Saturday Morning for Saturday 8 October 2022

8.10 Roxana Saberi: ‘Iran will never be the same again’

The headscarves women are required to wear by the Islamic Republic of Iran are now becoming a symbol of defiance. Women are burning them in the streets and school girls are removing them, chanting slogans criticising their clerical authorities. 

The unprecedented protests started last month following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini who was arrested, and reportedly beaten, by the country's notorious "morality police" for her hijab being deemed too loose.

London-based CBS News correspondent Roxana Saberi was born in the United States to an Iranian father and Japanese mother. After moving to Iran in 2003 to work as a reporter, she was arrested in 2009, accused of espionage and spent 101 days in prison. She went on to write the book Between Two Worlds: My Life and Captivity in Iran.

 

8.30 Hannah Gadsby: Nanette, the show that changed stand-up comedy

Confronting audiences as much as entertaining them, Hannah Gadsby’s 2018 stand up show Nanette was a groundbreaking global hit on stage and Netflix. Discussing mental illness with unflinching honesty and boldly calling out misogyny, Nanette defied comedy conventions. 

Yet the path to and through fame for the comedian has been anything but straightforward. In Gadsby’s memoir Ten Steps to Nanette she writes on everything from growing up queer in conservative Tasmania to her struggle with later-in-life diagnoses of autism and ADHD.  

Gadsby is currently in New Zealand performing her latest show Body of Work in Auckland and Wellington. 

 

9.05 Jamie McLellan: taking New Zealand design to the world

On Friday 7 October Jamie McLellan won the John Britten Black Pin at the Designers Institute of NZ's Best Design Awards, the most prestigious award on the New Zealand design calendar.

Currently based in San Francisco, McLellan is the first Head of Design for Kiwi shoe brand Allbirds, known for its commitment to sustainability. Yet this award also recognises his longer-standing contribution to the industry, putting New Zealand on the design map globally. The early part of Jamie's design career was spent working in Italy, Hong Kong, Hawaii and London, before returning home to Auckland to set up his own furniture design consultancy.

While Allbirds is all about shoes, Jamie’s own design portfolio has ranged from bike frames and windsurfing sails, to chairs and coffins. 

 

9.30 Rev Dorian Llywelyn: expecting miracles on the journey to sainthood 

The path to sainthood can be long - as long as a 1000 years. For Meri Hōhepa Suzanne Aubert, who died in 1926, that path hit a snag earlier this year when the Vatican Medical Council decided a potential miracle attributed to her could be explained by medical science. 

Meanwhile Pope John Paul I, who died in 1978 after being pope for only 33 days, was beatified last month, the last step before sainthood.

So what exactly is a miracle and how does the Catholic church decide?

Father Dorian Llywelyn is a Jesuit priest, author, academic and President of the Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies in Los Angeles. 

 

10.05 Kris De Decker: can low-tech become the new hi-tech? 

It’s tempting to think of the internet as a weightless thing but, like our digital devices, it uses an increasing amount of energy. 

That realisation turned Belgian journalist and inventor Kris De Decker from reporting on the latest high-tech gadgets to exploring the advantages of low-tech solutions. Questioning why we always assume high-tech to be the solution, everything that is now low-tech, De Decker reminds us, was once the latest invention. 

Dedicated to living a more sustainable and fulfilling life, De Decker is creator of Low-Tech Magazine and No Tech Magazine, as well as The Human Power Plan, an artistic project investigating the possibilities of human energy production.   

 

10.45 Nick Ascroft: a nearly award-winning word finder

Poet Nick Ascroft considers one of his claims to fame to be “nearly winning the Kathleen Grattan Prize four times, the most anyone has nearly won it”.  Which might partly explain why his fifth collection of poetry is titled The Stupefying.

As funny as it is personal, the book revels in diverse experimentation with different poetic forms, while also dealing with the uncertainties that come with a relationship breakup. 

Based in Wellington, Nick is also a leading Scrabble player and is on the dictionary committee for the New Zealand Association of Scrabble Players. He’s part of the New Zealand team taking on Australia in the 2022 Scrabble Trans-Tasman, 5-7 November. 

 

11.05 Playing favourites with  The Dunedin Study’s Richie Poulton

This year the internationally-renowned Dunedin Study celebrates its 50th year. Since 1972, 1037 Dunedin-born babies have been enrolled in the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study and assessed regularly — most recently when study members were aged 45, when 94.1 percent of living members participated. That made it the highest follow-up rate for a study of this design and duration anywhere in the world.

Director of the Dunedin Study, Professor Richie Poulton, first worked on it as an interviewer back in 1985 and went on to establish as co-director the National Centre for Lifecourse Research.

Looking back on his own life’s developments, Richie joins Kim Hill to play some favourites.

 

Books featured on this show:
 

Between Two Worlds: My Life and Captivity in Iran
By Roxana Saberi
ISBN: 9780061965289
Published by Harper

Ten Steps to Nanette: a Memoir Situation
by Hannah Gadsby
ISBN: 9781742374031
Published by Allen & Unwin

The Stupefying
Nick Ascroft 
ISBN: 9781776920570
Published by Te Herenga Waka Uni Press

 

Music featured on this show:

Promised you a miracle
Simple Minds
Played at 9.30am

You Sexy Thing
Hot Chocolate
Played at 10.45am

Pale Blue Eyes
Velvet Underground
Played at 11.15am
 

Sweet Thing
Van Morrison
Played at 11.30am
 

Throw Your Arms Around Me
Hunters and Collectors
Played at 11.55am