Afternoons for Tuesday 23 January 2024

 

1:15 New Zealand 'gladiator' featuring in Australian show reboot

Alethea Boon is one of those overachieving types.

She grew up watching the game show 'American Gladiators', where everyday people competed against the shows 'gladiators', comprised of various athletes and top performers in contests of strength, agility, and endurance.

Inspired by the physical feats of these gladiators, Alethea went on to become a high achieving athlete herself, representing New Zealand in both gymnastics and weightlifting at the Commonwealth Games, and has become well known in the CrossFit community in Australia, where she now lives, having competed in five CrossFit Games.

It almost seems as if it was all preparing her for her newest role being a gladiator in the Australian reboot of the show.

Alethea talks to Jesse.

1:25 Why is the 'summer chorus' missing, bug man Ruud Kleinpaste explains

One of our listeners, a chap named Andrew, text in yesterday because they noticed a familiar sound missing from the usual summer chorus of cicadas and crickets.

We asked around the office, and realised that a lot of us had noticed a distinct lack in the noisy critters during the daytime, and also crickets at night.

So, where have all the cicadas and crickets gone?

The bug man, Ruud Kleinpaste is with us to help solve the mystery!

1:35 Tips for the tricks of buying second hand furniture

An Auckland couple, Grant and Amy Difford wanted to turn their love of mid-century pieces into a business, and the death of someone close to them was the catalyst to take that leap of faith.

That tragedy was the catalyst for business consultant, Grant Difford, to re-evaluate what he wanted from life and led him and his wife Amy to start 'Plots & Pickles', a vintage and up-cycled furniture store in Auckland.

Grant finds used items, in need of a little bit of love and refurbishes them to get a second life with a new family.

He talks to Jesse about his shop and tricks of buying second hand furniture.

1:45 Tech Tuesday with Daniel Watson

Today Dan talks to Jesse about the new tech trends for consumers for 2024.

2:10 Book Critic: Claire Mabey

Today Claire talks to Jesse about The Cazalet Chronicles - a five-book series by Elizabeth Jane Howard, So Late in the Day by Claire Keegan and The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff.

2:20 Update on Oz with Brad Foster

Back from the holiday break, Brad Foster reports on the Australian PM calling his cabinet ministers back to Canberra two weeks early to discuss the ongoing cost of living challenges for everyday Australians. He also previews Australia Day this Friday with fresh calls to change the date in support of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. He also talks tennis, cricket, rugby and weather.

2:30 Music feature: Hrishikesh Hirway

When you've interviewed the likes of Madonna, Iggy Pop, U2, Cat Stevens over 200 artists on exactly how one of their songs was created have gone deeper with the artist into a song than almost anyone else, what songs are on top?

10 years ago, musician, composer and podcast host Hrishikesh Hirway started a podcast called Song Exploder to get over his own writers block.

It's now an internationally award winning podcast, and a Netflix original television series, where musicians break down the creative process behind their songs.

He released his own EP, Rooms I Used to Call My Own in 2022.

Hrishikesh joins us for our first Music Feature of the year, with a list of songs to share.

3:10 Don't be down about climate change, a data scientist on being optimistic about the world

2023. Yes it was the hottest year on record. Yes, we had devastating cyclones here and wildfires around the world.

But we need to say no to doom and gloom about climate change says Dr Hannah Ritchie a researcher at Oxford and deputy editor of the online publication Our World in Data.

As a data scientist she pours over numbers  that  give her a since of urgent optimism that this generation will leave the environment better than it found it.

Her new book is called 'Not the End of the World: How We Can Be the First Generation to Build a Sustainable Planet.'

3:30 Spoken Feature: Healthy or Hoax, new season

Coming up, we've got a brand new season of Healthy or Hoax hosted by Stacey Morrison. In this episode Stacey heads off for a sound healing session.

3:45 The Panel with Ali Jones and Ian Powell