Full Show Podcast: 19 July 2025

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Taine podcast
from news Talks ed B. Start your weekend off in style.
Saturday Mornings with Jack Taine and Bpewer dot co do
dot insead for high quality supplements Used talks dB.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
Good morning, Welcome to News Dog's ed V. Jack Tame
with you in the hot seat through to midday today.
You know that film better Man, the biopic about Robbie
Williams that turned things on its head a little bit,
distinguished itself from some other musical biopics by having an
ape play the central character. It is a visual feast,

(01:06):
but did you know the company behind it is Wetter
Effects and the guy who was in charge of making
it look so good, the visual effects supervisor for better
Man is a Kiwi at Wetter Effects called Luke Miller,
who was nominated for an Oscar for his work. He's
gonna be with us after ten o'clock this morning to
tell us about that process. How do you go about

(01:27):
making a film like better Man? Before that, we're going
to look at some of the other films showing it
this year's International Film Festival, including this incredible New Zealand documentary,
and we've got a delicious recipe for an orange cake
before ten o'clock. Right now, though it's eight minutes past nine.

Speaker 3 (01:42):
Jack, Team.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
So I played the trombone in high school. I know
what you're thinking, squeaky voiced Jack, stumbling off the bus,
then running through a few scales on his big brass slide. Yep, yep,
you're right, hello, ladies. Honestly, though, I think the fact
that my instrument was seen as a little bit quirky

(02:06):
was probably a bit of the attraction for me at
the time. What the trombone wasn't, at least back then,
was very cool right to my mind. It was good
for jazz band, and good for a blast and orchestra,
good for being able to read music, and both the
treble and the bass cliff. But I wasn't sort of

(02:26):
creative enough at the time to find or honestly even
to search out a different sound with my trombone. Brass
had its place, and that was that. But the year
after I left high school, based on a true story,
hit record stores. I'd never heard of Fat Freddy's Drop,
but I was played a song by a friend and

(02:47):
I bought the album the day it was released, And
I know it was two thousand and five, because I
can literally remember buying the CD from a Sounds record shop.
I can remember walking down Madras Street in christ Church
with it kind of burning a hole in my bag.
I was so excited to play it. And let me
tell you, I don't think I've ever thrashed an album

(03:10):
so much in my life. You know the way it
starts off like so sparse, those simple plunking piano keys,
dundun dun da dun da dun dun da dun dun
dun dun d And then it builds and it builds
and it builds. The sound was just so exciting. It

(03:33):
was so different, it was so cool, and man, I
thought when I saw that a trombonist was part of
the lineup, if I had known that this kind of
music existed, this blend of dub and reggae and jazz
and soul with its brass component. I mean, as much
as I have enjoyed Glenn Miller arrangements, I might have

(03:55):
branched out just a bit further with my high school
music mates in the Old Bone.

Speaker 3 (04:01):
Now.

Speaker 2 (04:01):
I am no, I don't claim to be any sort
of music aficionado, right, but it occurs to me that
Fat Freddy's Drop are a prime example of muso's muso's.
So they are a band which loosely formed from a
crew who just liked jamming in their spare time. They're
a band that loves to play live, that still just

(04:24):
loves to improvise, and at least from the outside they
they've seemed utterly unconcerned with the trappings of rock and
roll stardom, you know, with glossy magazine covers, fame and riches.
Forget your three minute four chord tricks to sell into
the top forty radio stations. If you've been to a
Fat Freddy's concert, I've been to a few over the years,

(04:44):
you will know it can be hard sometimes to know
when a song begins and ends. I also think there's
a real kind of distinct New Zealand flavor to their music. Yeah,
there's something kind of I don't know, there's something like pacific,
something kind of relaxed, unshaven, unconcerned. The sound of the

(05:08):
Kiwi Summer road trip. For the years in which I
lived in the US, I would always crank it up
any time I had an American in my apartment, as
if it were a kind of statement of identity. I
think it probably says a lot about the band's aspirations
and kind of motivations and priorities, honestly, that they're kind

(05:28):
of artistic purity, that despite their incredible international success, that
individual members of Fat Fredy's Drop aren't all household names
in this country. I was thinking about it. I reckon
I know next to nothing of their private lives, and
of all the members, I reckon I would have only
been able to name two off the top of my
head if you had asked me earlier this week. You

(05:51):
got Dallas, friend of the show of course, who is
a singer for Fat Freddy's Drop. And you got MoU
Chris Fayoumu founded Fat Freddy's Drop, he produced their music
and as the DJ, his beats and blends and samples
the kind of foundation of so much of their art.
And I just feel that my experience with his work

(06:13):
is going to be similar to that of so many
others in New Zealand and around the world, like tens
of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of fans. I
feel really saddened by news of his death and just
so grateful, like so so grateful for the music he
made that has honestly enriched my life. Jack Team ninety two.

(06:38):
Ninety two is our text number. If you want to
send us a message this morning, you can email me
as well Jacket News Talks. He'd be dot coder and
don't forget that if you are sending me a text
that standard text costs apply. Sort of feels like a
bit of a funny build up to the third test tonight.
I mean, I know that the atmosphere in the Tronto
will be absolutely going off. I was there yesterday and

(06:58):
it felt like things were already ramping up for kickoff
this evening, but sort of interesting lineups for both of
the All Blacks and France. We can get out of
Sportos thoughts on that very shortly. Kevin Milan's gonna kick
us off for our Saturday morning together next though. Thirteen
minutes past nine, I'm Jack Tame. This is news Dog's eDV.

Speaker 3 (07:13):
A little bit of way to kick off your weekend.
Then with Jack.

Speaker 1 (07:16):
Saturday Mornings with Jack Team and bepurured on co dot
nz for high quality supplements.

Speaker 2 (07:22):
News Talks EDB sixteen past nine on News Talks EDB
with Jack taym Adam has flipped me an email, as
he often does on Saturday mornings, to say, Jack really
enjoyed your opening comments this morning, and totally agree when
it comes to fact for his drop. I've seen them
live at least three times and that album is one
of my all time favorite. Such sad news about DJ

(07:43):
Moon only two ninety two if you want to send
us a message this morning as well at sixteen past nine,
and Kevin Milner is here with us this morning, Kilder
Kevin Curder.

Speaker 4 (07:51):
Jack nicely said about MoU Blome me I didn't listen
to their music much, but oddly one day were the
funny things have happened on TV? Really, I ended up
having to do a promo for Fairgo, which was going
out that night. But they were in the studio and
that and we ended up sort of doing a little

(08:11):
thing together and and.

Speaker 2 (08:14):
My totally clear are we talking about a musical thing here?
Were you were sort of one of the one of
the you know is one of the guest artists and
got you to get dust off the old pipes. Yeah?

Speaker 5 (08:26):
No.

Speaker 4 (08:27):
I actually said to them that one of my great
aims in life was still record a pop song or
or some sort of song that might go on the charts. Yeah,
And and I said, would there be any charts that
I could record it with you guys and they were,
they were riding into it.

Speaker 2 (08:44):
Yeah, of course they were.

Speaker 4 (08:45):
Yeah, yeah, because luckily it never got any further.

Speaker 2 (08:50):
But but honestly, that feels like that could be true
of any band, if you were going to feature and
a performance from any band, I think that that is
the band. It feels like you could just slip into
the lineup, you know, a third from the left, do
you go, hang on, is that Kevin.

Speaker 4 (09:05):
Mill So you're making me wish i'd follow that.

Speaker 2 (09:10):
Yeah, Yeah, anyway, Kevin, You've been thinking about weddings this week.

Speaker 4 (09:14):
You know, I've got to congratulate Listener columnist Jane Clifton
for this week throwing new light onto the much maligned
Jeff Bezos wedding in Venice. As we know, Bezos had
been criticized that tens of millions he spent on the
wedding unacceptable, showing off, we thought, But as Jane points out,

(09:37):
the amount he spent on his wedding as a proportion
of his wealth is minor by comparison to the rest
of us best estimates show that your average British, European
and American couples spend about half their annual income on
their wedding. That's an average, you said, it wouldn't be

(09:57):
far behind, giving what it seems to be a mushrooming
budget for weddings. Are So, who is the show off
Bezos who apparently earns eight million dollars an hour spending
fifty millions on his wedding or the average couple who
spend half their annual income on a showy wedding. Bezos

(10:19):
only spent what he earns in a morning. If he
wanted to spend the same proportion of his earnings on
his wedding as we apparently do, he'd have spent thirty
five billion. As well as the Venice Canals, he'd have
bought the Sistine Chapel for the service, the leaning towered

(10:40):
pizza for the photos, and the Colosseum for the after party.
By comparison to the rest of us, Bezos showed restraint.
And I tell Jane Clifton's story because it tells us
that to some extent, we're the fools. Don't get sacked
into a wedding that's out of proportion to your income.
Don't worry about your friends. They'll be the last to complain.

(11:03):
They're as hard up as you are. Most of delighted
they don't have to stump up for a gift, a
new outfit, babysitters, a day off work for travel, and
an expensive bed and allows the hotel.

Speaker 2 (11:17):
Yeah, well said given. I. I It's it's funny like
the you know, the showiness of weddings is, you know,
it's not important to everyone, but it clearly is important
to some people. I mean it's a I think it's
always just a balance.

Speaker 3 (11:32):
Ay.

Speaker 2 (11:32):
I mean we spent a fear summer money on on
our wedding, but I sort of felt like I was
paying for the outsourcing of the organization, you know, Like
I was like, if this means that I'm going to
spend less time worrying about the absolute kind of quality
of the you know, food and that kind of thing.
And you know, we had a lot of sort of
family and stuff coming from overseas, and I sort of

(11:53):
thought it'd be nice to give them a good day.
But you can see how people over extend and just
and just kind of lose lose sight of relativity for
what is at the end of the day, six or
seven hours, you know.

Speaker 3 (12:05):
Yeah, yeah, I.

Speaker 4 (12:06):
Think if you've got the if you've got the money,
good on you, I say, But please, if you don't
have the money, don't do anything like overspend that you're
wedding just to keep up with your friends. Yeah, you
have money, That's all I would say. And like, we
got married in the side chapel of the church and

(12:26):
had the we had the after event at my mother's
ownership flat.

Speaker 2 (12:32):
Yeah, there you go.

Speaker 4 (12:34):
Yeah, and it was great.

Speaker 2 (12:37):
I might have mentioned this before my parents. My parents
got married in my in my grandparents backyard, but they
the night before my dad's best man had his wedding,
and so, I mean it seems like very bad planning
if you ask me. But so basically they flipped a
coin to decide which wedding would go first, and mom

(12:58):
and dad had the next day, which meant that I
think the photos Dad's probably looking a little dustier than
he might otherwise. I certainly think times have changed.

Speaker 3 (13:07):
Day.

Speaker 2 (13:08):
You know, it's amazing. Yeah, Hey, thanks so much, Kevin,
have a great weekend and double catching him very soon.
Kevin Milne kicking us off for a Saturday morning together.
Hey missus Jack, like you, I played the trumpet at
school and stop because there wasn't anything cool to play.
Listening to fact Freddy's has often made me daydream. They've
said their music their school music teacher got them playing
contemporary music. They are lyle Bay's finest export. Certainly agree

(13:31):
about lyle Bays. Yeah, I sort of. I played heaps
and music at school. I played that, sort of played
the drums, and I played played lots of guitar as well,
played heaps of trombone. But I've only really kept up
with the guitar. Sometimes I wonder if it's just because
it's easier to pick up, you know, like you can
just have it sitting there in the lounge and you
pick it up. I've still got a trombone though, so

(13:51):
you never know, never too late. Maybe, depending on how
the next couple of hours go, we could close out
the show with an original composition. We'll see ninety two
ninety two. If you want to send us a message,
It's twenty three past.

Speaker 1 (14:03):
Nine, getting your weekends started. It's Saturday morning with Jack
Team on Newstalks'd be Jack.

Speaker 2 (14:12):
You would be surprised just how cool brass bands are
these days, the trombone is the instrument of the gods.
Do you know what I do? I agree. I don't
think i'd be surprised about how cool brass bands are.
I don't think i'd be surprised about that at all.
I would say that I'd be a little bit rusty,
to say the least. Although I've got quite a cool trombone.
I know this is a bit of a sort of
gone off piece a little bit here. I've got quite

(14:33):
a cool trombone. It's called a pea bone, and so
it's actually made of plastic, which is very strange. But
the thing with trombones is the slide can be quite finicky.
So I used to always ding my slide in high
school when I had a brass instrument, and you'd have
to go and take it to the music shop and
they'd have to have it for a day or two
and they'd smooth it all out again, and I'd take
it back to practice and ding it immediately again. But

(14:54):
the thing with a pea bone is it's a little
bit more robust. Sure, the sound isn't quite as good
as the top of the line brass instrument, but it's
way cheaper and it's a little bit more robust. So
there you go. We're all learning this morning. Need to
if you want to send us a message our sport.
Andrew Savill is here counting down the hours to the
third test between the French and the All Blacks this
evening in the tron.

Speaker 6 (15:16):
He caught it, Jack, Yeah, you don't.

Speaker 7 (15:17):
You don't strike me as being someone who would dig
their slide in high school.

Speaker 2 (15:24):
What are you suggesting? What are you suggesting strike me.

Speaker 7 (15:26):
As being a trombone player, because I'd imagine, like most
trumpet players and trombone players, wind instruments are sort of
stout figures.

Speaker 2 (15:35):
Oh I was a bit of a stout figure in
my in my in my developmental years, Yes I was.
I was a late but tricky.

Speaker 6 (15:42):
To play, aren't they You've got to have lung power, and.

Speaker 2 (15:45):
They are a bit tricky to play. And there's no
there's no you know, you've got your fixed but you've
got your kind of your positions for different notes, right,
the slide goes to different positions for different notes, but
and that you sort of you have to combine the
tension of your lips with the different positioning. But there's
no like you're not pressing a button like you are

(16:07):
whether or activating a valve like you would be for
other wind instruments.

Speaker 7 (16:11):
You know, Yeah, I hope you get a lot of
feedback on this, because there's nothing better than having the
ability to play music and tr rather than pushing a
button on a computer or ai AI in some music.

Speaker 2 (16:25):
Right, yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. Well, yeah, I'm not sure
my wife I don't necessarily agree with that, but yeah, anyway, Yeah,
so I was saying before, it's sort of a feel
like a bit of a funny one this evening. You
know last week last week that everything sort of came together, right,
I think we have we got the game last week
that you'd been hoping to see in game one of

(16:45):
the year. But that's all right, and yeah, a little
a little bit funny when you can sell the lineups
for this evening. But I mean, the atmosphere in Hamilton
is going to be fantastic, no doubt it will be.

Speaker 6 (16:54):
I've been here for a few days.

Speaker 7 (16:56):
It's the sun's out today, which is good news, but
a wispy cloud, I don't will be too bad tonight.

Speaker 6 (17:05):
I think that maybe a little bit of rainfall cast
later at tonight, but it'll.

Speaker 7 (17:09):
Be definitely cold, but I imagine the All Blacks will still
try to play at pace and.

Speaker 6 (17:16):
Move the ball at will. It's an exciting team, the
All Blacks.

Speaker 7 (17:21):
Jack I think look good on Scott Robertson for sticking
to his guns and he said before the series that
they'd play all the players in the squad that all
see game time. It's exactly what he's done. It helps
that you've won both tests. I mean if they had
lost that first Test, I'd imagine tonight you'd see a
totally different team. But they've got the chance to look
at players at Test level, to run experienced players again

(17:47):
to give them a good blowout tonight. Really looking forward
to seeing Quinn twupaire back starting a Test match. I
thought he had a fantastic Super Rugby campaign. You know
his recent pass with Injuri has been well documented. But
looking forward to seeing him on home turf and also
a few other players but Ruben at fullback.

Speaker 6 (18:07):
This kid has huge amount of talent.

Speaker 7 (18:10):
He was a standout for the Canes and Super Rugby
and looking forward to hopefully seeing your Blacks get some
good quick ball and Ruben.

Speaker 5 (18:17):
Love being to.

Speaker 7 (18:19):
Expose those talents at Test match level. What will the
French provide. I think they've reverted to a number of
players who played on that first Test, but still a
huge lack.

Speaker 6 (18:31):
Of experience in this French team. I think they'll provide
half decent opposition.

Speaker 7 (18:37):
But again, like I've said the last couple of weeks,
and I'll stick to what I'm saying, is that the
All Black should win by twenty thirty, if not forty
at least given the experience in this All Black team,
given the fact that there's a lot of chiefs in
the side and they've played a heck of a lot
of football together, I'd be very, very surprised if the
French got close.

Speaker 6 (18:58):
They will be motivated. They won't want to leave here
getting spanked again.

Speaker 7 (19:05):
They have had a long, long season a lot of
these French players which started last July beyond the plane
tomorrow home, but I think there'll be some motivation there
for the French. But the All Black should win well again.

Speaker 2 (19:21):
Five pm this evening, of course, Wrexham taking on the
Wellington Phoenix. They're expecting well, potentially north of twenty thousand.

Speaker 7 (19:27):
It's all sort of come around quite quickly, hasn't he
and this famous football team courtesy of the TV documentary
show or Flying the Wall show is here. Great news
this morning that Libby Cacacci, the All Whites player, has
signed for Rexham. He was playing in Italy and his
side got relegated to the second division, so he has

(19:49):
signed with Wrexham. Great opportunity to play in the Championship,
which is the second division in England, so good signing there,
great chance for him to impress other clubs in England,
especially Premier League clubs. I'm looking forward Jack to seeing
how the Phoenix. So sometimes you can't get an overall
global standard of where the A League is at, so

(20:10):
I'm looking forward to seeing how the Phoenx go against
that second tier English outfit.

Speaker 6 (20:15):
I know Sydney beat them during the week.

Speaker 7 (20:18):
The Phoenix haven't had a huge amount of preparation because
it is still the end of their off season if
you like.

Speaker 6 (20:24):
But you're looking forward to seeing how Wellington do this afternoon.

Speaker 2 (20:28):
Very good, All right, sir, catch again very soon and
thank you so much. That is our sporto Andrew Saville
don't forget of course that News Talks He'd beat is
going to have live commentary of the all Backs versus
France from this evening live from Hamilton. Build up from
six o'clock. Kickoff is at seven o'clock or just after
seven o'clock be fourteen o'clock. Nicki Wicks is in the

(20:48):
kitchen for us. She's got a delicious orange cake recipe,
like a beautiful moist orange cake that she's going to
share with us very shortly. Next up your film picks
for this weekend, including an Absolute Cracker, a new New
Zealand documentary that's screening at the New Zealand International Film Festival.
We'll give you all the details very shortly. Thank you

(21:18):
for your messages this morning. Calder Jack not only was
moo and absolute beats Maestrone all around nice guy, he
also played great golf in tennis, says John from Middemart.
Thanks John ninety two ninety two If you want to
send us a message this morning, it's time to get
your film picks for this weekend. Francesca Rudkin is our
movie reviewers. She's here with us now Kilda. We're going

(21:39):
to start off with one of the top hits at
the New Zealand International Film Festival this year. Have a
listen to this. This is Grace a Prayer for Peace.

Speaker 8 (21:48):
I think the paintings are a bit like us human beings.
We're born with what we have and we have to
seat out into the world with it and make the
most of it, you know, and that's our life.

Speaker 2 (22:05):
This is a documentary about New Zealand artist Robin White,
so tell us about Grace A Prayer for Peace.

Speaker 9 (22:11):
Yes, one of our greatest living artists, printmaker and beautiful
painter as well. This documentary is always a bit like
a collaboration. You could stay between Dame Robin White and
one of our greatest documentary makers, Dame Gayleen Preston, and
Gailien follows Robin for a couple of years shooting this film,
and she's created something I think that's really special. Robin

(22:34):
White has an expansive body of work and an incredible career,
But I think this isn't a biopical trying to put
it all into place. It's a real glimpse of the
artist at work. So there's a couple of things happening
in this documentary. First of all, Robin White takes us
around the Something is Happening retrospective exhibition of hers and

(22:56):
she talks to us about the works, and it's a
real treat to hear her talk about the relationship between
art and audience. We get this personal tour insight into
her work. So there's this and she's and at times
Gayleen has also sort of heard and on screen, and
it feels like you're having this very personal tour yourself

(23:17):
with the artist learning about her work. But for the
majority of this film, Robin pre follow Robin going about
her work, and this too is such a great treat
with Gaileen sort of focused on two aspects of her
recent career, when she's been in Japan where she did
a residency, and also when she went to Curbus and

(23:39):
she lived there a long time ago, and twenty years later,
she finally decides to execute this work which has been
in her mind for all this time. So we watch
her going about this process, we watch her create these works,
and it's really wonderful to hear what inspires her work,
what she wants to convey, her motives, the methods and

(23:59):
the materials she uses, how she conceives the work then
composes it. I found it absolutely fast to nating and
I I you know, Robin White has this created this
incredible legacy, and I think this film reminds us about
the importance of capturing the meaning behind her significant works

(24:20):
and learning from them from the artists themselves.

Speaker 1 (24:24):
You know.

Speaker 9 (24:24):
It's I think. I think Gayleen has just given us this,
this very special, moving, thought provoking film here that elevates
the experience of you know, seeing her works and understanding
the way she does it. And she's done a really
great job of filming the works as well, because nothing

(24:45):
beat seeing a piece of art in front of you
in person, right, But she comes very very close here.
She's done a really great job of filming some especially
some of Robin Nassive canvases, Like you know, I almost
I felt the power of them through the screen. I
think this is going to be stunning to see on
the big screen. It really is a very special film.

Speaker 2 (25:06):
I can't wait to see it. I love Robin White's work.
Did you see a couple of years ago, it was
probably eighteen months or so ago, the Auckland Ark Gallery
had that incredible Robin White.

Speaker 9 (25:17):
And that's what she yes, that's what she takes us around, right,
So that's part of it. And I love that it
is likely in your own little tour, but what I
really loved was seeing her working and action thing. So
this is screening at the New Zealand International Film Festival.
It's petting off on the thirty first of July. It's
running through the tenth of September around the whole country,
one hundred plus films, lots to choose from. What is

(25:39):
quite lovely though, is that this year they're also screaming
war stories our mothers never told us. And this is
a treasure. This is in the treasure section because this
is I think about thirty years old. This was also
directed and producers by Gaming Preston, So it's quite lovely. Yes,
it was released in ninety ninety five, so it's quite lovely.
We have one of her classic treasures in the film festival,

(26:00):
and we also have one of her most recent works
in the film which had a.

Speaker 2 (26:03):
Special they are so good, Okay cool, So the film
is Grace a prayer for peace. Next up, this is
a film showing in cinema. Cinema is not at the
International Film Festival. It is a universal language.

Speaker 9 (26:17):
So I thought that maybe if you don't want to
wait for the Film Festival, you would like to see
a nutty sweet little absurdist art house film then you
might want to about. This is just absolutely delightful. It's
a Canadian film, but it's in French and Farcy. It's
kind of like this cross cultural absurdist comedy comedy. It's
written and directed by Matthew Rankin, so it's inspired by

(26:40):
Iranian films, and lassie seems to be very very common
in the setting of Winnipeg, and it's got a touch
of Wiz Anderson's styling tour and we meet a range
of seemingly random people going about their lives. Two school
kids trying to get a large bill out of some
frozen ice, this insane teacher who's struggling with his students,

(27:00):
who's a civil servant from Quebec come to see his mother.
A tour guy that takes people on the tour of
the most sort of underrated things you could ever imagine,
like a briefcase that has been sitting on a seat
since nineteen eighty seven. It is really quirky and weird
and strangely compelling, and all these people kind of come
together at the end. The styling's great. It's there's sort

(27:21):
of these gray, beige, brown districts there's lots of concreting brick,
and then there's just these crazy burths of sort of
color and quirky kind of eighties costumes, and it's just
it's you're sitting going this shouldn't make sense, and this
shouldn't pull me in, but it absolutely does. It's a
sort of surreal realm and it's funny and odd, and

(27:44):
you do need to be a discerning film goer. It
is not for everybody, but take a look at the
trainer and see if it's for you. I really enjoyed it.

Speaker 2 (27:52):
Yeah, Okay, cool. So that's universal language that's showing in
cinemas now. Grace a prayer for peace. The documentary about
artist Robin White is showing at the International Film Festival.
Thanks so much, Francisca. You have a great weekend and
we will catch you. So we'll make sure those films
are up on the news Talk's he'd be website as well.
I'll tell you what Robert like I say, we're big
fans of Robin White in our household. And I'll let

(28:13):
you in on a little bit of a romantic story.
When my wife and I were engaged, I was looking
for something kind of special along with the along with
the ring of course, to ask for her hand in marriage.
And I ended up getting a little Robin white original,
just a small one, just a little humble one, very
small to put on our walls. So we are very

(28:36):
lucky to have. It's like it's like, you know, like
the size of a postcard, and it is like our
far and away our most kind of treasured artwork at home.
So I know what you're thinking, Yes, missus Tame is
very lucky.

Speaker 5 (28:49):
Indeed.

Speaker 1 (28:51):
Saturday Mornings with Jack Ta keeping the conversation going through
the weekend with bpure dot co dot ins here for
high quality supplements, News Talks.

Speaker 2 (29:00):
A ten on News Talks V and says Hijack love
Robin white Haus the something is happening here exhibition at
the christ Art Gallery. More than once, keep returning to
the exhibition book, which is absolutely gorgeous. We'll make sure
the doco is on my watch list. I know what
you say about the exhibition book, because we've got it
as well. And after zeen o'clock on News Talks, he'd
be if you just feel like sitting on the couch

(29:22):
this weekend, that's all good. We don't judge on the
show and we've got three fantastic shows to recommend in
our screen time segment that's where we share with you
TV shows to watch or stream from home. And there's
this brand new show. It's kind of a little docu
series that follows a series of New Zealand netball legends
as they work to return to the court. So the

(29:44):
likes of Irene Van Dyke, Casey Corpora, Adean Wilson heading
back to the court for a big game. So I'll
tell you about that series after ten o'clock this morning.
Right now, though, our cook Nikki Wicks is here and
not only is she a fan of the kind of
desserts that she brings us so often, and we've got
one of those in a couple of minutes, but you're
a fat Freddy's fan too.

Speaker 10 (30:03):
I really am, Jack.

Speaker 11 (30:04):
I loved your intro and I was so so sorry
toy the news because best band like just so fantastic,
so iconically New Zealand and Pacific in sound. I love
it and I have it's so dear in my heart
because once when I was on a cycling trip through
Vietnam and I had a walkman disc on me.

Speaker 10 (30:25):
Oh yes, that is back when we had.

Speaker 4 (30:28):
Wow.

Speaker 11 (30:28):
Yeah, and I can still in my brain, I have
got such a clear image of chugging up this really
really big slope and it was a good few kilometers
if not more, and just up and zigzagging across the
wide valley in Vietnam to the sounds of fat Freddies and.

Speaker 10 (30:47):
That beats that you know that just keep me going.
It was like just my pedling was like, yes, I
would do it. I could do it.

Speaker 2 (30:54):
I'm a priest because I like, I would like fat
footies to me is like relaxing music as opposed to
like get pumped up for a big you know what
I mean.

Speaker 10 (31:03):
Well, but bear in mind when you're chugging up a hill,
you're and granny gear. Yeah okay, so I'm slow, it's
just you keep ongoing. So yeah, it's always very Rey
fond of my memory. So there you go. Yeah, great,
it's great.

Speaker 2 (31:15):
Yeah, so good. All right, Hey, you've got a fantastic
sounding little recipe this morning to make the most of
some good citrus at the moment.

Speaker 11 (31:23):
Yes, honestly, this orange cake it's super simple. And before
listeners get excited or think oh it's that it's that
boiled orange cake, it's not the boiled orange cake, because
an actual fact, I've never enjoyed the boiled orange cake
because it's too pathetesa me where you boil whole oranges
and use those for the cake. It's much simpler than that,
and it's but this one is really crammed full of
a very intense orange flavor. So I make it in

(31:46):
a loaf tin. So you could probably double the recipe
make a sizeable sort of round twenty three centimeter cake
if you like. But here is the recipe for a
nice little loaf cake that we'll see you through the weekend.
Bang that oven on one hundred and eighty degrees celsius
and line a loaf tin with some some baking paper,
and then in a bowl of a food processor, I

(32:09):
just process a cup of raw sugar. I mean, if
you don't have raw sugar, just use ordinary sugar. But
I quite like the caramelly flavor that you get from
this from raw sugar. And you do that with some citrus,
and I use the rind of two oranges and one lemon.
But so I take it off with a potato peela jack,
so I want to avoid the white pith, okay, And

(32:29):
I find that kind of bitter Flavorates want that pure
citrusy flavor in hair, so and you process that in
your food process or with the sugar so.

Speaker 10 (32:38):
That you end up with a sort of damp, sandy
kind of texture. It's really lovely.

Speaker 11 (32:42):
It's a wonderful way to fuse the sugar with the
citrus flavors. And then well then I take the pith
off the orange off one of the oranges with a
serrated knife, and then I chop that up and put
that in the blender as well.

Speaker 10 (32:54):
So I've got this lovely sugary citrusy mixed there. Transfer
that to a.

Speaker 11 (32:59):
Mixing bowl, and then whisk in an egg into that,
and then just keep whisking or beating it till it's
nice and thick and me and then add in half
a cup of olive oil. I use grape seed oil
or caged my hands on some cheap olive oil, I'll
use that. And again, using olive oil instead of a
instead of butter and a cake. It just really makes

(33:22):
the difference. It means that cake is fresh for days.
I'm avoiding saying the word moist, and it just it's
got this lovely testure which I absolutely dore look quite
different from a from a buttered cake. So yeah, so
add your oil in there, pinch of salt in there,
just for a bit of balance, and mix that u
until it's combined. And then stir through some yogurt, about

(33:45):
half a cup of good thick natural yogurt that you've
stirred in two tablespoons of lemon juice into their Add
one or a quarter cups of plain flour, or you
can use self raising flour. If you're using plain flour,
add in two teaspoons of baking powder, and I do
about a half a teaspoon of baking soda sometimes too.
You've got all the all the ingredients there that we're

(34:08):
going to give this cake or this loaf cake really
great rise because you've got baking powders, you've got the
lemon juice, the yogurt and all of that sort of
thing that's going to react with those raising agents. Throw
that into your into your loaf tin and it's very
it's a nice thick batter, and then what you need
to be doing is just cooking that for about thirty
five to forty minutes.

Speaker 10 (34:29):
Loaf cakes don't I don't know why. They just take
a long time to cook, So cook that off.

Speaker 11 (34:34):
For you know, sort of thirty five to forty five
minutes until a scua comes out nice and clean. Leave
it for a good ten minutes.

Speaker 10 (34:40):
To cool in the tin.

Speaker 11 (34:42):
You can't I sit If you like, you could also
put a syrup over it, but I just prefer it plain,
believe it or not.

Speaker 10 (34:48):
It's just so beautiful.

Speaker 11 (34:50):
And as I ate two pieces for breakfast this morning
with my cup of tea in bed, and look, it
started off as one slice the right.

Speaker 10 (34:58):
Started und risk it. You know what I thought?

Speaker 11 (34:59):
I thought, you know, this would have also been really
good with some sultanas or raisins in it, interesting so
you could chut.

Speaker 10 (35:05):
Yeah, it just seems it would be great with that
as well.

Speaker 11 (35:08):
So if you like that sort of thing, then feel
free to put on sort of half a cup.

Speaker 10 (35:12):
Of those as well. You won't be sorry.

Speaker 11 (35:14):
But it's just the beautiful, most amazing citrusy flavors.

Speaker 2 (35:17):
Hey, I was thinking of you this week because we
picked up a little bit of a treat at our place,
just a couple everyone can ever we taste tiosmillo. Is
that time of year. My wife just gotten from the
supermarket believe it or not, the fancy supermarket. So great experience, Yes,
a great expense. So we've had to remortgage the house,

(35:39):
et cetera. But so they were only I was allowed
to even when else had one, so that we got
four the whole household.

Speaker 10 (35:45):
And do you just you just have them straight, have
them straight.

Speaker 2 (35:48):
Yeah, there's just there's something about the I don't know,
the kind of tartness and the yeah, gorgeous color as well.
Sixt week I think the color, you know, it's.

Speaker 11 (36:00):
Also the various different varieties too, which I but you
actually they're they're quite galvan and people love them or
hate them.

Speaker 10 (36:07):
But what a treat to have in the day.

Speaker 2 (36:09):
I know, hold little bit, I know, I know, a
little bit like.

Speaker 10 (36:13):
A Robin White quite priceless.

Speaker 5 (36:14):
Really.

Speaker 2 (36:15):
Yes, well, hey, thank you so much. We'll make sure
that beautiful sounding orange cake recipes up at Newstalks edb
dot co dot nz. Right now it is eight minutes
to ten giving you the inside scoop on all you
need to know Saturday Mornings with Jack Tame and vpwre.

Speaker 1 (36:33):
Dot co dot Nz for high quality supplements Newstalks Edb.

Speaker 2 (36:37):
Aaron has looked me a note on the email this
morning to say Jack, thank you for your comments about DJMO.
I agree what you say when it comes to what
you said. I agree with what you said. Rather, when
it comes to the modesty of the band, it's like
they've never been interested in all of the trappings of
the rock and roll world. It's funny how little we
actually know about the individual members, but certainly MoU had

(37:01):
the reputation as being the beating heart of Fat Freddy's Drop.
And I think you hit the nail on the head
when you said that they are the sound of New
Zealand in a sense. Yeah, I do. I just think
they are a kind of modern sound of New Zealand day.
There's kind of there's a real there's languidness a word.
There's a languid nature to a lot of their music

(37:22):
that I find really really attractive. So yeah, thank you
for that. If you want to flip me an email,
you can jacket NEWSTALKSZB dot co dot NZ. You can
text me as well ninety two ninety two as the
text on the text, Jack, try tamario a tamarijos oh
hang on toma to yours ah. Okay, Well this is
completely different. Fruit. Try a tomat you're sliced on a

(37:43):
piece of vogels, well buttered with a sprinkle of salt
and sugar. Okay, yeah, I'm into that. I wonder how
I don't know if tamarillo might also work and that,
so yeah, thank you. After ten o'clock, our feature interview
this morning is the visual effects supervisor who was in
charge of that incredible Robbie Williams biopic Better Man. It

(38:07):
was a hell of a job. They had to pull
off some ridiculous scenes. So he's going to tell us
about that, and I'm going to ask him about the
direction of visual effects, because you know, if you think
about how much visual effects in movies have improved in
just the last five or ten years, and then think
about the role that AI might play in the future

(38:28):
if it lives up to even a third of its hype,
that the nature of movies could be about to change.
As well as that, we're going to catch up with
our resident doctor. He's going to talk about we Govy.
That's one of these kind of supposedly miracle weight loss drugs.
It has just been approved for use in New Zealand.
I think you've got to have you certainly have to
have a prescription, but I think it's not publicly funded.

(38:49):
But he's going to tell us a little bit about
how we govy works and the impact it might have
in New Zealand. When he joined us very shortly, it's
almost news time. Though it's almost ten o'clock. It's Saturday morning.
I'm Jack Tame. This is news dog Zed be.

Speaker 1 (39:12):
A cracking way to start your Saturday Saturday mornings with
Jack Day and bpure.

Speaker 3 (39:17):
Dot co dot nza for high quality supplements. Newstalks 'bj.

Speaker 12 (39:26):
Make name where.

Speaker 2 (39:38):
Lord any you're a jackaime on newstalks 'db Who else
could pull off turning one of the world's biggest pop
stars into a chimpanzee? Who else but Wetter Effects. WETA,
of course, is well known for incredible visual effects and
TV and film, and when megastar Robbie Williams said make
me an ape, it was only natural that Weta were

(40:00):
the ones who got the call. And the man who
was responsible for that incredible transformation in the film Beat
a Man was visual effects supervisor Luke Miller. He was
nominated for an Oscar for his work and he joins
us this morning. Kilda, Welcome to the show.

Speaker 13 (40:15):
Thank you very happy to be here.

Speaker 2 (40:17):
Visual effects supervisor. Does that mean that you're the guy
sitting behind the computer hitting refresh or rendering the images?
Does it mean that you're the guy in front of
the green screen with the funny little balls and a
weird outfit. What is your job?

Speaker 13 (40:33):
Well, typically, a visual effects supervisor is responsible for the
visual effects component of a movie. I think pretty much
these days every movie will have a visual effects component.
Most of it will be invisible, and it's everything from
sort of designing the shots, how to work with the director,

(40:53):
to delivery of the final work that will then go
into the film.

Speaker 2 (40:57):
And so is it your job to coordinate all the
different things that encompass visual effects.

Speaker 13 (41:04):
Yeah, to sort of plan how we're going to tackle
the work, what the best way to do it is, Yeah,
how to make sure things are efficient, and then also
presenting that work back to the director.

Speaker 2 (41:15):
So theoretically, if I was making a film about a
meteor blazing towards Earth that was going to destroy the
entire planet, and I came to you and said, right,
what is the best way to do this? What is
the best way to render this image on the big screen?
Would it be your job to say, well, we could
do it by say, getting a basketball in front of
a green screen and putting it putting it across the screen,

(41:38):
or we could use this kind of sophisticated computing in
order to make that image from scratch, Like, would it
be your call to decide how best to make it?

Speaker 13 (41:49):
Yeah, exactly, I'll be talking you out of the basketball
green screen plan for starters, and just yes saying okay,
if we want to produce a shot like that, this
will be the best way to do it. And obviously
you know you've got making the shots themselves, but also
the cast and everyone else involved and how they integrate
with the media, and so it's sort of just trying
to plan out how to get the best, most realistic

(42:10):
looking results with all of those different variables in bold.

Speaker 2 (42:13):
How much is money a variable?

Speaker 3 (42:16):
It's a huge.

Speaker 13 (42:17):
Variable, always the main one. Everyone wants. Everyone wants more
for less, So being creative and efficient is always the
name of the game. But yeah, also making sure that
you're fulfilling the vision of the director.

Speaker 2 (42:34):
So for example, to use the media, or example, once again,
if I came to you and I said, I want
to have a perfectly realistic metia you're coming to earth,
but I've got five grand to do it. You'd be like, right,
I know, I know a green screen and we've got
some fishing line. Whereas if I said, you know, not
money is no object, but perhaps I've got I've got
a Hollywood blockbuster kind of budget at my fingertips, then

(42:57):
you might have a completely different approach.

Speaker 13 (42:59):
Yeah, I mean the approach might be similar, but it
might be the way in which we frame the shots.
For example, you know, like an epic wide of the
media crashing through space is obviously going to have a
lot of components to it, but then you can sort of,
you know, push in, get closer to the media and
not see the whole media. You know, there's always solutions
to the visual problem that you're trying to solve that

(43:20):
you don't necessarily. Some can have more cost of implications
than others, so you know, it's always about finding the
right balance.

Speaker 2 (43:28):
You've been working in the industry for a few years now,
but how does one get to a point where you
know what the best solution is?

Speaker 13 (43:35):
I think the best solution is always changing. You know,
technology has been advancing at a rate of knots for
many years throughout my whole career and the things that
we used to be able to do twenty years ago,
you know, would take like, you know, nothing to do now.
And also what audiences want as well, Like, there's definitely
a very big onus at the moment on practical and

(43:57):
integrating with that kind of practical component.

Speaker 2 (44:00):
So what does that mean, Well, there's always a physical.

Speaker 13 (44:05):
Component to most of the ways that we do, right.
We go onto moot sets, there are actors, there's sets,
there's locations. There's the special effects team, which are the
people who actually make things explode you know, on set,
and our work invariably dovetails into everything.

Speaker 5 (44:21):
That they do.

Speaker 14 (44:22):
And so.

Speaker 6 (44:24):
You know, to kind of.

Speaker 13 (44:29):
In the work between all of the tangible work that say,
goes into a movie and the digital stuff which we're
responsible for.

Speaker 2 (44:37):
Right, So that's interesting that audience is kind of what
you're saying, is they actually value more real stuff today.
Do you think do you think is that because the
unreal for one of a better term, or digitized, you know,
forms of storytelling have become much more ubiquitous and much
more available. Actually, people are kind of thirsting for stuff

(44:57):
that's more grounded in reality.

Speaker 5 (45:00):
I think people just.

Speaker 13 (45:01):
Really enjoy it when there's something that you can physically touch,
you know, like you can see. I don't think it
really actually makes that much difference to the enjoyment of
the movie, especially if the work is seemless. I think
most of the time people don't know. But I think
when there's when you can sort of, you know, see
it behind the scene shot and see that this castle
actually existed and you can go visit it.

Speaker 5 (45:22):
You know.

Speaker 13 (45:23):
It's the same reason why places like Hobbiton are so
popular to go and visit now, because they're there. You know,
you can see them, you can walk up to the doors,
and if they only ever existed as a digital thing,
then you don't you sort of lose that connection a
little bit with it. So, you know, I think for
a long time, more and more digital work was being used,
and I think that's been sort of slowly sort of

(45:43):
pared back in collaboration with all the practical work so
that you do get the best of both worlds.

Speaker 2 (45:50):
You said that most of the time people watching movies
don't notice, and you said earlier that good visual effects
are usually invisible, but they might be invisible to someone
like me. What's it like for you going to the
movies and watching someone else's work, do you find yourself
constantly critiquing the visual effects?

Speaker 13 (46:07):
I yeah, it depends like it depends on the movie.
And I always think this is a testament to how
good the film is.

Speaker 15 (46:14):
Is.

Speaker 13 (46:14):
If I'm sitting there totally engrossed in the story and
the work is flying by and I haven't paid any
attention to it, then I know it's a great film.
If I'm sitting there studying the work that's been done,
then obviously it's not got my attention.

Speaker 5 (46:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (46:28):
Yeah, but it must happen sometimes, and you must have
a much more discerning eye for it than you know,
the average punter going along to the movies.

Speaker 13 (46:34):
Oh absolutely, Yeah. There's certain films which I you know,
I just haven't been able to watch property and in
particular ones that I've worked on as well. You know,
that's the most impossible thing to watch objectively. You just
end up looking at the things that you'd wish you'd done.

Speaker 5 (46:46):
You know.

Speaker 2 (46:47):
It does it change when it's on a big screen
as well? Like there what you know, if you're looking
at something in an edit suite and maybe you've got
a couple of computer monitors, well, you can. I'm just
imagining here that it might be easier to look at
a tiny blemish or something that's not quite perfect and say, oh, well,
that's not that noticeable. But then when you put it
up on a screen that's sixty five across, it's kind
of a different experience.

Speaker 5 (47:09):
Yeah, I mean we do.

Speaker 13 (47:10):
We do actually view stuff throughout the whole process, some
pretty big screens for this reason. But one thing, when
we finished touching the work, you know, it hasn't had
the final color adjustments done to it. The sound isn't
there yet. There's still a lot more that happens afterwards,
and so you know, when you actually see the work
in the context of the film and not looping over

(47:32):
on repeat, you know, you see it fly by. With
all of the additional work that comes from the sound
and post production teams. A lot of things you obsess
over didn't actually matter that much in the end, And
sometimes some detail that you didn't think mattered that you're like, oh, man,
more attention to that.

Speaker 2 (47:51):
So tell us, tell us how you got involved with
better Man.

Speaker 13 (47:54):
So we were doing some pre visualization work. But weather,
which is typically a process that happens before you shoot.

Speaker 5 (48:04):
It's you doing.

Speaker 6 (48:05):
You do it in the computer.

Speaker 13 (48:06):
It's a very quick and cost effective way of working
out what your shots look like, the camera angles, what
the action should be, and you can try lots of
things out quite quickly. And so they did. The ten
musical sequences in the movie were all pre visualized before
we started shooting, and it comes very cost heavy to

(48:27):
try and do that on the day when you're actually
trying to film. And so after seeing a couple of
those sequences, I read the script and that was me.
I was all in at that point to want to
take on the challenge.

Speaker 2 (48:40):
Because it's such a unique film. I I think I
think most of our audience will will have seen it,
or will at the very least be aware of it.
I just remember when I first saw the trailer and
I was like, hang on, there's an ape. Robbie Williams
is being played by an ape. Said it was kind
of like a second take. Did you have the same experience, No, I.

Speaker 13 (49:01):
Mean I grew up in the nineties and I was
around Robi's career the whole time. Are very familiar with
the backdrop of which the movie takes place and him
as a character, and it just it was just a
natural fit. The other thing I find with a lot
of musical biopics is they typically cast an actor who
looks similar, or they make them look similar through hair

(49:23):
and makeup, but they're never quite there. There was like,
you know, like a very close replica of that person,
and sometimes it can actually bump you out of the
film a little bit. By making Robbie an ape in
the film, you can see, yeah, I mean, we were
very faithful to the costumes that he wore, the hairstars

(49:46):
that he had. You know, everything is anchored in reality,
but the actual physical look of Robbie is very removed
from the real Robert.

Speaker 2 (49:54):
It's such a good point. I'm speaking with Luke Miller
from Wheater Effects about his job and specifically about his
role on the Robbie Williams biopic Better Man. There's that
one scene. I've got to ask you about the scene
for Rock DJ. So we've got the numbers here. Three
hundred and thirty four frames, five digital costume changes, fifty dancers,

(50:16):
all filmed on location on Regent Street. I think it
seems like three and a half minutes long. How did
you go about a challenge like that?

Speaker 13 (50:23):
I was going to say I think it's five hundred
dances we had and.

Speaker 2 (50:27):
Five hundred okay, yeah, So we'd.

Speaker 13 (50:31):
Obviously planned out meticulously where we were going to go.
We'd pre visualize the whole move. We'd figured out where
we could actually physically move a camera down the street,
and we rehearsed for four days straight in a sort
of aircraft hangar. It is the only place that was
big enough that we could sort of tape out Regent
Street on the floor to practice where everyone needed to be.

(50:55):
And then we shot for four nights straight in doing
the different sections. And you know, there's so many variables
in a shot like that, you know, there's there's certain
things like one example is the pogo sticks the boys take.
That boys all had to learn how to pogo stick
in sync to the music at a particular time, and

(51:19):
that stuff can't be can't be fixed after the fact
in post. That has to happen on the street in
front of the camera. And so it was very typical
for every single night for us to do over forty
takes for each section to be able to then stitch
it together to make the oner.

Speaker 2 (51:36):
It's just like a fantastical logistical operation, but it's just
all of these different kind of components and dynamics that
you have to somehow coordinate to pull off something like
that is kind of extraordinary, but pull it off.

Speaker 4 (51:50):
You did.

Speaker 2 (51:50):
Congratulations on your Oscar nomination this year.

Speaker 14 (51:53):
How was that?

Speaker 5 (51:55):
Oh?

Speaker 13 (51:55):
That was an incredible experience. That was you know, better
Man was definitely one of the outside movies I think
in the in the race, and you know, it was
very It was very proud and a humbling moment for
on that stage one and represent all the work that

(52:19):
all the artists, production, everyone had put into it. Obviously
I would have loved to have gone one step further
and won, but you know, even even just getting nominated
was incredible.

Speaker 2 (52:29):
Yeah, yeah, it's amazing. So where do you see the
kind of field going? Are we heading towards a world
where you can just go to a computer and type
in a prompt and basically it'll have the perfect metia
or crashing towards Earth?

Speaker 13 (52:43):
I think that will there is a possibility that that
world exists. But the problem is is that you still
need to tell stories. And you know, one thing I find,
especially with AI, is it can only draw on what
exists in the world up unto that point. Right, it
can't come up with new ideas, and so you still
need people to tell real come up with stories and

(53:07):
to tell real ideas. I mean, I think one area
it's grateful is sort of doing some of the menial
tasks within the visual effects space, the stuff which you know,
people get very frustrated with monotonous tasks that you just
do over and over again. Absolutely, we'll give that to
the machines. But I think we'll always need human beings
to tell stories.

Speaker 2 (53:28):
Yeah, I hope. So look at such a pleasure to
speak with you. Thank you so much for giving us
your time, and congratulations on the success of better Man.

Speaker 5 (53:35):
Awesome.

Speaker 3 (53:36):
Thank you Jack.

Speaker 2 (53:36):
That is Luke Miller from Wetter Effects. He was nominated
for an Oscar for his work on better Man. A
visual effects supervisor. Sounds like a hell of a job.
Bay And if you missed out on seeing the oscar
nominated better Man in Cinema's good news. It's going to
be on Neon from the twenty sixth of July. So
a week today better Man will hit Neon will have

(53:56):
all the details on the news talks he'd be websites
before eleven o'clock. We're in the garden and we're going
to catch up with our resident doctor about we go VI.
This is one of those new so I don't want
to say miracle drugs, but it's being heralded by some
as a miracle drug of sorts, one of these new
incredible weight loss drugs. It's now available in New Zealand.
I think you have to have a prescription and it's

(54:20):
not publicly funded. But he's going to talk to us
a little bit about how the likes of wegov actually work,
some of the side effects, some of the potential benefits
as well, So he'll be with us very shortly. Next up, though,
if you're looking for something good to watch or stream
this weekend, it's our screen Time segment twenty two past ten.
You've a Jacktame. This is News Talks EDB.

Speaker 3 (54:40):
Start your weekend off in style.

Speaker 1 (54:42):
Saturday mornings with Jack Tame and vpe it dot code
on inst for high quality Supplements used Talks EDB.

Speaker 2 (54:49):
Twenty four minutes past ten on News Talks EDB, which
means it's brought up screen Time Time. Tara Ward joins
us at this time every Saturday morning with her three
picks for shows to watch your stream at Homemade Tara,
Good morning. Okay, let's begin this morning with a show
streaming on Netflix starring Eric Banner and our very own
Sam Neil. Tell us about Untamed.

Speaker 16 (55:11):
This is a new murder mystery series with a great
cast and quite an unusual and quite beautiful location.

Speaker 5 (55:18):
As you say.

Speaker 16 (55:18):
It stars Eric Banner and Sam Neil, and it's about
a murder that takes place in the Yosemite National Park
in California. And Eric Banner plays a special agent, Kyle Turner.
He's basically a park ranger but with police powers, and
he's responsible for solving the mystery of a body that
falls from our Capitan mountain in the park. Samuil plays
his boss. They are longtime friends. But Kyle is your

(55:41):
typical grumpy but brilliant detective with an ex.

Speaker 6 (55:45):
Wife and a drinking problem.

Speaker 16 (55:46):
And so the setup of the show is quite familiar
and similar to a lot of other TV murder mysteries.
But Eric Banner is so good in this I'll watch
anything that Sam Neil is in. And the setting of
the National Park is so beautiful and remote, and the
scale of the landscape and the photography and this is
really impressive. So it's those things that make this shows
and out and makes it worth watching. And it's all

(56:09):
about that idea that the rangers can only really know
a small piece of this huge national park, and there's
so much wilderness and potential for danger out there that
they can't control. So you know, it is a little
bit formulaic at times, but still a very watchable, really
enjoyable series.

Speaker 2 (56:24):
Cool Okay, that's untamed. It's on Netflix. Also on Netflix,
Sneaky Pete.

Speaker 16 (56:29):
Yes, Sneaky Pete. This isn't a new show. It came
out in twenty seventeen, but it's just come on to
Netflix for the first time in the last week and
all three seasons are there now. This is a great
drama that stars Giovanni Rabisi and he plays Marius. Marius
is a con man who gets out of prison but
can't return to his old life because his enemies are
still after him, so he assumes the identity of his

(56:52):
prison cellmate, Pete, and he goes to stay with Pete's
long lost family, who haven't seen Pete for decades. They
happily welcome Pete back into the fold and welcoming back
into the family, but Pete's family has their own sects
and their own issues. That means Marius could be in
as much danger with Pete's family as in his old life,

(57:13):
and the show is about Marius sort of moving between
those two lives and those two different worlds, trying to
stay in hiding while also trying not to blow his
cover with Pete's family. And what I liked about this was,
even though that plot sounds kind of far fetched, the
show itself is very straightforward and entertaining. It's not trying
to do anything too clever. It's about family and relationships

(57:34):
and the lies that we all tell. Marius is a
likable rogue. You're always on his side and it's a
lot of fun. You just have to suspend belief for
a bit and just kind of go along for the.

Speaker 2 (57:44):
Right nice cool, that's Sneaky Pete. It's on Netflix as well,
and I'm looking forward to this one on three Now
tell us about Game on?

Speaker 16 (57:52):
Yeah, I love this one. You might remember a TV
series from a couple of years ago called Match Fit Yees,
a New Zealand sports dock YOUU series that had a
former rugby and league players come back and get fit
and play in a tournament.

Speaker 5 (58:04):
Well.

Speaker 16 (58:04):
Game on is the netbook version of that. Basically, it
takes several former silver Ferns like Irene Van Dyke, Aidan Wilson,
Casey corpor Tima Patter Bailey and puts them back on
the court to train and play in a netball tournament
against other former internationals. And some of these women haven't
played netball for years and so they are as competitive

(58:25):
as ever and as passionate for the sport as ever,
but they're on their forties and fifties now and they've
got a bit of work to do. They're also teaming
up with some a group of promising young teenage netballers
and mentoring them through the show. So there's a really
lovely connection there to the next generation of players that
are coming through. And I just watched this with a
big smile on my face. They look back at what

(58:48):
it took for them to play top level sport while
also having babies and jobs and families. It's a sort
of a celebration of the friendships that they've made along
the way, and now they're all back together again facing
this new challenge. It's really inspiring and a very heart woman.

Speaker 2 (59:04):
Watching this is great. So I love match First, I
just thought, mat sure, it was such a good show,
and do you reckon this compares quite favorably.

Speaker 10 (59:12):
Yes, definitely.

Speaker 16 (59:13):
And I think it's their vulnerability that they're putting themselves
back out there, you know, And they talk about how
their mind wants them to get up in the air
and just sit that ball, but their body is not
quite as willing anymore. And you know, they there's a
sort of a braveness to that about putting them back
out in the public eye and putting their bodies on
the line again.

Speaker 2 (59:31):
I love it. Okay, cool, that sounds like a bit
of me. Game On is on three now, Sneaky Pete
and Untamed, Untames, the one with Eric Banner and Sam Neil.
Both of those are on Netflix. Will have all of
the details for those three shows on the News Talks
ib website. Thank you so much, Tara, Catch you again
very soon. Right now, it is ten thirty.

Speaker 3 (59:52):
Getting your weekends started.

Speaker 1 (59:54):
It's Saturday morning with Jack Team on News Talksb's just light.

Speaker 3 (01:00:03):
You were.

Speaker 5 (01:00:21):
Look.

Speaker 2 (01:00:22):
We do our best on this program to bring you
something a little new from time to time, something a
little quirky, a little funky, a little sci fi infused,
a little bit mysterious. Even so, this is Polar Extremes.
If you were heavily involved in the underground music scenes
in New Zealand in the nineteen nineties, then you, I'm

(01:00:44):
sure will have heard of Polar Extremes and this is
what our music reviewer has chosen to play for us
this week. If you like me, though, this might be
the first time you've ever heard of Polar Extremes. Sound
interesting though, way are. They are a band kind of
surrounded in mystery and quite purposefully restrained in their online presence.
What we do know is the band we're a bit

(01:01:06):
of a fixture on the underground scene way back when
when regular eclectic performances across Wellington were a thing. They
are headed by an eccentriant auteur known as Quaint, and
the album they dropped this week has been in the
works for decades. So yeah, something a little bit different
the Stele Clifford's our music revers She's going to join
us before midday to give us a bit more clarity

(01:01:28):
about who Pollock Streames actually are and what we can
expect from their debut album. It's called Strange Visions Number one.
I think all strange Vision Vision's Volume one. Maybe anyway,
we're going to have a bit more of a listen
to that before midday, so yeah, very much looking forward
to that. There's something a little bit different, to say
the least. Very shortly, our doctor's going to join us

(01:01:49):
with his thoughts and a bit more information about we
go VI as it becomes available in New Zealand and
next up our Textbert is in twenty five to eleven.

Speaker 3 (01:01:59):
Digging into the issues that affect you the mic Asking Breakfast.

Speaker 17 (01:02:02):
The best advice I offer anyone, in fact, including our kids,
do it yourself. It's your life, your decision, your future.
Do it yourself. This is the cost plus accounting that
goes on and it's in power, it's in rates, it's
in insurance. We need to look and learn and then
get our act together and apply a bit of basic
discipline to our long term futures that doesn't rely on

(01:02:23):
the government. Back Monday from six am the Mic Hosking
Breakfast with Maybe's Real Estate News Talk ZB.

Speaker 2 (01:02:31):
Twenty three to eleven on News Talks EDB. Every week
AI seems to get better and chat. GPT how now
has a new function that extends beyond the basic inputs.
When it comes to the large language models, our textbot,
Paul Steinhouse is here to put it in normal English
for us. What does it mean?

Speaker 5 (01:02:47):
Paul? Yeah, maybe I should have just asked chet GPT
to do that for me.

Speaker 18 (01:02:51):
Shouldn't I please explain everything you're actually doing in normal language. No,
there's a new word in the AI world, Jack that's
taking storm, and I think chat GPT is kind of
leaning into this.

Speaker 19 (01:03:03):
It's the agent, right.

Speaker 18 (01:03:05):
The agent is sort of the next phase of this
AI evolution, and it's where instead of just you sitting
there and typing something into the thing and coming back
with something, you can say, do a thing and it
will go away and it will actually take steps and
think and be able to do a whole series of
tasks all on its own, and multi step things too.

(01:03:28):
And so we'll open ayes now release to these new
agents on their paid plans. They're coming to the free
plan soon. But this is the sort of thing that
you're going to be able to do, right, So you
could give it just a bunch of information that could
be just like PDFs or emails or spreadsheets, all the
kind of things. Maybe from you my documents folder at work,

(01:03:50):
you throw it in there, and you say, okay, I
need you to find the narrative, the insights across all
of this information and credit PowerPoint for me, right, and
it will go a It will do it. It doesn't
need the handholding. It does its reasoning, peace and the
magic and we'll come back with it type of thing.
But the new one, the new agents can even browse

(01:04:11):
the web for you and even take over a virtual
computer and truly do things on your behalf. So I
was thinking this, would you know, this is maybe not
something you can do tomorrow, but see, we'll see. You
could take say a photo of the contents of your fridge.
You could give it, you know, oh I like this
and I like that, give it some preferences, and then

(01:04:33):
you could tell it to come up with a meal
plan a bunch of recipes, and it can even go
away and put all that stuff into a cart for
you from your favorite supermarket.

Speaker 2 (01:04:43):
That is amazing. Yeah, like that is.

Speaker 5 (01:04:47):
Now now.

Speaker 18 (01:04:48):
It may not be perfect, and it may not be polished,
but that is now where we're at in terms of
what is possible with AI.

Speaker 2 (01:04:54):
It's not just hey, can you do something fun for me?

Speaker 3 (01:04:57):
It's like, no, actually need you to can you do
my meals?

Speaker 5 (01:04:59):
Yeah? What meals?

Speaker 2 (01:05:01):
And the point is, I suppose that the stuff is
just getting better and better. So even if it isn't
perfect and my hundred percent polished right now, it's only
going to get better and better. And the more that
people feed in information, the faster it will improve.

Speaker 4 (01:05:13):
Right.

Speaker 2 (01:05:13):
That's how these kind of that's the kind of exponential
nature of this AI progress. It's it's kind of Yeah,
it's remarkable and as you will no doubt have expected, Paul,
valuations are absolutely skyrocketing for these AI companies.

Speaker 18 (01:05:30):
Yeah, yeah, because people but that the advancements are happening
so fast, like faster than any kind of technology we've
kind of seen, and people want to be part of it,
I think. And so Bloomberg is reporting that the big
open AI chat GPT rival called Anthropic, they are going
to be doing apparently some another investment round that could
value the company at one hundred billion US dollars.

Speaker 2 (01:05:53):
That's amazing that it's just absolutely ridiculous. What do you
think the chances are maybe we should spend more time
on this at some point. What do you think the
chances are that some of this AI hype is never
going to to fruition, Like, can you put a percentage
number on it? Can you say, you know, maybe thirty
percent of the hype is gonna live up to you know,

(01:06:14):
live up to expectations in the next decade or so.

Speaker 18 (01:06:18):
Do you know, I mean it being completely autonomous and
taking a whole bunch of jobs. Maybe not, But there's
actually a pretty good percentage, right. I mean, I've talked
about some of the technology that we've seen kind of
go over the years, Like three DTV was one that
I just never understood and couldn't understand why peoplere getting
excited about that sort of thing, Like that's never gonna happen.
And then like the NFT whole thing that was happening.

(01:06:40):
I was, yeah, yeah, yeah, this is just the symptom
of an economy trying to work out what to do
with some interesting technology. But this does feel different because,
and I say it feels different because we're not that
far away. Like you can take a photo, like all
of those things I mentioned about the recipes and doing
the meal plan.

Speaker 2 (01:06:57):
Is all possible today.

Speaker 5 (01:06:58):
Yeah, that's not like science fiction.

Speaker 2 (01:07:00):
That's real.

Speaker 18 (01:07:01):
It can you can take a photo and it can
interpret what the items are from your fridge and put
a list. It can take that list and create recipes.

Speaker 5 (01:07:09):
You know.

Speaker 18 (01:07:09):
The bit that it's now doing with the whole browser
piece is really cool. Now, how accurate that is. We're
going to have to put it through its paces. But
that's like the last link in the chain. Yeah, So
if you imagine that's just like the photo of your fridge,
think about all the things you do each day at work,
think about all the mundane tasks that go on.

Speaker 5 (01:07:30):
It's coming for those.

Speaker 18 (01:07:31):
Yeah, and that's where I think it's that's where I
think that maybe the hype is real.

Speaker 2 (01:07:36):
What do they call it Amara's Law?

Speaker 6 (01:07:38):
Right?

Speaker 2 (01:07:39):
Amara's Law concerns the effects of technology and says that
we tend to overestimate, like the effect of technology or
the impacts of technology in the short term, but then
underestimate in the long term. So yeah, even if just
a sliver of the AI hype kind of holds true
over the long term, we're in for some profound changes.

(01:07:59):
Thanks so much, Paul. Paul Stenhouse is our text bit
with us this morning, eighteen to eleven. The Doctor's in
Talk we Gov next on Newstalk's EDB No better way.

Speaker 1 (01:08:10):
To kick off your weekend than with Jack, Saturday Mornings
with Jacktay and bfew it dot co dot nz for
high Quality Supplements used talks MB Well.

Speaker 2 (01:08:19):
If AI is drawing a lot of hype, then the
new weight loss medications that have taken the world by
storm over the last couple of years must be up
there on a pretty similar level. Now, one of them,
we govy is available in New Zealand, so you've got
to get a prescription and it's not subsidized at the stage.
But doctor Brian Betty is here with the details this morning.
Kild to Brian.

Speaker 14 (01:08:39):
Oh, Jack, I see here.

Speaker 2 (01:08:41):
Yeah, nice to chat with you as always. So what's we.

Speaker 14 (01:08:43):
Gov look So look at a once weekly injection for
weight loss and it's it's known as a GP one agonist.
That's its its title.

Speaker 6 (01:08:53):
Now.

Speaker 14 (01:08:53):
It actually mimics a hormone we have naturally in the
gut and this hormone makes us feel full, reduces our
desire to eat, and also controls blood sugars in the blood. Now,
it was originally this medication called semiglue tide, that's what
is called its generic name, was developed originally for diabetes,
but in higher doses was found it had this side

(01:09:15):
effect allowing you to lose weight, and especially at these
higher doses. So we've had this GP one agness for
diabetes in this country for several years now under trade
name Trillicity and the Tosa, and people may be familiar
with that. But there was an interesting thing that happened
in the United States that when this was released as
a medication called a zenpic, which people may be familiar with.

(01:09:36):
It was essentially hy go be at a lower dosage
and it was used for diabetes. However, people realized it
made them lose weight, so there was a huge amount
of off label use that was prescribed. That was people
started prescribing it for weight loss. Now, interesting enough, there
was suddenly a global shortage because so much of the
stuff has been used, and we've been coping with that
for our diabetes medication for the about the last eighteen

(01:09:58):
months two years. However, production worldwide has now lifted, so
there's now not a shortage and this medication would go,
which is a diabetes medication at a higher dose, is
now available in New Zealand.

Speaker 2 (01:10:10):
So to be totally clear, we gov is the same
as tho zmpic, but just at a higher dose.

Speaker 14 (01:10:16):
Yeah, it's the same medication as those zem pic except
at a higher dose. So so that that's a differential.
So the lower dose use for diabetes, higher dose once
a week used for weight loss.

Speaker 2 (01:10:26):
Ah okay, and so you can get it now for
weight loss as well as for diabetes.

Speaker 14 (01:10:32):
In museum, well you know that two things. We use
a medication called Trillicity for weight loss, and again it's
this GP one agaist. It's at a lower dose. We
use that specifically for weight loss, but we're GOV is
only used specifically for diabetes. Sorry, we're GOV is only
used for weight loss, not diabetes.

Speaker 2 (01:10:48):
So we're GOV. You have a higher dose, use it
once a week. Trillicity is for diabetes, and you use
that or more regularly lower dose.

Speaker 14 (01:10:55):
And that that's also what we call a GP one agonist, right,
that's okay, we'll be familiar with. So so yeah, so
higher dose, that's the key.

Speaker 2 (01:11:01):
Thing and to the and to to how it works.
So it obviously kind of stops you create things. It
has that impact, but it also has the physiological impact
of controlling sugars in the blood.

Speaker 3 (01:11:14):
So yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right.

Speaker 2 (01:11:17):
So if we if we would only have one of those,
it would still have some impact, but presumably, but because
it kind of has that two tiered approach, it's particularly effective.

Speaker 14 (01:11:27):
Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right. So you do get a
little bit of weight loss and those lower dose medications, However,
when you use this higher dose, you tend to get
a larger weight loss and actually at the higher dose
of the diabetes affick wears off. So so it's specifically
at this dosage used for weight loss.

Speaker 2 (01:11:43):
Yeah, that's interesting. Okay, all right, So is if we're
focus on the obesity side of things, to what extent
is obesity a problem in New Zealand and why medication
shouldn't we just you know, eat better, move more, you know,
consider some of the environmental impacts, some of the economic impacts.

Speaker 14 (01:12:01):
Maybe, yeah, yeah, So look to your first question. Yes,
we do have a the New Zealand with ab CD.
It is a major health issue. We estimate about thirty
percent of the population or a third of the population
could be classified as a beese or overweight and that
is a major cost to the economy. It costs about
two billion dollars a year and associated costs such as

(01:12:21):
cardiovascular disease and diabetes, which are often associated with being overweight,
so it is a big, big issue in New Zealand.
Now you're right, good diet exercise is critically important in
weight loss and for overall health, so there's no doubt
about it. However, once your BMI gets up above that
thirty mark, it can often be very very hard to

(01:12:44):
lose weight despite lifestyle, and that's for a number of reasons.
It's due to genetics, metabolism. Everyone's slightly different with us
and for anyone who's tried to lose weight, they'll know
what I'm talking about that it can be very very
difficult the way the body body is made up, or
individual's metabolism is made So what's happened is these medicaid

(01:13:06):
become a sort of I suppose an adjunct something in
the toolbox which can can be beneficial for some people
to help them lose weight. Not all people, but some
people it can be very very useful. And that's what's
sort of happened over the last few years.

Speaker 2 (01:13:19):
So the once weekly injection, are they side effects?

Speaker 5 (01:13:23):
Yeah?

Speaker 14 (01:13:23):
No, there is is it like anything, there is side effects.
So once we have the injection, you were just the
dose every month, so you start to lower dose and
ty trate the dose up every month. Now, the common
side effects we find a gastric side effect, so that's
things like nausea, bloating, loose bowel motions, and verbing. They
tend to be relatively minor and they can be managed
by adjusting diet generally. Now, there are some, as always,

(01:13:47):
there are some more serious side effects, and pancreous inflammation
can be one. Vowel obstruction it can actually be another.
And actually a fast heart rate is another one that's
sometimes seen. Now again those are very rare, especially the
pancreaus inflammation of owel obstruction, so we shouldn't get too
concerned about it, but we need to be aware of them.
Most people can take the medication with very few issues.

Speaker 3 (01:14:10):
So it's not fine.

Speaker 2 (01:14:11):
Right, So it's not funded by fimat costs about five
hundred bucks a year. How long do you take it for?

Speaker 14 (01:14:17):
Yeah, look so yeah, yeah, six thousand years. So no,
they're not funded by expensive Yeah, it is expensive medication,
so it's a real consideration. Look, unfortunately, a lot of
the studies now show that once if you do lose weight,
if you stop the medication, then within two years your
weight tends to come back. On the body is very

(01:14:38):
good at putting the weight back on and storing energy.
It's pre programmed to do that, so that that's a
real issue. Regardless of how we lose weight, that tends
to be a problem. So there has been a shift
to thinking over the last few years that, look, these
medications may be needed to use long term. That that
sort of like our diabetes medications or our blood pressure medications.

(01:14:59):
That obesity medications may be a long term chronic care
medication that we have to use. And there certainly is
starting to shift and thinking too that way. However, it
is safe to use long term, So that's the issue
that let's see, So there's certainly a safe medication for
long term use.

Speaker 2 (01:15:15):
Thanks for your time, Brian, We really appreciate another'd be
so much interested in that. Doctor Brian Betty with us
this morning. Right now, it is eight minutes to eleven.

Speaker 1 (01:15:23):
Garding with Steel Sharp one hundred bucks of free accessories
on selected chainsaws.

Speaker 2 (01:15:28):
Our man in the garden route clime Pass has had
a busy week indeed, running around the nine Tarma and
Makoto Auckland Yodo.

Speaker 19 (01:15:37):
Yeah, yeah, that's really cool. Actually, we had thirty teachers
for Blake inspired that. Basically, we take them all over
the place in Auckland and north of Auckland and Daffy
and away in places like that.

Speaker 5 (01:15:49):
And it's always really lovely. I love it showing them
all the.

Speaker 20 (01:15:52):
Bugsday, can't you imagine them? And then you get the
questions what good does a mosquito do? And beetles and water?

Speaker 5 (01:16:05):
I mean, why you know? Anyway, so I thought let's
do that.

Speaker 19 (01:16:10):
I did it for teachers basically, and explain that all
the creatures on the planet, all birds and all that,
they've all got their own little job to do ecosystem services,
if you like. That's what they called and uh, and
I'll start off with a carpet beetal, which of course
destroys your carpet because it's made of wool, and carpet
whetels are the only creatures on the planet that can

(01:16:32):
digest keratin, which is what wall is basically. And so
if it's you know, if if a sheep dies, you know,
if you like, the megots will do the inside, et cetera,
et cetera. But how do you get the wall under control? Well,
you just call one one one and and the carpet
whetles come and do that for you, you know what

(01:16:53):
I mean?

Speaker 5 (01:16:54):
And do you have roaches in your.

Speaker 2 (01:16:58):
Yes?

Speaker 19 (01:16:58):
Excellent, Well you must have spilt the spaghetti blinn age
behind the stove, because all they do is cleaning it
up for.

Speaker 5 (01:17:07):
You, and you know what, they do it for free?

Speaker 2 (01:17:11):
Yes, yes, there are some downsides. I don't know that.
Missus Tame is particularly delighted whenever she sees a large
roach scurrying across the kitchen.

Speaker 19 (01:17:21):
Yeah, but I mean, you know, you can stand on
it if you want.

Speaker 5 (01:17:23):
It's not a big where.

Speaker 19 (01:17:28):
Julie I had a lovely one. Because there's a thing
called a booklouse, a book lie in pural. They make
a ticking sound. They're only a millimeter in size, and
you'll find them literally behind your television screen, but anywhere
inside and they make a ticking noise. But the cold
thing is what they do in those particular places where
they occurs. They actually eat the microscopic moles inside your radio,

(01:17:51):
your television and all these other places, and they clean
it up for you. It's unbelievable. Yeah, tiger slugs, you know,
slucks go to your cat bowl. They come in and
they slip up all the milk and that sort of stuff.
And then they're Indian meal mark. They go into your
pantry because they actually clean up all the mold and

(01:18:11):
stuff there as well, and I think good on them.

Speaker 2 (01:18:15):
See you're always doing this. I'm not going to say
you're a contrarian, Rude. I would never suggest that for
a moment. But you always give us good reason to
love the things that otherwise in life people might go
with good reason to love the invertebrates in our world.
Thank you very much, sir. You take care and those
teachers are very lucky. Indeed, Rude Climb passed in the garden.
For us, it's almost eleven o'clock. News is next. On

(01:18:37):
News Talks, he'd.

Speaker 1 (01:18:38):
Be Saturday mornings with Jack Day keeping the conversation, going
through the weekend with Bepure dot Coat on in here
for high quality supplements, Use talks, Bo have.

Speaker 2 (01:19:13):
You just sitting on the radio, Good morning, Welcome Jack
Tame with you on Newstalks, he'd be through to mid
day today. I've seen it once or say it again.
Entertainment and the modern world of streaming has totally changed
the way that millions of people are consuming sport around
the world, and there are big obvious examples, right, So

(01:19:34):
if One Drive to Survive, I think that's kind of
that stands ahead, that's kind of the paragon of entertainment
sports TV that has just driven an incredible surge in
IF one fandom and support over the last few years.
For me, the Tour de France has become all the
more entertaining because of Tour de France Unchained, which is

(01:19:56):
very much like the if One Drive to Survive. And
you would have to say that Welcome to Wrexham the
TV show is probably like up there in either second
or third place. I reckon as one of the shows
that has driven huge support of a sport or of
a team. I mean, you know, would any of us
honestly know the team Wrexham FC if not for Welcome

(01:20:18):
to Rexham the TV show. If you're not familiar with
the story, the show was bought a few years ago
by Hollywood actor Ryan Reynolds and his mate and they
have what Rob is, Rob mcallaney. I think Rob mclallaney
mcalleney is that as Ryan reynolds mate. Anyway, the team
was languishing in like maybe the fourth or fifth division

(01:20:40):
of British football, like just well, well, well, the English
Football's you know, sort of boondocks. It was effectively Sunday League.
But they have made a TV show around supporting the
team and it's coincided with incredible success. So I don't
know if it's down to the international attention, if it's
down to the money that the new owners have put

(01:21:01):
into the club. But they've now secured three consecutive promotions
in the National League through to the National League, or
from the National League through to the Championship.

Speaker 3 (01:21:11):
I think that's right.

Speaker 2 (01:21:12):
So three consecutive promotions, which means that they're now in
the Championship, which is England's English Football's second tier. And
they've announced this morning that they've signed Kiwi defender Libby Cacacci,
which is such good news. We'll Quei football. Libby Kiccacchi
is such amazing news. Ahead of their game this afternoon,
they're playing the Phoenix. They're expecting what twenty twenty five

(01:21:34):
thousand to turn out this afternoon if the weather's good,
which will be incredible. I think we're going to have
live coverage on TVNZ Plus with male mate Chris Chang
heading up the team in Wellington this afternoon. But quite extraordinary,
a to show what the support of a couple of
big Hollywood names, the money that comes along with it,
and more importantly, perhaps than anything, the attention that comes

(01:21:56):
from a popular TV show can do for a team.
So the Phoenix versus rex MFC kickoff tonight at five pm,
with Libby Caccacci heading to Rexham as they compete for
the championship. Yeah, how exciting, too good? Right now, it's
ten past eleven, Non news dogs, he'd be check team,
and our clinical psychologist Google Sutherland from Umbrella Well Being
is here with us this morning. Kilder Google, Kilder Jack.

Speaker 21 (01:22:19):
Hey, you're mentioning before of Rixham and and the Tour
de France. God, I love the Tour de France.

Speaker 5 (01:22:24):
Isn't it amazing? Amazing speak you talked about.

Speaker 2 (01:22:28):
Oh you guys going to say it's going to be
dangerous territory. My producer, Libby's already scoffing and rolling her
eyes in the air breaks I tell her about what's
happened overnight, Lebby. It's just an.

Speaker 21 (01:22:37):
Amazing unbelievable, isn't it. I just I tried to do
you go, Yeah, No, I was just every day I
try to watch that two hour, the last two hours
they had and Tuddy pagotcha.

Speaker 5 (01:22:49):
It's like, Oh, it's just everything that you could want.

Speaker 2 (01:22:52):
Really, it's so dramatic. Yeah, the thing is so the
way the tour works, and I promise that we're not
going to go on too long about this, but the
way that it works is for the first kind of
week and a half or so, they have these stages
that are one hundred and sixty hundred and seventy k's
long and kind of sprint stages. They call them sprint stages,
although for me, one hundred and sixty k's is not
a sprint anyway, But basically they call them sprint stages

(01:23:13):
because they're relatively flat, and so in the last few
k's of the race they have the big, powerful sprinters
who all sprint it out and you have the kind
of photo finish on the line. But the way that
the Tour de France is generally decided is when they
get into the mountain. So when they get into the
Pyrenees or they get into the Alps, and all of
a sudden, one by one, the cyclists and those big

(01:23:35):
pelotons just fall away and fall away and fall away
and it comes down to man on man, just the
best cyclist in the world, who's got the legs, who's
got the lungs, who can perform at altitudes and there's
no hiding. Like you've got all the fans on the
side of the road and you have these these incredible
athletes just one by one falling off to the side.
It's so so good to see.

Speaker 21 (01:23:56):
It's three thousand k's or something, isn't it's a scene.

Speaker 2 (01:24:00):
It's just h yeah. Yeah, I don't see how it's fun.

Speaker 5 (01:24:05):
Like, no, I don't know. It's a challenge.

Speaker 21 (01:24:07):
I can see the challenge, but gosh, yeah, fun doesn't
really enter into the vocal.

Speaker 2 (01:24:11):
I mean the mental The mental component must be so much,
it must be amazing, you know, just to get up
and do a day after that. Anyway, I'm glad that
you're a fan as well, because I'm sitting there absolutely.

Speaker 6 (01:24:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:24:23):
Hey, today, you thought you would shine the light on
a psychological condition that I'm going to hazard a guess
and say that almost none of us have ever heard of.
It would be worth a fair amount on a triple
word score. Prosopagnosia, Is that right?

Speaker 21 (01:24:38):
Proto pagnosia.

Speaker 2 (01:24:40):
Yeah, as face blindness.

Speaker 21 (01:24:42):
Face blindness, So imagine that you that you arranged to
meet somebody and you arrive there and there's a whole
bunch of people and you go, I don't know the
person that i'm and they're familiar to you, they're a friend,
they're not just a stranger, and you just can't pick
out their face from all the faces around you. And
that's that's prosopagnosia. So that's the that it comes from

(01:25:06):
the Greek term for face and not knowing, So it
means that.

Speaker 5 (01:25:10):
You lose the ability.

Speaker 21 (01:25:12):
Sometimes you lose it after like a brain injury or
something like that, or a stroke, or there are some
people that are born with it, but you don't have
the ability to recognize faces, so you can't tell one
person from another by looking at their face. And what
a debilitating condition that is, because you know, it's just

(01:25:33):
recognizing faces is so obviously so key to our social relationship.

Speaker 5 (01:25:37):
So if you don't have it, it makes life mighty
mighty hard for you.

Speaker 2 (01:25:41):
Yeah, it sounds sounds kind of remarkable, and the way
face blindness sounds extreme, so not but not only is
it that you can't necessarily recognize people's faces, really quickly.
But you also can't recognize expressions, and of course so
much of communication is nonverbal. A.

Speaker 5 (01:26:00):
Yeah, absolutely, so you can't. You you're just unable. And
it seems to be that.

Speaker 21 (01:26:08):
People that have protopagnosia they can they can see the
individual parts of the face, so not like they can't
see they can see your eyes and your mouth and
your nose, et cetera. But it's putting all those together
into in your head into one sort of overall picture,
and that that seems to be where the problem lies.

(01:26:29):
And some listeners I'm sure will be familiar with the
name Oliver Sax, who's you know, face neurologist, and he
had face blindness or prosopagnosia, and and writes really nicely
about getting into a lift and having to apologize to
the person that he nearly stepped on and then realized
it was actually himself in the mirror that he was

(01:26:50):
talking to, but he couldn't recognize his own face, let
alone anybody else's face, so he had sort of apologized
to the stranger who was who was in there, but
but no, it was in fact him.

Speaker 2 (01:27:01):
So it's not like just having a bad memory for
names or faces. Or anything like that. This is quite distinct.
I think the way you described it about like you
can see the individual eyes, you can see the nails,
you can see the mouth, you can see the cheekbones,
but you just can't put it together.

Speaker 5 (01:27:17):
You can't put it together.

Speaker 21 (01:27:18):
Yes, so yes, it's you know, many of us, or
some of us at least, might say, I'm not very good.
I don't really not good at remembering faces.

Speaker 5 (01:27:25):
But it's more than that.

Speaker 21 (01:27:27):
It's simply not being able to recognize them in the
first place. So, you know, an extreme example might be
arriving home from the airport. You've been on a big trip,
and your wife and children are there to meet you,
but you can't pick them out in the crowd because
you can't recognize their faces.

Speaker 5 (01:27:45):
That there are ways.

Speaker 21 (01:27:46):
Around it like that, you know, people get trained to
use other bits of the body for information, like you know,
somebody's haircut, although of course that can change, or the
way somebody walks, and so there are sort of way workarounds,
but that none of them are as good.

Speaker 5 (01:28:04):
And it's estimated to have around sort of.

Speaker 21 (01:28:07):
One to two percent of people in the population, and
most of those might experience it after they've had some
sort of brain injury or a stroke or something.

Speaker 2 (01:28:15):
Like that, right, And is there a scale, you know,
like there's some people who have it sort of really
profound impacts and some people who maybe just you know,
struggle with expressions in that kinda Yeah, yeah, there is.

Speaker 21 (01:28:27):
A scale in terms of you know, some people kick
have it sort of mildly and some people much more
but you know, still have Its fundamental base is that
inability to just recognize the face of or recognize faces
full stop, doesn't matter whether it's yours or your loved ones.
And so yeah, it's a really debilitating condition. It's very

(01:28:49):
hard to I think for us as people who don't
have it, to sort of you know, kind of understand
or even get a sense of it.

Speaker 2 (01:28:57):
It seems so firn but such a subconscious thing. Hey,
like the way that you that you recognize faces obviously,
but also the way you kind of recognize expressions and stuff.
You just can't do it.

Speaker 3 (01:29:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 21 (01:29:07):
Yeah, there's a whole sort of second layer of processing
in your brain. So your your brain gets the first messages.
So in terms of receives the messages, yes, I can
see that there's nothing wrong with my vision, but it's
it's in the complic or the complicated part of actually
stitching everything together in a hole, and it makes you
sort of go think about how amazing the brain must

(01:29:28):
be to do all this in the background. It's not
as simple in out sort of system. It's a very
complicated system, and if you tinker with the wiring inside
it sometimes goes a bit offline.

Speaker 2 (01:29:39):
Yeah, yeah, yeah cool. Hey, thank you so much, Google.
So thanks Joseph Pagnosia face blindness. Yeah, something I knew
zero about, So I appreciate appreciate that lesson this morning,
Google Sutherland from Umbrella Well Being with us there right now.
It's seventeen past eleven, our travel correspondent. It's taking us
on a bit of a jaunt through the UK's Lake District.

Speaker 3 (01:30:00):
Next Travel with Wendy Wuturs. Where the World is yours
book now.

Speaker 2 (01:30:05):
Mike Cardle's travel correspondent. He's here this morning.

Speaker 5 (01:30:08):
Hey, good morning, Jack. I was just saying to Libby,
since Antonio Prebble was on your show a couple of
weeks ago with Francesca, I have become totally addicted to
Outrageous Fortune.

Speaker 2 (01:30:19):
Ah, have you really did? You watched it back in
the day though, didn't.

Speaker 5 (01:30:22):
You Well, I was saying to Libby, I didn't actually
watch season one or two when it was first on,
so I've been in a major retro mode Jack with
my viewing lately. And yeah, oh man, it's such vintage
New Zealand television.

Speaker 2 (01:30:37):
Is excellent New Zealand TV. Yeah, I should actually go
back and watch it as well, because I loved it
when it was on I watched it or when it
was on. But yeah, it's obviously right, been a little
bit of we've bet a time between drinks, so yeah,
go thing to go back. I mean, it is, like
you say, it is kind of vintage dare we use
that word iconic New Zealand TV. Anyway, We're focusing on

(01:30:59):
Windermere in the UK's Lake District this morning, and is
this the kind of England's most popular national park.

Speaker 5 (01:31:06):
No doubt about it, Jack, I reckon it's Blighty's answer
to Queenstown Lakes or Towpoor because it's just this vast,
watery and outdoors you play grand in the Cumbrian countryside.
It's got craggy mountains, it's got scenery glore. It was
recently crowned with World heritage status, and it's overrun with tourists.

(01:31:29):
And the one thing I do really want a hammer
is do not go there in the summer peak. Don't
go there today or tomorrow because the holiday hordes they
swarm like midges. I was there in May, and it
had been probably thirty years since I was last there,
So when I was there in May, it was just
pitch perfect, like the weather, the spring weather, sparkling and

(01:31:50):
just no crowd. So dodge that peak season. Wow.

Speaker 2 (01:31:54):
Okay, yeah, that's very good to know. Where is a
good base though if you do dodge it?

Speaker 5 (01:32:00):
Yeah, well, I would say because the district sprawls for
like hundreds of square kilometers, you really want to find
a central location. And bonus on Windermere would be my pick.
It's a very perky tourist town. It's got all the
tourist trappings, but it's actually really easy to reach, so
for example, you can train there from London. And in

(01:32:23):
fact I loved this when I was in Windermere. William
Wordsworth he actually penned a pollen because he was so
pissed off with the railway arriving into Windermere back in
the eighteen forties and His poem says, is then no
nook of English ground secure from rash assault, and his

(01:32:46):
name pops up all over the Lake district. His legacy
is everywhere. In fact, if you go to Gabra Park
in the Lake district, that is where you will find
that vast drift of daffodils which inspired a certain poem.

Speaker 2 (01:33:00):
Yeah right, so what is quite what is so distinctive
about Lake Windermere.

Speaker 5 (01:33:06):
It's the big Daddy. So this is England's largest lake,
So a big, glossy, deep blue body of water stretches
for miles. Grab a kayak, grab a rowboat, take a
cruise and just marinate yourself in the bucolic glory of
the of the scenery. It is so gorgeous it could
be New Zealand. You know, it's just so fabulously spectacular.

(01:33:31):
The big point of difference, you've got all that old
world architecture. So all along the lakefront of Windermere there
are these stately stone country manners and they all like
huddle around the lake edge like safari animals at the
watering hole. So that's when you know it's not New Zealand.
But the landscape is really so blissful Jack, I can

(01:33:54):
certainly understand why the Princess of Wales spends so much
time there as part of your cancer recovery. It is
just a therapeutic place.

Speaker 2 (01:34:04):
Yeah, oh wonderful. So for Beatrix Potter Potter fans, what
should you prioritize? What would you recommend they check out?

Speaker 5 (01:34:11):
Ah, you could go potty on the Potter Trail. Her
footprints are everywhere. So first of all, I would say
check out ray Castle because that's where she holidayed as
a child and that captured her imagination and her lifelong
love affair with the Lake District. She's got two homes

(01:34:32):
and if you have kids in tow, definitely treat them
to the world of Betrick's Potter, which is sort of
like part theater, part museum, but it's where Peter Rabbit
and Jemima, Puddle Dark and friends they all come to life. Remarkably,
jack Potter went on to own fourteen farms in the
Lake District, and she bequeathed all that farmland and her

(01:34:54):
homes and all the royalties from her box to the
National Trust. So she is quite the gift that keeps
on giving.

Speaker 2 (01:35:02):
Yeah, that's amazing. So what about grasp me.

Speaker 5 (01:35:06):
Yeah, just north of Lake Windermere. Grassmere is your quintessential
chocolate box village. And this is where Wordsworth lived, so
you can go and see his home, the creeper Clad
Dove Cottage, and his whole family are actually buried in
the church graveyard. But best of all the sweet treats,
the village is home to Grassmear gingerbread. Now, I don't

(01:35:29):
think your dime it doesen't gingerbread biscuit because Grassmere gingerbread
is a British icon and it's this quite novel spicy
sweet cross between a biscuit and a cake. I reckon
it's more like a moosley bar, so you know, it's
sort of crispy, crumbly and chewy more than one. And
this was invented by a Victorian baker in Grassmere and

(01:35:52):
for over a century it's now been produced and sold
from the old village schoolhouse in Grassmere, where Wordsworth was
actually a teacher. So yeah, make a beeline for the
gingerbread shop. It really is quite Moorish and.

Speaker 2 (01:36:07):
This is like really good hiking country, isn't it.

Speaker 5 (01:36:11):
Absolutely yeah, there are tails for all trails for all tastes.
If you want to knockoff England's highest peak scoref our Pike.
That's in the neighborhood, so it tops out about a
thousand meters, so you will need a reasonable level of fitness. Yeh,
make it a half day jaunt. Beautiful scenery. I actually

(01:36:32):
think if you want something a little shorter and sweeter,
go for a place called wind Letter. This is forest
bathing on a fabulous scale. So wind Letter is this
mountain forest just out of Keswick and it is just
so dense this forest, and it's a tangle of pine trees,

(01:36:53):
spruce and large. It's a very fragrant way to do
some forest bathing. Nice Any quirky fines, Well, if I
said to you Jack, shall we go to the pencil Museum.

Speaker 2 (01:37:06):
Again?

Speaker 5 (01:37:09):
And probably wouldn't blow your hair bag with it the
pencil Museum.

Speaker 2 (01:37:13):
I'm open minded famously, as you know.

Speaker 5 (01:37:17):
I've found this quite fascinating. So this is in Keswick,
close to the Winletter Forest and it's a wee gym
because it does such a good job just walking you
through the history of pencils. And the reason it's in
Keswick is because they had these huge graphite deposits, so
for hundreds and hundreds of years, local farmers around Kiswick

(01:37:39):
would use graphite to mark the sheep right, which sort
of gave rise to Kiswick's pencil factories. And then it
was the friend too later mixed graphite with clay which
produced the likes of your trustee HB. Pencil. I now
know so much about pencils, Jack.

Speaker 2 (01:37:58):
Stuff like that is always amazing and it's the stuff
you remember when you travel. Don't you think it's true?

Speaker 5 (01:38:03):
It is?

Speaker 2 (01:38:03):
Yeah, good, Hey, thank you so much, Mike. We're gonna
put all all of your tips for exploring Windermere in
the UK's Lake District and the Pencil Museum up on
the News Talks he'b website and catch you again this
time next week before midday on News Talks he'db. We're
going to play some music by Kiwi group Polar Extremes.
They're in the sort of underground scene in Wellington in
the nineties. We know very little about them as a group,

(01:38:27):
but they've just released their first ever album, their debut album,
and it sounds really interesting, so I'm looking forward to
playing a little bit of that, plus a brand new
book by Steve Brownius Polkinghorn has just been released, so
our book reviewer has had a little bit of a locks.
He's going to tell us about it very shortly. And
it's just coming up to eleven thirty.

Speaker 1 (01:38:48):
Getting your weekends started. It's Saturday morning with Jack Team
on News Talks.

Speaker 2 (01:38:53):
EDB has twelve on News Talks. HEB this afternoon. Dare

(01:39:16):
I suggest on Weekend Sport that a Roaming Giant is
going to be broadcasting from the Roaming Giants?

Speaker 5 (01:39:22):
It's not sure.

Speaker 2 (01:39:24):
I'm not the first one to make that, Joe. Jason Pine, Well,
you're the first one. In the last five minutes. I've
got to say.

Speaker 22 (01:39:31):
I was saying to the team here. Whoever's decision it
was to take Weekend Sport on the road and set
up at pubs on Test match Saturdays, deserves a race.

Speaker 2 (01:39:39):
Yes, they deserve every bit of kudos coming their way.
Some would say that you've got a tough gig at
the best of times talking sport for a living, Jason.
But yes, that's sort of taken things to another level,
hasn't it. It's fantastic to be in Hamilton this afternoon.
What is I mean? It sounds like the atmosphere is
already sort of building, but what is your expectation for

(01:39:59):
the game tonight.

Speaker 22 (01:40:01):
I think a large part of you thinks that the
All Blacks are going to run away with this. I
feel so f a kind of stumbling towards the finish line.
They've been in action across there. You know, their northern winter,
this is the end of year tour for them. They
just seem as though they're out of gas a little bit.
And then you look at the All Blacks team. You
think the number of players who are getting an opportunity

(01:40:21):
tonight who haven't had the chance to play in the
first couple of test matches, the number of Chiefs who
were in the back line in particular, I mean McKenzie two, Pire.

Speaker 2 (01:40:29):
Leonett Brown. Imagine those three combining.

Speaker 22 (01:40:32):
And then you just think that the All Blacks at
the moment look as though they're a team who every
time they play get better. They were better last week
than Dunedin. I think they'll be better tonight. Sold out
crowd at FMG, good playing surface, Wheather's going to be good.
I just think this might be similar to last week,
if not an even bigger winning.

Speaker 2 (01:40:50):
Market for the All Blacks. Yeah, I think you could
be onto something there. I really do, so to what
are you planning on the show this afternoon as you
count down the hours to kick off?

Speaker 22 (01:40:59):
Well, as we always do when we come to places
like this, we like to give it a flavor of
the city that we're in. So I thought to myself, Okay,
we're in Hamilton. Who was the biggest rugby icon in Hamilton?
And you land on Stephen Donald, don't you?

Speaker 2 (01:41:10):
You land on Beaver?

Speaker 22 (01:41:11):
So he's going to come down and join us live
at one o'clock. I said, come on, mate, you've got
to come down. He said, yeah, I've got a bit
on today, but I will come down. So he's with
us after one o'clock. After two, another couple of White
Cup to rugby legends Matthew Cooper and Steve Gordon going
to be here, but we'll flavor it across the afternoon
as well, with some guests here at the at the
Roaming Giant. But also this really interesting story this week,

(01:41:33):
Jack that I'm sure you've picked up on Rugby three
sixty and the fact that this new professional competition is
starting to turn the heads of not only top rugby players,
but top rugby league players, the likes of Roger to
We've asked to Sheeck as well, this is this real
or is this just a fantasy? Is this just another
one of these ideas that sounds good but won't ever
actually come to fruition? Want to unpack that after midday

(01:41:54):
to day.

Speaker 2 (01:41:55):
And anyway you can gauge what the result might be
in your beloved capital city this afternoon with the Phoenix
and Rexham.

Speaker 22 (01:42:02):
Yeah, it seems odd to be away from Wellington on
there's a Phoenix game going on. But great news this morning.
Again you would have picked up on this. Libby Kacacchi
has signed for Wrexham. Just a bit too late to
feature in this game unfortunately. Look it's a it's a
pretty inexperienced Phoenix side. They're missing a couple of their
of their you know, they're older and more experienced players.
But I think in occasion this afternoon for the faithful

(01:42:23):
and Wellington. Upwards of twenty twenty five thousand expected at
sky Stadium, so a great occasion for the for the
football fans of the Capitol as well.

Speaker 2 (01:42:30):
So good hey, you have fun this afternoon. We'll be
thinking of you. I know you well. Jason Fine broadcasting
from the Roaming Giant in Hamilton as he counts down
to the kickoff for the All Backs versus France and
the Third Test this evening. Don't forget, of course, that
Jason is part of the Newstalks EDB team who will
be bringing you the live coverage of the game live

(01:42:52):
call from six o'clock this evening on News talks 'EDB
kickoff just after seven The All Backs in France in
Hamilton FMG Stadium twenty four to twelve on Newstalks EDB.
Before midday, We've got that new music from Polar Extremes.
Your book picks for the weekend next and luding Polkinghorn
by Steve Braunius.

Speaker 1 (01:43:09):
Saturday Morning with Jack Team Folk Show podcast on iHeartRadio
powered by News Talks EDB twenty.

Speaker 2 (01:43:17):
Two to twelve on News Talks. He'd be Jason Pine
might have been pulled away from his beloved Wellington to
be in Hamilton for the All Blacks, but of course
Wellington is hosting Wrexham FC versus the Phoenix later this
afternoon five pm kickoff, and Catherine Rain's, our book reviewer,
is going to be there in the stands. Hey Catherine, Hey,
how you doing?

Speaker 5 (01:43:37):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:43:37):
Very good? Thanks so so you're a Rexham fan or
a Phoenix fan.

Speaker 15 (01:43:41):
Ah, look, probably a little bit of divided loyalties, but
probably erring slightly towards Wrexham.

Speaker 2 (01:43:47):
I think, just very good.

Speaker 15 (01:43:48):
Yeah, I think I'll go and hang out at the
Makeshift to pub and see what the atmosphere is like
and start from there.

Speaker 2 (01:43:56):
I think it's going to be so much fun. Amazing,
isn't it. How like a TV show like that can
can and I presume you've watched the TV show, can
can develop a fan base around the world so that
a team like that can tour Australia and New Zealand
and they can expect twenty thousand fans.

Speaker 15 (01:44:11):
I just think it's amazing, and I think I also
think that what Ryan Reynolds and Rob mclhoney have done
for the team. I mean, obviously their Hollywood background has helped,
you know, but just how they've built up the city
of Rixham as well and the people around it. And
what I like about the TV show is that they
talk about all of the characters that are involved, and
it's not just about the players, it's about the town.
It's a really interesting watcher for sure. Anybody hasn't watched

(01:44:32):
it as well as well.

Speaker 2 (01:44:33):
Yeah, what are they called the real life Ted Lesso
in a sense?

Speaker 7 (01:44:36):
Yeah they do.

Speaker 2 (01:44:37):
Yeah, yeah, oh so good. So they're in the championship
next season, which is going to be a big ask
but amazing and so good that the Big Cacci is
going to be playing for them as well. But anyway,
two reads to recommend to us this weekend, So we
will begin with the latest from Steve Braunius tell us
about Polkinghorn.

Speaker 15 (01:44:55):
So this is where and Steve Bornis is as a
journalist and he's covered a lot of murder trials in
New Zealand, and this one about Pokinghorn he's set through
and he'd listened to what you can only really describe.
I was a very intriguing and unusual murder case. And
of course this covers that eight week trial of Philip Polkihorn,
who was accused of murdering his wife Pauline Hannah, and

(01:45:15):
the police quickly suspected him of murder and then sort
of slowly, and as Braunius describes, not altogether in a
particularly competent way, went about investigating every aspect of his
life and a lot about his sex life, and finally
arresting him for the murder of his wife sixteen months
after he made the one one one call after saying
that she hanged herself in their roomy were a home

(01:45:37):
And of course now we know he's been acquitted, and
it's it's just it's fascinating. He Braunius discusses Madison Ashton,
the sex worker who had this relationship with Popyhorn, and
you know, kind of that was the motive that he
had to kill Pokinghorn. But you know, as we know,
she disappeared and refused to appear, only of course later
to have converse fully with the media. And what I

(01:46:01):
found really fascinating about it is that normally when someone's
on trial for murder, they kind of hidden sort of
behind a glass box and that's where they are, and
he wasn't confined to that at all. He sort of
had a rose to himself behind his legal team, and
he appeared at the kind of the dock at the
beginning of the trial to enter his plea and at
the very end otherwise he was sort of part of
the population. And you know, I suspect that he formed

(01:46:22):
some relation, you know, relationships with people in Chattingham in
the courtroom, and but the trial revealed these very dark
secrets of these privileged and very unhappy life and brauni
has had access to many of those key players in
the investigation and it just it makes for really interesting
reading and a different perspective on it.

Speaker 2 (01:46:41):
So that's Polkinghorn by Steve Braunius. You've also read Broke
Road by Matthew Spencer, so this for.

Speaker 15 (01:46:46):
Something completely different. There's follows two detectives, There's Rose Riley
and DC Prior Patel, and they head north to this
village in New South Wales in the beautiful Hunter valley
called Red Creek, and a young married woman there, Penelope Armitage,
has been strangled in her home on this newly built
townhouse on this residential avalil development, and it becomes very

(01:47:07):
clear that she knew who had attacked her and who
murdered her, but the evidence suggests that she was alone.

Speaker 10 (01:47:14):
And so Riley.

Speaker 15 (01:47:17):
Is told to be wary of the local police force
and she sort of sets up her own instant a
room away from the police station. And then the media
becomes interested and the tablaiu joiness lists start to appear,
and then their friend are very trusted true home journalist,
a guy called Adam Bowman. He appears too, and he
starts to talk about the series, and they're joined by
this local detective, a guy called Christian Rigus, and they
investigate the circumstances of the death and carry out these

(01:47:39):
investigations and witnesses and Bowman, on the other hand, is
using his journalistic skills to sort of deep dig deep,
to a deep dive into the political ruption, corruption within
the community. And then the forensic results come in and
there's a connection to other murders, one in Canberra and
one in Adelaide, and Riley and I ten got to
figure out how they're connected and narrowing down their suspect

(01:48:00):
list and work out who they're dealing with. And the
author does this really good job of building suspense and
lots of suspects and keeps the story moving and lots
of read hearings and shifty characters, and it's that kind
of book that you just keep wondering, who really did it?

Speaker 2 (01:48:14):
Yeah? Right, that sounds great. So that's Broke Road by
Matthew Spencer. Catherine's first book was Polkinghorn by Steve Brawny.
Has have a great time at the game this afternoon,
won't you?

Speaker 16 (01:48:23):
I will thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:48:24):
Yeah, we'll be thinking of you. Katherine Raine's our book
reviewer there. Those books will be on the news talks.
He'd beg website as well. Sixteen to twelve and a
couple of minutes new music from Polar Extremes.

Speaker 1 (01:48:35):
Giving you the inside scoop on All you Need to Know.
Saturday Mornings with Jack Tame and bpewre dot co dot
in for high quality supplements news talks, it'd.

Speaker 2 (01:48:44):
Be this is Polar Extremes. The songs called so what

(01:49:20):
if I'm on the television and you slept with all
one song and of interesting how it changed between the
rhythms there are. They've just released an album called Strange
Vision Volume one. Estelle Clifford has been listening to it.
She's our music reverewan. She's with us now, Kildra Stelle.

Speaker 23 (01:49:36):
Oh calder morning, just bringing you something a little eclectic
and different today.

Speaker 2 (01:49:40):
I think that's an understatement. No, it's cool. It's not
it's not a criticism. It's cool. Yeah, it's great.

Speaker 23 (01:49:47):
I was going to say it's a scopism, but then
when you get into the lyrics and the storytelling, it's
actually very right on the nose of kind of how
the world is right now and you know commentary on
sort of where we're at that that song there so
on the television. Actually, my favor of the whole album
when you when it's got the opener, you go right
to the beginning of it. It's got this really funk bass.
It's quite spacey opener. His vocals are really great on it,

(01:50:11):
and the really running scene throughout this entire album is
he's just an excellent musician, great musical little track that
you can just sink into polar extremes. The artist behind
that is called Quaint. He's very elusive, doesn't really have
a huge social media profile or anything, and from the
press release it says sci fi infused, postmodern satirical apocalyptic beats.

Speaker 2 (01:50:34):
Oh okay.

Speaker 23 (01:50:36):
If I was going to make it a little more simplified,
I would think just imagine him performing in some of
the really cool grungey theaters of Wellington doing their underground
kind of performance sort of music. I think David Bowie
Flight to the Concords. Yeah, and then there's some weird, funny,
dark wit stuff that goes along with.

Speaker 2 (01:50:56):
Sort of vaudeville slash.

Speaker 23 (01:50:57):
It wouldn't be out of place at a steampunk event,
right right, Yeah, it kind of makes me think of that.

Speaker 2 (01:51:02):
And it's just a one person yeah yeah, Quaint is
just a.

Speaker 23 (01:51:07):
Single person, and I kind of like that elusiveness. I
think it draws you in a little bit where you're like, who, what,
why and how is this getting put together?

Speaker 2 (01:51:15):
But to hold the extremes is Quaint, which is one person,
So it's not yeah yeah right, okay, okay, yeah, I
think all morning.

Speaker 23 (01:51:24):
Well there could be like maybe yeah right, so performing
tonight at Moon and Wellington, so maybe once you see
live shows, yea, yeah, come back to us. Because this
this album actually came out in twenty nineteen, a very
quiet digital release like posts pre Pandemic rather, and then
it sort of just kind of disappeared like a trial
and erar. But the songs have been getting put together again.

(01:51:47):
Quaint has been performing, you know, in the Wellington underground
scene and other musical scenes since the nineties, and so
some of this kind of like music and storytelling were
starting their early two thousands and then you hear these
songs that you're like, this one called consume, right, and
it just basically repeats that lyric consume, consume, consume, and
you're like, oh god, it speaks volumes for where we

(01:52:08):
are as a people, sometimes, doesn't it where we just
I mean, are we consuming things or are we just
consuming all the resources?

Speaker 5 (01:52:16):
You know, it's still very.

Speaker 23 (01:52:18):
Poignant to what is happening in the world right now
and delivered in that very theatrical kind of music way,
and then you can just enjoy actually the layers of
music too, because it's very good and very very clever.
But again, I think if you think Flight of the Conchords,
but then this really pop funk, eclectic sort of sound
going on underneath, it's yeah, it's really it's very cool,

(01:52:41):
Like I just really like what's going on here. One
of the songs you're going to play us out Worth
is Captain zodiex Dictionary. This is probably one of the
most fully crazy tracks on there, and there's just absolutely
everything going into it, very character filter, you know how
there's sometimes that talky kind of storytelling within a track,

(01:53:03):
which again is where I point to, like the vaudeville
kind of performance, sing punky kind of thing, but the
music still really draws you in with the layers of production.
I think it's it's fun, it's a little bit twisted
and dark, but clever and beautiful soundtracks, so giving it
quite a fresh, funky kind of groove. I think it
really reminds me of working in the theater scene in Wellington. Yeah,

(01:53:25):
Like I'm pretty sure he's Auckland based, but it just
gives me that really it collected sort of vibe from there.
There's a song on there actually too, if you want
to track it down. It's at the end of the album.
It's called Harps, and there's every kind of sound in
there excepta harp, but it has some really great brass
and Quaint says it's one to unite the Chakras. Yeah,
and each song on the album has its little icon

(01:53:45):
picture and it's a clock. It's a time clock, right
because it's the apocalyptic time clock, and each little one
has an icon picture, and the one for Harps is
a mushroom. So I don't know if we've going on
some little random trip, but I'm just going to put
that out there that I've sort of enjoyed the visuals
that go along with it. And again, I think if
you get to see this live, because now it's having
a bigger release than it did, and it's quiet, little
Heyday of twenty nineteen apparently part of a trilogy too,

(01:54:09):
but again that's very mysterious as to whether or not
it will happen. Maybe if Polar Extremes is inspired to
write some more, we'll see, maybe see how this sits
with everyone. But if you're wanting, yeah, just to change
it up a little bit, but still enjoy some really
great music and production, it's all in this album.

Speaker 2 (01:54:27):
Sounds great, sounds really interesting. Yeah, it sounds interesting. It's quirky.

Speaker 23 (01:54:31):
Let's go quirky and eclectic and just go somewhere a
little different. I think you'll enjoy it.

Speaker 5 (01:54:36):
Cool.

Speaker 2 (01:54:36):
Okay, so what did you give it?

Speaker 23 (01:54:38):
I'm yeah, I'm going to give it a ten out
of ten. Really really sunk into this album over the
last few days, and I'm enjoying. I'm enjoying this sort
of challenging me a little bit.

Speaker 2 (01:54:49):
Yeah, yeah, okay, cool, we'll have a bit more in
a couple of minutes. We'll listen to that. Captain Zobia
A ZODIACX Dictionary, the one you recommend, Thank you, Estelle
and the Style. Clifford Our music reviewer gives it ten
out of ten. That's strange Vision Volume one by Poldar Extremes.
Quaint is the artist behind Polar Extremes and yeah, we'll
pay a bit more for you in a few minutes time.

(01:55:10):
Right now, it's eight to twelve.

Speaker 1 (01:55:14):
A cracking way to start your Saturday Saturday mornings with
Jack Day and vpewre.

Speaker 5 (01:55:19):
Dot co dot zead for high quality supplements.

Speaker 3 (01:55:21):
News Talks head Bright.

Speaker 2 (01:55:23):
I'm about to get booted out of the studio, so
here's what you need to know for everything from our show.
News Talks headb dot co dot nz is the place
to go. We've put up all of our recommendations from
books to movies to TV shows. The recipe we share
before ten o'clock. It all goes up on the website.
Jason pine'es behind the mic this afternoon, broadcasting live from

(01:55:44):
Hamilton as he counts down to the All Blacks Third Test.
Of course, you can hear coverage of that third test
live commentary on News Talks HEADB. Coverage begins at six
o'clock this evening. Thank you for all of your communications
throughout the morning. To my wonderful producer Libby. We started
the show by reflecting on a Wellington music legend. Djmoo
of Fat Freddy's drop fame and his incredible art over

(01:56:07):
the years. And we're going to end the show with
another fascinating Wellington musician. This is Polar Extremes. The song
is Captain Zodiac's Dictionary. I'll see you next Saturday.

Speaker 12 (01:57:02):
This Monday, back.

Speaker 1 (01:57:07):
Up, Fay, it's a fun.

Speaker 12 (01:57:15):
All the Hut, It's the Fun fantasym

Speaker 1 (01:57:45):
For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame, listen live
to news talks it'd be from nine am Saturday, or
follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.

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