Afternoons for Monday 13 August 2018

On Short Story Club this Thursday we are going to discuss a brilliant short story by Janet Frame, called The Bath. 

The story can be found in the recently digitised Landfall Archive, run by Otago University Press. The Bath  was published in 1965 in Landfall 75. To read it you need to click on the landfall cover in the link here and scroll down 7 pages to the story, which is on pg 225.

Email us your thoughts - Jesse@radionz.co.nz

The writer of the best email wins a copy of To The Mountains: A Collection of New Zealand Apline Writing published by Otago University Press

1:10 First song

1:15 Wellington bus passengers revolt

It's been four weeks since Wellington's public transport system was overhauled, with new routes, new drivers, new buses, more expensive fares and a litany of problems.

Angry bus commuters gathered at the Newtown Community Centre last night to let the regional council know just how frustrating the new bus service is for them, with people sharing stories of being repeatedly late for work or appointments, having to resort to taxis, as well as overcrowded buses or buses simply not turning up.

The meeting organiser, Kara Lipski tells us what else is planned and what she hopes will change.

1:25 International Left-handers Day

About 10 percent of the population is left handed and today is International Left-handers Day. The annual event started in 1992, and hen left-handers are asked to celebrate their sinistrality and increase public awareness of the advantages and disadvantages of being left-hand .

We talk to Dr Katrina Phillips of the University of Auckland, an expert in applied behaviour analysis, who tells us why left and right handedness comes about and why you can be left handed but not left footed!

1:35 Can age restrictions on porn actually work?

Children's minister Tracey Martin wants to introduce age restrictions on pornographic websites to stop teenagers from being able to access them.

Could such an approach work? Or are parliamentarians lagging behind the 8-ball in trying to 'protect' digital natives who use technology very differently to how previous generations think?

Auckland University PhD candidate Kris Taylor joins us to discuss.

1:40 Great album: Introducing the Hardline According to Terence Trent D'Arby

2:10 Television Critic Graeme Tuckett

Graeme discusses Fargo, Secret State and Dear White People.

2:20 Professor Richard Easther on the NASA probe sent to the sun

The Head of the University of Auckland's Physics Department Richard Easther talks about the Parker Solar Probe. What does NASA hope to learn by sending a spaceship the closest to the Sun that we've ever been?  A mere 6 million kilometres away.

2:30 Expert: Kate Hillier from Chelsea to the NZ Flower and Garden Show

Kate Hillier comes from  along-line of gardening enthusiasts. Her grandfather started the famed Hilliers Garden Centres in the UK and the green fingers go back even further than that. Kate talks about her lifelong love of gardens and what it takes to organise New Zealand's biggest garden show, the NZ Flower and Garden Show.

3:10 Virgie Tovar: You have the right to remain fat!

She knows what you are thinking when you see her and she's sick of it.  Virgie Tovar is a healthy plus sized woman and proud of it. She is the champion of a movement called "Lose the hate not the weight"

She's an activist who fights against fat discrimination and fatphobia and argues that our diet obsession is a product of the multi billion dollar diet industry in her new book, You have the right to remain fat

3:35 Voices

3:45 The Pre-Panel Story of the Day and One Quick Question

4:05 The Panel with Dellwyn Stuart and Selwyn Manning