
some pretty nlely compromises. So that's a case of very
much not counting one's chickens. But still it's a big
deal to get that underway. And then and then Labor
I think scored a few own goals this week regarding
its own a tax on the government. It's p P

(19:49):
P position was very unclear, still quite unclear.

Speaker 9 (19:52):
Uh.

Speaker 7 (19:53):
And then they scored a bit of an own goal
when they tried to have a go at the government
over the number of working groups they sort of there
was some miscounting on both sides really going on, I think,
but it ended up almost proving that the government, the
government actually had had start a few working groups in
the last Labor government did so, I thought for the
first time in a very long time, and the government

(20:13):
probably ended up on top comprehensively. At the end of
this week, Thomas.

Speaker 3 (20:16):
Winston Peters is presenting the State of the Nation speech
today at two pm. Do we have any idea what's
going to cover?

Speaker 7 (20:23):
No, He's he's actually been quite quite tlight looked about
about this. I was having always poke around at the
end of the last week, and everyone's sort of keeping
money about it. I've heard that there might be he
might have have a have a bit of a discussion
about the GMO legislation that's currently going through parliament Absolete
Committee at the moment. There has some some criticism of this.

(20:45):
This this change to our genetic genetic modification laws. It's
come from not just the Greens and labor who you expect,
but also some people in the sector you know, Fonterra,
I think it's called for. They're not anti yet, but
they're calling for some for stronger oversight measures and and

(21:05):
you know, clear rules around it. So you know, you
could see you can see a strong opposition built around that.
And certainly, you know, given Winston Peters and New Zealand firsts,
you know, historic positioning of themselves as as as quite
conservative on issues like that, it would certainly be a
logical one for for for wins Peters to get into

(21:26):
He is said to speak for an hour. The speech
time is set as an hour, and he can go
even longer than that if he if he feels like it.
So it might be the case that we're we've actually
got a very long, a very long speech today.

Speaker 3 (21:41):
Once the Pater's just got back from his trip to
the US. We haven't actually heard a huge amount of
detail about what has been going on. Do you think
and I don't expect that in today's speech, but do
you think we will hear more about meetings and discussions
He's had in the US.

Speaker 7 (21:54):
Yes, yeah, it's interesting to read that raise next to
this is a that's very much on everyone's minds. He
wanted to get to He himself ound and said that
his reasons for going over to the US was just
sort of you know, here from the Trump administration's mouth,
what they what they wanted out of the relationship with
New Zealand. He had a stand up after that meeting

(22:16):
with Marco Rubio the Secret Truth State, where he talked about,
you know what they discussed the subject matter. So they
did discuss cariiffs, They did discuss security, but beyond that,
we really well, obviously we thought, we know that they
probably would have discussed tariffs, but we want to know
what they said. And he is, he's he's quite keen
to He hadn't been he hadn't been very clear about
what about what what was discussed, he said. He said

(22:39):
in those remarks that he wanted to come back home
and brief cabinet on what he was what they had
discussed for female So we might we might find out
a bit more tomorrow on on Monday, after the after
the cabinet meeting.

Speaker 3 (22:50):
Thank you so much, Thomas. Enjoy the rest of your Sunday.
Don't forget that. Ben Elton is with us after ten
ahead of his tour to New Zealand and up next,
key we Borren. New York based journalist Olivia Carvill is
with us to talk about an incredible story of deep
fake pornography that she uncovered the US, which turned out
to have a major connection to New Zealand. It is

(23:11):
twenty five to ten.

Speaker 1 (23:12):
It's a Sunday session full show podcast on iHeartRadio powered
by Newstalks FB.

Speaker 3 (23:19):
It is twenty two to ten. Kee We Born Blue
Bloomberg journalist Olivia Carvill has dedicated her career to unearthing
the dark side of tech and the Internet. We spoke
to Olivia last year about her investigation into sex trs now.
Olivia's latest work focuses on the rise of deep fake
pornography and the battle to stop it. She's turned her
work into a six part podcast alongside cybercrime colleague Maggie Murphy,

(23:44):
and despite it being set in suburban New York, this
podcast has a surprising and unique kee We twist to it.
The podcast is called Leavitttown. To tell us more, Olivia
Carvill is with me now, Good Morning.

Speaker 10 (23:56):
Good morning. Thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 3 (23:58):
Okay, try and set this story up for me. We're
in Levittown, a suburban Long Island, New York, and a
bunch of girls I think all from the same high
school are targeted.

Speaker 4 (24:08):
That's right.

Speaker 10 (24:09):
So the story is really set in a very unlikely place,
which is Levettown, New York. This is actually one of
the first suburbs ever built in America. It was designed
for veterans returning from World War Two, and I traveled
out to live at town a lot during the reporting
of this podcast, and just to kind of set the
scene for listeners. It's white picket sensors, American flags on

(24:33):
almost every porch, cookie cutter homes that all look the same,
with manicured lawns out front. It's an incredibly safe community.
It's a place where families actually leave the concrete jungle
of New York City to raise their children and send
them to schools in a suburban area that they just

(24:54):
feel will protect them in a better way, where they'll
be safer than what they are in the big city.
So one of the surprising things for us was the
scene of where this kind of horror story unfolded. And
dozens of young women from a high school in Levittown
found themselves targeted by a pornographic website in late twenty twenty.

(25:17):
And what was particularly horrifying for them is it was
photos that they had posted to social media accounts, you know,
like everybody does. Pictures that uploaded to Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat
had been copied, pasted, and altered to make them appear
naked and then shared on this very graphic, violent pornographic website,

(25:40):
the deep fakes.

Speaker 3 (25:40):
And I think we've all heard about deep fakes, but gosh,
the technology is changing an awful lot around this, isn't it, Olivia.

Speaker 10 (25:47):
I mean, the technology is just moving faster than anyone
can keep up. Margie Murphy the co reporter that worked
on this podcast with me, She covers cybercrime for Bloomberg,
and you know, her and I try and keep up
with what's happening in this space, but it's very difficult
to do.

Speaker 5 (26:03):
So.

Speaker 4 (26:03):
You've got hundreds.

Speaker 10 (26:04):
Of millions of dollars of venture capital flowing into these
image generating software companies. Billions and billions of deep fakes
are being uploaded to the Internet, the vast majority of
which are non consensual pornographic images. I think the interesting
thing about deep fakes when you think about the history

(26:26):
of this kind of form of content, is it's really images, video, audio,
any kind of content that's been digitally altered using artificial
intelligence so it looks convincingly real. And I think a
number of people would recall the Pope wearing the puffer jacket.
Do you remember that phone that came out a few

(26:47):
years ago. Yeah, so deep fakes at the time were
quite surprising because you know, it was a way of
viewing images that earlier there was always a toell with
a deep fake, like maybe there were six fingers on
a hand, or maybe there was some kind of clue

(27:09):
that indicated the image wasn't real. It was pixelated in
some way, or the mouth wasn't working at the same
time as the words, so you knew.

Speaker 4 (27:17):
That it wasn't real.

Speaker 10 (27:18):
But in the past few years, with the rise of
generative AI, we have just seen an explosion in this
kind of content. It's now cheaper and easier to make
deep fakes of pretty much anything, and it is very
hard to tell what is real and what is fake.
It's difficult to trust our own eyes now and Olivia, what.

Speaker 3 (27:39):
Was really horrific about this website is not only did
it have these deep fake nude images of these young teenagers,
but also it encouraged people to comment on what they
would like to do to them. And I don't want
to go into that because it is so horrific. But
you've got this group of young women, the images have
been scraped from social media, They've got a little bit

(28:00):
of an idea about who was doing it, but no
one could do anything about it. The police couldn't do
anything about it.

Speaker 10 (28:05):
Yeah, I mean this surprising. Another one of the surprising
things about this story is the fact that there were
no laws at the time to protect the victims in
this case. So when they went to the police and
they showed them the photographs, and it's so clear that
what happened to these young women was a crime. I
mean we're talking violent graphic posts online, things that you know,

(28:29):
we can't share on radio. And police knew that this
wasn't okay and that they had to protect these young women,
but there was no law that they could charge the individual.

Speaker 9 (28:40):
Wiz.

Speaker 10 (28:41):
The poster was anonymous, and when we think of out
ciber harassment cases, it's really hard to track down who's
posting this content. Because individuals can hide behind VPNs virtual
private networks, they can also move throughout the Internet kind
of secretly and do a lot to cover their tracks.
So not only is it hard to unmask or expose

(29:04):
the perpetrators who create and post the content, but there
was no law and there still isn't today a real
federal law that can protect young women from this kind
of content in the US. I think this is a
case where you've got countries all over the world struggling
to catch up with the technology to.

Speaker 8 (29:24):
Put legislation, laws.

Speaker 10 (29:26):
Regulations in place that can really protect victims from this,
and I think that's one of the difficulties is we
have the advancements of AI and all the incredible magical
breakthroughs of the Internet and the way in which we
can use these websites and platforms to connect with families
around the world and see what our high school friends

(29:47):
are doing years later. There also comes consequences with those breakthroughs,
and that's what we really saw in this podcast is
the dark side of that technology.

Speaker 3 (29:58):
Olivia. These young women took matters into their own hands,
but there was someone else already investigating the site. Tell
me about William Wallace.

Speaker 10 (30:07):
Yeah, I mean I love this part of the story
because it takes us back to New Zealand, and that
is something that I never would have imagined when I
first started investigating this with my colleague Margie Murphy. But
Margie and I were really while we were reporting out
the Levett Town case and speaking to the victims and
the prosecutors and the police and trying to understand how

(30:28):
and what had unfolded and levet Town, we also wanted
to try and get a sense of who was behind
this website, who had created this site that was essentially
dedicated to cyber stalking and cyber harassment. And it turns
out someone was way ahead of us, and that's William Wallace.

(30:48):
He's a former police officer in New Zealand turned private investigator,
incredibly skilled with open source intelligence tools and tracking down
cyber harasses on the Internet. And I think this is
kind of the greatest unexpected twist in the story is
that it has this incredible New Zealand angle. As you

(31:08):
you know, we were tracking and following what was happening
in Levittown and as the prosecutors and police were trying
to protect those young women get those photos taken down.
You have this private investigator based here in New Zealand
who was really going after the website itself.

Speaker 3 (31:24):
Olivia. It's been really great to catch up with you.
The podcast is fantastic, it's an incredible story. Thank you
so much for your time this morning.

Speaker 10 (31:31):
Thank you so much for having me. And it would
be great if you guys took a listen.

Speaker 3 (31:38):
And if you want to have a listen to. The
podcast is called Livettown. It's on iHeartRadio and all the
other podcast platforms. Now the key we twist really is
something else. So as we're checking out it as a
fourteen to ten, putting the.

Speaker 1 (31:51):
Tough questions to the newspeakers, the mic asking breakfast, we're.

Speaker 11 (31:54):
Out of recession Q four zero point seven?

Speaker 12 (31:57):
Are we on our way?

Speaker 11 (31:58):
The Finance Minister Nikola Willis. Willis does the zero point
seven on GDP, give you hope that the tale of
the jobs, which legs of course might end a little bit,
will peak a little bit sooner than we thought, or
it is what it is.

Speaker 13 (32:10):
Well, we have seen the forecasts for unemployment coming off
a little bit since we came to government. As you've seen,
employment is the last thing to recover. When an economy
goes through a time like New Zealand hairs, the forecasts
are that it will peak halfway through the year and
then it's going to get better in the second half
of the year. That's consistent with what I'm seeing in
the economy.

Speaker 11 (32:30):
Back tomorrow at six am the Mike Hosking Breakfast with
the Rain Driver of the Lamb News Talk z EDB.

Speaker 2 (32:35):
There's no better way to start your Sunday.

Speaker 1 (32:38):
It's the Sunday Session with Francesca Rutkin and Wiggles for
the best selection of Greg Reads US Talk SEDB.

Speaker 8 (32:46):
You lo Yether Colds the weather.

Speaker 3 (32:57):
Thank you so much for your feedback this morning. I
had got a feedback on some me and Brown and
as directors to the public physicians. Hate to sound like
a conspiracy theorist, but is Brown's subject of fast food
lobby groups? I mean, as you say, there are so
many other issues for the ministry to focus on. Why
I tried acquired a public health officer who was a

(33:18):
health professional on something was trivial SUSI texts to say.
Doctors and nurses, etc. Have been told for years not
to tell media or MPs the truth about life and hospitals.
Those of us who wrote to MPs had our names
sent to CEOs and we were called to account. Didn't
stop us. Thank you Susie and another one from Nick
Morning Fantasica. I do thinks Simeon was a little off

(33:41):
being with his comments. Agreed that the public health's promotion
of healthy eating and the risks of not doing so
within their remit. What Brown was pushing back on was
it the argument that public health officials put up for
not having McDonald's in Orwanaca. This was based on unfortunately
everything but healthy eating pipheral peripheral PC arguments that have
been pushed out by our public health officials must stop

(34:02):
and if they do this, they'll be in their lane.
Ye look to think about Wanka and I spoke to
quite a few people and had a good read of that.
One of the issues that had was location. Like if
McDonald's had actually picked a completely different location like popped
it down the road in that industrial center or it
or tucked away like other fast foods and Walaka, it
probably would not have been a problem. They would have

(34:22):
got the permit. It more came down to location as
opposed to for health reasons what I've been led to believe. Hey,
we also spoke about vaping, and Ben text to say,
I'm thirty three years old, started vaping last year. I've
gone from twenty cigarettes per day to none, saving over
two hundred dollars per week, all due to vaping, which

(34:42):
cost me less than thirty dollars per week. So I'm
so pleased to hear that it's working for you.

Speaker 2 (34:46):
Ben.

Speaker 3 (34:46):
When we spoke to doctor Lucy Hardy at the beginning
of the hour, she was talking about teenagers, young people
sort of aged around fourteen, and the impact it was
having on them. So it's great to hear that, you know,
and I'm sure that there are a lot of other
people with the exact same story as you've been, but
unfortunately for younger people maybe not making such good decisions. Hey,

(35:12):
we've got a new episode of The Little Things out.
Lisa Mattson is our guest this week. Podcast was out yesterday.
This is the podcast I did with my friend Louise
Are this week. We had a little bit of fun.
We were talking about as your age, should you make
up change because I think a lot of us keep
to a point where we sort of apply makeup like

(35:33):
we always had for many, many years. And we look
at ours as we go and then we look at
that great I think we could probably look better. How
are we supposed to adapt down makeup? So she gives
us some incredibly good tips. Louise and I we learned
an awful lot. We got told off quite a lot too,
with what we were doing and some of our bad habits.
So look, if you want to have a little listen,

(35:54):
that episode of The Little Things is out now. You
can find it on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts.
It's seven to ten.

Speaker 1 (36:02):
The Sunday Session Full Show podcast on my Heart Radio
News Tomb.

Speaker 3 (36:09):
This week you probably heard about Sam Ruth. He, of course,
is this incredible young athlete from Totrong who became the
youngest person to break the four minutes for the mile
at a very wet Mount Smart stadium. Throughout the week
and we commented on the fact that it was such
a wonderful event, not only because there was these incredible

(36:30):
athletic feats taking place, but also just a beautiful sportsmanship
on show and Sam Tana, who of course paced him.
He was so excited that this young kid had managed
to do this. It was just lovely all round anyway.
Sam Ruth has now put his world record running shoes

(36:51):
on trade me in order to raise money to support
his training partners and his coach, Craig Kirkwood. And so
I think these are going to be very much become
a collector's item. And as he sty afternoon, they had
over one thousand dollars for these red nikes. He put
in the ad. One young owner a little water exposure,

(37:12):
but try now hopefully good for another decade or so.
Verified as being raced in for only three minutes three
fifty eight point three five seconds. So that is pretty impressive,
isn't it. Still his stickers on the heel can vouch
for a faint with of achievement. So there we go.
If you want a pair of record making nikes, you

(37:34):
might want to check that out on trade me, right.
Ben Elton is with us after News and Sport. He's
heading to New Zealand with his Authentic Stupidity Tour, where
he talks about all the things that bewilder him these days.
We're going to cover off a few of those things
and much much more like did Ben Elton, the writer
behind the Cult Classics, like The Young Ones and blackache Adder,

(37:56):
actually write the film for the Wiggles. That's next. You
have the news talks that'd be and.

Speaker 14 (38:02):
I can take me on this rand.

Speaker 15 (38:21):
Down.

Speaker 16 (38:22):
We go to get Red right, ready it down? We
go to kea rad let ready hit down. We go
to Keta Rad but ready it down. We go to
Kia Rad read ready.

Speaker 17 (38:42):
The bus times slide and all that is good?

Speaker 3 (38:47):
Yours tis side.

Speaker 14 (38:50):
You take me on the span, those fans and all
that it is come those fans, you take me on
the span, those ties se I don't.

Speaker 3 (39:05):
Know a minute.

Speaker 1 (39:16):
Welcome to the Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin and Wiggles
for the best selection of great reeds used Corset.

Speaker 3 (39:32):
Good morning, this is a Sunday session. I'm Francisco Vide
you read you until mid day. Good to have you
with us at a seven past ten. Ben Alton's career
began in Britain's alternative comedy scene in the nineteen eighties.
Across the last forty four odd years, he's established himself
as a legend of the global comedy scene. Not just
a stand up comedian, he was a writer on The

(39:52):
Young Ones and Blackadder. He also created musicals We Will
Rock You in the Beautiful Game with Andrew Lloyd Webber.
Ben is heading to our Shawls next month for his
Authentic Stupidity tour, but he's popped over for a surprise
early visit and is with me here in the studio.
Ben Elton, good morning.

Speaker 12 (40:08):
Good morning, indeed, so.

Speaker 3 (40:10):
Lovely to have you in the studio. You had a
little bit of a break from stand up. You came
back to it in twenty nineteen after about fifteen years,
and you've done a couple of tours since then. What
is it about stand up that brings you back to
it time and time?

Speaker 12 (40:27):
All As a writer? I mean, I've made my entire
life writing comedy in various genrery and musical sitcoms. The
theater plays novels, many novels, sixteen novels. But stand up
is the only area of my works as a comic artist.
For what it's worth, that's what I am. I guess,
which is entirely subjective. It's where I get to tell
you know what the new youth phrases to stand in

(40:50):
your truths. I say, stand in your truth and share
what you know, which is I think modern talk. For
in my opinion. But I'm standing in my truth and
that's what I do as a stand up because I
think good comedy is about sort of exploring your own bewilderment,
your own your own fears, your own delights, and that's
what I've been doing for forty five years. But I'm
doing it from a perspective of some venerability.

Speaker 2 (41:13):
Now.

Speaker 12 (41:13):
I mean that's in a way why I think stand
up's got more more invigorating for me than it ever
was when I was a young man, Because when I
was a young comic, as with all young people, I'm
very sure of myself. I knew what I thought. I
laid down the law. Young people, that's their job. It's
their job to be the change, to be vigorously forthright
about everything they feel and believe. And I was, and
I used that as part of my comedy. And now

(41:35):
forty five years later, I'm sort of two generations since
I was personally the change, and you know, my bewilderment
has been growing ever since. And so that's what I
lean into these days, my ongoing bewilderment, and it makes
for great stand up. And yeah, I've just found I'm
more committed to the art of stand up comedy than
I ever was, even when I was in my kind

(41:56):
of vaguely hip pomp back in the eighties.

Speaker 3 (41:59):
I think we're all a bit bewildered these days, you
know what I mean. I'm not sure it's a generational issue.

Speaker 12 (42:06):
Young people are finding, you know, and a very difficult
will to negotiat. It's things changed very quickly. I mean,
I I you know, I had a tour on My Life.
I joke on my last tour where I said, you know,
this is the first tour I've done where I where
I'm no longer as clever as my telephone. And now,
of course we've got artificial intelligence, which is a terrifying reality.
Bob Dylan famously said, man has invented his doom. And

(42:28):
I think with artificial intelligence, they're not even lying about it.
They're saying, yeah, yeah, it's going to put everyone out
of work, and it's going to replace people, and people
are going to have to think of something else to do,
which I imagine will be riot because you know, people
aren't going to like the fact that they've been replaced
by machinery for the behest of a few tax avoiding billionaires.
But you know, I think it makes for a good

(42:49):
comedy because how stupid are we to allow ourselves to
have this technology foisted upon us by people who clearly
have no, no, no thought for the social consequences. They're
only concerned with the short term profit. I mean, look,
the iPhone was released. I mean, if the iPhone had
been a drug, which effectively it is because now of
us can keep our eyes off them, you know, it
would have been subjected to years of government tests and

(43:12):
you know, for the what are the social and physical
and health repercussions, But no, they just unleashed it and
lar and behold, our children don't have a childhood. So look,
I'm soundly very serious. But yes, there's a lot to
be bewildered about. But I think the comic's job, if
he or she is a good comic, is to find
the humanity in that and to share it. And that's
what I love about being a stand up you said,
why still do it? Well, quite apart from the artistic inspiration,

(43:35):
it gives me to share my humanity and with other
people and get them to share a shared laugh when
it's a real laugh, not a laugh which is laughing
at people, but a laugh which is laughing with people
and at yourself. That's a beautiful thing and it reminds
us all that we have so much more in common
than the divides us. And I think actually comedy is

(43:55):
beautiful in that respect. And I find it invigorating and
uplifting to be a comic and to share my thoughts
with the audience and to find them their laughter saying hey,
I know what you mean.

Speaker 8 (44:04):
I get that.

Speaker 12 (44:05):
I feel that too.

Speaker 3 (44:07):
You love that the live performance and you don't just
do stand up. I mean over the years you have
performed in written musicals and all sorts of things. Is
there something about a live crowd that there's.

Speaker 12 (44:19):
Just unquestionably And I think people are feeling that more
and more themselves as we disappear into our phones and
people are experiencing so much art via a very small
letterbox screen. Not that your younger listeners will remember what
a letterbox looked like, but it was sort of the
shape of an iPhone, but it was a hole and
you put communication directly through it. The fact is, I

(44:40):
think the fact that now people will go and see
gigs in stadiums. I used to be a bit not
sneery because I don't sneer at anybody's pleasures. But I
always think, why would anyone want to see a band
in a stadium or a comic and an arena? But
I think what it is actually because I don't think
creatively a comic can ever work in a ten thousand seater,
But I think what And I certainly don't play. I'm
probably sure I couldn't feel one, but i'd certainly play

(45:02):
human sized venues because I'm in it for the experience
I get as a comedian. But I'm not knocking it
because I think when people stand in a crowd of
ten thousand people, they're sharing a mutual love. They're saying, hey,
we're a community, we're not alone in our rooms. We
actually all love this, we're all celebrating it together. So
there's somebody to be said for those massive gig experiences,
but they wouldn't do for me. I wouldn't fancy it.

Speaker 3 (45:23):
No, No, I think you're absolutely right that whole just
knowing that everybody in the room is experiencing the same
thing but maybe in slightly different ways, and you're all
those communals. You're having this communal experience.

Speaker 12 (45:33):
Unfortunately, have enough of them now people feel then it's
so great, I must tell everyone and record it and
put it on my phone. And that, of course, is
when we get into an absurdity loop. And I love
the fact that clubs and gigs are beginning to say
no phones.

Speaker 5 (45:47):
You know.

Speaker 12 (45:47):
I'd never ask the audience to lot their phones up,
because I'm not important enough.

Speaker 2 (45:50):
For that, but I do.

Speaker 12 (45:52):
I would absolutely lacerate anyone who started recording or looking
into their phone in my gig. No do that outside.
This is where humanity the rubber. You had to listen
and share your imagination, or you look at your phone.

Speaker 3 (46:04):
You don't do both sending on a stage and performing
to ten thousand phones. I mean, you just feel like
saying to people, go home and watch it then on
someone else's script, you know, like it.

Speaker 12 (46:12):
It is a strange thing. I was doing a chat about,
you know, an echo of people throwing super paintings, you know,
And actually I think just a boyl have got a
lot of point, although I'm not necessarily sure that's the
best protest. But actually, you know, people that consume great
art now by trying to photograph it, just buy the
postcard in the gift shop. Look at the thing. I

(46:35):
went to my wife and I were lucky enough to
go to the Louver in Paris and there's just this
massive crowd of outstretched arms with iPhones. It is crazy.
But look, we're both sounded like grumpy old Gifts, and
I want to get off that now because I'm not
a grumpy old get. I'm a passionate old get.

Speaker 3 (46:49):
I'm still in the game, and you're not necessary. You
don't appear to be the kind of business comedian who's
always like, well in my day, you know, you don't
go back there. I like the fact you're open about
the bewilderment. But actually a lot of people have said
this is a very cross generation hit, this show. It
comes back to me saying I think we're raw bewill
that I think we can all kind of relate to

(47:10):
a lot of young.

Speaker 12 (47:11):
People have come, and to my great pleasure, I've got
some amazing reviews this time. That's I think because I'm
now sort of old and no longer a threat. I'm
not hip or you know, finally I can sort of
be forgiven for whatever it was I did. Yeah, but
I've always been authentic and I you know, look, I'm
celebrating the fact that this tour has gone very well.

(47:32):
I've extended it. I did the London West End season
and here adding dates in New Zealand. It's lovely at
sixty five to have a hit a hit show. I mean,
the last one was it, but this one seems to
be even touching, even more funny bones and that's and yeah,
a lot of people are bringing their kids, and that
is nice. I mean mainly my demographic skews forty five plus,
of course it does. I'm sixty five, but and I

(47:53):
get lots of really old people. And I do a big,
long set about euthanasia and voluntary assisted dye, which is
frankly touching a near a few knuckles, it's definitely. But
you know, I've always I've stood in my truth and
I believe strongly in it, and I and so I
find my comedy where my passion lies. And I believe
very strongly that we need an adult attitude to end
of life care and indeed even death. But let's not

(48:17):
get into that now. But I do some very funny
stuff about it.

Speaker 3 (48:20):
Have you always been passionate?

Speaker 12 (48:22):
Yeah, I've always I've always been, you know, thrilled to
be alive. I love being a part of a community.
That's why I love live theater and I love comedy.
You know, I'm a old welfare state social democrat. I'm
not as lefty as you know, the right wing always
said I was, and I'm certainly not as right wing
as zelots on the left want, just because I you know,
I believe in mainstream democracy, you know. But I do

(48:46):
believe in community, and I think comedy is like almost
the best art form for community values. I think we're
all better off if we see ourselves as part of
a community. This modern idea, it started with Thatcher and
Reagan that what the world needs is is individuals. We
need to enrich individuals and somehow they're success will trickle
down and they will enliven economies. And it's come into
politics now, so we have self styled strong men like

(49:08):
Trump saying only I can fix it. It's insane. The
only good things that ever came about came about through
communities organizing together and and not looking to the king
or the tech bro to sort us out. And I'm
sadly it seems to be a return to toxic males again,
which we thought we'd sort of begun to see the
end of. But Yeah, I'm as passionate as I ever was.

(49:32):
I love to go on a nice crowded bus and
be a part of people and look around and find
some funny and share it with an audience.

Speaker 3 (49:40):
This is a little bit random, but I did learn
something about you, something new about you. And I was
doing a bit of research for this interview, and there
is that you wrote a song for the Wickles I did.

Speaker 17 (49:48):
I mean, is there anything you haven't done?

Speaker 12 (49:50):
Well, there's a lot of things I haven't done.

Speaker 5 (49:51):
You know.

Speaker 12 (49:52):
There's a great country song. There's a whole lot of
things that I've never done. But I have never had
too much fun and I have a lot of fun.
And that was beautiful, right, A film for them too?
Oh well, scripting we never got it over the line.
It was great fun. I worked with them for a while.
I knew them because when my kids were young, I slept,
I sled them in I've got good tickets and got
them to sit in the yellow car. I don't mind,
I'll you know, I don't mind having a bit of celebrity.

(50:13):
Privilege of it means you can get your kids into
the big red car. Yeah, they sent me. We wrote
some songs together for this script that never happened was good.
Actually it was years before Barbie, and it was about
kind of cartoon figures going out into the real world
and discovering that it's not as much fun as their
own magic world.

Speaker 3 (50:31):
One missed an opportunity there.

Speaker 12 (50:32):
Yeah, I know it's a shame. I think it would
have been great. But anyway, we really got on and
they sent me this tune. I didn't write the tune, obviously,
I wish I could, But yeah, I've written a song
called Wiggletown and it was on an ARIA Award winning album.
So yeah, I've got I've got a gold disc for
the Young One single. But yeah, I wrote a wiggle
song and I'm very proud of it.

Speaker 3 (50:50):
I don't want to spoil too much here about the show,
but I did read somewhere that part of the show
mentions films and how films now are stupid. And look,
I'm a film reviewer, have been for many decades. I'd
love to get your take on the modern day film.

Speaker 12 (51:06):
I just point out about the fact that we appear
to be leaning into stupidity, you know, I mean, it's
almost as if the problems of the world are so
intractable and so vast that we're taking comfort in just
being stupid. We're being stupid in politics, imagining that complex
issues can be fixed just because some idiot like Boris
Johnson says, I'll get it done. Will He didn't get
it done, surprise, surprise, surprise. He left the mess for

(51:28):
other people to pick up on. And the same goes
in culture. Look, I'm you know, I'm again. I'm not
a grumpy old man. But there's no doubt about it
that you know, the biggest hit of the early seventies
was The Godfather. I'm talking about a popular smash hit,
and that was a complex moral tale involving rule. I mean,
you know, whatever you might think about it. And you know,
in these days we're just basically remaking cartoons, and look,

(51:48):
I have fun with that.

Speaker 5 (51:49):
I'm not.

Speaker 12 (51:50):
I'm part of the problem. I'm not the solution. I'm
consuming it. I like that last Batman movie. I've got
a lot to say about Barbie. I do have a
word or two to say on that on stage, because
I do not believe it. It was a significant satirical
critique of the position of women in twenty first century.
I think it was the opposite, but let's not get
into the nitty gritty. Yeah, I think at the moment

(52:11):
Hollywood is spending far much too much time looking at
IP what they call intellectual property. Oh what was popular once?
Let's do it again with a vaguely adult edge. I
think you know, filmmakers are at their best when they
try and produce new stuff rather than just sort of
basically endlessly feed on the dying carcass of a culture
from the last century.

Speaker 3 (52:33):
Now, before we finished, we must acknowledge you're going to
turn sixty six during your tour here on the last Yeah,
on the last night. Will you be celebrating in christ Church?

Speaker 12 (52:41):
Have you thought about what I'm going to It'll be
in midnight, so I'll be sixty five when I'm on stage.
My wife's coming over. We booked a beautiful holiday. We're
going to have a lovely time in the Southern on
the sunn Island. I cannot wait. I've been on the
road a long time. This time she's been with me.
Some of the time. She'd been my wag, her words,
not mine. And she's yes, she's taken over the duties
of rinsing out my underpants in many a hotel basin

(53:05):
because no matter how for you are, when you're doing
one night stands and moving on every day, getting your
laundry done is as big a challenge for me as
it is for you. I can assure you, and I
think mcdonnad would be the same. It's you know, the
road mat reminds you of your own new manager. You
still somehow I got to find a way to get
to the launderette. Yeah, we're going to finish the tour
together and have a beautiful holiday and New Zealand.

Speaker 2 (53:26):
We can't wait.

Speaker 3 (53:27):
Ben Elton has been an absolute delight. Thank you so
much for coming in my pleasure and Ben, we'll be
back in New Zealand for his Authentic Stupidity Tour next month.
He's added a bunch of new cities to the tour.
For more information, he had to Ben Elton dot live
or Livenation dot co dot nz. And don't forget Jojo
Moyes is my guest. After eleven it is twenty one
past ten.

Speaker 2 (53:48):
Grab recover.

Speaker 1 (53:49):
It's the Sunday session with Francesca Rudgint and Wig calls
for the best selection of greats us talk sa'd be.

Speaker 3 (53:56):
There are some great new books out now at Wickles.
Fans of The Hunger Games have been eagerly anticipating the
next book in the series. It's called Sunrise on the
Reaping and revisits the world of PanAm twenty four years
before the events of the Hunger Games. The latest sensation
and coloring are the books by Coco Wayo and their
latest is Cozy Corner, Cute and comfy Coloring. It's like

(54:16):
stepping into a world of calm and comfort. And Jamie
Oliver is back with his Easy Air Fry Book. If
you're looking for inspiration for this most fashionable of kitchen appliances,
look no further. Jamie has it all sorted and your
family and friends will love you for it. With Boox Games, Puzzles, toys,
gorgeous stationery, The Hunger Games, Coca Wayo and Jamie's Air
Fry Cookbook, there really is something for everyone. At Wick calls.

Speaker 2 (54:41):
The Sunday Session.

Speaker 3 (54:54):
The unmistakable sound there of the sex Pistols. I'm joined
now by Steve Newell, editor at flex Stock Co dot
Nz to talk entertainment. Good morning, the sex pistols hitting our.

Speaker 18 (55:07):
Way the back kinder Yeah kind of it's missing one piece.
This is the Sex Pistols with Frank Turner. You heard
the unmistakable sound of Johnny Lydon, John Lyden ak Johnny
Rotten there. Their singer does not perform with the band anymore.
There's been a bit of a falling out between Leyden
and the other band members.

Speaker 3 (55:26):
But like you be forty, never quite sure what who
you're going to get.

Speaker 18 (55:30):
It's a bit like you Be forty. So six Pistols
played their first show of the year at the one
hundred Club in London last night, a venue that's really
kind of central to punk history, having hosted a kind
of landmark gig in nineteen seventy six with The Sex Pistols,
the Clash SUSI and the Benches in Subway Sect. And

(55:50):
yes they're heading our way, so no time to waste.
They played one hundred Club. They are doing the Royal
Albert Hall on Monday, and they're coming to New Zealand
to play the Auckland Town Hall on April second and
chrish Hitch Town Hall April third. Now Frank Carter, the
new singer for the band at a previous band called
Gallows that I quite liked. He's he's not a carbon

(56:12):
copy of Leiden. But you wouldn't want to try and
be I think that Johnny, I think it's pretty. It's
pretty hard like if you've ever done karaoke to a
sex pistol sign, it's pretty hard to not try and
be Johnny Rotten. But yeah, it won't work if you're
trying to be a carbon copy with it.

Speaker 2 (56:28):
Mind.

Speaker 3 (56:29):
Hey, some really good news for the New Zealand film Tina.

Speaker 18 (56:34):
Yes, it's in its fourth week of release now and
just continues to be a real landslide at the box office.
It's a nice opportunity to remind people to see this
awesome local drama if you haven't already, the story of
a choiet teacher who kind of finds a new meaning
in her life when she goes to work at an
extremely privileged private school and sort of sort of forges

(56:54):
some unexpected connections with the students there. It's been number
one for three weeks at the local box office. It's
past three million dollars at the local box office. It's
the highest grossing film of twenty twenty and it's poised
to overtake what becomes The Broken Hearted on the all
time top grossing New Zealand film list. Which would put
it in seventh position and chasing Soon's wedding.

Speaker 3 (57:17):
So please that people are making the effort to go
and see it because it is a beautiful film. You
will laugh out loud, you will cry like you never
cry before in a movie. It's just this beautiful balance,
isn't it? Of absolutely and heart and heartbreak.

Speaker 18 (57:32):
And I'm yet to hear any bad feedback on this film.
And it's nice to see when you know, films can
very much kind of come and go from cinemas. There's
a very busy release schedule. That word of mouth is
clearly working for this film because audiences are telling each
other to go and see it. And really, you know, hey,
the self appointed experts us, we can tell you to
see it, but doesn't it just doesn't it just better

(57:53):
if lots of people are out there making good noise?

Speaker 3 (57:55):
Yeah, definitely, No, definitely absolutely. And I believe actually, if
you have been to see the film and you love
the music, they've managed to get his soundtrack out now,
I think you.

Speaker 5 (58:08):
Spotify.

Speaker 3 (58:08):
Yeah, if you head your streaming service and just put
TINR in and look for the soundtrack and things, I
think you'll be able to find some of that musical
meter to continue enjoying the lovely music.

Speaker 18 (58:18):
That you know, it's definitely something you'd like to take
home from that film from a cinema experience.

Speaker 3 (58:22):
Yea, yeah, no, wonderful news.

Speaker 8 (58:24):
Thank you so much.

Speaker 3 (58:24):
Steve will talk to you next week. Right, have you
got big feet? Did you just presume your feet are
larger versions of someone with small feet?

Speaker 19 (58:33):
Well?

Speaker 3 (58:34):
Has doctor Michelle Dickinson got news for you. It's twenty
eight past ten. That's next.

Speaker 2 (58:43):
It's the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin on News Talks
at b.

Speaker 3 (58:49):
Joining me now with our science study of the week
is doctor Michelle Dickinson. Good morning, Good morning. This one
is fascinating. I don't know how we didn't know this already. Well,
why would you presume that they're any different? You just
think some of you've got you know, why our feet
would be different, Why big feet woul different to small feet?

Speaker 5 (59:07):
Right?

Speaker 3 (59:07):
You just think, well, maybe you've just got longer bones,
and I don't know.

Speaker 20 (59:12):
So this is a great study. So it's literally about
whether or not big human feet are just bigger versions
of small human feet. As a person who is married
to a husband who has size sixteen feet agay, we
had to design a special shoe wreck just to hold
his shoes. So I think about big feet all the
time because I'm like, oh, my kids are just gonna
be the same, aren't They'm going to have this constant

(59:32):
import from America type shoe house. And so I looked
at this study. It's published in the Royal Society open source.
It's oversource. You can go and read it, and it's
really cute. And what they did and they said, hey,
humans who have big feet are the same as humans
who have small feet, and did they form in the
same way? And so what they did is they took
different ages of people, different sizes of feet, and they

(59:55):
scanned them with their CT scan. I said, they did
really in depth three D CT scans to get every
slice of the bones of a foot, and they looked
at it in a computer model. And so they were
going to figure out, basically, do the feet increase in
size proportionally? So do all the bones increase in size?
We call it isometrically, So does everything go proportionally or

(01:00:18):
do different bones growing at different weights for different reasons?
And I think everybody in life is just assumeedful. Of
course they're just all in proportion, just whatever else. And
what's important is shoe manufacturers assume this because they don't
go you have a certain size of foot, therefore your
foot is different, your bones are different, therefore will make
you a different ship.

Speaker 21 (01:00:37):
Here's the thing.

Speaker 3 (01:00:38):
They're different, they are not the same.

Speaker 20 (01:00:41):
So if you have big feet and you're constantly getting
like an ache in your ankle or something, probably because
shoes are not designed for you. So here's what they found.
They looked at two very specific bones, the tailus, which
connects the foot to your leg it's sort of around
your ankle, and the calcanous, which is your heel bone.
And what they found is that the tailless forms totally isometrically.

(01:01:04):
Yes it's totally in proportion, great, but your calcanus is
very very differently and it does not form proportionally. And
so what they found is, first of all, as your
foot gets bigger, if you are due to have bigger feet,
your heelbone, this hellbone also gets taller, wider, but shorter
in length proportionally than those people have smaller feet. And

(01:01:28):
what they found it was really interesting and sort of
explains why this is happening, is the joint surface, so
the surface is where it starts to contact the other
bones grow at a much faster rate, suggesting that larger
feet need a larger contact area because the larger the
contact area, you reduce the overall pressure, so you're taking
the pressure off the bone. It's the reason why if

(01:01:51):
you're in stilettos, you put a high pressure on this.
It's having a wide foot, it's more comfortable. So those
joints are the ones that are growing faster because they're
obviously going, hey, we've got a bigger load. Because typically
with bigger feet, you're a bigger person than then for
you've got more mass coming down that grows first, and
then everything else captures up to support that joint. So
if you have bigger feet, you tend to be a

(01:02:11):
bigger person, you tend to put a bigger load on
your joints.

Speaker 21 (01:02:15):
Your body knows this, and it grows your feet to
help take away that joint pain. So if you do
have big feet and you're like, hey, my shoes don't
seem to be supporting me.

Speaker 20 (01:02:25):
They're probably not. They're bought for regular sized people. And
so I thought that was a cute study, and I
did I thought we knew everything about humans, you know,
we're sort of like we've been the science has been
doing stuff for a while.

Speaker 3 (01:02:36):
But feet are a lot more complicated than we give
them credit for, aren't they. I Mean, there's so many
little bones and they're very complex. It's a very complex
part of our body.

Speaker 20 (01:02:43):
And it's why this study only looked at two of
the sort of bigger bones, because it was like, oh,
we could do this all day for guides, but the
next time you look at somebody who with big feet,
just go, hey, your feet are weird. They're not the
same as mine.

Speaker 3 (01:02:55):
Doctor Michelle Dickinson, thank you so much for your time this.

Speaker 1 (01:02:58):
Morning the Sunday Session Full show podcast on iHeart Radio
powered by News Talks.

Speaker 2 (01:03:04):
It be.

Speaker 3 (01:03:07):
You're with news Talks there. This is a Sunday Session.
It is twenty one to eleven. And if you were
going to make a vegetable soup, would the parsnip be
your choice vegetable? Well, our resident chief Mike vanda Elson
is with us and he's going to do his best
to sell us on the charms of the humble parsnip.

Speaker 9 (01:03:24):
Good morning, Mike, Good morning.

Speaker 3 (01:03:27):
I did think to myself, actually this is amazing that
you're talking about parsnips today, because we've just had Ben
Elton on who co created and wrote Blackadder, and I thought, oh,
I remember Blackadder. They had heaps of jokes about parsnips,
but it wasn't parsnips. It was turnips back. I don't
know if you remember, if you ever watched Blackadder, Baldric
had session with turnips. I was like, oh, oh, look,

(01:03:50):
we're just this is brilliant. We're just lining all these
things up. But turnip is different to a passnip, isn't it.
A turnip is round than a parsnip?

Speaker 2 (01:03:58):
Is the long white exactly?

Speaker 9 (01:04:00):
That's okay. And we were paired to have them coming
out of every part of our garden.

Speaker 3 (01:04:06):
So what did they did? They naturally did did somehow
the seeds street, Did the boots do a trick?

Speaker 5 (01:04:11):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:04:11):
Something?

Speaker 9 (01:04:11):
Yeah, they're just self seated and it's amazing because their
passips are it's amazing.

Speaker 3 (01:04:17):
If you like parsons, that's it.

Speaker 9 (01:04:20):
But the jimmy growing in winter, so we're happy because
the coldness kind of brings out the sweetness of the parsnip,
or enhances the sweetness of the passip. And so here
we are at the end of a very hot summer
and we're harvesting our passips and they they are actually
delicious and pips. Yeah, it was, and I'm getting a
little of it over them now. I must say, it's

(01:04:41):
been two weeks of passips. During the week we had
supper Glove and I introduced because people don't know what
the menu is until the tener and I was like, right,
so you're started tonight. It's going to be a delicious, silky,
smooth parsnip soup. Anyone just went, oh, okay.

Speaker 3 (01:04:59):
I'm sure that you turned into something is absolutely delicious.

Speaker 8 (01:05:04):
That was great.

Speaker 9 (01:05:05):
It was great. So lots of butter, lots of cream
help that one. And for the soup today is actually, well,
don't figure it's pass it soup. But what works really
well with the soup is a curry oil, and that
the flavors of the curry kind of really enhances the
parsate flavor. And to make the curry oil, you'd simply

(01:05:27):
just need to make your own curry powder. So for
those of you out there that buy curry powder, let
me run you through the ease of making your own
curry powder. So take tablespoon and this will make I
don't know, this will make one of those little square
boxes that you buy at soup. Make so tablespoon of
curry and seeds, tablespoon of cuman seeds. You could add

(01:05:49):
federal seeds that if you wish, like maybe teaspooner federal seeds.
Take them, fire them in the oven or toast them
in a pan and cook them until they start to
become fragrant. And what that cooking process is doing is
it's releasing the essential oils that a part of that seed,
and the essential oils are released upon heat. Toast them off.
Once you're starting to get a little bit of fragrance
coming out, pop them into a pestile moa to crust

(01:06:11):
them up into a fine powder. And then you pretty
much take equal parts of your cumen and cry the
seeds and mix that with gara masala. Mix that to
get and then maybe a testpoon of trumeric for color
and water. You have just made your own curry powder,
so we're now going to turn that into a curry oil.
So you take your curry powder, put into a pot

(01:06:32):
and just cover it with a flavorous oil like or
like sunflat oil or a grapsit or something. There's no color,
no flavor. Just just cover your curry powder and then
turn your alement on, bring it up to a similar
turn it off, let it sit for like half an hour,
and then strain it through like Chuck's cloth, and you
get the most vibrant flavorsome curry or that you're going

(01:06:54):
to use on your pass it. So I've kind of
made the parce it on litle sideline. You know, you
like how I've done that. It's all about the curry.

Speaker 3 (01:07:02):
Oil exactly, exactly. Is there reasons for that?

Speaker 9 (01:07:06):
No, no reason. Let's make a parse it suits keerlow parsps.
Peel them, chop them up, Take three onions, saute them off.
Ten clothes of garlic.

Speaker 2 (01:07:16):
They love garlic. They work really well together.

Speaker 12 (01:07:19):
Saute off the garlic.

Speaker 9 (01:07:21):
Add in your parssip, saute that off. What we don't
want to do is get too much color onto the parsips,
because we want the end result to be a nice
white pars it soup. Chuck in a cup of wine,
reduce that down and then and go one and a
half leaves vegetable stock. Bring that to boil. Add a
little bit of salt, cook it to your parsip's a
nice and tender, and then blitz it while adding or
whilst adding two cups of cream. And you serve that

(01:07:42):
pretty much straight away with the all important curry oil.

Speaker 3 (01:07:47):
Would you add any other vegetable to the parsa? But
does the parsnip just need to sit and be the
hero of the day.

Speaker 9 (01:07:53):
I think I think parsup is a really it is
quite an overwhelming flavor. So I think whatever else you
added to it, it would like to kind of would
challenge it. So if there was anything you could add,
would be maybe cauliflower, okay.

Speaker 12 (01:08:07):
Yeah, just dominate.

Speaker 9 (01:08:09):
Yeah, it just dominates everything you could add, and some
potatoes if you want. If you want it to be
a bulk in that, I'll just go pass its. Yeah,
maybe some leaks, Maybe some leaks.

Speaker 3 (01:08:18):
If that sounds nice. What else would you do with
a parsnip?

Speaker 9 (01:08:22):
We roast them off heap. So remember last week I
spoke about making a shimola. Yes, so take that shimilla paste,
cut up your passips, mix it through that shamala paste,
and then fire them into the oven and that shimola
kind of caramelizes on the outside. What be does quite
often with passups, So she just cuts them up into
like little stacks, and then she put some thay like
sweet thy chili sauce on it nice and then roast

(01:08:46):
it off.

Speaker 22 (01:08:46):
And what the.

Speaker 9 (01:08:48):
Sweet chili sauce does is that heavily caramelizes on the outside,
and you get all these little crusty, sweet, crusty caramelized bits.

Speaker 3 (01:08:55):
What I am noticing is that you're adding quite a
lot of flavor to the parsnip. I'm overpowering it, Okay,
So are you going to plant more pass there? You're
getting more pass off and winter are you're just going
to let them just you know, we run themselves.

Speaker 9 (01:09:10):
We don't need to plant any more pass it because
they're going to take over the entire fath Oh, I
love it.

Speaker 3 (01:09:16):
Thank you so much, Mike. Always good to chat. You
can get that recipe for parsnips and soup with curry oil.
You can grab that from good from Scratch dot co
dot m Z. We will get it up on our
website News talks eb dot co dot nz Forward slash Sunday.
We will get that up there for today. If you
too are thinking it's been a while to say had
to pass it. That sounds like an excellent idea. Up next,

(01:09:39):
we're going to explore the impact stress has on brain chemistry.
You're with News Talks ev It is fifteen to eleven.

Speaker 1 (01:09:47):
Sunday with Style the Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin and
Wiggles for the best selection of great reads, Please Talks,
Hevvy and just.

Speaker 3 (01:09:57):
Text to say Half. Francesca, I have recently discovered the
charms of the humble parsnip as an alternative to kumera
or potatoes. Mike's recipe sounds more parsnipy than a very
parsonify thing. Yum, oh, good on you man. And joining
me now to wellness is Aaron O'Hara. Good morning, Good morning.
You're a fan of the passnip. I am a quite
like partner. You're a fan of most vegetables, though, I am.

Speaker 8 (01:10:19):
What do you do with it?

Speaker 23 (01:10:20):
You usually roast it, a little bit of salt and pepper,
bit of olive oil.

Speaker 3 (01:10:24):
Just simple as take it in all its part up glory. Yeah,
good hits, it's simple. Today we're going to talk about
stress and how chronic stress can impact our brain chemistry.
Tell me about the impact that chronic stress can have
on our neurotransmitter levels.

Speaker 23 (01:10:40):
Yeah, so stress is something that we all experience. I
think there's always moments of stress, whether it's little moments
of a stressful event within your day, but it's when
it kind of flows onto that chronic stress that's when
it's really problematic.

Speaker 3 (01:10:54):
You see your long term what is kind of what
would you define chronic stress as stress that's kind of
going from day to day kind of whether it's a
stressful work or relationship or a divorce or something like
that that's kind of going on from week to week,
which is constant and constantly managing, it constantly affecting you,
and it's having that flow on of effect of maybe

(01:11:16):
disrupting of sleep, also making you feel anxious, overwhelmed through
the day, and affecting your overall everyday life. And that's
because the chronic stress then can create chronic inflammation within
the body and in the brain as well, so we
can get different symptoms. For some people chronic stress, they
might experience overwhelm, fatigue, anxious, poor sleep, whether it's getting

(01:11:41):
to sleep or staying asleep, and that's where it has
that flow on effect of really affecting our brain chemistry,
and it affects the neurotransmitter balance in particular. So neurotransmitters
are your chemical messages within your brain, things like dooth
means serotonin, oxytocin, and they send chemical messages to then
affect your nervous system, your brain, your body function, and

(01:12:04):
they're really important to keep everything in regulation. So when
we do have a lot of chronic stress, there's some
interesting research that exposure to chronic stress and how it
can reduce an area of the brain called the hippocampus,
which has a lot of important role in learning as
well as memory part of the brain, and when we

(01:12:25):
have that long term stress, we can get a reduced
size and that that then has an effect on our
neurotransmitter balances. A lot of people who will say that
they're under quite constant stress will describe symptoms like just
brain fog, just unable to think clearly or remember things,
and that's exactly what's kicking in here.

Speaker 23 (01:12:44):
Absolutely, so they might notice that they can't remember things,
they just get these sudden blanks even in the middle
of conversation. Also, anxiety can be a big sign of
chronic stress or flowing into depressions, so there's no motivation
for getting anything done, finding no joy in life as
well because that disruption and the chemical messages and the

(01:13:06):
brain with those neurotransmitters, and there's a lot we can
do with just bringing that stress level into a manageable level,
because sometimes the stress isn't going to just go away
and vanish, and it's like, how can we maintain life
through that stress? And I always like to start looking
at sleep first because if you're not sleeping properly, you

(01:13:26):
can't regulate during the day. So if we can address
the sleep is like the first thing to help you
manage your chronic stress, whether it's getting to sleep or
staying asleep, and whether that's finding some sort of support
with maybe starting with just some nice herbal teas, sleepy teas,
or some magnesium before bed. Feelings. One of my favorite

(01:13:46):
that I also use for sleep as well as during
the day, really quietens the mind. I like to call
it meditation and a tablet. So when people are really
chronically stressed, sometimes meditation is not accessible to them is
because sitting and doing meditation just makes them feel even
more stress, more overwhelmed, and more anxious. So sometimes it's
not a very good tool for someone who is feeling stressed, anxious,

(01:14:09):
and overwhelmed, and that might be when you need that
little bit of extra support with some supplements. So using
something to help you get to sleep, maybe even some
sleepy herbs are some of my favorites for sleep is passion,
flower hops, Valerian, or skull caps that are all herbs
that are calming the nervous system. Helping with GABA production

(01:14:30):
really calms the nervous system down so you can drift
off to sleep and then you can get that good
quality sleep and then during the day addressing it as
giving the support for the body so it can adapt
to stress, which in herbal medicine will call adaptogen so
they help us adapt to the stresses of the day.
And some of my favorite herbs for helping to adapt

(01:14:52):
to stress are things like with aanian or you know,
I might know it as ashwagandha, the same herb, but
it's a really good herb for helping with adapting to stress.
Also helping with cognitive function without making you feel as anxious,
just helps to sort of level out that stress making
it more manageable. Also, jingsing really good one for cognition

(01:15:13):
focus adapting to stress as well, or maybe even some
calming herbs that you use during the day like go
to Kola is a really good one for managing that
ongoing stress and helping to just calm the nervous system
a little bit as well. And then looking at also
whether you get support network around you, like chronic stress

(01:15:35):
is something that you need support, whether it's friends, family,
like being like, hey, life is overwhelming at the moment,
I need some support around me, and actually letting people
know that you're struggling and know that you kind of
need that support to help you get through the chronic stress.
And then the more stress comes more manageable, the more
the brain comes back into balance. And that's what we
really just want, is like to be able to kind

(01:15:57):
of soften the stress and the loads so then the
brain can start functioning better and then we can feel
back into our normal everyday balance.

Speaker 3 (01:16:05):
Again, thank you so much for your time this morning,
Love you to catch up. We'll see you next week.
It is six to eleven the.

Speaker 1 (01:16:12):
Sunday Session Full Show podcast on iHeartRadio powered by News
Talks at B.

Speaker 3 (01:16:20):
The fabulous Jojo Moyes is with me next to talk
about her latest book, We All Live Here Now. The
book tells a story of a recently divorced mum living
with her kids and her stepfather, so you've got several
generations here. She's trying to hold everything together and write
a book and it sounds very much like her own life,
but it is not based on her own life. But
it turns out it's been quite hard for Jojo Moyes

(01:16:42):
to convince people of that. So she is going to
join us next to talk about the real inspiration for
her latest bestseller and why she just loves writing about
dysfunctional families so much.

Speaker 8 (01:16:53):
We're going to.

Speaker 3 (01:16:54):
Finish the hour with a little bit of Teddy Swims. Gosh,
he just loves us here, and I'll say, oh, he
can't get enough of us. He is returning for the
fourth consecutive year. He's announced that he will return to
New Zealand four gigs in christ Church in Auckland in October.
He's a little bit of bedrooms actually.

Speaker 22 (01:17:15):
Smiled family, Sandy breath, cam into moderny had.

Speaker 24 (01:17:26):
Waiting, Sir.

Speaker 15 (01:17:31):
Sun it up.

Speaker 14 (01:17:34):
And sandy bread these other things.

Speaker 2 (01:17:45):
D holdy, It's Sunday. You know what that means. It's

(01:18:11):
the Sunday Session with Francesca.

Speaker 1 (01:18:13):
Rudkin and Wickles for the best election of Great Reads
US Talk Sepp, good.

Speaker 3 (01:18:25):
To have you with us. This is a Sunday Session.
I'm Francesca Vicon WI you until mid day coming up
this hour. Jason Fyne on the All White Speaker World
can't qualify it Tomorrow night at Eden Park. Meagan has
a tip for getting through customs quickly at US airports,
and Joan mackenzie has a moving story from Gloria Vale in.

Speaker 2 (01:18:43):
Books the Sunday Session.

Speaker 3 (01:18:48):
Jojo Moyes has written seven novels before her twenty twelve
novel Me Before You Changed her life. It sold over
fifteen million copies and was adapted for a major Hollywood film,
with Jojo herself writing the screenplay. Now Jojo is a
global star. She sold over fifty seven million books and
has hit number one in twelve different countries. She recently

(01:19:10):
released her seventeenth book, We All Live Here, and Jojo
Moyes joins me, now, good morning, thank you so much
for your time.

Speaker 5 (01:19:16):
Oh, good morning, lovely to be here.

Speaker 14 (01:19:18):
Our families in.

Speaker 3 (01:19:19):
Their dynamics endlessly fascinating to you.

Speaker 5 (01:19:23):
Yes, I always say when I'm giving talks in front
of people, in front of audiences, I could say I
could pluck any single person out of that audience and
get two books out of them, because we all have
you know, the two people who won't speak to each other,
or the great mystery about on to flow up the road,
or you know, there's always tension, secrets, people who don't

(01:19:47):
get on, people who love each other. It's just got
everything you would want as a novelist.

Speaker 3 (01:19:53):
The traditional the tread wife might be trending at the moment, Jojo,
but when you look around the reality of modern families
is that they look different these days.

Speaker 5 (01:20:02):
Right, Yeah, absolutely, And that was one of the things
I was thinking about when I came to write this book,
which is I did not grow up in a traditional family,
or I did for a bit, but my family now,
not my personal family, but the family I grew up
in now has kind of grown and blended. And I
have two step brothers, one of whom is in New Zealand.

(01:20:25):
I have half sisters, I have a half brother, and
we'll get on. We all like each other. And so
I just wanted to reflect those different shaped families that
have evolved, whether they're kind of you know, gay, straight,
mixed race, blobby at the edges, just a little bit,
you know, not the shape that we grew up perhaps expecting.

Speaker 3 (01:20:47):
Did that least conventional family dynamic allow you to play
around a lot more with the characters and their relationships
and the strains and the things between them.

Speaker 5 (01:20:57):
The one I came from, or the fictional one, the
fictional one, the one in the book. Yeah, oh definitely.
I mean I have a great fondness for the film
The Odd Couple, and so I'd always wanted to do
something with two old men because, although they probably didn't
think they were old at that at the point it
was made, there's just something really funny about two old

(01:21:20):
men with a grudge against each other. And I did
try to make those characters women at one point to
see how that dynamic would work. I often kind of
play around and see what works best. But I'm afraid
she says making a sweeping generalization. Old men were just funnier.
And so once I was able to kind of think
about that dynamic, these the dad and the biological dad

(01:21:43):
and the stepdad who couldn't forgive each other after thirty
five years, who couldn't let go of their grudge, everything
else just kind of fell into place around it, and
it just made me laugh. Writing them, I.

Speaker 3 (01:21:54):
Wanted to talk to you about forgiveness because it is
such an admirable thing to be able to forgive. And
often you hear people forgiving others of terrible things that
they've done, and I think, wow, there is amazing and
it's what we should all do. But it's actually really hard,
isn't it.

Speaker 19 (01:22:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:22:12):
I listened to a really interesting interview recently, though, with
a woman who had forgiven one of those terrible crimes.
I'd forgotten which it was, but she said, I decided
that if I couldn't forgive this person, it was like
an umbilical cord that held me to them because of
the bitterness I felt and the anger I felt, and

(01:22:33):
so I wanted to cut that cord and I wanted
to be free of them. So the forgiveness was a
gift to me and not to them. That was just
incidental for them, and I thought, what a brilliant way
of looking at it. But yes, forgiveness, I would say,
is the kind of key emotion in this book, because
it's about how all families are full of people messing up.

(01:22:54):
I mean, all our parents mess up is because we
all go into parenthood not having a clue, you know,
how to do it. We've never done it before. It
doesn't come with a rule book. And so Lylah, my
main character, we meet her at the start of the book.
She's so angry with her two dats for various reasons.
But why she realizes halfway through is that she's in
danger of passing that exact same dynamic onto her own children.

(01:23:18):
But most of us kind of we're so busy muddling
through that we don't look at the patterns that we're repeating.
I mean, I'm fascinated by all the psychotherapy and I
love it, just I love watching why we fall into
the traps that we do, and how we sabotage our
own happiness. And I think forgiveness is an absolutely key emotion,

(01:23:39):
as you say, if you can manage it.

Speaker 3 (01:23:41):
Because it's interesting you said that because Lila, you know,
she is trying to make sure that she doesn't fall
into the trips of her parents. You know, she doesn't
drink because he found the drink and things like that.
But as you say, it's still very easy. You know,
the way were Nurtured has an impact, doesn't it it?

Speaker 5 (01:23:58):
Lingers, Yeah, and she just goes on to make a
whole bunch of mistakes of her own, completely fresh ones.

Speaker 3 (01:24:05):
I also enjoyed this book because it kind of explores
that Semdward generation, that stage where you've got your kids,
you've got a busy work life, and your parents are
elderly and they need you to Why did you want
to write about that sort of period.

Speaker 5 (01:24:22):
I'm sure we write about the things that preoccupy us
as writers, and of course, being that age, I am
preoccupied by a lot of those issues. But also I
feel quite strongly that women of that age get kind
of a raw deal in fiction, because most middle aged
women in fiction, I mean, you know, from fairy tales onwards,

(01:24:42):
we were either witches cromes, or we were good mothers
who were killed off at the beginning of the book.
And then you know, when you look at things like
Jane Austen, you've got the missus Bennett's and kind of
terrible mothers or the meddling kind of duchesses from the
neighboring village. But they're just very rarely funny, they're very
rarely sexy, they're very rarely good friends with each other.

(01:25:05):
And and as I've got older, my female friends have
been such a support to me. And they're funny and
they're goofy, and they do stupid things. And just because
we're in our fifties doesn't mean I mean, we don't
kind of act like idiots sometimes. But they're also really strong,
really capable, And you know, I did an interview recently

(01:25:26):
where I said that all these women, they're holding up
the sky. They're holding down all these things that you
just mentioned, the jobs and looking after the ld to
be families and managing the better appointments and you know,
making sure everybody's got uniform and it's just all un
remarked upon labor generally. So I wanted to celebrate it,

(01:25:46):
but do it in a way that didn't make women
look like martyrs.

Speaker 3 (01:25:50):
It's that mental load, doesn't it. And we do have
to be careful not to be like matters, you know.

Speaker 5 (01:25:57):
Moments, haven't we all.

Speaker 3 (01:26:00):
I had a hilarious conversation with my partner recently our
oldest child leave to go to university. Can you turned
in look at me and goes, that's going to make
your mental load better? And I was thinking no, no, no,
I didn't need to.

Speaker 17 (01:26:11):
Get rid of a child to reduce the mental load.
You just needed to step up and help more. I
just thought that was wonderful. Oh yeah, it's a wonderfully
warm book. You've got these honest, complex characters. As you say,
they're dealing with a lot of you know, issues and
adversity and pain. But you've balanced these stories so nicely

(01:26:32):
with humor and grace. Is that something you like doing,
moving your readers but also making us last?

Speaker 5 (01:26:39):
Definitely. I didn't do it for the first seven books.
I mean, there might have been the odd slight smile
in there, but I didn't use humor until I got
to Me before you. And the reason I did it
then was the subject matter was potentially so bleak. I thought,
I have to leaven this with some gloves, and although
that might sound a bit unlikely, you know, a story

(01:27:00):
about a man who wants to end his life being
leavened with gloves. I thought about the fact that we
had had two people in my close vicinity who we
had cared for who required twenty four hour care, and
I realized that it's always the emergency services who have
the best jokes and it's people who you know who
are dealing with the darkest things that often have the

(01:27:23):
best sense of humor, because that's how we cope as
human beings, or perhaps that's just how the people I
know cope. And so maybe for You suddenly took off
in a way that obviously none of my other books
had even come close to, and I realized I love
making people feel stuff. It's not just making people cry,
although I'm a shovel to say I do love making

(01:27:44):
people cry, but I really love making them laugh. You know,
if someone reads a passage and they start sniggering, I'm like,
what made you laugh? What made you laugh? Because when
I read a book, I love being made to feel something.
If someone can make me laugh in a book, I
will buy that author again and again and again. Like
if you can make me feel something, I'm coming back

(01:28:05):
to buy that book time. So yeah, I love doing it.

Speaker 3 (01:28:09):
When you sit down to write, do you have the
whole story planned out? You mentioned before that you did
play around with a couple of the characters, but there
are a lot of characters and a lot of moving
parts here. Do you have sort of a basic structure
in mind?

Speaker 5 (01:28:22):
Yeah, I mean there's a running joke that writers are
either plotters or panthers, and I am a plotter. I
have a vague idea where I want everything to go.
Sometimes the characters run away with you a bit, and
sometimes things don't go one hundred percent the way they
meant to. But I know basically how I want the
reader to feel at the end of the book, and

(01:28:44):
what are the things that I want to have really
fallen into place? And then it's just a matter of
how I get there.

Speaker 3 (01:28:52):
I read a piece you wrote after the first round
of publicity. There are parallels in this book to your
own life. But this book is not about you. It's just,
you know, it's another book from your imagination. However, a
lot of questions directed at you were very personal. Assumption
made that this was a personal story turned into fiction.
Did you find it frustrating?

Speaker 5 (01:29:13):
You did, well, Yeah, I was a bit naive, I
think because I'd written sixteen books before this, and nobody
had ever assumed it was anything to do with me,
just because I wrote a book about a middle aged
divorced you know mother who writes books, although she writes nonfiction.
Then suddenly you know, I did this German interview and
The first thing the guy said was, so you got divorced,

(01:29:35):
excuse my terrible works. And by the way, you got
divorced after twenty two years, how come you didn't know
the guy was wrong for you after ten? And I
thought this was going to be about writing. And I
literally I think my job must have just hit the floor.
And I can't even remember what I said. I think
I just budged it and said, well, people change or

(01:29:56):
something really weak. But I slightly wish I'd just poked
him in the eye and gone, wait, that's just none
of your business. And also I get on really well
with my ex not but that's only of anybody's is either.
But I just, yeah, it's not me, None of it's me.
I will never write a book about a middle aged
woman writer. Again.

Speaker 3 (01:30:14):
I've learned my lesson, I mean, as it had balancing
the public figure and keeping your private life private.

Speaker 5 (01:30:23):
Only when the publicity mill comes round. Because I lead
a very quiet life, you know. I go to very
few seliby events. I'm mostly trudging around with my dogs
in the local park or hanging out with my friends
who I've had since I was very young. Yeah, I've
done the odd red carpet, but sure there's always a

(01:30:45):
point to it. I'm not very good. I had a
little taste of it with the same stuff, with the
me before you thing, and it turns out I'm rubbish
at it. I just I look like a rabbit in headlights.
I'm just an introvert who likes to be behind my desk. Basically,
I'm too old to be interesting anyway.

Speaker 3 (01:31:05):
I don't think that's the case, Jojo. I'd love to
talk to you about AI because it's an ever increasing
threat to arts and creative industries. And you said in
an interview recently that you knew that your work had
been scraped by AI, and that probably every successful author's
work had been scraped. Does that just drive you wild?

Speaker 5 (01:31:23):
It drives me completely mad, because it's theft. It is
theft that you know you're taking something that I've put blood,
sweat and tears into to train your technological devices. And
I also think it's a disaster for the climate. You know,
my own kids have schooled me on the amount of
water it takes to use AI, and it's shocking. It's
a huge amount, and at a time when you know

(01:31:46):
the planet can really not afford it. I just think,
just use your brains. People. They're really good as a rule,
and you can train them to do all sorts of
amazing things without cost to anybody, except you know, you
grow a few but more brain cells. I would love
it if we could be slightly less entrill to the
take bros.

Speaker 3 (01:32:06):
We've spoken a little bit in this interview about me
before you the twenty twelve book, which was huge. How
much did they change your life?

Speaker 6 (01:32:14):
To Joe?

Speaker 5 (01:32:16):
It changed everything. It changed everything. I went from being
a kind of a writer who pretty much couldn't get arrested,
I couldn't get another book contract, and that book suddenly
propelled me to a place where the most important thing
was I just had readers. And that's the one thing

(01:32:37):
that you dream of when you've been writing as long
as I had. You just want people to read your book.
But you know, it gave me financial security, It gave
me access to really amazing other creative people. So I've
got to meet a lot of my heroes and hang
out with them, and I've got to travel to places
I would never have been. I sometimes think my fourteen

(01:33:01):
year old self would not have believed how my life
turned out. And it's all thanks to that book.

Speaker 3 (01:33:07):
If you could, what would you go back and tell
your fourteen year old self?

Speaker 5 (01:33:09):
Now you have no idea how good this is going
to be. I was quite doomy as a kid, so
I think I would have probably gone, I don't believe
you and stuck my head under the doubt.

Speaker 3 (01:33:20):
Jojo Moyes, it's been an absolute pleasure to talk to you.
Thank you so much for your time. Thank you so much,
and for any of you keen to get your hands
on JoJo's new book, We All Live Here. It's in
bookstores now. It's twenty two past eleven. You're with News
Talks eb.

Speaker 2 (01:33:34):
Keep It's simple.

Speaker 1 (01:33:35):
It's Sunday, the Sunday Session with Francesca Rudcoat and Wiggles
for the best selection of great reas News Talks EDB.

Speaker 3 (01:33:45):
And it is time for the panel. And today I'm
joined by a broadcaster and journalist, Wilhelmine Trumpton. Good morning, Willomy, Good,
good morning, Happy Sunday and to you. And we're joined
by resident economists at Opie's Partner's Ed mcnightheh.

Speaker 25 (01:33:57):
Ed get A, Francisco.

Speaker 2 (01:33:59):
Great to speak to you, Good.

Speaker 3 (01:34:01):
To have you both with us. Hey, it was really interesting.
We started the show this morning by looking at a
study by some health researchers year in Australia and they
took a look at twenty five years of data and
the impact vaping had on the smoking trends of fourteen
to fifteen year olds, and what they learned was that
we thought with the introduction of the e cigarette, smoking

(01:34:22):
would decline fast, and it hasn't. And they also learned
that young people have on those vapes a lot more
than we thought they would be that the amount of
vaping they're doing day to day has increased dramatically. And
of course I think we're rare.

Speaker 23 (01:34:41):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:34:42):
I'm keen to hear what you think. I think we've
would completely drop the ball on vaping legislation, and I
wonder whether we've relied on vaping too much to stop smoking.
But I think it might only really come down to
these teams, I think for a lot of other people,
for older people, will I mean it actually vaping may
have been really useful to get off smoking.

Speaker 8 (01:35:03):
Yeah, definitely. It's such an interesting discussion.

Speaker 15 (01:35:06):
Obviously, the reason why that this was brought in was
because it was designed to be the smoking cessation tool
but I agree with you we haven't just dropped the
ball in vaping legislation. I think we've been dropping it
since vaping was actually introduced and integrated into society. The
regulation so it completely lacks in the beginning, you know,
the fruit flavors, the colorful marketing was allowed and it

(01:35:26):
was really attractive for children. Then Nicoteen levels, they are
incredibly high in comparison to other parts of the world.
And then there were shops just popping up what felt
like on every corner of every street within a stone's
throw of schools. Before there was restrictions came in and
they had to be a certain kind of distance between
where those shops were and where the schools were.

Speaker 8 (01:35:44):
It was really easy to pick up.

Speaker 15 (01:35:45):
And then the horse bolted and then we tried to
put it all back into Pandora's box, but it was
too little.

Speaker 8 (01:35:49):
Too late.

Speaker 15 (01:35:50):
And I think a prime example of that was I
think it was only about eighteen months ago that we
reduced the maximum cap on nicketeen levels from fifty milligrams
per milla leter to twenty in single use vapes, and
that was bringing us in line with other parts of
the world.

Speaker 8 (01:36:05):
I could honestly talk so for so long about this.

Speaker 15 (01:36:07):
I did a deep dive on this a few years
ago when I was in my full time journalism days,
and as part of that, I spoke to fourteen fifteen
sixteen year olds. They'd all vaped and they did it
regularly or they tried it. And I even sent a
fifteen year old actor and this admittedly it was about
three years ago. I sent them into a mix of dairries,
petrol stations and specialists vape.

Speaker 8 (01:36:27):
Shops, eight retailers in total.

Speaker 15 (01:36:30):
Six of them, six out of eight actually sold vape
pods to her, no questions asked.

Speaker 8 (01:36:36):
So it's no wonder that kids are picking it up.

Speaker 15 (01:36:38):
And even though those regulations have been brought in, I
just feel like the enforcement of them, particularly on those
shores and sorry in those stores, is not as strict
as it should be, and that's why kids are picking
it up.

Speaker 9 (01:36:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:36:49):
No, Look, I've got teenagers and I know a lot
of teenagers, and my goodness, that just was out of
control from the minute it hit. So it should have
we only allowed vaping to exist as a tool to
stop smoking. Should have we said you need to be
able to you know, your GP should be prescribing this
to you.

Speaker 24 (01:37:10):
Well, I don't think you'd never want to be that restrictive.
But what I would say is, initially the government thought
that the existing legislation did cover this. I believe there
was a court case where Philip Morris, one of the
cigarette companies, ended up winning, and for two and a
half years there was no legislation. So it wasn't that
legislators had necessarily dropped the ball. They actually thought that

(01:37:31):
it already was covered. But one thing that I just
don't want to understate is how much smoking has decreased
over the last thirteen fourteen years. It's gone from sixteen
percent of adults down to seven percent today, quite a
massive nine percent drop. And one thing you've got to
keep in mind as well, Francesca, though, is what we
call the floor effect, which is basically, as we get

(01:37:52):
to lower and lower levels of smoking, it takes more
and more effort to ecount that last little bit because
the truth of the matter is some people are just
never going to give up no matter what. And what
this study didn't show. It didn't say, well, gone up
since fates have come into New Zealand. It just said
that the rate of decline has slowed down. Some of

(01:38:13):
that is to be expected because those stragglers just aren't
going to.

Speaker 3 (01:38:16):
Quit, But there is that concern ed.

Speaker 8 (01:38:18):
It's like that whole.

Speaker 3 (01:38:20):
This isn't the so situation, but it's like that whole
You have a joint and the next thing you know,
you're on heroin. And that's what they're worried about. They're
worried about that the vapor could potentially lead to smoking
with the younger audience. Because I agree with you. I look,
I think that as a tool to stop smoking for
the majority of the population, it.

Speaker 8 (01:38:38):
Can be very very it's very useful.

Speaker 3 (01:38:40):
But I think when we're looking at these younger kids
who have been targeted, it is rife out there with
this age group. We need to kind of try and
work out maybe how to differentiate between them and everybody
else trying to stop smoking.

Speaker 5 (01:38:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 24 (01:38:54):
Well, I think will have Been is right when she's
talking about sending a fifteen year old and then being
able to get a vape, because that's just not right,
is it. I mean, the fact that even still three
percent of fourteen fifteen year olds are smoking, that's really
concerning because that's a bit of enforcement issue.

Speaker 12 (01:39:08):
They shouldn't be able to get vapes.

Speaker 24 (01:39:10):
They shouldn't be able to get cigarettes.

Speaker 15 (01:39:12):
It's an education thing as well, I think, you know,
I think that it is obviously such a useful tool,
but we also don't have enough time and we're only
just getting to the point now where there's enough time
to actually have longitudinal studies to actually measure the health
effects of this. And that was the whole thing when
we brought it in, as it was this amazing tool
to get people off cigarettes, but.

Speaker 8 (01:39:30):
We didn't know what the long term effects of that was.

Speaker 15 (01:39:32):
And only now are we kind of coming up to
that time where we're starting to learn, and so it's
all about educating around that. And now that information has
been drip fed, hopefully the tools will be there, but
it might be a little.

Speaker 8 (01:39:44):
Bit too little, too late.

Speaker 15 (01:39:45):
But any kind of measure to try and improve what's
happening now is obviously good.

Speaker 3 (01:39:50):
I think for some fourteen to fifteen year old's education
is great that I don't think it hits home for
a lot of them when they can wander up to
the dairy and grab themselves, you know, illegally a vake
when they want to. I've found that it's come down
to peers. So what you've noticed is kids are all
trying it, and then it gets to a point where
if you really like sport, you've suddenly gone, wow, this
isn't making me feel great. I can really feel the

(01:40:11):
impact of this on my lungs. And they stop, and
then all of a sudden, everyone else arounds them go
suddenly he goes, oh, yeah, yeah, it's okay. Yeah, I
don't have to do it. You know, like it almost
feels like it comes more from peers going, God, this
stuff's horrible. I'm really struggling with my sport, and everyone
else goes Yeahtually, I don't really like it either, and
that is sort of having more of an impact I
find on teenagers kind of stopping what their peers are

(01:40:33):
sort of saying about it and things. Anyway, let's crack on.
Simmy and Brown came down on our medical offices of health,
our public health physicians who are required by law to
talk about things that deal with broader health issues in
local communities, because what might be right in the cargo

(01:40:55):
might not be the same for somewhere on the West
Coast or the North Island and things. So we have
people who work in regions, medical officers of health who
you know, talk about what might be best for that
that community, and it is their job to talk about
fast food and alcohol and smoking and vaping and all
these kind of issues and things. So I just think
it was a bit tough that Simmy and Brown came
out and said, look, where did you prefer it? If

(01:41:16):
you didn't, could you just talk about these things we'd
like you to talk about. And if you are going
to talk about something, or you are going to work
in an advocacy role, which is their job, you're going
to have to pass and throw us first.

Speaker 8 (01:41:27):
Now, ed, is he.

Speaker 3 (01:41:28):
Overstepping the mark or do you think it's perfectly fine
to tell these public health physicians how to do their job.

Speaker 24 (01:41:35):
Well, there's kind of two sides to it, because on
one side, you think, isn't there a big element of
free speech and if these people want to go out
and advocate for not having a McDonald's or advocating for
less vapor or whatever they think is the right thing
to do, surely that should be allowed to do it.
But then as an employer, I kind of look at
it from the other side and say, well, shouldn't the
government have the ability to say, these are our priorities,

(01:41:58):
we really care about vaccination, these are our goals. We
want you as public health professionals to help us meet
those goals, and so could you speak more about these
sorts of things because that is going to help the
organization meet the goals, and that's what we're paying you for.
So I think there's probably an element of, you know,
should he be able to direct to the public health professionals.
There's probably an element to it. Whether he did it

(01:42:19):
the right way. I think there's probably some big question
marks about that.

Speaker 3 (01:42:24):
I think that's exactly what they are doing, though, Wilhelmina.
These are the people who are out there talking about
things like immunization.

Speaker 8 (01:42:31):
Percent, and you know, they are the ones on the
front line.

Speaker 15 (01:42:33):
They are going to know better than anybody what the
issues are that we actually need to focus on. So
guess while the government might have their priorities, it might
not actually be what we need and what we want
to see on the frontline and what communities actually need.
So I think it's quite concerning that they are sort
of being shepherded and directed down a particular route when
actually that should be the ones who are finding the

(01:42:55):
issues flagging them first and actually you know, trying to
motivate change and in whichever the area they think needs
focus on. So I think it is a little concerning.
I really hope that they aren't completely silenced. Thank you
so much, will Tomina Shrimpton and Ed McKnight. It is
twenty five to twelve News Talks ATB.

Speaker 1 (01:43:18):
It's the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin on News Talks
at B.

Speaker 3 (01:43:23):
Coming up at midday Jason Pine with Weekend Sport and
he joins me, now, good morning.

Speaker 26 (01:43:27):
Good morning, what do you got quite a bit? Actually,
Liam Lawson is again in action this weekend again has
struggled in qualifying for the China Grand Prix that's at
the back of Melbourne last week of course, so I
want to talk a bit about Grand Prix, but really
more because got the opportunity to chat to Mark Webber,
Australian Motorsport Royalty was in Formula one for over a decade,

(01:43:49):
then raced endurance stuff with our own brandan Hartley as
over here actually as part of a Porsche event. He's
an ambassador. Imagine being an ambassador for peace. I feel
like I'd been an ambassador for two minute noodles or
something like that. But a Porsche Ambassador'd be pretty cool,
wouldn't it?

Speaker 9 (01:44:04):
Certainly?

Speaker 3 (01:44:05):
What did to hear your take on things? I switched
over to Formula one last night because the Blues Business
Crusaders was getting quite depressingc So I switched over to
the qualifying, which then too got depresink and I went
to bed with the book. But I'm hoping that the
better things tonight, so.

Speaker 26 (01:44:19):
Am I and I think if we want to take
some solace from what happened yesterday in the sprint race,
which is something they didn't have in Melbourne. It's it's
almost like a preliminary to the big one tonight. Liam
started the back of the back of the grid and
that one as well, and wound his way through past
five or six cars. So that's good.

Speaker 25 (01:44:37):
Can you do the same again tonight? I guess we'll
find out.

Speaker 12 (01:44:40):
OK, he can do it.

Speaker 3 (01:44:41):
No, you can do hard things. We know this about him.
He's just got a You did.

Speaker 25 (01:44:45):
Skim over the Blues Crusaders quite quickly.

Speaker 3 (01:44:47):
I noticed, Yeah, I did. And I'd love to talk
about the all whites Oceana FIFA World Cup qualifying for honor.

Speaker 5 (01:44:52):
It was just it was.

Speaker 8 (01:44:54):
Monday night.

Speaker 3 (01:44:55):
It in pact, tell me about it.

Speaker 26 (01:44:57):
Wait, yeah, they're expecting over thirty maybe thirty five thousand.
The tomorrow night one off game for a place at
the World Cup. You know, the world cast'smen expanded to
forty eighteen so direct in true for the winner of
Oceania New Zealand New Caledonia at seven o'clock tomorrow night.
Should be a great occasion. You will cover that off
this afternoon as well. And of course the sad news
yesterday of the death of George Foreman, box and entrepreneur,

(01:45:19):
you know, man of the people, huge larger than life figure.
Hope to get the chance to chat to boxing promoter
Eddie Hearn about the legacy of George Foreman this afternoon too.

Speaker 3 (01:45:28):
And do you want to cover off the rugby?

Speaker 25 (01:45:30):
Oh no, I will be do don't you.

Speaker 17 (01:45:33):
Don't want to?

Speaker 5 (01:45:34):
Not? No, not now.

Speaker 25 (01:45:34):
I won't inflict it upon you. Just listen after twelve.

Speaker 3 (01:45:37):
Thank you so much, Jason Pine. Weekend Sport Midday. It
is twenty to twelve.

Speaker 1 (01:45:43):
It's the Sunday Session full show podcast on iHeartRadio powered
by News Talks FB.

Speaker 2 (01:45:50):
Travel with Wendy Woo Tours where the world is yours.

Speaker 3 (01:45:53):
For now and joining me now to talk travel. Meghan Singleton,
good morning.

Speaker 8 (01:46:00):
Good morning, Francesca.

Speaker 3 (01:46:01):
So, if our listeners have been listening over the last
couple of weeks, they know, we'll know that you have
been in the US and on this trip you discovered
this wonderful little tip or trick for getting through US.

Speaker 27 (01:46:18):
What is it customs customs? Yeah, yeah, expediting through. Yes,
it's the MPC app. So that sounds for Mobile Passport
Control and it's been around since twenty sixteen for visa
waiver countries. Cannot believe no one's told me about this
before now. And so you download it onto your phone.

(01:46:41):
You fill it in with your passport details and the
airport that you're going to arrive into. Then you do nothing.
You get on the plane, you arrive, you turn your
phone back on and the next screen says are you
here sort of thing? You go yes, You hit the
yes button submit that asks you to take a selfie.
So my husband and I did this in line at

(01:47:03):
Houston Airport. We're like, yep, selfie self So now that
knows that you're on US territory, you've got up to
four hours now to find the MPC line at the customs.
We found it in thirty seconds and we were through
in four minutes. So it's a line for US citizens, Canadians, residents.

(01:47:28):
I think of the US and visa waiver countries amazing,
and that's US, that's US, and it's in fifty one airports,
so it's great for all kiwis like Houston. We'll be
using it in San Francisco, Los Angeles, all the airports
that we go into. You just need to look for
that MPC line and off you go.

Speaker 3 (01:47:48):
Great for transiting that, yeah, because you don't want to
be wasting time. You might just be needing to get
to that next flight, right.

Speaker 27 (01:47:55):
Yeah, Well you've got to clear your bags too, because
when we arrive into you know, US International Airport, you've
got to clear your bags, whether you're whipping down to
Mexico or heading off to New Orleans anyway. So if
you've only got a two hour turnaround, this NPC line
is going to be amazing.

Speaker 3 (01:48:12):
So how long is it time consuming getting it set
up and filling in the information and things.

Speaker 27 (01:48:18):
No, just a few minutes. In fact, I was telling
a lady about it on the plane as we just
after we touched down in Houston.

Speaker 8 (01:48:25):
She didn't know anything about it.

Speaker 27 (01:48:26):
So after we'd touchdown she had Wi Fi reception, she
downloaded it on the spot, put her passport details in.
She was ready to go with her selfie and she
was through with us.

Speaker 3 (01:48:38):
Amazing. And when you head through the line, did this
line that you whip through? What happens in that line?

Speaker 8 (01:48:45):
So it's just the normal line.

Speaker 27 (01:48:47):
So you go up to a customs officer, you have
to maybe have a photo taken. We didn't have to
do our fingerprints, I think because once you've been a
few times, they can do photo ID now. So we
went through normally. But it was just a shorter line
that didn't include its citizens from all around the world.

Speaker 3 (01:49:03):
Okay, And so if you were a first time visitor
to the United States, could be a little bit more complicated,
do you think.

Speaker 27 (01:49:09):
Well, I think you just have to do your fingerprints
as well as your face, right. I don't think first
timers would notice any different. It's just a shorter lane,
like excluding people that aren't from visa waiver countries, which
is all of South America, all of Asia. They're excluded,
you see.

Speaker 8 (01:49:25):
So that's why these lines are a bit shorter.

Speaker 3 (01:49:28):
How good is that always learning, Megan?

Speaker 8 (01:49:31):
Right, that's right.

Speaker 3 (01:49:34):
Anything else that you picked up on this in this
trip that you sort of had a little a har
moment when it came to making travel easier.

Speaker 27 (01:49:43):
Probably wear a mask on the plane so you don't
catch a cold.

Speaker 3 (01:49:47):
Yeah, that's all, as long as that's on the way
home though, Right, that's exactly Megan. Good to talk to you.
You've got all that in a blog up at Blogger
at Large.

Speaker 2 (01:49:59):
I do.

Speaker 27 (01:49:59):
And are we talking to you from Mexico next week?

Speaker 5 (01:50:03):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (01:50:03):
How wonderful. I can't wait a fomo from this travel segment, Megan.
But travels safe and we will talk next week. It
is thirteen to twelve News Talks ab.

Speaker 2 (01:50:18):
Books with Winkles for the best election of great Reads.

Speaker 3 (01:50:23):
Time to talk books now, and I'm joined by Joe McKenzie.
Good morning.

Speaker 5 (01:50:26):
Hello.

Speaker 3 (01:50:27):
I am very excited about the first book that you
have in your hands. This is sitting at my bedside
and I cannot wait to tear into it. It's called
dream State by Eric Pushner.

Speaker 19 (01:50:38):
Yes, it is kind of I guess I could describe
it as a bit of a literary romance. It's the
story of a young woman called Ceci who's about to
get married, and she heads from California down to the
state of Montana, where her fiancees family have a holiday
home and she wants to get married there because that house,
for her, represents everything that she wants in life. So

(01:51:00):
even though all the guest is going to have to
travel some distance, that's where she wants to have the wedding.
And she goes down a week early to get get ready,
and Charlie, the fiance sends his friend around to make
sure that she's got everything that she needs and just
to look out for her and help with anything that
she might need done. His name's Garrett, and he's a
bit of an environmental happy kind of guy who doesn't

(01:51:22):
believe in marriage, and he's got very different values and
life expectations to what Ceci and her fiance have. But
they get married, and very soon after the marriage, she
decides that Charlie is not the man for her and
she leaves her new husband and she runs away with Garrett.
And the novel then takes place over the next fifty

(01:51:43):
years with the next generation and the family and how
the decisions that you make and the way that you
choose to live your life can reverberate for years and
years and years through the family and the impacts that
it can have.

Speaker 3 (01:51:55):
Quite intrigued as to what those impacts are, Well, you know,
if you can't tell him.

Speaker 8 (01:52:00):
I want to read that.

Speaker 3 (01:52:03):
Okay, it's very.

Speaker 19 (01:52:04):
Good, and I will say not only I love it,
but Oprah has picked it up as her latest book
club choice. So there's a recommendation.

Speaker 3 (01:52:11):
There is a recommendation, and everybody will have heard of
it very soon. Tell me about a story of surviving
Gloria Vale Unveiled.

Speaker 19 (01:52:20):
Unveiled is by a young woman who was born into
Gloria Vale and was named Honey Faithful, with the kinds
of names that people in Gloria Vale are given. She
during her early years, and when she was about fourteen,
realized that she did not want to live this way anymore.
She believed that there was another way of being in
the world, and at the age of eighteen, when Gloria

(01:52:42):
Vale asked her to sign what they call the Commitment
to the Community, which is a two thousand word document
which spells out exactly how you need to live within
that community, she refused to sign it, at which point
they essentially evicted her. So at the age of eighteen,
she left with I think two hundred dollars and a
suitcase and was dropped at the bus stop in Graymouth

(01:53:04):
and left of fend for herself. She didn't even know
what a bus stop was. She had nobody in the
outside world, really, except that her mother had had a
very good friend from her own younger days and had
retained the business card of this friend. And this young woman,
Honey Faithful, who changed her name to Theophila Pratt, which

(01:53:26):
is the name under which he's written this book. She
got in touch with this friend of her mother's, a
woman called Keitha who lived in Auckland, and she got
on a plane and she came to Auckland, and she
thought Grandmouth was quite big, but she got to Auckland
and she had never seen anything like it. And she's
remade her life. But she has a lot to say
about Gloria Vale. And I will say there have been

(01:53:46):
other books, have been documentaries. This is not the first
time that we've had this information. But personally, I think
it's a really good timely reminder about exactly what is
still going on down in that community and the impact
that it has on so many lives. It's an extraordinary story.
She tells it really, really well. At the end she

(01:54:07):
has a listing of something like sixteen of the men
in the community who have been convicted on charges of
interfering with miners, all that kind of awful stuff. She
tells it well, and it's I think salutary and well
worth remembering that this is going on.

Speaker 3 (01:54:22):
An incredibly brave story. Very the book was called Unveiled,
and the other book we spoke about was dream State
by Eric Pushner.

Speaker 1 (01:54:30):
The Sunday Session Full Show podcast on my Heart Radio
powered by News TALKSB.

Speaker 3 (01:54:37):
Thank you for your text throughout the morning. I've just
had one that says, wow, that is an amazing tip.
Just talking about Megan and the fast way to get
through customs in the US. We're going we're going via
the lax in three weeks time to England and we're
dreading the transit peace. So look download that, get yourself
organized happy. We could help the old parsnip is, you know,

(01:54:59):
created quite a bit of feedback this morning as well.
Muzz doesn't really like but parsnips, he says, but is
it so market buying some now because Mike's recipe sounded
so good. Don't forget that. You can find everything that
took place on the show today from our recipes and
interviews and everything else online Newstalk zb dot co dot

(01:55:20):
nz Ford slash Sunday. So thank you for your feedback today.
Hang next week on the show, another crack of a
show for you. Amanda Knox is with us now you'll
remember back in two thousand and nine she was convicted
for the murder of her British roommate in Italy. She
spent four years in an Italian prism, then she was exonerated.
She has now opened up about the trial, her four

(01:55:42):
years in the Italian prism, and what reclaiming her life
on the outside has really been like. She's written a
new book, it's called Freeze. As she is going to
be with us and also the absolutely gorgeous Rebecca Gidney
is with us to talk about her fabulous new New
Zealand TV show it's called Happiness. Thank you A Kerrie
for producing the show today. Jason Pine is up next

(01:56:03):
with Weekend Sport. Enjoy the rest of your Sunday. Can expat.

Speaker 22 (01:56:08):
Do the same to do somebody? If you'll never believe
anything stop me so welcome, holcome dot Car help me.

(01:56:30):
Welcome Aco. You know, don't know how, Doc Cary.

Speaker 6 (01:56:36):
Well me Now.

Speaker 1 (01:56:55):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live to News Talks it Be from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio

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