Saturday Morning With Jack Tame

"Tucked away on the northwest tip of Ireland, Donegal has long been dubbed the nation’s “forgotten county.” No matter where you’re starting from, be it Dublin, Belfast, Shannon or Cork, tripping to Donegal is not a passing-through sort of experience, but a far-flung destination you’ve purposefully decided to visit.    "From rugged cliffs, towering sea stacks and quiet coves to charismatic heritage towns and whispers of the past crowning the landscape, wind-whipped County Donegal fast cast me under its spell." Read Mike's full article here.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ed Sheeran kicked off his Loop Tour last night in Auckland, and he had a few tricks up his sleeve.   With a 10 storey tall screen behind the stage and a bridge that allowed him to perform in the middle of Go Media Stadium, it was a new level of spectacle.   Chris Schulz was at the show last night, and he told Jack Tame Sheeran took it to levels he hadn’t seen before.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Last Encore by Rebecca Heath   A remote island.   It's been eighteen years since the accidental explosion that killed The Cedrics Band lead singer Jonny Rake, and a special documentary is bringing the rest of the band back to play together for the first time.   With Jonny's daughter, Monet, stepping into her father's role, and a private island secured as the perfect reunion backdrop, it's set to be a special occasion. A reunion concert. But everyone remembers what happened on that fatal night differently, and as questions are asked about the band's rise and sudden tragic fall, not everyone likes the answers.   Old wounds reopen and tempers flare... Then a body is found. A killer on stage. They're trapped on the island together until help arrives, but that might be too late. Because Jonny's death wasn't an accident, and someone wants revenge.     Some Bright Nowhere by Ann Packer   Eliot and his wife Claire have been happily married for nearly four decades. They’ve r

Weddings are often The Event of a Lifetime, with the happy couple going all out to ensure they get the day of their dreams.  But this means weddings are often expensive and can be quite wasteful, with food, decor, and flowers often going to waste once the event is over.  So this wedding season, Kate Hall has a few tips on how you can make your special day a bit more sustainable.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the Saturday Morning with Jack Tame Full Show Podcast for Saturday 17 January 2026, world renowned Kiwi chef Josh Emett joins Jack in studio to talk about his very special role as Sail GP's culinary collaborator and shares his thoughts on New Zealand's incoming Michelin Star system.  Jack considers Razor's first mistake as All Blacks Coach.  Chef Nici Wickes shares a delicious summer dessert for one – Blackberry and Apple Galette.  Francesca Rudkin reviews the Oscar-tipped Shakespeare telling, Hamnet.  And sustainability expert Kate Hall gives tips on how to keep things low cost and environmentally friendly during wedding season.  Get the Saturday Morning with Jack Tame Full Show Podcast every Saturday on iHeartRadio, or wherever you get your podcasts.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

They’re an absolute nuisance in summer, especially around the barbeque later in the day!  If you’ve been in Australia during the holidays, you may have been near the coast with ponds and rivers, inlets and wetlands. There you’ll find salt-marsh mosquito – nasty biters (that species was eradicated from NZ some decades ago – just as well, it transmits Ross River Virus).  In New Zealand we don’t have any capable vectors of malaria or dengue or Chikungunya or encephalitis – biosecurity is important!  Our mozzies live in stagnant water. In the garden, a tyre-swing collects water during rain and mozzie larvae will inhabit that tyre. Blocked guttering, ponds, troughs, buckets, stock hoof-prints, etc, as well.  We even have a native species (Salt Pool Mosquito) in saltwater pools near rocky shores: Northland, Goat Island Marine Reserve, Bay of Plenty, Kaikoura. They bite too, especially during the day.  The idea is to use repellent – frequently!  The girls need protein to produce eggs,

Paddy Borthwick Pinot Gris 2025, Wairarapa   RRP $26.99   Pinot Gris’s perfect drinking window is from the day of release and usually around two years. With some wines it may be more.   This wine ticks all the boxes of freshness and vibrancy starting with a varietal and very fruity bouquet with a concentration of pear and apple flesh scents, then some white spice and white florals, some dandelion and white pepper. Medium weight with a satin-cream mouthfeel, flavours of white fleshed fruits touch the palate carried along with acidity and youthful freshness. Well-made with a lengthy leesy finish.      Food match:   Chicken, leek and sweet potato bake. This recipe also includes cream, Gouda cheese, and Dijon mustard. The dish has weight and intensity, creaminess and lots of touch points of flavours. The Paddy Gris offers the fruit contrast, has enough weight and an acid line to deliver a palate refreshing finish.   Option 2: If you are a fan of corn on the cob with lashing

Apple's smarter Siri will now be powered by Google   Apple has signed a multi-year deal worth billions for Google Gemini technology to bring the enhanced Siri to life.    It will be a custom model made for Apple and will run locally on Apple devices when it can, and when it needs the power of the cloud will run in Apple's private data centres.   Google and Apple have had a long relationship in which Google paid Apple billions to be the default search engine, and now they're returning the favour.   Apple hyped Apple Intelligence last year, but it never really launched with any real enhancements or intelligence, and the company was forced to pull back from their aggressive marketing pitch.      IKEA made a splash at the Consumer Electronics Show   They turned some of their most popular lamps 'smart', have an impressive array of smart bulbs, and have a range of accessories like buttons, switches, and plugs.   Later this year they'll be rolling out even more items

Ricky Gervais: Mortality   Ricky Gervais tackles life, death and the state of the world in a brutally honest special that spares no topic, even his own mortality (Netflix).     His & Hers   Two estranged spouses, one a detective and the other a news reporter, vie to solve a murder in which each believes the other is a prime suspect (Netflix).    LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A huge weight has been lifted off Kevin Milne’s shoulders.  For the last couple of years, he’s been running dangerously close to having his driver's licence suspended as a result of speeding.   While things are fine now, he did find that demerit points are far more effective in curbing dangerous driving and speeding than a simple fine.   LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hamnet  William Shakespeare and his wife, Agnes, celebrate the birth of their son, Hamnet. However, when tragedy strikes and Hamnet dies at a young age, it inspires Shakespeare to write his timeless masterpiece "Hamlet."    Anchor Me: The Don McGlashan Story  A documentary tribute to one of the nation's best loved songwriters, charting Don McGlashan's storied career from arty punk upstart to one of the strongest voices in the national identity of Aotearoa.    LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Blackberries are like summer’s jewels and are even more precious if you’re having to buy them! Make this little mini galette (small quantities of homemade pastry are quick to make and so gratifying) and you won’t be sorry.   Makes one 12–15cm tart     Ingredients  Pastry    2 tablespoons chilled butter   2 heaped tablespoons plain flour    ½ tablespoon sugar   3–4 tablespoons ice cold water    Filling    1 cup peeled and diced apple   ½ cup fresh blackberries    1 tablespoon sugar + extra for sprinkling   1 tablespoon flour   1 tablespoon vanilla extract   Juice and zest of ½ lemon    1 tablespoon butter   Milk for brushing   Whipped cream to serve      Method  To make the pastry, whizz the butter, flour, and sugar in your food processor, pulsing until it resembles coarse breadcrumbs.   Drizzle in 2 tablespoons of the water and pulse again, adding more water as

I’ve done my best to avoid the headlines over the last few weeks, but Scott Robertson being booted from the All Blacks snapped me back.   I feel for him. Just as I did for Ian Foster, last time around. These guys are in high profile jobs, coaching high performance athletes. All top coaches know it’s a perilous business. But to be cut after just two years in the job, and after a period of inconsistent and occasionally poor but not absolutely catastrophic results, will leave Razor and his keenest supporters forever wondering what might have been.   I don’t have any inside running on the review or the process that led David Kirk and NZ Rugby to swing the axe. But it occurs to me that one of Scott Robertson’s biggest errors was one of his first major decisions in the role, and I’ve been wondering to what extent it set the tone for his tenure.   June 24, 2024. The All Blacks were preparing for their mid-year tests against England and Fiji, and Scott Robertson named the man who would captain the All

Nearly a million people in New Zealand are currently receiving Superannuation, getting payments of between nearly $600 and just over $1000 every fortnight.   But in this cost of living crisis, how easy is it to survive on the pension?  Ed McKnight tried living on it for a week and came to a couple of conclusions around what it would be like to retire.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

"A snapshot in time": Guy Sebastian discusses his creative process, latest album  Guy Sebastian is an Australasian icon with a career that’s nothing short of extraordinary.  From winning the first season of Australian Idol back in 2003, to carving out a place on the charts, to mentoring new talent as a coach on The Voice Australia – he's been in the spotlight for over two decades.  And now he’s embarking on a new chapter with the release of his tenth album ‘One Hundred Times Around The Sun’.  The album has taken Sebastian nearly five years to make, a much longer period than the typical six months to two years most artists these days create them in.  He told Jack Tame that in the early stages of his career, he felt pressure to create quickly.  “Don’t take longer than a year,” Sebastian explained. “Or you’ll disappear into obscurity.”  “Then there’s like, the pressure of doing the right thing by the fans, y’know, you don’t wanna make them wait too long.”   It’s a mentalit

"Fit for a King": Nici Wickes' Lamington Cake  If you ever need to produce a celebration cake, this is it!     Serves 8-10     Ingredients:   Sponge cake    130g unsalted butter, softened   1 cup caster sugar   2 teaspoons vanilla extract    3 large eggs    2⅓ cups self-raising flour   1 pinch salt   1 cup milk      To decorate    1/3 cup raspberry jam, warmed slightly    1 ½ cup icing sugar    30g butter, softened    ½ cup raspberries (fresh or frozen, defrosted)    3-5 tablespoons, boiling water   1 ½ cups coconut thread   300mls cream, whipped with one tbsp icing sugar       Method:  Preheat the oven to 170 C fan bake. Grease two 20cm round cake tins and dust with flour. Beat the butter, sugar and vanilla until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, and mix until well beaten. Stir in the flour and salt then the milk and mix u

Ed McKnight has been working in personal finance for a fair few years and although he typically tries to be encouraging when giving advice, he does have some more brutal truths to tell.  He joined Jack Tame to offer up the three brutally honest pieces of money advice that most Kiwis will need to hear.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the end, it was just over an hour. Just over an hour between being asleep on the floor of Auckland hospital, to standing, bewildered under the delivery suite lights, helping to dress my newborn son. Mava had been induced on Sunday – the scans had suggested that all was ok but that our baby was small for his age. We spent an oddly serene day waiting for the induction medication to kick in. They give you a dose every two hours until you go into labour but sometimes it takes a few hours to work and sometimes it takes days. It was actually lovely, in a way. Mava and I both read for hours in-between the doses. We went for coffee and a stroll in the domain, Mava constantly assessing baby’s every shift and every hint of a contraction. My goodness, though, when it happened... it happened. Zero to one hundred. A blur.  I won’t labour you with all of the details but it’s become clear to me that there's a reason every parent has a birth story.  It was surreal. It just felt like a week’s worth of crazy exper

There’s no more iconic a reality franchise than The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills – which is back for its 15th season. And there is perhaps no Housewife in history that has a heftier and more prestigious CV than that of Bozoma Saint John.  Boz joined the series last year off the back of a 20-year run as a marketing executive working with brands like Apple, Netflix, Uber and Pepsi and has been recognised by Forbes as the world’s #1 most influential CMO.  She quickly became a fan favourite for her ability to bring boardroom realness to the drama of the 90210.  She joins Jack Tame to chat about authenticity, watching herself on TV, and marketing.  LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As a little kid, I always slept terribly on Christmas eve.  I’d try and go to bed early. I’d tell myself that the sooner I went to sleep, the sooner I’d wake on Christmas morning. But sure as anything I’d be up all night, listening for any sound of activity on the roof. Together with my three little brothers and sisters, we’d be desperate for mum and dad to throw open our bedroom doors at first light, and we’d scramble down to our spindly-and-slightly-off-centred Christmas tree to see if Dad’s old football socks had been attended to by Santa.  I suspect this Christmas eve will be another poor sleep. Not because I’ll be excitedly listening for the sound of shuffling reindeer on corrugated iron, but because it’s my first Christmas morning with our ten-month-old son. We’re taking both our boys to their cousins’ place. Five kids. Average age: four-and-a-half. Our eldest is already fizzing. Our baby will have absolutely no idea what’s going on but will sure as anything wake up a minimum of three times in