This Saturday Morning: Kim starts the morning chatting to local children's writer Diana Noonan about her time supporting children whose mothers work in one of the world's largest brothels in Bangladesh; champion tree climber and arborist Zane Wedding is flexing his muscles for the national tree climbing championship next week; journalist and author Peter Conradi, co-writer of The King's Speech, talks about its sequel, The King's War; we chat to the winner of the Walters Prize and the competition's Brazilian judge Adriano Pedrosa; Robert Tauxe on the hunt for foodborne illness using advanced DNA sequencing; he found fame with the song Whole Wide World in the 1970s, but Wreckless Eric has kept recording and touring ever since, and superstar author and creator of Jack Reacher, Lee Child, joins us live from New York.  

 

8:09    Diana Noonan - The children of Daulatdia brothel

NZ children's writer Diana Noonan says Daulatdia, in Bangladesh, is no ordinary slum. Inside this purpose-built brothel, one of the largest in the world, she says you are as far from joy as it is possible to imagine as the 2000 unwilling sex workers exist in a living hell of violence, drug addiction, disease and despair. Their children live there too, but most of them spend their days at what Noonan describes as some of the best schools in the world - catering for mums and babies, pre-schoolers to adolescents - supported by Save the Children NZ. Noonan recently volunteered for Save the Children at Daulatdia.

 


8:45     Zane Wedding - Champion tree climber  

Zane Wedding in action

Zane Wedding in action Photo: supplied

Mangere-based Zane Wedding (Ngāti Kuri, Ngāti Pikiao) is a senior lecturer in Arboriculture at MIT and currently ranked the 4th best tree climber in New Zealand. He is about to compete for the top gong at this year's NZ Arb Hasqvana National Tree Climbing Championships (9-10 November, The Reserve, Museum of Otago) in events including secured footlock, belayed speed climb, and aerial rescue. Wedding left school at 16 and has been an arborist ever since, taking up lecturing two years ago and competing in tree climbing events for several years. He says there is plenty of scope for more young people to be employed on good wages in the industry and so far all his graduates have landed jobs.

 

 

9:06  Peter Conradi - Author follows up The King's Speech with The King's War 

Peter Conradi

Peter Conradi Photo: supplied

King George the VI

King George the VI Photo: Wikicommons

Peter Conradi is a British author and the Europe editor for the Sunday Times of London. He was co-author, with Mark Logue, of The King's Speech: How One Man Saved the British Monarchy, which told the story of the friendship between King George VI and his Australian speech therapist, Mark's grandfather, Lionel Logue. A new story, called The King's War, also written by Logue and Conradi, chronicles what Lionel Logue saw and heard at the King's side during the Second World War as one of his confidants and advisers. Conradi has also written a host of other books including Hitler's Piano Player and The Red Ripper: Inside the Mind of Russia's Most Brutal Serial Killer.  
 

 

 

 

 

9:40  Ruth Buchanan, the winner of the Walters Prize 2018, and Adriano Pedrosa, judge 

No caption

Photo: Provided

Adriano Pedrosa

Adriano Pedrosa Photo: supplied

Ruth Buchanan was announced as the winner of the Walters Prize 2018 at a dinner in Auckland last night. Buchanan was selected for her presentation of BAD VISUAL SYSTEMS, 2016/2018, a mixed media installation. Judge Adriano Pedrosa said of Buchanan's work: "The many layers of Ruth Buchanan’s installation BAD VISUAL SYSTEMS, 2016/2018, provide a distinct polyphonic quality to the exhibition, at times poetically verging on the cacophonic."  Pedrosa also praised the high quality of all finalists, the remaining three of whom were Jacqueline Fraser, Jess Johnson and Simon Ward, and Pati Solomona Tyrell.  Their works are all currently exhibiting at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki. Pedrosa is an eminent Latin American writer and critic and artistic director at the globally renowned São Paulo Museum of Art (MASP), Brazil.

 

Walters Prize 2018

 

 

10:04 Robert Tauxe - Hidden dangers in our food

Robert Tauxe

Robert Tauxe Photo: supplied

Dr Robert Tauxe says food safety takes constant vigilance as we need to keep up with changes in microbes and food production. Advanced DNA sequencing is helping public health officials fight outbreaks and prevent them reoccurring. Tauxe is director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's division that deals with foodborne, waterborne, and fungal diseases, based in Atlanta, Georgia. He has overseen responses to hundreds of foodborne disease outbreaks. He received his medical degree from Vanderbilt Medical School and holds a Masters in public health from Yale. Tauxe is in Aotearoa this week for a series of talks organised by the NZ Food Safety Science & Research Centre

    

10:35 Wreckless Eric - From the Whole Wide World to underground and back again

Wreckless Eric

Wreckless Eric Photo: 2017 Laura E. Partain

Eric Goulden, aka Wreckless Eric, is an English rock/new wave singer-songwriter, best known for his 1977 single 'Whole Wide World' on Stiff Records, where he became known as one of the original members of the late 1970s Stiff Records artist roster, along with Ian Dury, Elvis Costello and Nick Lowe. More than two decades after its release, the song was included in Mojo magazine's list of the best punk rock singles of all time. It was also acclaimed as one of the "top 40 singles of the alternative era 1975-2000". In the 1980s Goulden formed garage band the Len Bright Combo. He's just released his seventh album, called Construction Time & Demolition, and is touring it worldwide, including New Zealand, details here.  Wreckless Eric has not toured in Australia and New Zealand since 1980. He says he was busy, it was a long way, and nobody ever asked him.

 

 

11:04 Lee Child - Author of Jack Reacher super-series  

Lee Child

Lee Child Photo: supplied

Lee Child is one of the world's leading thriller writers. British born, he now lives in New York. It is said one of his novels featuring his hero Jack Reacher is sold somewhere in the world every nine seconds. A new Jack Reacher book, called Past Tense, has just been released - number 23 in the series. He is the recipient of many awards, most recently the CWA's Diamond Dagger for a writer of an outstanding body of crime fiction, the International Thriller Writers' ThrillerMaster, and the Theakstons Old Peculier Outstanding Contribution to Crime Fiction Award.  Child is coming to Aotearoa later this month for events in Auckland and Dunedin.(His appearance in Christchurch is sold out). 

 

 

 

Books mentioned in this episode:

 

The King's War

by Peter Conradi and Mark Logue 

ISBN: 9781782065975

Hachette 

 

Past Tense

by Lee Child 

ISBN: 9780593078204

Bantam Press