Nights for Thursday 18 April 2024

8:15 Pacific Waves

A daily current affairs programme that delves deeper into the major stories of the week, through a Pacific lens, and shines a light on issues affecting Pacific people wherever they are in the world. Hosted by Susana Suisuiki.

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8:30 Jukebox

Emile Donovan plays your requests - as long as you've got a compelling reason, or a good story with it.

Send in your requests to nights@rnz.co.nz or text 2101.

8:45 The Reading 

Tonight, episode eleven of 'The Swing Around' written by Barbara Anderson and read by Miranda Harcourt.

9:07 Nights Quiz

Do you know your stuff? Come on the air and be grilled by Emile Donovan as he dons his quizmaster hat.

If you get an answer right, you move on to the next question. If you get it wrong, your time in the chair is up, and the next caller will be put through. The person with the most correct answers at the end of the run goes in the draw for a weekly prize.

The quiz is themed - find out more about tonight's theme on Nights' Facebook page.

9:15 I Was There When: Mount Ruapehu erupted 

Every Thursday, Nights speak to people who were on the ground when history was made in New Zealand.

Tonight, we're going back to nearly 30 years to look at the last major eruptions of Aotearoa's largest volcano Mt Ruapehu.

Between 1995 and 1996 the mountain put on a show - throwing ash, rocks and water across the surrounding area.

Someone who has spent their life studying the volcano and was there in 1995 and 1996 is GNS volcanologist Brad Scott who joins Emile Donovan.

9:30 Why so many New Zealanders are reading romance novels 

The romance genre has been getting bigger and bigger, as women readers voraciously seek escapism and put their money where their mouths are.

In fact, as of last year, romance accounted for 15% of ALL adult fiction sales in New Zealand.

Frances Loo is the owner and operator of Chapters Book & Tea Shop in Auckland's Mount Eden and hosts a romance readers club. She joins Emile Donovan.

10:17 Pillar 2 of AUKUS - should we, or shouldn't we? 

It's a simple, crystallised question in an increasingly murky international geopolitical environment: tensions are high around the world; massive armed conflicts ongoing in Europe and the Middle East; tensions between the two superpowers of this time, China and the USA, are ratcheting up.

So how does New Zealand - an island of five million people in the middle of the pacific, culturally closer to the west, eocnomically closer to China - position itself? 

Tim Groser is a former National Party minister and diplomat who served as the ambassador to the United States from 2016 to 2018. He speaks to Emile Donovan.

10:30 New book details New Zealand's military and social history

Those Who Have The Courage is the first book to bring the story of New Zealand's mounted and armoured forces together.

Emile Donovan talks to author and researcher Matthew Wright.

10:45 ‘Health Sensation’ food blogger shares cheap eats 

From pretzel burgers to sushi, and tofu banh mi to toasties.

Bryer Oden runs the popular Instagram account 'Health Sensation' where she reviews cheap spots to grab lunch around Wellington.

She's amassed ten thousand followers across TikTok and Instagram celebrating good food with good friends, in an effort to shed some of the unsavoury aspects of diet culture online.

She joins Emile Donovan.

11:07 RNZ Mixtape

Ana Chaya Scotney is an actress and artist based in Te Whanganui a tara Wellington.

She has starred in movies such as Educators, Millie Lies Low, The Aotearoa film Cousins and most recently Alice Englert's directorial debut Bad Behaviour.

In 2021 Scotney released music under the project Kotiro. An experimental collaboration between Ana and her friend Thomas Arbor which melded together and a true patchwork of pp, folk and sound design.

She talks to Maggie Tweedie about the eclectic music that inspires her creatively.