Full Show Podcast: 31 August 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.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
EDB.

Speaker 1 (00:13):
Welcome to the Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin and Wiggles
for the best selection of great reads used Talks EDB.

Speaker 3 (00:28):
Welcome to the Sunday Session. I'm forran Chesca Budkin. It's
good to be back after a break for the All
Blacks Argentina Games. Hope you've had a good couple of weeks.
Got a great show lined up for you. Did you
know that New Zealand is the capital of Reacher madness?
And I'm talking about the Jack REACHERR. Books written by
Lee Child. Lee thanks even the sheep by his books
in New Zealand. Anyway, after writing over twenty books, and

(00:49):
Lee retired and handed over the reins to his brother Andrew.
But maybe, just maybe he isn't done with Reacher just yet.
Lee Child is with me. After ten After eleven, Indie
Kiwi band The Bests are in the studio. Their fourth
studio album, Straight Line Where a Lie, was released on Friday.
It's a fabulous album and while it's got the normal

(01:11):
bet swagger to it, there are some surprisingly gentle beautiful
songs on this album too. Lead singer Liz Stokes and
guitarist Jonathan Pierce joined me in the studio to talk
about where these songs came from. And of course, as always,
you're most welcome to text me ninety two ninety two.

Speaker 4 (01:27):
For Sunday session.

Speaker 3 (01:31):
So while we were on a break, I went to
Christchurch to see my son for his nineteenth birthday. It
was a fleeting visit. I flew down on a Friday
morning home on a Saturday evening, but my goodness, christ
Church turned it on. The weather was stunning. The view
of the Alps made you want to drop everything and
run for the slopes. People were out and about the

(01:53):
city was humming. Friday lunchtime around Oxford Terrace and Casual
Street was bustling, but in a relaxed way. There were
wonderful new precincts filled with interesting shops and eateries to
explore new architectural landmarks. Eating was my son's first priority,
and once that was taken care of, we spent the
day's cruising secondhand book and vinyl shops from central City

(02:16):
to glistening Littleton. I can't say what it's like to
live in christ Church to Bueno. I can't begin to
imagine what it's been like living through the rebuild, and
there's clearly still plenty of recovery work to be completed.
But from a visitor's point of view, it felt alive
and thriving and positive. My urban driver told me tourism

(02:37):
was starting to build again, and I can see why.
My few days on the mainland were a stark contrast
to my journey into Auckland's city center yesterday. Now, look,
I'm a very proud Orkander and I have pushed back
at the complaints about central Auckland. I enjoy shopping and
going to events in the city, but goodness, it's hard sometimes.

(02:57):
Yesterday we attended the University of Auckland's open day. The
campus was really busy. It was very uplifting and exciting
actually to see so many young people on the cusp
of new adventures. But all that positivity was drained from
us when we went to head home. We'd parked in
Victoria Street car park in the heart of the city.
When it came to leave at twelve oh five. We

(03:19):
think someone forgot to put the car park full sign out,
so cars kept flooding in and with only one lane
taking cars both up and down the full car park building,
traffic came to a grinding halt, stuck on level thirteen.
We didn't move for forty minutes. Finally, around one pm
we exited the building. Now, look, there may have been

(03:40):
another reason, maybe a technical glitch somewhere, But when I
asked the at man who was directing traffic, I was
sternly instructed to move on. I suspect he had copped
a bit of abuse from a lot of angry customers
and was under a bit of preciure. So we shall
forgive him for his abrupt manner. But here's the crazy thing.
The parking cost us two dollars fifty How good would
that have been if we could have exited the building.

(04:02):
But it seems finding affordable and efficient car parking and
access to the city when events are on is becoming harder.
These kind of issues are unhelpful for a city center
with a reputational problem, nor does it motivate people to
come back. We don't know exactly what impact the CRL
will have on moving people around the city when it
opens next years, but finers crossed it helps a lot.

(04:24):
Auckland does deserve a thriving in a city which makes
us feel invigorated rather than frustrated. Yesterday we sorted out
my daughter's degree and her future in a shorter period
of time than it took us to get out of
a car park building. Now that's just nuts.

Speaker 4 (04:42):
So the Sunday session.

Speaker 3 (04:45):
All right, So how do we get Auckland to feel
as sort of exciting and vibrant and positive as christ chured?
But is the rest of the country moving ahead faster
than Auckland? You know, do smaller cities do you think
have more to offer? Keen to hear from you? Text
ninety two ninety two you're with News Talks B it
is eleven parst Grab Recover.

Speaker 1 (05:08):
It's the Sunday Session with Francesca Rudgin and Wiggles for
the best selection of great rings used talks.

Speaker 4 (05:14):
That'd be.

Speaker 5 (05:16):
So.

Speaker 3 (05:16):
Almost three New Zealanders die from preventable drug overdoses every
week the context. That is twice the number of people
that die from drowning. These figures have been released in
a New Zealand Drug Foundation report this morning, and the
report shows concerning increases and overdoses from the likes of
mes and cocaine. Joining me now is New Zealand Drug
Foundation Executive director Sarah Holm. Thanks for your time this morning, Sarah,

(05:38):
good morning.

Speaker 6 (05:40):
Good morning.

Speaker 3 (05:40):
What kind of increases are we seeing?

Speaker 6 (05:44):
Yeah, really a concerning increase among those stimulant fatalities, as
you've just said, so we've seen essentially a doubling and
the number of stimulant related fatalities in the last couple
of years. That lines up, unfortunately, with the increase in
consumption we've had of drugs like methampeda, melan co okay,

(06:07):
and yeah, really troubling.

Speaker 3 (06:09):
Do we know why we're consuming more drugs?

Speaker 6 (06:14):
Well, that's it's a long story, I think, but essentially
we have no control over what comes into the country
aside from policing and border seizures. The prices come down
over the last five years offmphetamine in particular, perhaps the
more sophisticated sales technic techniques in the illicit crime market,

(06:35):
compounded by some social and economic struggles for people.

Speaker 3 (06:42):
Were you surprised to buy the figures and that there's
an increase in harm or an overdose? Were you expecting that?

Speaker 6 (06:49):
Yeah, in a way, no, completely expected, But in another way,
of course, it is alarming and surprising because we just
don't want to see it. So it's a very concerning
overall picture that we're losing so many New Zealanders to
aventable overdose and we have very little, little in place

(07:11):
to prevent overdose in New Zealand. So we can to
ramp up some measures.

Speaker 3 (07:16):
I mentioned in the introduction the comparison to drowning, because
we hear a lot about drowning, Sarah, but we don't
seem to hear a lot about overdoses. That's a large figure.

Speaker 1 (07:26):
Yeah, I know.

Speaker 6 (07:26):
I was taking a local walk actually and admiring our
new surf club that's being built, and I'm very proud
of our local surf club and all of the interventions,
but there is so little put in place for overdose prevention,
and these people's lives really matter as well. You know,
we know people who have lost their kids to prevent

(07:51):
BELE overdose, and to see so little put into preventing
their deaths just is really not how I think New
Zealanders want to be. I don't think we want to
end up like America in North America, where there have
been you know, hundreds of thousands of overdose fatalities. We

(08:12):
really need to put some measures in place.

Speaker 3 (08:15):
So what do we need to do, Sarah.

Speaker 6 (08:17):
Yeah, so we're calling for I mean, we don't really
even have an overdose plan in New Zealand at all.
There has been some work underway on one, but we
would really like to see a comprehensive overdose prevention plan.
We've actually drafted one. We're really happy for the government
to borrow from it. We also need to see one
of the reasons that people you can imagine you might

(08:39):
get criminalized so you delay calling or you don't call
it all for help. Imagine that's your kids and their
friends aren't for help. We want to see a good
samaron and provision put in place that would prevent criminalization
for things like use or possession so that people call.

(09:03):
And we do think there have been some positive impacts
of measures that have been put in place recently, because
we've seen a small decline in opuoid fatalities, the increased
availabilability of the lock zone, even though we need more
of that, an increased awareness we think may have made
a positive impact so it is possible to prevent these deaths.

Speaker 3 (09:26):
Sarah, you know, I think we've all heard of coke
and mes and things. But there's also a note about
the report also highlights deaths from some other novel substances
which I'm not familiar with. Can you tell us a
little bit about those?

Speaker 6 (09:41):
Yeah, we have, you know, I think in a sense
people might have got the impression from reports on drug
checking and new substances that are causing fatilities or of concern.
We have had a really alarming increase in the last
five years or so of new psychoactive substances globally. This

(10:04):
is true domestically, this is true in One of the
very concerning substances that have shown up for the first
time in this report is a group of opioids called knitizines.
They're more potent and ventanyl. We have known that these
were in the community and that we'd experienced debts, but
this is the first time that we've been able to

(10:25):
confirm it in this report.

Speaker 3 (10:28):
Where are they coming from?

Speaker 6 (10:30):
Do we know largely from the Americas, But yeah, these
new psychoactive substances, so nitazines in particular, might be coming
from the Americas, but new psychoactive substances are coming from
all of our traditional drug supply roots.

Speaker 3 (10:48):
Overdosing, what is causing it. Is it too much of
a drug or is it more mixing drugs? Is it
mixing drugs with alcohol? Do we have much information on that?

Speaker 6 (10:57):
Yeah, really really good question. It is caused by both
really so very commonly an overdose the person has more
than one thing in their body. The other things in
their body could be medication, could be alcohol, could just
be multiple things that somebody has been offered.

Speaker 7 (11:17):
In a night.

Speaker 6 (11:18):
For example, the more things you have putting pressure on
your body, the more likely it is to start to
shut down. Particularly two depressants, and remembering that alcohol medications
like benzo da as apens day as a PAM, etc. Depressants.

Speaker 3 (11:37):
Sir Helm, thanks so much for talking us through that
this morning. Very much appreciated.

Speaker 4 (11:44):
The Sunday session.

Speaker 3 (11:46):
Right Donald Trump's vowing to fight the ruling that many
of his imposed trade tariffs are illegal. The US Court
of Appeals has ruled Trump went too far when he
declared national emergencies to impose the sweeping import tariffs, so
the tariffs remain in place until mid October to allow
Supreme Court appeal. So what does this all mean and
what happens if the Supreme Court upholds this ruling. Waikato

(12:09):
University international law expert ALDERLETTESPI is with me now.

Speaker 8 (12:12):
Good morning, l Good morning Francesca.

Speaker 3 (12:15):
Did you expect this from the appeals court?

Speaker 8 (12:19):
In part?

Speaker 9 (12:19):
I did?

Speaker 8 (12:20):
At base. You've got a problem that the Americans divide
their law very clearly, and it's to Congress, which can
set taxes in tariffs. But mister Trump, as he often does,
has found an older law that allows him to have
times of national emergency where he can do certain economic measures.
That law from nineteen seventy seven allows him to do

(12:43):
in times of national emergency, which he declares certain acts
which he thinks are necessary for the country. So in
the past other presidents have used it to sort of
like say, seize the assets of the Taliban after the
attack in two thousand and one. Mister Trump's gone further.
He's tried to say that the trade and balance is
a national emergency. Therefore he concept tariffs. That's not in

(13:03):
the law and its contrary to the Constitution. So I'm
not surprised it's happened.

Speaker 3 (13:08):
So what does this mean for his overall economic plan?
I mean, it's been said to be this is the
biggest blow sure as tariff and economic plan to date
so far.

Speaker 8 (13:20):
I think what it means if the Supreme Court upholds it,
and that's a fifty to fifty question right now, that
it would be chaos for America because everything that has
been achieved would have to be undone, or the negotiation
through on the new trade deals would stop, and countries
even ask for compensation for what they've already lost.

Speaker 3 (13:39):
So Trump is going to appeal. Do you think there's
any chance they'll rule in his favor?

Speaker 8 (13:44):
Well, it's at the Supreme Court, and although he has
a balance that favors him in terms of the conservative judges,
they're still independent people and American judges will still see
the value of the Constitution more than the value of
the president, and that's the correct way to approach it.
So I wouldn't say it's as certain that he will

(14:06):
win this as previous cases, because the Constitution's very clear.
It's Congress that has these powers, the tariffs and taxes,
and mister Trump has taken over those powers, you know,
for his own purposes, but you know, in his mind
for the good of the country. But it's questionable, it's
a fair question whether he has the authority to do that.

Speaker 3 (14:25):
What would he need to do to keep the tariffs
in place? Can you see an out for him? Can
you see his argument here to keep them in place?

Speaker 8 (14:33):
I think he's going to argue that it is a
national emergency, which is self declared by the President, and
that the threat was overwhelming and there was no alternative
and he had to act. But the challenge he's got
is that the language of the nineteen seventy seven Act,
which allows the National Emergency designation, does not mention tariffs.

(14:55):
And so he's got to argue for an extension of
the law so that he can get what he wants.
If it fails, it will be very problematic, but for
America but not for the rest the international community.

Speaker 3 (15:07):
So, yeah, what will it mean? I mean, what rights
of the countries that have had TERRFF slept you know
on them, have What could they do against Trump in America?
Or is it as simple as Okay, the tariffs are
gone and we're back to normal. I mean, where do
you go from here?

Speaker 8 (15:21):
Well, like every day with mister trumpets uncertainty. Yeah, and
so it's not really clear what will happen. It's possible
that he could try to get Congress together so to
actually get the tariffs approved through Congress under his own
kind of urgency, or he may try to just reboot
the process, or it could just completely go to chaos

(15:43):
and everything falls apart because a lot of countries, including
their own, have invested a lot of time and good
faith effort trying to negotiate implicate the United States as
it these measures. But if it's the American Supreme Court
which stops them, it means that a lot of that
effort has been wasted and people will say, well, we
want conversation with what we've just spent on that, So.

Speaker 3 (16:04):
That could be an issue, but essentially probably the trade
deals would just revert back to what they were.

Speaker 8 (16:10):
Yeah, I think that that's the fear, yeah, and the
trade deals and the lack of tariffs and so. But
we won't know until the Supreme Court rules on this,
which I think will also be under urgency, and that
will be buy in the middle of October, so it'll
happen quite quickly. But it's by no means certain that
he will win on this.

Speaker 3 (16:29):
It's a bit of a mess, isn't it. L I mean,
it's very tough for people who have just made a
whole of adjustments to deal with the new tariffs and
things sitting here. I mean, I suppose you just put
one foot in front of the other and keep going.
You know, as usually at the moment, don't you.

Speaker 8 (16:42):
Yeah, You've got to just and trust the process. And
part of the problem here is that the overall uncertainty
intersystem is bad for the economy, and so you want
stability so that countries and companies and individuals can invest
and rely on existing established treaties and deals which have
been negotiatid over generations. But mister Trump sees international rules

(17:05):
very differently, and so it's not just with regards to
this area of trade. You can also set in the
area of security, where he thinks more politics than law,
and so he's willing to negotiate things that others would
not have previously touched.

Speaker 3 (17:20):
I was going to ask you whether you think this
is likely to have an impact on the way he's operating,
because it would be fair to say that he is
pushing some boundaries, operating on a fine line when it
comes to the law.

Speaker 8 (17:29):
I think if he fails at the Supreme Court, he
won't surrender. He will find another route to achieve his goal.
He'll probably find some other law in the way that
mister Trump has some of the best legal scholars in
minds and historians around him. They're excellent at digging up
old laws and exceptions and men trying to stretch them
to a new situation. It's not illegal, but it's certainly innovative.

(17:51):
And I imagine that will continue if he fails at
the Supreme Court. I can't see him saying, well, that's
it will now start.

Speaker 3 (17:57):
As uncertain and inconvenience. Is is all, Lizil, Do you find
it quite interesting?

Speaker 10 (18:03):
Well?

Speaker 8 (18:04):
I do international law, and so it's every day is interesting.

Speaker 10 (18:08):
But it's just.

Speaker 8 (18:10):
Continual, like whether you're talking about Ukraine or Europe, or
trade or climate change. He has created a lot of
uncertainty and challenge, sometimes for the group, sometimes for the negative.
But each day is different, and you almost say, just
turn on the news each show to see what change
has happened overnight.

Speaker 3 (18:29):
Love you to talk to you Il, just really quickly
you introduced think this will be all wrapped up by October?

Speaker 8 (18:33):
Do you think end of October that's the time that
the Appeals Court is given for it to be resolved,
and so it'll get to the Supreme Court quite quickly,
and I imagine there'll be a decision under urgency, so
hopefully we'll know what's happening by October. But for all
those key weis involved, I'd just say, as you suggested,
just one foot in front of the other and just

(18:54):
hope that good sense prevails.

Speaker 3 (18:56):
El Gillespie, always good to talk to you. Thank you
so much, El, as the Waikuta University International law expert.
Keen to hear from you. If you have just gone
through the process of adapting to the new tarifs and things,
how do you feel hearing this news? Is it potentially
sort of good news, you know? Or are you just
not really paying a huge amount attention to it and
getting on with it? Ninety two ninety two is the

(19:19):
text thank you for the text I received one saying Hi, Franchesca.
I recently spent a few days in christ Church. I
loved the positive, relaxed vibe, all the lovely outdoor places,
plus the ability of traffic and people to move around
freely except on Hollesville Street. Show me christ which is
a city for its people? Orcan does without consent consultation?
Have had that taken away? Or can no longer feels

(19:39):
like a positive place for its people. As someone living
in Auckland since the seventies, I find this so sad.
Thank if your text, Kathy, you can keep them coming.
Ninety two ninety two. It's twenty nine past nine.

Speaker 1 (19:54):
It's the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin on News Talks.

Speaker 4 (19:58):
At b.

Speaker 11 (20:00):
All.

Speaker 3 (20:00):
Right, time to talk local politics now and I'm joined
by New Zealand Herald political reporter Jamie ens All.

Speaker 5 (20:05):
Good morning, Jamie, good morning, how are you good?

Speaker 3 (20:07):
Thank you? So the taxpayer has had to stump up
seventy thousand dollars for the likes of Jinder Adirn and
Chrishipkins to get legal advice as part of this COVID inquiry.
Should we be outraged or is this just normal procedure?

Speaker 5 (20:20):
Yes, a long story short, it is pretty normal. But
I think in this case Kiwis will be interested to
know the costs. You know, this has been a very
high profile case and there was some polling showing New
Zealanders disagreed with the former minister's decisions not to voluntarily
appear publicly before the Royal Commission. But it is very routine,
you know, former ministers are indemnified for the actions that

(20:42):
they take during their time in office. It's also something
that has to be approved by whoever is in power
at the time, so the current Attorney General would have
had to have given the green light to these illegal
expenses being paid for. So there was about seventy one
thousand dollars spent on Jesindra Adurn, Chris Hopkins, Grant Robertson
and as Shavero and the illegal representation. There's also about
three hundred and sixty thousand dollars on legal expenses for

(21:05):
Crown Law and Vice to Government departments. Now, a spokesperson
for Dames Jasinda Ardun did send me a statement and
it made the point that there was the current government
that set up this inquiry and set the terms for it,
and she tried to use the same legal representatives as
others to keep those legal costs down. And as I said,
there have been other cases in the past. You know,

(21:26):
you think back to speak a Triuba Mallard in twenty
twenty two, he trespassed Winston Peters from Parliament and there's
a bit of a legal fight about that and that
cost us about fifty thousand dollars in legal fees. So
there have been other instances like this.

Speaker 3 (21:38):
I think Winston Peters sued David Carter at one point
too as well, which I think and I think Nick Smith,
I mean, I can think of a few instances.

Speaker 5 (21:47):
Paula Bennett and Antolin was caught up in one of
Winston Peters supreannuation cases.

Speaker 3 (21:51):
Yes, maybe, okay, won't say word there. Moving on, the
Australian Intelligence Service revealed this week that they have concluded
that the Iranian regimes the Revolutionary Guard has funded and
directed at least two anti Semitic attacks on Ossie soil
order the Iranian ambassador out of the country. What was
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peter's response, Is this a concern

(22:12):
for us? Do we have any reason to follow suit?

Speaker 5 (22:15):
So our government's been fairly strong in condemning Iran's actions,
saying that state sponsored attacks like this design to so
discorder are completely unacceptable. So, at least in terms of rhetoric,
the government's been very strong in condemning this sort of thing.
But we yet to see any tangible steps taken in response.
You know, Prime Minister Christoph Luxan on Friday appeared to

(22:36):
suggest it was probably unlikely that the Iranian ambassador to
New Zealand would be expelled. You think back to twenty
twenty two when Russia invaded Ukraine. We didn't expel the
Russian ambassador then because we wanted to keep those avenues
of dialogue open, and it seems like a similar view
is being taken with this situation. A senior official at

(22:56):
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs did go and speak with
the Ambassador of Iran this week and made very clear
that these actions were very serious and we're to be
condemned in the strongest terms. In terms of designating the
Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist group like Australia is
seeking to do, Primester, Crystal Bluckxen says that's a pretty
complex process, but he has asked for some advice on it,

(23:18):
and he did note that earlier this term he did
designate her mass as a terrorist organization.

Speaker 3 (23:24):
Jamie, I know that you have been all over the
new business investor visa which was announced this week. What
did you think of the categories and the money criteria.

Speaker 5 (23:33):
Yeah, certainly bringing the threshold down a little bit more.
But the important thing with this particular visa that's been
announced this week is it's looking to create investments into
existing businesses. You know, some business owners are looking to
retire or looking to sell off. But because there's not
you know, maybe the capital here in New Zealand for
others to buy into those businesses, we do have to
look offshore. But the big conversation that all these different

(23:56):
types of investor visas that the government has announced or
made twext to, the big conversation that is sparking is about,
you know, foreigner's ability to buy property here. That's seen
as a big baronet barrier to foreigners coming to New Zealand,
and it's pretty hard to buy properly unless you're a
citizen or a resident of New Zealand. But we are
expecting an announcement on that very shortly, potentially within the

(24:17):
next few days. And there is thoughts that some of
those rules are going to be listened to make New
Zealand more attractive to those rich investors offshore.

Speaker 3 (24:25):
Oh, would be good to get this out. I'm sort
of sick and tired of us having to ask for
this information. Hey, thank you so much, Jamie. Always good
to catch up with you. That was Jamie Ensaw New
Zealand Herald political reporter. Don't forget that Lee Child was
with me after ten. If you are a Reacher fan,
He's got plenty of behind the season, behind the scenes
information about the writing of these books for us. So

(24:47):
he is with me just after ten. Alice Soper is
in the UK for the Women's Rugby World Cup. Very
exciting game this morning she is with us next it
is twenty three to ten.

Speaker 1 (24:57):
The Sunday Session Full Show podcast on iHeartRadio powered by
News talksb.

Speaker 12 (25:04):
Right.

Speaker 3 (25:04):
The Women's Rugby World Cup is into round two in England.
A little over an hour ago, the biggest match of
the round wrapped up with the thirty one all draw
between Australia and the US. The Black Fans face Japan
in their second Cup match tomorrow morning. Alie Soper is
in England for the cap. She joins me, now, good morning, Alice.

Speaker 7 (25:22):
Well good evening from me. But yeah, well we what
a weekend it's been so far.

Speaker 3 (25:27):
Australia versus the uisay thirty one all draw. What did
you make of the match?

Speaker 13 (25:33):
I mean it was everything that you hope these type
of matches are.

Speaker 7 (25:37):
It was the total arm wrestler.

Speaker 13 (25:38):
Things went back and forth and back again, and then
the final moments ended up with bizarre kicks from both teams,
so you know, it then just sets up everything gorgeously
for the final match next week, where both teams unfortunately
now are in that horrible position where you have to
worry about not just your own score but other people's.
So yes, very fun as a kind of mutual third.

Speaker 7 (25:59):
Party to observe that one.

Speaker 13 (26:01):
I don't know if I would be quite so excited
about it if I had if it had been the
Black friends of that position, but yeah, I think if
you were got to see any of it, Yeah, just
a lot of fun to see the two teams go
tip for tat.

Speaker 3 (26:14):
Talk me through the tournament so far? What's it like
over there?

Speaker 7 (26:19):
Oh? I mean, we knew that this one was going
to be huge.

Speaker 13 (26:22):
We had seen that, you know, before even a minute
had cacked off, we had more than doubled the attendance,
you know, the ticket sales that we'd had if you
put it in context right, The last time England hosted
this tournament was in twenty ten. At that time they
had sold thirty thousand tickets total to the tournament, and

(26:43):
now it's over four hundred thousand that have been sold
for this one. It's just the rapid pace of growth
is unreal that it's landing here at this time in
a country that has been a lot of time developing
its women's rugby audience, you know, with its investment in
the domestic competition that's been up now for almost a decade.
Like this is all kind of all the pieces are

(27:04):
in place now to kind of just click in and
become something really quite special. And I have to say
I think that the English fans, you know, the locals,
have been fantastic about receiving it. It's been so cool
to hear people in full voice.

Speaker 7 (27:17):
And not just you know, cheering for England.

Speaker 13 (27:19):
We had fantastic support for the likes of Samoa, for Fiji,
you know, everybody getting in behind all of these different teams.

Speaker 7 (27:26):
It's just been it's been a joy to witness, Alice.

Speaker 3 (27:29):
I've been reading that a lot of the fans are
new fans and young fans to rugby.

Speaker 13 (27:36):
Yeah, well, I mean we saw this pattern emerge in
our own World Cup. I think it was something like
seventy nine percent of those that attended the last World
Cup final had never attended a rugby game before, and
so this is you know, consistent with that.

Speaker 7 (27:48):
Right. The reality is is.

Speaker 13 (27:50):
That women's rugby offers a relational reset for the game
of rugby union with its population. It is something new,
it is something different. It does bring with it different audiences,
but also like different engagement.

Speaker 7 (28:03):
With those audiences.

Speaker 13 (28:04):
I think, you know, one of the big things I've
said and at this tournament is everything off it. You know,
we've got more access behind the scenes with all the
different players showing you their perspectives of the tournament than
ever before. The use of social media is just a
you are overwhelmed with content that you can consume. It's
just fantastic. But yes, been seeing a lot of young

(28:26):
families in the crowd and you know, girls and boys
and you know, dads and daughters and moms and sons.
You know, it's been gorgeous to see all the mix
of people getting in getting it cited. And we had
that research that came out just before the tournament that
said in the women's game and our fan base, forty
one percent of our fans don't actually have like a team,

(28:47):
you know, we don't have club teams, we don't have
that tribal you know, lines that you might experience in
the men's game. We're just there to support women's rugby.
And I just think that that's been something that's been
carried over into how everyone has received these teams over
the last week.

Speaker 3 (29:01):
That alice, not all the games have been crackers like
this morning. A fair few one sided matches so far.
I mean, that's to be expected in paul play. But
is it a bit of a problem or do you
think that will change other time?

Speaker 7 (29:13):
I mean, we had this in the men's World Cup.

Speaker 13 (29:14):
This is just what happens in World Cups because you
you know, very very rarely do you end up giving
the opportunity for you know, a sixteenth ranked team in
the world to play a first ranked team, you know,
and that's that's the excitement, and also the lopsidedness of
the context. And I think it's you know, I always
challenge too. I tend to find there's a bit of

(29:35):
a trend when it comes between the way that this
plays out in men's sports versus women's sports. I often
see true are people that will, you know, they'll focus
on the dominance in a men's game. They'll say, oh,
that was a completely dominant performance by this team, whereas
in the women's game we're quick to say, oh, that's
a sign of weakness, where really, yeah, like I say,
this is you know, opening round.

Speaker 7 (29:54):
I don't think there was a single one of.

Speaker 13 (29:55):
Those school lines that surprised me as someone that you
know follows it as religiously as I do. I think
maybe with the exception of Scotland really getting their revenge
on Wales, other than that they would pretty consistent with
the world rankings as they are currently.

Speaker 3 (30:09):
Alice, Let's talk about Porscha Woodman Wickliffe. She is on
the verge of a pretty impressive record. She's currently scored
forty nine tries and twenty nine tests. One more would
make her New Zealand New Zealand Rugby's all time leading
tri scorer. She's currently tied with Doug Hawlett. How good
is she?

Speaker 13 (30:28):
I mean once in a generational player, right, because it's
the combination of being the all round skill shit is
set that she has, right, She's got all of that talent.
She can run, she can just you know, side step,
run over, you run around, you do everything. But also
coming to her full apex of power at the same
time as our game was emerging. When you have moments

(30:50):
like this, when you need, you know, a character for
people to latch on and really get them behind. She
was that gateway for so many New Zealanders to really
look in and see women's rugby, and so she has
been a fantastic ambassador in a moment when I sport
needed one.

Speaker 7 (31:06):
I couldn't have asked for a better one.

Speaker 13 (31:07):
And so to have her come out of retirement, oh
what a joy that was.

Speaker 7 (31:11):
After what Sugar and super ragby Opeki round one. We
were begging for it because there's no way she was done.

Speaker 13 (31:18):
So it's just so exciting to have her back, to
have her on the field for it, and to be
able to yeah, break yet another record.

Speaker 7 (31:24):
I mean, how many of them does she have?

Speaker 3 (31:26):
Lead I'm confident she's going to break that record tomorrow.
Of course, the Black fans are playing Japan. What can
we expect from the game, do you think, Well, look.

Speaker 7 (31:34):
Japan is an interesting team.

Speaker 13 (31:36):
I mean, I think they're probably a great example for
people to think about lop sided scores right because they
have been one that in the past, they have experienced
quite heavy defeats both teams, but they've been closing that
gap and have been getting better and better all the time.
They've got fantastic set piece. We should expect a fast
style of play, not dissimilar to their men. They tend

(31:57):
to try and keep the ball up quite a bit.
They don't want to get stuck in the meat in
the middle. But it will be you know, look, we
should expect that this is a a strong performance from
New Zealand against Japan. It's interesting that they have names
probably closer to the team that we will expect to
be named when it comes to the knockouts. Whereas last week,

(32:19):
you know, we had quite a few of our finishes
in the starting line up. This week it's a lot
more settled, so I think we will, you know, should
see there be quite a strong performance straight out the gate,
and then it will be interesting to see whether or
not the coaches use this opportunity to kind of continue
to spread those minutes around the squad and build up
that development, and be very interesting to see when Renee

(32:41):
Holmes comes on where they end up putting her.

Speaker 3 (32:45):
Alie Soper, thanks so much for your time and enjoy
the game in the morning.

Speaker 7 (32:48):
Oh I sure, well, I can't wait to be there.
Being really loud and cheering them on.

Speaker 3 (32:53):
That was Alis Soper from the Women's Rugby World capin
if you'd like to chair on the Black Ferns tomorrow morning.
The match kicks off at one a m. New Zealand time.
It is twelve to ten New STI b putting.

Speaker 1 (33:07):
The tough questions to the newspakers the mic asking breakfast
in New Zealand.

Speaker 14 (33:11):
Who came to the company results party yesterday with one
hundred and twenty six million net profit which is down
to thirteen point seven percent. There is a five percent
increase in the affairs coming as well. Greg Furan is
of course the chief executive. A great question around the economy.
Do you see the pick up?

Speaker 15 (33:24):
It will happen, I would say to you, just at
the moment, it's still pretty hard going. Government passenger numbers
are down ten percent, corporate numbers are down five percent
on same time last year.

Speaker 4 (33:33):
But that will change.

Speaker 15 (33:34):
I'd hope that by now it would be picking up,
as I'm sure everyone did.

Speaker 2 (33:38):
But it isn't.

Speaker 4 (33:38):
But it isn't just yet.

Speaker 14 (33:39):
And you've written off the rest of the year, haven't
you not completely?

Speaker 15 (33:42):
But you're not Bullets going to be certainly for us
through to Christmas.

Speaker 14 (33:45):
Back tomorrow at six am the Mic Hosking Breakfast with
Rain Drover News talk zby.

Speaker 1 (33:51):
Sunday with Style The Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin and Wiggles.

Speaker 4 (33:56):
For the best selection of Greg Reeds, here is talk zebby.

Speaker 16 (34:07):
Sat Well.

Speaker 3 (34:18):
It might be one of your wildest dreams to have
an engagement ring like Taylor Swift. Michael Hill Jeweler is
capitalizing on the global hype around the recent engagement news
of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelcey. They've released a look
alike ring for fans.

Speaker 7 (34:35):
Now.

Speaker 3 (34:36):
It is thought that Travis might have spent between two
hundred and fifty and five hundred thousand UIs dollars on
Taylor's ring. I just can't imagine having that kind of
amount of money on my finger. I'm not old enough
and responsible enough to look after it. I'd lose, I'd
take it off to do something right and just leave
it the I'm just I just couldn't anyway. Michael Hill

(34:56):
Jeweler is offering you something similar. He's crafted a fourteen
carrot yellow gold, or he's got a two carrot in five.
There's a two carrot in five carrots sizes as you
can clean. As you clearly realize, I'm not a diamond person.
I do not have a lot of expensive jewelry. I
don't know what I'm talking about, but price between about
twelve and a half thousand or forty one thousand still

(35:19):
far too much for me to be responsible for. But look,
there we go. If that's your kind of thing. Thank
you for the texts. Francesca as a long term tour
guide over thirty years in New Zealand based in Auckland.
I fully agree that the vibrancy of christ Church, particularly
in the last year, has been remarkable, now that many
of the major post earthquake projects have been completed. It
has a great restaurant scene, the Riverside market hums during

(35:41):
the day that was really cool. I love that, and
even just to walk around in the evening there was
so much going on. The only blot is the cathedral,
and it's interesting you mentioned that I stood in front
of it very early in the morning. I went for
about an hour's walk around the city very early on
the Saturday morning, and I did stand in front of
the cathedral for a while, and I did think it

(36:02):
needs to go anyway, back to the text. As for Auckland,
I'm now embarrassed to send people down Queen Street, particularly
shabby businesses closed at least the viaduct harbor hums, and
I'll usually suggest clients to take the theory to Devenport
when they've got free time. After all, Auckland's main asset
is the whole act golf. Thank you for your text, Neil.
Another one here talking about the drugs and the overdose.

(36:24):
Have just listened to your interview with the drug lady.
Maybe the best preventative help would be advertising. And if
you take these types of drugs there is a high
risk of dying. It should be broadcast on news bulletins
that another death has occurred from taking drugs. I've often thought,
with so many people taking these drugs, you never hear
of people dying, But alas they do dal in theory
it needs advertising, not helped by funding. Thank you very much.

(36:46):
And finally one from Hayden, good morning. I think Hipkins
is really stuffed up, not taking not talking publicly for
the inquiry. What's he got to hide? Why did an
need a lawyer? The media, excluding news talk would be
making way way way where moror of this if it
was nationally, MP's refusing to talk. Aderna is a disgraced,
most open and honest government no one, so many of us.

Speaker 17 (37:07):
Do not like her.

Speaker 3 (37:09):
It is six to ten. Always appreciate your texts. He
can keep them coming throughout the morning. On ninety two,
ninety two, the.

Speaker 1 (37:17):
Sunday Session Full Show podcast on iHeartRadio powered by News
talksblrighty ho.

Speaker 3 (37:27):
This is Benny. We're playing a little bit of Bennie.
She's released a new singer it's called Cinnamon. She released
it on Friday. She's going to have a new album
out in November, so that is very exciting. But look also,
if you are a Jack Reacher fan, then Lee Child
has a new book out. You're going to love it.
It's called Reacher, and it is a trus trove of
information for fans about each of the books he's written,

(37:47):
where he was, what was going through his mind, how
he came up with the ideas, how we crafted the story,
and the decisions that he made. He also discusses the
decisions he had with his publishers. Deciding on a time
was apparently always a very contentious issue. So he is
going to be with us next to talk about his
life's work and retirement and what s next. Lee Child

(38:08):
on instat says, says.

Speaker 4 (38:59):
It's Sunday. You know what that means.

Speaker 1 (39:01):
It's the Sunday session with Francesca Rutkin and Wickles for.

Speaker 4 (39:05):
The best Election of Great Reads. He's talk zebby.

Speaker 3 (39:15):
It is seven past ten. This is a Sunday session.
Good to have you with us. Since the late nineties,
Lee Child's name has been synonymous with Jack Reacher, the
book selling over one hundred million copies worldwide and Reacher
becoming one of the most loved and enduring fictional characters.
Lee has now handed over the Reacher series to his
brother Andrew, but has released his first ever autobiographical collection,

(39:36):
giving insights behind the scenes of his novels. The book
is Reacher The Stories Behind the Stories, and Lee Child
joins me now from the UK. Good evening, Hello, how
are you. I'm really good, lovely to have you with us.
This new book, Reacher. It's a little bit of a
treasure trove for Reacher fans, isn't it.

Speaker 2 (39:56):
It's the weirdest thing from my point of view, because
these were introductions to a series of special editions that
a guy in New York wanted to do in my books.
But they were limited editions. There were only one hundred
and twenty six of each title ever made. And you
know what collectors are like. They're not even going to

(40:18):
open the book. They're buying it as a sort of
treasure or an investment or something, and they're sticking it
on the shelf. So I figured, okay, one hundred and
twenty six of which maybe ten people will actually read
the introduction. So I put in all kinds of things.
I mean, it was like a personal diary. That's literally
what it was. Where I was, what I was doing,

(40:41):
what I was thinking, how I was feeling while I
was writing that particular book. And it feels totally weird
now that they've all been collected into one volume and
lots of people are going to see them, not just ten.

Speaker 3 (40:55):
So many little things caught my attention. I've got to start, though,
with the fascinating fact that you would sit down to
write a book with no plan, no theory, no structural approach,
and no overararching intentions, as you wrote in one of
those Foods, It's worked very well for you. Why that
approach or was it just because it works so well

(41:16):
for the first book, you carried on with them.

Speaker 2 (41:19):
It worked great for the first book, and I, you know,
the first book came out really good and it got
my career going, and I didn't really want to think
about how I'd done it in case I sort of
burst the bubble or something. So I just thought, you know,
I'll just do it again and again. And it makes

(41:40):
you nervous, you know, no plan, no outline. In the end,
I was saying to myself, look, it's worked ten times before,
so it's going to work again, or it's worked twenty
times before. I was still nervous about it. But really,
I think, I mean, why do we want books, Why
do we watch movies, why do we watch TV? We

(42:00):
love story? And that's what I do. I love story.
And if I planned it out and outlined it and
knew the shape of it and knew what happened at
the end, then I've told myself that story. I'm ready
for the next story. If I had to sit there
and type it out, I think I would find it
a bit boring, and I think that would show through somehow.

(42:22):
So for me, I'm exactly like I hope the readers
are going to be. You know, I imagine a reader
getting home from work and picking up the book saying,
oh man, I can't wait to find out what happens next.
That's me every time I sit down to write that chapter,
I have no idea and I'm really excited what is
going to happen.

Speaker 3 (42:41):
I love the story. I think it was for the
book make Me.

Speaker 7 (42:44):
We're by.

Speaker 3 (42:45):
An academic asked if he could come and what you write,
which initially sounded like quite an odd request, but he
wanted He wanted to prove I think to himself that
this is actually the way you did approach writing.

Speaker 4 (42:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (42:59):
I mean I've said that, you know, you described it perfectly.
I sit down with no plan and I've said that
all along because it's true, but nobody believes it, because
they think that, you know, a long, intricately plotted story
must require a lot of pre planning, and it really doesn't.
But nobody believed it. And this guy, yeah, sure, he

(43:22):
kind of said he wanted to just study the act
of creation, you know, like academics speak. But yeah, I
bet you he was really secretly wanting to see did
I consult a written plan when I was writing? And
you know, he was literally there for practically every word,
and now I make it up as I go along.

Speaker 3 (43:45):
Do ideas generally always flow, you know, it's interesting to
read where little bits of inspiration came from, whether it's
from books or history or travel.

Speaker 2 (43:55):
Yeah, you know, from the outside of the writing. Well,
people imagine that it's hard to get ideas. You know,
it's one of the most frequent questions we get where
to get your ideas? Well, you know, it's been a
live every day you get twenty ideas. You know, you
get up in the morning, you read the news, you
talk to people, you go somewhere, you're going to find

(44:17):
five ten ideas. It's not a problem finding the idea.
The problem is which idea, you know, which is still
going to be interesting next year when the book comes out,
and which two other ideas can you blend with it
to make a stronger, more adorable story. So, yeah, and
I several times in this new book you'll find I

(44:41):
just accidentally stumbled across something that was so fascinating it
had to be a book.

Speaker 3 (44:48):
There are some reoccurring characters in Reach's stories, But why
in general, why don't you like reoccurring supporting characters?

Speaker 2 (44:57):
Well, I do, you know, as a consumer of story
and so on, I do like them. I love them.
You know, soap opera is one of the most powerful
narrative engines in the world. You know, people talk about
soap operas quite dismissively, but actually they're incredibly sophisticated and
so powerful. And the audience is fairly sophisticated too, you know,

(45:21):
they can remember plot lines that from a month ago
or something like that, and so everybody does it because
it is so powerful. And that was my problem. I
didn't want to do what everybody else was doing, because
why compete with people who are already doing a thing
so well. I thought, I've got to find different, almost

(45:43):
the opposite, so I stand out, so that Reacher is
different than anybody else. You know, most heroes are cops
or something in a particular city, with superiors, with colleagues,
with juniors. They have a house, they have a bar,
maybe they've got a teenage daughter who hates them, something

(46:05):
like that. I wanted none of that. I wanted no
repertory casts, no soap opera. I wanted one guy alone.
And that's basically how he has been. You're right, there
have been a couple of repeating characters now and then
only because I really liked them too, and so I thought, yeah,
I got to bring them back.

Speaker 3 (46:26):
It's interesting reading too. You sort of describe as the
success and as it builds and things in the first
book sold solid numbers and the contracts rolled in. When
do you think the books skyrocketed? And why was it
bad Luck and Trouble being the first number one in
the UIs or was sort of an accumulation of the
books growing in popularity.

Speaker 2 (46:49):
It was a global thing that happened at different times
in different places. And I found that really fascinating how
some countries, some culture has just really grabbed it right
from the beginning. And you know, New Zealand was actually
the very first. New Zealand is the World Cup. It'll
reach a madness because I think the book number three

(47:10):
got to number one in New Zealand and it's like
everybody buys a copy. Probably the sheet buy a copy too.
I mean, it's fantastic for me in New Zealand. I
just wish it had a much bigger population.

Speaker 3 (47:24):
Do you think an author today has the luctery of
letting their books, you know, slowly become popular or do
you think they need hits straight away.

Speaker 2 (47:35):
Oh yeah, I mean it is so different now, I think.
I say in the in this new book that I
started out in the Jurassic era of publishing. I mean
it was a million years ago in terms of how
it's developed. And I had in various you know, in America,
in Britain, it was eight books or nine books even

(47:59):
before I became, you know, a reliable number one bestseller,
and then probably another five years before I became a
kind of household name. And that is a long term
investment from everybody concerned. You know, the publisher loses money
the first many years and then reaps the benefit later.

(48:20):
Your agent works like crazy at the beginning for very
small deals, few and far between, and the investment used
to be five years or even ten years. And now
you're right, you've got to that's never going to happen again.
You know, you need, you need to have some kind
of success within a couple of books, and if they

(48:42):
are massive hits, all the better. But that is so rare.

Speaker 3 (48:46):
You mentioned in the chapter on Trip Why, which was
released in nineteen ninety seven, that publishers are always gloomy
about the industry. What would you say about now.

Speaker 2 (48:56):
Well, funnily enough, you know, they're so embattled now this
has been going on for so long that they're kind
of quite cheerful about it. I mean challenge with during
my career. You know, the internet basically did not exist
at the beginning. I mean it did technically, you know,
it was a scientific thing and a few nerds had

(49:18):
heard of it. But now everything is online, and everything
is about social media and online opinion, which is incredibly fragmented.
So the technique of getting through to all the people
at once is no longer possible. They have to work
so hard through a hundred different channels, you know, to

(49:40):
get the word out, and it's far harder now. But
they're kind of more cheerful simply because I don't know,
maybe they've got to be crazy to even try it.

Speaker 3 (49:49):
What is it about publishers and titles? It just seemed
to be a constant bettle what the title of the
book was going to be? Are they right? Are they
generally right?

Speaker 2 (49:58):
You know that's what's really annoying about it is yes,
sometimes they are. And it's a very collaborate. I mean,
you write the book entirely alone, that's just you. But
then it and there's a really collaborative phase, and you know,
there's no hostility from publishers. They love their authors and

(50:19):
they dream that every author will be a big success,
and they want every book to do as well as
it possibly can, and so they do. They sweat the
small stuff. They worry about every detail, the feel of
the jacket, let alone, the look of it, and the
colors and everything, the quality of the paper, the typeface.

(50:39):
They worry about everything, and of course title is a
massive thing. It's the first thing that the potential reader
ever sees.

Speaker 3 (50:48):
You're incredibly disciplined. You're very impressed that such a long
period of time you would sit down on the first
to September and start a new book, and you would
write a book a year. Are you making Andrew sit
down on the first to September and start writing to
reach a book?

Speaker 2 (51:04):
It's interesting to me that, you know, we're very close
to each other and very similar, but actually also very
different in that you know, Andrew feels a little more
comfortable with a little bit more of a plan than
I did, so he will probably start planning it around then,
but he does a little planning first before he starts writing,

(51:26):
So I can't say that he honors that date in
the way that I did, which I did because it
was practical common sense. You know, you've got to do
a book a year, so you can't let it get
away from you. You've got to treat it like a job,
you know, like a school teacher turns up for work
in September and then works until the next summer. And

(51:47):
so every job requires discipline. And writing is lovely, it's
the greatest thing. It's an art and a craft and
all that good noble stuff. But it's also a job
and you've got to do it.

Speaker 3 (52:01):
So how what's your relationship with Reaching? Like, now, are
you off? Do you have involvement? Do you read first drafts?
What's your input with Andrew?

Speaker 2 (52:12):
It's mainly talking, you know, we just we talk in
the same way that any two fans would you know,
what would Richer do about that? Or you know, see
something in the news, Well, what would Reach you do?
You know, So a lot of it is just throwing
ideas back and forth and hammering it into some kind
of narrative line, you know that could be really interesting.

(52:36):
An example was do you remember a few years ago
where there were all kinds of quite high status, well
dressed Russian businessmen suddenly falling to their deaths from high windows,
nice one after the other. And I thought, wow, that
is a great story. We've got to use that somehow.

(52:58):
And so I go to see Andrew and I'm about
to say that, and he says, oh, did you hear
about these Russian guys. We've got to do that, you know.
So it's about finding the nugget that is going to
produce the good story.

Speaker 3 (53:12):
So what is life like for you post reacher? Is
it retirement or does a shift in direction? There've been
some short stories.

Speaker 2 (53:19):
Yeah, it's you know, retirement never quite totally happened, partly
because of the pandemic.

Speaker 6 (53:26):
You know.

Speaker 2 (53:26):
I sort of technically retired just before the pandemic, but
then it hit and the book trade was in terrible
trouble because obviously nobody could go to a bookstore or anything.
And so we started a thing where we did online
book events on Zoom and it grew huge. Everybody was

(53:47):
doing them all the time, and somehow I became the
go to guy to be the host and the interviewer
for dozens hundreds of these things. And so that kind
of didn't produce a definitive end. You know, I hadn't
really retired. I was now doing a different thing. Plus
at that time, the Amazon TV thing started up, and

(54:10):
so I was getting heavily involved in that. And I'm
feeling good. You know, I'm doing a lot. I'm feeling good.
I might even write another Reacher. Who knows. It's just
you know, I've had a break, so why not?

Speaker 3 (54:24):
Wow, who knows? Wait and see, Lee Child, It's been
a delight to talk to you. Thank you so much
for your time.

Speaker 2 (54:30):
Oh real pleasure. Always a pleasure to be in contact
with New Zealand. One of my favorite places, and.

Speaker 3 (54:37):
We appreciate it. That was Lee Child. A bit of
a hint of a return there watch the space. His
new book, Read To the Stories Behind the Stories is
out now and don't forget the best with me after
eleven this morning, it's twenty two past ten.

Speaker 4 (54:50):
Relax, it's still the weekend.

Speaker 1 (54:52):
It's a Sunday session with Francesca Rudgin and Wiggles for
the best selection of great reads, used talks that'd be There.

Speaker 3 (55:00):
Are only seven sleeps till Father's Day. And if you're
thinking about what would make the best gift for Dad,
look no further than what They've made a great catalog
of gift suggestions which is online at Wickles dot co
dot nz and you'll find a terrific selection of items
for the book Mad Dad, the sports Mad Dad, the
Foodie Dad, dads who enjoy playing family games and doing puzzles,

(55:21):
beautiful premium pens and more. There's also calendar's great stationary, journals,
record books and even a grooming kit. And of course,
if you're not sure what he'd really like, a Wickles
gift card will let him make his own decision. You
can pick up one in store or again online. Just
got to Wickles dot co dot z and have it
emailed through. With box games, puzzles, toys, gorgeous stationary and

(55:43):
a great selection of Father's Day gifts, there really is
something for everyone at Wickles.

Speaker 4 (55:48):
For Sunday Session, time.

Speaker 3 (56:01):
To talking entertainment now, and I'm joined by Steve Newell,
editor at Flicks dot Co dot MZ.

Speaker 9 (56:06):
Good more, Good morning, back in the hot seat.

Speaker 3 (56:08):
Yes, good to have you back. I'm trying to remember
how we do this show. It's slowly coming back to me.

Speaker 9 (56:13):
Let's start with some words. I reckon you say some
words and I'll say something then we'll kind of get
into the groove.

Speaker 3 (56:18):
Of very amazing a little bit of Shane Canter there
with Dimmer. I am very keen to see the doc
o Life on One Court. I didn't get the chance
to see it at the New Zealand International Film Festival,
but very much looking forward to seeing it when it
hits cinemas.

Speaker 9 (56:30):
Yeah, this is in limited release in cinemas this coming
week and I was lucky enough to see it that
it's screening here in Auckland. It was kind of a
late bookend to the festival here. They held the screenings
around the country until it had its world premiere in Dunedin,
as it should have.

Speaker 3 (56:45):
It should have absolutely, but it was a.

Speaker 9 (56:47):
Great experience seeing it on the big screen a while.
You know, the kind of biographical elements of a documentary
kind of sometimes you can kind of think like, I'll
just watch it on the couch. The need for volume
and a Shane Carter documentary is very important and it's
also beautifully beautifully filmed. So catch this one and him
as if you can kind of recounts his life story.

(57:09):
Shane published a fantastic memoir a couple of years ago,
Dead People I have known, which really revealed an uncanny
ability with the written word of Shane Carter's He told
his life story and his experience and bands from board
games A double happy straight Jack. It fits to dinner
and beyond great read. Thoroughly recommend it, and this documentary

(57:29):
kind of draws on that a little bit. But it's
got the advantage of being able to hear the music,
you know, not just not just read about it. Essential
And he's one of New Zealand music's great rock stars.
I think, Shane and his own and with a very
New Zealand sentiment, because there's a there's a rise cynicism
to so much of his personality that I think there

(57:50):
aren't many like him of any So this is a
limited release. Good time is any to plug flex dot
Coto n Z where you can see everywhere that a
film is playing. So Shane Carter Life on one cords
the name of the docco. It's not playing everywhere, so yeah,
hit to Flex and find out where it's playing in
a cinemony you and go see with a bunch of
people and have some good reminiscences afterwards.

Speaker 3 (58:10):
Absolutely, the Toxic Avenger.

Speaker 9 (58:12):
Now this is from one extreme into the other.

Speaker 3 (58:14):
I know where I'm going from one ext is this
a couple of years old, but it's finally.

Speaker 10 (58:17):
Yes, this was.

Speaker 9 (58:18):
This is sat around for a minute and I think
part I'm not totally down with the back room discussions
around it. But look, here's the deal. I grew up
in the video store era. I saw the Toxic Avenger
looming down at me from the video store shelf for
years before I saw a mutant. A mutant.

Speaker 10 (58:35):
Yeah, this is so.

Speaker 9 (58:36):
It's made in eighty four and so this would have
been a huge beneficiary of the VHS era, right Like,
there would have been a copy of this and most
videos stores in the Western world, I'm sure, and you know,
would have cost nothing to make. This is an ultimate
like B movie on a C movie budget, go with
a mutant face holding a mop and a two two.
It's called the Toxic Avenger and it had a red
sticker on it because that stuff was restricted. Man, this

(58:57):
was this was This was bad boy movie business. Of course,
you know, some things do or do not live up
to their covers, but this had such a form of
effect on people and director Macin Blair has been tasked
with making this remake. He also grew up with the
same kind of experience, and it was one of the
films that inspired him to make movies on the VHS
camera in his backyard with his best friend Jeremy. The

(59:20):
Jeremy here being Jeremy Saunier, who's the filmmaker who made
Green Room and Rebel Ridge. There's a really great streak
of his own films. So this new version really keeps
the ethos, but it's obviously a little bit bitter made
in the twenty twenties. But I think the problem is
it's a bit hard to release some movies sometimes when
dudes get their arms ripped off by mutant dudes and bloodspirts,

(59:42):
it's like this is a very colory movie totally. And
in New Zealand it has an R sixteen rating, which
is deserved. So I think it might just be the
case that you studio remakes a movie that's from a
beloved franchise and kind of gets what they asked for
and then doesn't quite know what's next. This caston this

(01:00:03):
is excellent. Peter Dinklage plays Winston Goose, who's the guy
that turns into the Toxic Avenger, a humble janitor who
develops superpowers, muscles and a beautiful face after after a
toxic waste incident. Kevin Bacon's in It, Elijah Woods in It,
the fantastic Julia Davis would be maybe best known for

(01:00:24):
the show ninety Niners. In it had a hell of
a good time. It's great to sort of celebrate this
school of filmmaking ripple down into the modern era. And
again this will be a really nice one to see
in a cinema with a bunch of other people having
a good time. This is in cinemas now, Second Bank,
this one between now and Thursday. And then go and
see the Shanekada Doca.

Speaker 3 (01:00:41):
There we go. Thank you so much, Steve. The two
films that we spoke about were the Shane Carta doco
Life in One Chord and The Toxic Adventure Avenger Avenger.

Speaker 9 (01:00:53):
Toxic Avenger, Sorry, I call it the Toxic Adventure, which
is maybe something slightly different. I'm picturing I'm picturing cute animals,
but it all goes wrong. Okay, the toxic notice fall
on a break Ye, no, we must.

Speaker 3 (01:01:05):
We must get that right.

Speaker 4 (01:01:07):
Look.

Speaker 3 (01:01:07):
On Friday night, my daughter and I we turned off
all the house lights, we opened the curtains in the
lounge and we sat and we watched a thunderstorm, thunder
and lightning. It rolled up the Manico Harbor. It was
really spectacular. There is nothing like a thunder and lightning
storm as well as you as long as you're in
good shelter. New research has discovered how lightning begins in
a thundercloud, and it all begins with a cosmic visitor

(01:01:30):
and a chain reaction more dramatic than any weather forecast.
Doctor Michelle Dickinson, it's with us next to explain it all.
It is very cool. It is twenty seven to eleven.
You're with Newstalks ATB.

Speaker 1 (01:01:45):
It's the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin.

Speaker 4 (01:01:48):
On Newstalks at B.

Speaker 3 (01:01:50):
It is time to talk science, and doctor Michelle Dickinson
joins us. Now, good morning, Good morning. I am completely
nutterly fascinated by this study that you have for us
today about lightning. I thought we knew quite a bit
about lightning. Apparently we know very little about lightning. And
I had no idea.

Speaker 11 (01:02:05):
It was so cool, it's so cool, and I just
figured we knew how lightning began. Like we've all sat
and watched lightning storms. I didn't go, oh, nobody really
knows how that happens. But apparently, until today this is true.
So if you want to read about this study, it's
in the Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres. And basically, we've

(01:02:26):
all watched a lightning strain and gone, oh, that's so pretty,
that's so cool. But actually scientists have been debating two
different theories for how lightning begins. And here are the
two theories. So number one, theory number one, I think
this is what I learned at school. I didn't realize
it was improved, but basically, theory number one is that
in storm clouds are basically little ice particles, and when

(01:02:49):
those ice particles run rub together, you get a static
electricity build up, and so that separates negatively charge electrons
from atoms, and eventually you get enough electrons that are
built up in the stat electricity that you get the lightning.

Speaker 3 (01:03:02):
Yep, that's my tychon. It that was my tychon.

Speaker 11 (01:03:05):
I'm pretty sure that's what I love. Yeah, school apparently nonsense.
So the other theory that's out there is that you
get this initial ionization achieved by cosmic rays, which sounds cool,
and then I had to go, hold on, motocosmic rays.
The cosmic rays, if you don't know, are these high
energy sub atomic particles that come from outer space. Typically

(01:03:25):
they come from the Sun and they strike our upper atmosphere.
Now that just I mean, it sounds cool anyway. And
then I was like, hold on, I didn't know there
was this other theory. I'd never heard of that before.
But I like the fact that it's got cosmic rayce
so let's go deeper into this study. So what they
did is they basically took a whole bunch of models,
and they basically took some ground sensors and they started

(01:03:47):
measuring lightning on what they could measure. And what they
found is actually they're able to approve of these two
competing theories, one of them is the winner, and it's
the cosmic ray one, which is like, yeah, I don't
know why I want the cosmic race to win. But
what they found is that lightning starts when these cosmic
rays from outer space enter atmosphere and they create these

(01:04:07):
high energy electrons. And these electrons, because they're already supercharged,
they get an extra boost from our thunderclouds electric field,
which is already electric and then they slam into molecules
in the clouds such as nitrogen and oxygen, and it's
this violent collision that produces X rays and even more
high energy particles, and it basically escalates in this chain

(01:04:28):
reaction to create what we call a runaway cascade known
as the photo electric feedback discharge, and that builds rapidly
until lightning is triggered. So lightning is kind of like
the last stage of it, like all of this building
energy and then eventually casta release and it releases as lightning.

(01:04:48):
And what's cool is they found that actually there's a
pre lightning show that happens in secret that we can't
see and we're not aware of where some of these
energetic bursts, which are called terrestrial gamma ray flash that's cool,
actually happen without visible lightning or thunder, but they do
release X rays and rad waves that are really intense,

(01:05:09):
and we can't see them and we can't hear them,
but we do have senses now on the ground that
can measure them, which is why scientists know that before
a lightning storm that we can see all of this
terrestraal gammery flashes are actually happening so they took computer
models and compared them to the real world data that
they were collecting on satellites, planes and ground sensors, and
they were able to actually model how lightning starts, right

(01:05:32):
down to the individual molecular level.

Speaker 4 (01:05:35):
Wow.

Speaker 11 (01:05:36):
And not only is this called that no I know
how lightning starts, but also it's really helpful with better
weather prediction aviation safety.

Speaker 4 (01:05:43):
Right.

Speaker 11 (01:05:43):
You look at so many apples have to be shut
down due to lightning threat and even thinking about how
you shield spacecraft and plane maybe from lightning straits. But
the most important thing is it finally solves one of
US's longest running scientific mysteries that I didn't know hadn't
been solved.

Speaker 4 (01:05:58):
Love it.

Speaker 3 (01:05:59):
Thank you so much, Michelle or Talk next week.

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

Speaker 7 (01:06:08):
Right.

Speaker 3 (01:06:09):
Karen, who identifies as a senior from Wellington. She texts
me to say that Life in One Court the film
that I was talking to Steve about about Shankatta. She
said it was the best movie of the festival. It
is outstanding. She thought it out Sean the mcgashon one
for her, she just thought, yeahtly fabulous. So there's another
recommendation there, another text here. Sadly for me, since Andrew

(01:06:33):
started writing the books, this is Jack Reached your books.
They're no longer the same it used to be. By
it on the day it came out and start reading
and not put it down until early hours once I'd
finished it. The last Reached novels sat beside my bed
for a week before starting it. It took two weeks
to read. Oh Jack needs Lee to write him Well, look,
you might get your wish, mightn't you. I was quite surprised,

(01:06:53):
but what Lee said at the end of that interview,
thank you very much for your text. Ninety two ninety
two Mike Vanda Alison is with me. Now, good morning,
good morning, right, you're talking Asian greens. Are they just
going off? Are they in the tunnel house?

Speaker 18 (01:07:06):
They are at our place, and I think this is
the time of the year for them. I was I
was meaning to ask me what's the story about Asian green?
So they grow all year round or or are they
a winter a winter vege? And I totally forgot to
ask you, So I'm sorry I don't have that information.

Speaker 3 (01:07:23):
That's that's all right. Good to know they're thriving in
your house. So what was it about which agent green
was it that got you all inspired to do a
pad tie first today?

Speaker 18 (01:07:33):
Well, you've got a whole array of or a whole
ray of Asian green. So like agent greens and sours,
they're quite magical green because they aid they've got huge
amounts of color, a semi amount of flavor. But what
makes them so good and so vimorous they have a

(01:07:53):
very high water content, So things like bot choy packed
tooy guy lahan knaper cabbage. That the trick with cooking
these at home is to do them really quickly. So
imagine a massive, big walk with a huge burner underneath them.
That's the perfect way to cook these. And so if

(01:08:14):
you are to cook Asian greens at home, just break
them up into their little bits, wash them down, and
then heat up a cast iron pan, get it stinking hot,
and then just quickly add a little bit of oil
and then quickly in with your Asian greens and just
tossed os toss until they just lose a little bit
of their their strength and just start to collapse a

(01:08:34):
little bit. And then you might want to just finish
a little bit of soy sauce. Serve them straight away.
They are magical, they really are. But I thought this
week would do like a pad tie with these Asian greens.
So this particular dish will feed probably about six people.
I've got two chicken breasts that I've already poached, and
I've shredded down so that the chicken breasts are ready

(01:08:55):
to go. So the first thing you want to do
is actually make up the sauce itself. So I've got
a tablespoon of brown sugar. Just check that into a
little pot, heat it up with two tablespoons of sweat
chili sauce, two tablespoons of soy sauce, and the all
important two tablespoons of peanut butter. If you want, you
could put a little chili in there. Bring that to
the boil. Once it all basically dissolves and all becomes one,

(01:09:15):
turn that off and then we'll go back to our
cast iron pan. Heat that up and then we cook.
And we pre cook an egg in this cast iron pan,
so just adding a tablespoon of oil, throwing your egg
and then use a fork just to scramble it up
and just cook it. Once that's cooked, set that aside,
heat your pan back up, a bit more oil, and
then we've got one onion that's been finally sliced, foreclothes

(01:09:37):
of garlic lis crushed down, saute them into the tender
and then into the same pan you start to add
your flavor. So we've got prawns. I've got a cup
of cooked prawns. And then we've got some flat noodles.
So the trick with the flat noodles is go to
the supermarket, buy these wide flat noodles and just soak
them for thirty minutes in cold water. That's all you

(01:09:58):
need to do. Once they've been soaked, pull them out,
drain them, and then add them into your pan along
with your prawns. Pour over that delicious sauce that you've
just made, and then add in your shredded chicken and
your eggs back in. And then I've got a spring
onion that's been chopped up. I've got the all important
Asian green song. Got one bock joy, one packed joy
that's been chopped up, half a cup of roasted peanuts,

(01:10:20):
and then maybe some mung beans or bean sprouts at
the end. Give that all a quick toss, maybe a
touch of salt. Serve that up and then you know,
if you want, you can sprinkle some more peanuts over
the top and then just see it.

Speaker 3 (01:10:31):
Some fresh crane sounds amazing, Mike, Thank you very much,
Thank you. You can get that recipe at good from
scratch dot co dot in z or you can hit
the News Talks hedb dot co dot in z Ford
slash Sunday. Now, this is where we put all our interviews,
all our chats throughout the day. Everything you need to
find from the show, you will be able to find
it there. It is thirteen to eleven News Talks at Bee.

Speaker 4 (01:10:54):
There's no better way to start your Sunday.

Speaker 1 (01:10:56):
It's a Sunday session with Francesca Rutgin and Wiggles for
the best selection of Greg Reeds.

Speaker 4 (01:11:02):
Us Talks at be.

Speaker 3 (01:11:06):
Ohara joins me now to talk well and this good morning,
good morning, great topic today, we're talking about vitamins and
supplements and are they necessary or a waste of money? Yeah,
this is a really interesting take.

Speaker 19 (01:11:17):
I think anyone who knows the naturopaths seems to think
that naturopaths are all into prescribing excessive amounts of supplements.
But there's definitely a place for supplements. I think it's
more about knowing what your body needs and how do
you know that? And really, supplements are not a substitute
for eating healthy and you can't look at it as
an insurance policy to each crappy diet and then just

(01:11:41):
top up with supplements get.

Speaker 3 (01:11:43):
But actually this is really interesting. It's not just about naturopaths.
I mean we're being marketed to that we need on
these supplements. And you can walk into you know, you
can work, walk into shops and there are aisles and
aisles and aisles of supplements there, you know, and people
people tend to think, oh, you know, I need this
or I must get this, and that's marketing for you.

Speaker 19 (01:12:02):
Like even on TV ads I said all the time,
like promoting what supplements are for, and I think people
are quick to go, oh.

Speaker 3 (01:12:09):
That's how I'm feeling. Yes, but that's what I'm going
to going to be the answer. So how do you
know if you need a supplement?

Speaker 19 (01:12:14):
Well, that's where it's about looking at your own health.
And I always think look at your symptoms of what
are you feeling, Go and see your just regular gpay
get some testing done so you can actually see is
there actually something wrong. They can do certain vitamin tests
through blood testing, and you want to look at that
and how your body's functioning before you go and leap
onto buying a whole cupful of stuff that you maybe

(01:12:38):
don't need. And I think just being really cautious and
know that you don't go and pick your own medicines.
You don't go to the doctor and be like yep,
like this and this and this, And I think we
want to be cautious around supplements because at the end
of the day, they are getting processed through the liver
and the kidneys, and if we're taking things we don't need,
we can actually cause overdose. Two.

Speaker 3 (01:12:57):
It's an interesting question should supplements be regulated like medical drugs.

Speaker 19 (01:13:01):
Personally, I think there's benefits on both sides. I think
that there's certain supplements that don't hold is bigger risk
around being sold over the counters, So things like vitamin C, B, vitamins,
fish oils, magnesium not likely to cause major side effects.
I think it's more when we're looking into our more
targeted supplements that we want to be really careful. So

(01:13:23):
things like zinc has an upper limit we actually tolerate
to a certain level, and then you'll start to cause
more problems than good. Same with vitamin B six, and
I know in Australia they've actually just got really strict
on B six and the limit is actually been brought
right down to actually quite low because there's been a
lot more people getting problems with B six overdoses.

Speaker 3 (01:13:45):
Okay, so that's really interesting. How do we know what
guidelines to follow when it comes to the consumption then
for supplements, well.

Speaker 19 (01:13:53):
That's where on the label it does have like the
percentage of how much is the recommended daily intake or
adequate daily intake, which adequate daily intake means like the
dose that you're taking basically just to be alive, which
is probably not what we need to be healthy.

Speaker 3 (01:14:09):
So if you do genuinely have a deficiency, it might
be different.

Speaker 19 (01:14:13):
And that's when you would be usually getting some guidance
around how to dose it, because if you're trying to
build up some stores, you want to dose it about higher.
Then once you get to add a good level in
your body, you want to be dropping the dose down.
And that's where it's about being sort of cautious, especially
around the vitamins that are fat soluble, so things like
vitamin AD and E, as well as things like cellinium

(01:14:36):
and zinc are things that store in the body, and
if we take too much, we're going to then create
we'll hit that up a limit, and then we'll create
toxic sort of problems in the body and the body
won't function to its optimal level really quickly.

Speaker 3 (01:14:49):
What should a person look for if they're shopping for
a supplement or a multi vitamin, when.

Speaker 19 (01:14:52):
They're looking for a multi motiven it's about kind of
getting a good brand that has some good testing, so
being careful what brands you buy. And also it's really
a good idea to get some advice because then you
know what you're taking is what you need and you
not taking things for no good reason.

Speaker 3 (01:15:08):
Thank you so much. Erin really appreciate you being with
us today. This topic is fascinating, and I think sometimes
we all think that, you know, if we take a supplement,
it's going to change our lives and it's going to
be what we need, and it sounds like the perfect solution,
but it is quite complicated and it's not quite that simple.
We actually did a podcast with Aaron where we talk
about this for about an hour, and it is fascinating
and we cover off a lot of the really popular

(01:15:31):
vitamins and nutrients and things at the moment. We talk
about everything like, you know, how good protein powder is
you with you any electrolytes and you know, we talk
about vitamin D and magnesium and and all the things
which are very very common right now. Do you need
a multi vitamin? So you do. If you are interested
in taking supplements, or you do take supplements, you're thinking
about taking them, have a listen to the podcast The
Little Things. I do it with my girlfriend Lou Airy,

(01:15:53):
and you're be able to find that at iHeartRadio or
wherever you get your podcasts. We've released a couple of
really good ones recently, I tell you What if you
just need a bit of inspiration and some great tips
to get on top of your finances. We also did
a great episode with Nadine Higgins from the Prosperity Project
talking about, you know, getting our day to day costs

(01:16:15):
and shape our mortgage rates, are spending plans, all those
kind of things. And we also our latest episode we
released on Saturday, is about alcohol. And I know that
sometimes we don't all want to talk about alcohol, but
it is a very very non judgmental episode of The
Little Things. If you're thinking about the fact that you
might want to reassess your relationship with alcohol, have a listen.

(01:16:38):
Our guest is Ree George. It is a five to eleven.

Speaker 1 (01:16:42):
The Sunday Session full show podcast on iHeartRadio powered by
News Talks.

Speaker 4 (01:16:47):
At b.

Speaker 7 (01:16:50):
Right.

Speaker 3 (01:16:50):
Can we band the Beths back with new music?

Speaker 20 (01:16:53):
And?

Speaker 3 (01:16:54):
While their fourth album is their typical upbeat indie rock sound,
the lyrics of the songs come from hard Times. Lead
singer Liz Stokes and guitarist Jonathan Piers joins me next
talk about writing this album to get us in the mood.
Here is some vintage music from the Beats Future Me
Hates Me? Thanks Really?

Speaker 17 (01:17:15):
Why ye Nicely?

Speaker 16 (01:17:19):
With future gold shakes from Stupid Misdays Future.

Speaker 1 (01:17:55):
Welcome to the Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin and Wiggles
for the best selection of great reeds used to talk.

Speaker 3 (01:18:03):
It is seven past eleven, you're with the Sunday Session.
Coming up this Jason Pine on becoming a TV star
in the Forever Auckland FC TV show. Have you been
watching He's all over it anyway? We will also cover
off some weekend sport. It is the twentieth anniversary of

(01:18:26):
Hurricane Katrina. Meghan takes us to New Orleans and Joan
has a thriller from a new Kiwi.

Speaker 4 (01:18:32):
Author the Sunday Session.

Speaker 3 (01:18:44):
Line line this is a straight Line was a lie
from Kiwi indie rock band The Bests. It's the title
track from their four studio album, released on Friday, and
The Bets are going from strength to strength a new
US label. They've been playing some pretty big festival gigs

(01:19:04):
and selling shows for the app Coming You With tour.
They're back in the country and I'm excited to have
lead thing of the Betsler's Stokes and guitarist Jonathan Pierce
in the studio. Good morning to the two of you.
Good morning, good morning, good morning. Loving the album, I
was just saying, to your gosh, it packs an emotional
punch that I'm not sure I was quite ready for.
Lots of feelings. I mean, it's got an upbeat, optimistic

(01:19:29):
field twit as well, but it just I feel like
you're really vulnerable on this album and you're just you're
sharing in a way that maybe I wasn't quite expecting.
It's fantastic. Thank you.

Speaker 21 (01:19:43):
Yeah, I am I guess I was going to places
that I think I don't normally I'm normally a bit
afraid to kind of go to. I did a lot
of writing because I was struggling to kind of write music,
and I ended up writing a lot on like a typewriter,
which also sounds really pretentious.

Speaker 3 (01:19:59):
Probas it was just it was just fun.

Speaker 21 (01:20:01):
But I would like write ten pages a day and
try and try to just kind of like pull stuff
from memory or from stuff that I don't know my
late to look at.

Speaker 3 (01:20:11):
Have you struggled to write songs before.

Speaker 21 (01:20:14):
It's always like a bit of a It feels often
like a muscle that needs training to get back into
shape if I haven't done it for a while, because
we've been like touring for a year and a half
or something. But yeah, it was the longest they'd gone
without running something while actively trying to write something, and
I just kind of it wasn't really working. So I
was like, well, if I can't write songs, maybe I'll
just write and start with that.

Speaker 3 (01:20:34):
So I imagine that as someone who writes songs for a living,
and you find words important, and not being able to
find those is all of a sudden quite worrisome an issue,
is it.

Speaker 4 (01:20:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 21 (01:20:47):
Yeah, there's something about the combination of words and music
that for me is very it's very instinctual. It's very
kind of gut based, and I was kind of struggling
to be pointing in any particular direction. But yeah, words
are important to me, and I have a lot of them.
I have trouble, real trouble being succinct. So I feel
like songs are where I can kind of spew out

(01:21:08):
everything that I want to say and then try to
kind of like condense it into a particular feeling and
try it and kind of make myself understood in a
more succinct way than the way that I speak. But
then it's still not very sustinct. There's a lot of
words in these songs. Oh, I don't think you're giving
yourself enough credit there.

Speaker 3 (01:21:23):
So when you would sit down and write those teen pages,
are they just is that that's not You're not trying
to write a song. You're just putting your feelings out.
You're getting things on paper, and then do you come
back to it and craft it into.

Speaker 21 (01:21:35):
Yeah, So it was like stream of consciousness and kind
of sometimes they were lyrics like and sometimes they were
just it was just it was just words or just
like exploring a memory or something like that. But then yeah,
I ended up when I did to do a writing
period where it's okay, now it's time to write the songs.
I had a big stack of paper to pull from,
which is very useful along with like voice notes and

(01:21:56):
journals and stuff like that. It's instead of pulling from
the absolute void, you could kind of like I could
look through this big stack of paper with a highlighter
and be like, oh, this is something that I haven't
looked at before.

Speaker 3 (01:22:06):
Makes sense, It makes sense. There's yeah, so trust the process.
Yeah exactly, I'm going, well, yeah, that's what do you
want you to do? So, Jonathan, what is it like
for you in the band when you can see that
Liz is struggling.

Speaker 22 (01:22:20):
I think Liz and I we try to design a process,
you know, we try to like work out, we try
to we talk about it and we talk about what, yeah,
what the book might be, but also like what, yeah,
how life is working and how things could be more
conducive and you know that. Yeah, we live like a
weirdly structured life these days, with like these kind of

(01:22:41):
long two to three year patterns, and so you can
start to see the headlines coming like we need a
period of creativity in about three months, you know, and
how we going to kind of get there? And maybe
Liz and I will read a couple of books about
about how other great writers do it and then pinch
some ideas and then yeah, and then hopefully eventually it

(01:23:06):
starts flow and you get some positive reinforcement and yeah, so.

Speaker 3 (01:23:10):
You've got to work at it, right. Do you think
a lot of people sort of think that these songs
just come out of nowhere. Suddenly you have a I
mean sometimes you talk to us a song writer and
they'll say that that song just came to me. It
came to me in ten minutes. And I know I
had a great song, but it needed Most of the
time people will say, actually, as you said that, it's
a practice, you've got to work at it.

Speaker 22 (01:23:31):
It's half yeah, well, yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:23:35):
I saw it in Jeff Twitty's book.

Speaker 21 (01:23:37):
It was quite from someone else, but it says something like,
when inspiration strikes, it helps to be holding the pen
like already, I don't know if you're just waiting to
feel inspired or for something to kind of like and
that's that still does happen, like occasionally, But I feel
like I am comforted by reading about writers and like
hearing about people who are yeah, just working, like just

(01:24:00):
making a lot of things and like exercising that muscle
of creativity.

Speaker 22 (01:24:04):
And yeah, and we need to like, we need to
acknowledge all of the time on either side of that
ten minutes of inspiration, because if it's just ten minutes,
Liz will always be the first person to say, oh,
that song is not very good. It only took me
ten minutes to write, you know, And in order to
reinforce Liz, we need to be able to say, well,
it wasn't ten minutes, was it. It was actually your

(01:24:26):
whole life, so you know, own it, We and the best.

Speaker 3 (01:24:29):
So I feel like addicted to toil. Yeah that is true.
Maybe value it too highly. Can I ask you about
a couple of the songs because they really had an
impact on me. I'd love to talk to you about
No Joy. I just love how straight up this song is. Thanks.

Speaker 21 (01:24:49):
Yeah, that one was one that came fairly quickly when
I was writing it, and I was like, I don't
think this song's anything, it's too silly, But yeah, I
think I was I've had this experience. It's kind of
about anadonia, and which is being not finding joy in
the things that you normally would enjoy and kind of

(01:25:10):
and it's not necessarily being depressed or like despairing, but
it's just kind of like not we I suppose it's
just kind of a symptom of depression, right, just not
finding joy in the things that you normally like, not
lacking the things normally like. So it's something that I
experienced both in depression and then also when I was
towards the end of taking an SSRI, which really helped
and was really great, but then, like I said.

Speaker 3 (01:25:30):
Towards the end, I was.

Speaker 21 (01:25:32):
I was struggling with just kind of feeling a bit
two level, and that was about when I kind of
weaned off. But yeah, just that particular feeling not finding
joy in the things that you like. Did that frighten you?

Speaker 17 (01:25:45):
Yeah?

Speaker 21 (01:25:46):
Yeah, I feel like I'm quite an emotional person. I
feel like that's part of it's a big part of
my creative process, is a big part of my identity,
and so feeling kind of divorced from that or a
bit alienated from it as I was a little jarring,
And yeah, but it's something you have to balance. I mean,

(01:26:07):
taking it was a central and it kind of it
really got me out of a quite a bad hole,
which is, I guess, the other sort of being a
person with a lot of feelings.

Speaker 3 (01:26:15):
So Jonathan, when lets comes to you and goes, I've
got the song, I think it's a bit silly. Yeah,
how to think? How does how do you go from there?

Speaker 22 (01:26:24):
I think I'm probably guilty of considering Liz's position a
little bit too much, like I should really just dismiss
it and be like, no, yes, you're being ridiculous. You know,
this is another work of genius. But I think I'm
probably a little bit too much like, oh, okay, let's
consider why it might be a crappy song, and let's
eliminate all of those you know, let's itemize it and

(01:26:47):
eliminate it, which I probably shouldn't do.

Speaker 3 (01:26:50):
You sound like the best therapist to have on hand
at times to work through a lot of this kind
of I.

Speaker 22 (01:26:57):
Can't answer that.

Speaker 21 (01:26:57):
It's very It is very good, but it is too
much for a man, So now also have a therapist, which.

Speaker 3 (01:27:03):
Is the best.

Speaker 22 (01:27:04):
Did you say too much for one man or too
much for a man? I think both are true.

Speaker 3 (01:27:11):
I love you great with your song and your album titles,
future me hates Me, expert in a Dying Field. And
of course now straight Line is a Lie taught me
through the concept and how that became the album name.

Speaker 21 (01:27:26):
So straight Line was a Lie is the name of
the albums. There's a title track, which was the last
song to be written, like all the rest of the
songs who were written, and we were in the process
of arranging them, and the album was kind of starting
to take shape in terms of us figuring out which
songs we were going to record, and I was kind
of looking at the songs and seeing if there was
a through line, which is the kind of weird thing

(01:27:47):
of looking at your life for the last couple of
years and trying to figure out if it was a theme,
like it's a book report. Yeah, and it felt like
there was a through line of kind of maintenance and
progression not really being linear, and how you just kind
of have to keep working. And so straight Line was
a writing it on the bus on the way home,
and so that one did just come out of nowhere,

(01:28:08):
but it's an exception.

Speaker 3 (01:28:10):
And then the song you kind of sing about this
that linear progression is an illusion and it feels like
there's I might be wrong here, but I kind of
felt like when I listened to this song that there
was kind of some acceptance that life is what it is,
and when sometimes you just accept that, there's a freedom
that comes with it. Totally, I feel like that's true.

Speaker 21 (01:28:29):
I feel like acceptance is too strong a word for
me personally, just because I feel a real feeling with
this album that it's it's not a clean narrative.

Speaker 3 (01:28:36):
I think that's almost what the song is about.

Speaker 21 (01:28:37):
There's not always in your life a clean narrative of
like you go through a difficult thing and then there
is a an ending and then you get closure and
then you move past and it's done, and I'm still
whatever the stuff that I'm going through, I'm still kind
of going through it, And I think a lot of
life is you just kind of keep going through it
and you have to find meaning in the work.

Speaker 3 (01:28:55):
I guess you get better at managing it. Yeah. The
things don't get wrapped up in a nice little bow,
do they.

Speaker 10 (01:29:02):
You know?

Speaker 21 (01:29:03):
Yeah, as much as like, especially when you're a writer,
you want to apply narrative, do everything you want it
to be a story, and stories have endings that you
can kind of tie in above and be like, well,
this is what the story was about. And it feels
like the story is kind of ongoing.

Speaker 22 (01:29:15):
And like if there's anyone listening who is feeling like
frustrated that things aren't getting better and that maybe your
completely valid response was to Liz's point, You know, you
get better at managing it or whatever. You know, sometimes
you don't and it's just hard.

Speaker 7 (01:29:34):
Jonathan, how do.

Speaker 3 (01:29:35):
You compare this album to your previous ones? I think
this is a.

Speaker 22 (01:29:38):
Great Liz album. Yeah, Like, obviously Lizi's dug really deep
and she's like done things that you don't expect a
songwriter and an indie rock band to do. I think
she's always done that, but I think she's done it
in such a clear way on this album that you know,
it's just not obviously a rock band record anymore. I

(01:30:01):
think that's a big that's a big step for Liz
and it it's like a real you know, real even
for Liz. And then I think also it's a really
great Twistan album. I think this album has virtuosic drums
at every turn, and yeah, he plays just the right
thing with feeling.

Speaker 3 (01:30:18):
But it's also a Jonathan album because you're the recording
engineer and the producer and the guitarists and things, so
there's a lot of you in here as well.

Speaker 22 (01:30:25):
Yes, they're always necessarily is for better or worse?

Speaker 3 (01:30:32):
Yeah, I can.

Speaker 22 (01:30:34):
I can make it happen, and most days I can
listen to it and not hate it.

Speaker 3 (01:30:38):
Yeah, I'm glad to hear that. I wish it's too hard.
I'm glad to hear that. Can I ask about mother?
Pray for me? This was another song that really struck
a chord with me, and I think it will with
a lot of people, whether they're thinking about their own
mothers or whether they're thinking about their children, their daughters,
you know what I mean. Can you tell me a
little bit about that song? Sure?

Speaker 21 (01:30:57):
Yeah, it was a really hard one to write. It's
hard one for me to even think about. For a while,
I kind of couldn't play without crying. It's yeah, I
guess my relationship with my mother complicated. I suppose everybody
has kind of a complicated relationship, but it's it's a
very loving one. My mum's Adnesian and I was born
in Chicago, and we moved when I was four to
New Zealand, and I'm kind of like there's a kind

(01:31:18):
of gulf of understanding between us that's both cultural and
then generational, and you know, there's a language barrier there,
and it's just something that, Yeah, I feel like the
kind of distance between us, it kind of feels like
impossible to span sometimes and there's a desire to cross it.
But then there's also I feel like, you do you

(01:31:38):
have to kind of accept your relationships sometimes you just
have to accept them for where they are.

Speaker 3 (01:31:44):
You are about to embark on a very large tour
to the UIs and the UK and European things. Will
you be able to get through that song? I have
to desensitize myself.

Speaker 17 (01:31:54):
How do you do that? Oh?

Speaker 3 (01:31:55):
I suppose in live environment it's quite different, right, you
focus on different things or.

Speaker 21 (01:31:59):
Yeah, yeah, this happens with songs, right the You know,
by the time you record it, you've played the song
maybe like a hundred times, and then by the time
you finished touring it, you've played it so many more
times than that and given it a new context, and
so there's new memories attached to it.

Speaker 3 (01:32:13):
But when I've practiced it a lot it.

Speaker 21 (01:32:15):
It kind of you get into the feeling of doing
it versus the feeling of what you were when you
wrote it.

Speaker 3 (01:32:21):
Okay, guys, so where are you at Korea wise? I
don't know if you even think about this, but I mean,
it's been eleven years to get the six albums, full
studio albums. You've played massive festivals like Coachala, you're touring,
You've got your biggest tour. Do you see goals as
a bit We do. We're a very goldie brand.

Speaker 21 (01:32:42):
Back in ten years ago we first started this band,
you know, we had these like pipe dreams, which is
like we're going to play the Whermi Bar in fifty countries,
which is.

Speaker 22 (01:32:49):
Like fifty cities.

Speaker 21 (01:32:50):
Fifty cities, sorry, fifty cities. And that was you know,
the one of us like one hundred and fifty cap
what used to be. And yeah, so and we u
surpassed that, I guess like a few years back, sooner
than we thought that we would. And yeah, a lot
of these kind of like wild kind of things that
we had imagined when we first started, we've kind of achieved.
And so we've had to since start sending some nuance,

(01:33:13):
but they are very might be now.

Speaker 3 (01:33:16):
So it's hard because when you set a.

Speaker 21 (01:33:19):
Goal and it's like kind of like pie in the
sky and then it happens, it feels like then all
the goals that you set should be achievable or something,
and it's like that.

Speaker 3 (01:33:26):
I don't know if that's the point. I'm not sure.
Sometimes it's best just to, you know, make your goal,
just to get up in the morning. That's a big Oh. Look, well,
I can't wait to see what happens next. Have a
really good time on tour, and I am presuming you'll
get back to touring in New Zealand. Well yes, please,
Yes it's a we're announcing a thing yet, but we'll

(01:33:48):
work in progress. Okay, all right then, brilliant Jonathan, let's
thank you so much for coming in. Appreciate it. Thanks
having us. It was Liz Dougs and Jonathan Piers, their
lead singer and guitarist from The Beats. The band's new album,
Straight Line Was a Lie, is out now in record
stores and online. The panel is next.

Speaker 4 (01:34:09):
Grab a cover.

Speaker 1 (01:34:10):
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Speaker 4 (01:35:12):
The Sunday session all right, time.

Speaker 3 (01:35:15):
For the panel now, and I'm joined by Coast to
Day host Lorna Riley Good morning, Launa, Good morning, Francesca.
We're also joined by senior pr consultant at one plus
one Communications, Damien Venuto.

Speaker 20 (01:35:25):
Good morning, Damien, Good morning, Francesca.

Speaker 3 (01:35:28):
I have been very intrigued this week at the shock
and the outrage that some of our former members of
Parliament have had their legal costs covered. And of course
I'm talking about the COVID inquiry, and I'm sort of
talking about cinder adourn and things. But look, this is
what we do. We have always allowed MPs to get

(01:35:48):
taxpayer help to pay for legal bills incurred as part
of their job, and at the end of the day,
this is kind of part of their job. Do you
think the outrage, Launa, is really just over the topic,
over the subject matter that we're talking about, a COVID inquiry. Yeah, yep.

Speaker 10 (01:36:03):
People aren't happy about what happened as opposed to the process.
I mean, this is this is usual process. I actually
thought seventy thousand dollars to represent four ministers.

Speaker 4 (01:36:12):
With actually quite cheap.

Speaker 10 (01:36:15):
Yeah, right, value for money. But I think you're exactly right.
I think people are just annoyed. I think they're annoyed
that the ministers chose not to front up publicly and
they're taking it out on the legal bill because that's
all they have.

Speaker 3 (01:36:30):
I do get that too, though, Damien.

Speaker 20 (01:36:32):
Yeah, I think this is one of those examples where
two things can be true at the same time. One, yes,
it can be annoying, but two, it's also the right
thing to do. We have to have that separation between
public and personal liability, because if we don't, then politicians
will always be afraid that they'll be They'll be afraid
to make those tough decisions because of the likelihood that
they might be sued later. So it's incredibly important to

(01:36:56):
maintain that public and personal liability separation. But yeah, it
can be annoying, and this is one of those examples
where some members of society find it tremendously annoying.

Speaker 3 (01:37:07):
Do you think there is any difference as to whether
you are a current member of parliament, Launa, or you
know or now you've sort of retired from that business.

Speaker 10 (01:37:19):
No, I don't think they should be treated any differently
in the eyes of the law or the eyes of process. Son.

Speaker 3 (01:37:28):
How about you, Damian, I think.

Speaker 12 (01:37:30):
If if the activity that you've conducted was conducted in
the scope of your role as a minister, then that's
public So I think that that's where where where it
should lie. If you've done something like defame somebody, and
that's a personal thing that you've done, I think that
then the the indemnity that you're given from the from

(01:37:52):
those legal costs, that should fall away. But when when
you've acted in the public interest or in your public duty,
then then this rule should apply.

Speaker 3 (01:38:02):
I wonder whether the question is Launa is do you
actually need legal advice to decided is to weather turn
up to a public inquiry or not?

Speaker 10 (01:38:10):
Well, I think given the extremely touching nature of this one,
I probably would have gone for legal advices as well.

Speaker 3 (01:38:17):
To be fent.

Speaker 12 (01:38:19):
You, Damien Well, I think the fact that all four
of them were given the same legal advice indicates that
legal advice is probably a good call, and it would
have been nothing to gain by one of them going
rogue and appearing.

Speaker 17 (01:38:31):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:38:32):
I think if you are currently involved in politics in
New Zealand and you want to turn up to an
election with your head held high, then I probably would
have turned up. But that's just me. Hey, look, I
started the show by talking about how I had a
couple of great days in christ Touch. I just loved it.
I mean, the weather was shining, I mean it was
really on form. But I just found the city. It

(01:38:52):
was alive and positive and thriving, and it felt like
people were happy and getting on with life. And then
I had this hilarious day in Auckland yesterday. Took my
daughter into University of Auckland to go to the open
day and we sorted out her career and her degree
faster than we could get out of a car park building.
We got stuck in the south redlock for an hour
in a car park building. And I love my city

(01:39:15):
and I love the central city, but if there is
an event on, it becomes impossible to kind of move
around and do that. And I want to be positive
about it, but I'm just starting to find it's a
bit tiring in things, and I'm I'm wondering, maybe if
the rest of the country is moving ahead faster than Auckland,
there's getting its mojo back faster than Auckland. Lorna, You're
always traveling, You're probably around the country quite a lot.

Speaker 10 (01:39:38):
Failing on the yeah, and I'm with you on christ Church.
I mean they had a very unfortunate event. Of course,
which meant that they had rebuilt a lot of that
city center and it plans so beautifully. They've also got
only three percent vacancy rate on retail areas in their CBD.
In Auckland, it's the highest in the country. Thirteen percent vacant.

(01:40:00):
I mean one in every eight retail stores in the
CBD is empty. That does not It's a bit of
a chicken and egg situation. You know, are people going
to come back to the city when there's nothing really
there but they're not going to Yeah, it's very tricky.
We've had you know, COVID as as the rest of
the country. Of course, we've had the city rail link

(01:40:21):
that's going to help when that opens next year. Also
the International Convention Center is going to bring some people
back as well. So I think things are improving. But
Auckland also is a collection of cities really, so when
we talk about the CBD, you know, we've got I
live over on the North Shore and you know, Takapunit
for me is sort of my local CBD, and I

(01:40:44):
know West it's the same and down south it's the same.
So we may be asking too much of Auckland City
CBD to become this hub that everyone travels to.

Speaker 3 (01:40:55):
I think it can be a hub, Damien. And my
issue is in like I spend quite a lot of
time in Central Auckland, my problem is when there's an
event on. So I think there are lots of things
that bring people into the city, But every time I
go to Spark Arena, I get stuck in traffic. I
can't get off them right away. You go to the tennis,
you've got a plan to be there, really really, because
you can't. There's not really get sort of dropped off.
Like it's it's like when we put on something and

(01:41:16):
it's great, we're going to open the convention center and
have things going on there, and thankfully they have parking there,
which I'm sure you can get out of that parking
building faster. But you know what I mean, it's almost
like it's all there. We just can't quite pull it together.
We can't pull it off.

Speaker 12 (01:41:30):
I think this really Lorna touched on this because when
she said that everyone has their own little CBD Entakapuna
out West West Gate. What you're talking about there is
a city that sprawls over an enormous distance, and what
that means is that people have to drive their cars
because the public planport just doesn't allow for them to

(01:41:51):
reach the city center in the way that they can.

Speaker 20 (01:41:53):
And maybe smaller cities and.

Speaker 12 (01:41:55):
I think christ just also had this unique opportunity after
the earthquake to rethink the way that city worked, and
they've done an incredible job. So one of the things
that they've done is they've created people first environments where
it's about people meeting, walking around the no cars, and
you see this in a lot of smaller cities. Ivan
Queens Soun's another example of that. It's a people first environment.

(01:42:17):
It's about walk ability, it's about cycling, it's and it's
a lot more difficult to do that with the much
larger city where you have over a million people occupying
the same space and then also sprawled across a huge range.

Speaker 6 (01:42:32):
So there are some.

Speaker 12 (01:42:33):
Challenges, and it's always easier to rethink a smaller space
than what it is to rethink a bigger space, because
what you're doing is your rethinking segments rather than the whole.

Speaker 3 (01:42:44):
Yeah, and look, Damian and I've always been quite happy
for us to shut down Queen Street and for us
to have more pedestrian places and spaces for people to
gather and want to be and move around.

Speaker 7 (01:42:51):
But it's coming.

Speaker 3 (01:42:52):
It's dawning on me that there's there's no way to
get there. It's no good to pack and then walk
to these places to get anyway. I'll stop my renting
and raving and I'll be over it in no time whatsoever.
But look, thank you both so much for joining me,
Lorna Riley and Damien Vignito. There's nothing like being stuck
in the cap back building going absolutely nowhere for an
hour to get you all raped up is there. But
I'll tell you what, I was quite a bit polite
than a lot of other people that were stuck in

(01:43:13):
that building with me yesterday. Jason Pine is up next.
It is a twenty five to twelve.

Speaker 1 (01:43:22):
It's the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin on News Talks
at B.

Speaker 3 (01:43:28):
Joining me now is the host of Weekend Sport and
the star of the TV show for ever Auckland FC,
which is currently screening on Neon and Skygo. My goodness,
you really do sort of front and center in that show.

Speaker 23 (01:43:42):
Yeah, I mean inadvertently. Look, I didn't want to set
out to do that, but you know, I think a
minute here and there's I've I've enjoyed watching it.

Speaker 3 (01:43:53):
No, no, so have I No very much. So I'm
loving it as well. But AUKFC didn't didn't go so
well against a semi pro team in the Australian Cup,
did they.

Speaker 23 (01:44:01):
No, they didn't, losing to Neil last night. The coach,
Steve Crriker, is on the show this afternoon to explain
what happened last night. Look, Heidelberg, you're right, they're semi pro.
They're not an A League team, not a professional team.
All of their players have jobs. But Aukland FC are
the third A League team they've beaten on this cup
run of theirs, which has now taken them all the
way to the finals. So yeah, they'll look their Woundswalkland
FC come home and prepare for the new A League season,

(01:44:22):
which begins in the middle of October. Yeah, look at
so I Yeah, I don't think they'll be too concerned. Francesca.
You know they have bigger fish to fry in terms
of the A League itself. But they would have liked
to have won last night, of course, but didn't quite.

Speaker 3 (01:44:38):
Warriors out of the top four. The roll of Coast continue.

Speaker 17 (01:44:41):
It does.

Speaker 23 (01:44:42):
Yeah, and now like they lost the other night to
the Eels, as we all know, took it out of
their hands again, and with the Broncos winning last night,
they go ahead of the Warriors. The Sharks could as
well this afternoon if they win against the Knights, which
they almost certainly will, so we'll go into the last
rounds of the season with a pretty clear scenario. The
Warriors have to beat Manly and they need the Broncos

(01:45:04):
and the Sharks to both lose if they are to
finish fourth.

Speaker 3 (01:45:08):
You always know you're in a bit of trouble when
it's not about whether you win a game, but what
other people, whether other people are winning or losing games.

Speaker 23 (01:45:16):
Bang on, it's out of your hands. If you're relying
on other results, then it hasn't gone as smoothly as
you would have hoped. Look, there is still hope for
that top four spot. What we do know though, is
that the lowest they can finish is sixth, which means
that they will definitely host a playoff game. So you know,
if they would have finished fifth or sixth in Week
one of the finals, which is a fortnight from now,

(01:45:38):
they would be hosting somebody at Mount Smart in a
knockout game.

Speaker 3 (01:45:42):
If one this weekend, the Dutch Grand Prix, I'd be
pretty happy if I was Liam Lawson qualifying eighth.

Speaker 23 (01:45:48):
Just steady improvement from mame and just consistency. Now it
does take time, I'm sure of it, to get the
hang of these cars, and he's clearly getting the hang
of it now this racing balls car of is he
you know, he's consistently now driving that car well, so
eighth on the grid. If he can hold that through
the tomorrow then more points will come his way and

(01:46:09):
the way of racing balls. So yeah, no, it's it's
a nice little upward trajectory that Liam Lawson has found
himself on. You know compared to the start of the season.
You know that the the dropping from the Red Bull
team seems like a distant memory now for for Liam Lawson,
and maybe this is the best way for things to
have turned out.

Speaker 3 (01:46:26):
Star of Forever Auckland FC TV show Jason Pine and
host of Weekend Sport, will be back with you at midday.
Thanks Jason.

Speaker 1 (01:46:34):
The Sunday Session Full show podcast on iHeartRadio powered by
News Talks b He wou.

Speaker 4 (01:46:41):
To us Where the world is Yours book now.

Speaker 17 (01:46:44):
I've done no time, but I'm done.

Speaker 3 (01:47:06):
And it has been twenty years since Hurricane Katrina. Someone
who has spent some time in New Orleans is our
travel correspondent, Megan Singleton, bloger at large dot com, and
she joins me, now, good morning.

Speaker 24 (01:47:19):
Good morning. That song gives me goosebumps.

Speaker 25 (01:47:22):
It's Fats Domino, and my father used to love him.
Fats was rescued from the waters of Hurricane Katrina out
of his attic. They thought he died, and no one
knew where he was, and then he was eventually found
rescued in Baton Rouge because people were just having to
be evacuated and heading all over the place.

Speaker 24 (01:47:44):
And so my first visit to New Orleans.

Speaker 25 (01:47:47):
Was in two thousand and seven, two years after Hurricane
Katrina had hit. And I don't know if you've been
watching sort of docos that are happening at the moment,
it's horrendous. When I was taken for a drive through
the Lower Ninth when we were there and houses had
xes on there, walls and weeds had grown up where

(01:48:10):
pilings and houses were used to sit, and it was
still utter devastation, and the Musicians Village was being built
and so that was the brainchild of Mary Connot Junior
and Branford Marcellis, who is from the legendary Marcellis family
of New Orleans. And they went on and built eighty
houses to bring back the musicians, because back in two

(01:48:33):
thousand and seven there were no street musicians anywhere.

Speaker 24 (01:48:36):
They had nowhere to live, so they'd.

Speaker 25 (01:48:38):
Gone and it was quiet and the city didn't have
its vibe that it has today. The French Quarter itself
wasn't actually flooded because it was on higher ground. And
if you've been watching anything this week, you'll you'll remember
that the hurricane came through flooded everything, but it was
actually the next day that the levees were broken and

(01:48:59):
that's what filled up the whole bowl that is this
ninth Ward in all those.

Speaker 24 (01:49:04):
Areas under sea level. So it's just horrendous.

Speaker 3 (01:49:08):
No, I just need to see it.

Speaker 7 (01:49:10):
I know.

Speaker 3 (01:49:10):
Sorry. I noticed that Netflix had a documentary Katrina Come
Hell or High Wall. Right, if somebody has watched it,
text me on ninety two ninety two if it's worth
checking out, because yes, I do. I remember that story
and I can remember you know at Hatt and we're
all like it's okay, and then it was like, on
a minute, it's not okay. And then one unfolded, just
sort of unfolded in slow motion, almost.

Speaker 25 (01:49:33):
Disorganization and the racism. And we've been watching that Netflix
doco series. Actually we finished it yesterday and it's horrendous
what went on. They were rescuing white people over black people,
side by side.

Speaker 24 (01:49:46):
It was just horrendous.

Speaker 25 (01:49:47):
However, next year will mark my tenth visit to New Orleans.

Speaker 24 (01:49:51):
I absolutely love the city.

Speaker 25 (01:49:53):
It's been rebuilt, it's got its vibe, it's colorful, it's
got the music is back, the cuisine is back, it's
absolutely thriving, and I love the visit city so much.
I will be going back for my tenth visit next April.
I'm actually going to host a tour, another one of

(01:50:14):
music tour from New Orleans up to Memphis and finishing
in Nashville.

Speaker 3 (01:50:18):
What a great combination.

Speaker 25 (01:50:21):
And we're going to add Dollywood as an optional add
on for those who really want to get immersed in
the music right through to Dolly Oh No.

Speaker 3 (01:50:29):
That's a fabulous. So how long will that tour be, Well.

Speaker 25 (01:50:32):
That'll be about two weeks all up. People can start
in Washington d C with me first if they want
to see the blossoms, and then we kick off in
New Orleans for four nights.

Speaker 24 (01:50:41):
There, I'll take people to my.

Speaker 25 (01:50:42):
Favorite jazz bars and yeah, and just get amongst that
whole vibe there.

Speaker 24 (01:50:48):
We'll go out to stain a plantation. We might do
a swamp tour.

Speaker 25 (01:50:51):
We'll go up on the Mississippi on a paddle steamer
and have lunch and we'll we'll just make the most
of the music and the jazz, and then we'll hit
the blues and then we'll finally get to country.

Speaker 23 (01:51:02):
I love it.

Speaker 3 (01:51:03):
Sounds amazing, Megan, Thank you so much. If you want
to learn more about that, head blog at Larne dot com.
It's twelve to twelve.

Speaker 1 (01:51:10):
Books with wiggles for the best selection of great reads.

Speaker 3 (01:51:16):
Joining me now, Joe McKenzie, Good morning, Good morning.

Speaker 20 (01:51:18):
Right.

Speaker 3 (01:51:18):
We're going to start with a book called The Cutthroat
Trial by S. J. Fleet, and I'm assuming that this
is a pseudonym.

Speaker 26 (01:51:25):
I think it is most likely to be a pseudonym
because the author of this book, which is called The
Cutthroat Trial, has previously written books under the name of
the Secret Barrister, and my understanding is that that writer
is a practicing barrister in the UK who's written books
which are sometimes quite funny but also very biting and

(01:51:48):
critical of the state of justice in the UK. So
it stands to reason. It seems to me that if
they wrote those books under a pseudonym, then they're not
about to announce who they are when they write their
first novel.

Speaker 3 (01:52:00):
That makes sense.

Speaker 26 (01:52:01):
Yes, yes, j Fleet has written The cup Throat Trial,
and I've just got to tell you I loved it.
Now I learned something when I read it. I didn't
know what a cutthroat trial was, but it's when you
have apparently more than one defendant in a court case
and they all want to blame each other for having
committed the crime. So in this one, it is a
courtroom book. It is almost entirely set in the courtroom,

(01:52:26):
and it's told in the first person voice of each
of the characters as they narrate their part of the story.
And it works really, really well. So you've got a
very full courtroom because you have three seventeen year old
boys who have been accused of the murder of an
elderly guy, and each of them has their own lawyer.
Then You've got the prosecutor who's a woman who is
a bit fearful for her future career, but she clearly

(01:52:50):
is doing quite well because there's the odd lovely reference
to things like when she picks up her burken handbag,
so you know that actually things are okay for her.
You've got her support person from the police, who is
the liaison between the court and the police, is completely
happy and useless, so you've got some quite nice dynamics
going on. There's a judge who is immensely opinionated and unpleasant,

(01:53:14):
and then of course you've got the jury, so it's
a very full courtroom, and as the evidence is laid out,
written by somebody who really understands this stuff, it beautifully
unfolds as you imagine the various scenarios about what might
have happened to this poor man who was murdered, and
the jury reached their conclusion, and then there is some

(01:53:34):
more stuff which happens which tells you that all is
not as it seemed, and it's really really good.

Speaker 3 (01:53:41):
Have you read the previous work the barristers, No, I haven't.

Speaker 26 (01:53:45):
I've been aware of them for quite some time and
they've always been on my list, but I never quite
got to them, but.

Speaker 3 (01:53:50):
It sounds like it's pretty obvious it's written by someone
who knows what they're talking about. Excellent, and you've got
what I think is a debut novel by a Kiwi author.

Speaker 26 (01:54:00):
Yes correct, her name is Zoe Rankin and the book
is called The Vanishing Point. It was published very recently
and it is a mystery thriller which is mostly set
on the west coast of the South Island. When a
young nine year old girl staggers out of the South
Island bush. She's bleeding, she's traumatized. There are some dark
themes in this book that make it such a good thriller,

(01:54:23):
but for some people I imagine it might be a
little triggering. But it is the story of this child
who comes out of the bush and is immediately recognized
by the locals as the face of someone who they
saw there twenty years ago, and so they start to
try and draw the connections between this young girl who's
suddenly arrived and the person who looked like her all

(01:54:46):
that time ago, and the local policeman gets involved and
he realizes what's going on and contacts a woman living
in Scotland who came from that small community and she
comes back to try and figure out what's happened to
this child, what the backstory is. There's lots and lots
of twists, and you know, a thriller is peppered with

(01:55:07):
all sorts of plot changes and personal dynamics and it
really delivers eyes.

Speaker 3 (01:55:13):
It's very good. Oh looking forward to having a look
at that. That is The Vanishing Place by Zoe Rankin
and also The Cutthroat Trial by s J. Fleet. Thanks
John we'hook next wait see you then.

Speaker 1 (01:55:24):
The Sunday Session Full show podcast on my Heart Radio
powered by News Talks b.

Speaker 3 (01:55:31):
Thank you so much for joining us this morning on
the Sunday Session. Good to be back. Now to the
names Lady Edith Pellham, Lady Mary Crawley, and Anna Bates
ring a bell. You may recognize these names. They are,
of course characters from Downton Abbey played by Laura Carmichael,
Michelle Dockery and Joe Anne Froggett. All three of these
actresses join me next week on the show to talk

(01:55:53):
about Downton Abbey, the Grand Finale, the third and final film,
and the Downton abby franchise. It's hitting cinemas on September eleventh.
I might have seen it, and I might be able
to say if you're a fan, you're going to love it,
So they're going to be with me. Also, a brand
new book is out on the Duke and Duchess of
York and quite frankly, it's mind blowing. Its author Andrew Lannie,

(01:56:16):
is with me next weekend as well, so make sure
you join us. Have a great week. Jason Pine is
up next with Weekend Sport. Thank you to Care for
producing the show. We'll see you next week.

Speaker 17 (01:56:27):
You can make.

Speaker 1 (01:56:33):
Day for more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin.
Listen live to News Talks it'd be from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio

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