Afternoons for Thursday 3 April 2025

1:15 Jeannie Hayden: wild hero

The Wild Dunedin NZ Festival of Nature is a celebration of all that Dunedin and its incredible natural environment is ... and could be.

It educates as well as entertains and that's largely due to the efforts of Jeannie Hayden, this year's recipient of the festival's Wild Hero Award.

Jeannie has spent her life giving a voice to our natural environment by telling its stories and now ... it's time to find out a bit more about hers.

Jeannie joins Jesse from her home on the Otago peninsula.

1:25 Raymond's cool achievement 

After passing his NCEA Level 1 literacy and numeracy exams last year at just 9 years old.

Porirua schoolboy Raymond Hsu set a new goal, to gain university entrance.

Raymond just sat the SAT test - a U.S. university admissions test typically taken by 12th-grade students, which is the equivalent to Year 13 in New Zealand...

Raymond just received his results, and he passed! 

Proud father Michael Hsu joins Jesse. 

1:35 Tales from the Fun-brarian

Libraries have a reputation for being quiet places where a stern-faced librarian frowns at the slightest noise and constantly tells you to shush! 

Our next guest wants to challenge that perception - in fact Claudine Crabtree describes herself as a Fun-brarian.

At a time when our literacy rates are declining, Claudine wants to get more kids into libraries, more noses in books and more pages being turned.

The recipient of a Winston Churchill Memorial grant, Claudine has recently returned from a fact-finding mission overseas.

1:45 Great album: Te Whare Tīwekaweka by Marlon Williams

Our feature album today is the brand spanking new album from Marlon Williams, Te Whare Tīwekaweka. 

It's Marlon's fourth solo album, but his first completely Māori language record. 

Although he's not yet totally fluent in Te Reo, Williams found he could express himself in new ways compared to writing in English.

He's described the writing of these songs as 'dire self-therapy" and says it'd be a hard job for him to express himself in the same way in English. 

2:10 Podcast Critic: Stalked and Politics Now

2:30 NZ Sporting History: 2000 Sydney Olympics

We usually like to celebrate success stories with NZ Sporting History but, as we all know, when it comes to sport it's even harder to forget the times, we've fallen short. 

2025 marks the 25th anniversary of the 2000 Sydney Olympics. 

While some athletes did put on great performances at the event, it's mostly remembered for New Zealand's overall lack of success. 

We came back with just four medals; one gold and three bronze, our worst haul since the 1972 Munich games. 

Award-winning sports journalist Dylan Cleaver says this had a pretty big impact on the way we do sport in New Zealand. 

3:15 Solving the World's Problems

Senior writer at the NZ Herald Simon Wilson asks 'Will the Doctrine of Abundance save us all?' 

Abundance is the new buzzword in planning and city building debates and "Abundance" is the name of a new book by NYT writer Ezra Klein and Atlantic writer Derek Thompson. They lean to the Democrats, and they argue that centre-left has lost the ability to plan for growth. Is the same true here?

3:20 History with Dr Grant Morris: The history of the tallest building in NZ

 

3:35 BBC Witness History

Today: the invention of superglue. In 1951, American chemist Dr Harry Coover was experimenting with a substance called cyanoacrylate, but it was sticking to everything.

3:45 The pre-Panel