Saturday Morning With Jack Tame

With the prospect of international travel remaining a hopeful but still distant aspiration, and much of the country straight-jacketed by Covid-19 alert travel restrictions, satisfying your wanderlust can feel rather problematic at present. But whether you’re itching for some great escapism in prose, or staking out some travel-related Christmas gift ideas, here’s a round-up of some excellent new release books that will satisfy and stimulate your travel cravings.Gone Bush is Paul Kilgour’s first-hand account of life in the New Zealand backcountry and beyond. It’s the inspiring story of a wanderer, long-distance tramper and hut-bagging legend. Paul Kilgour was bitten by the tramping bug early. He began going on epic trips as a young boy, beyond the North West Auckland farm and out along the coast.During these wanderings, he met old folk living simply in tiny huts out the back of farms and on clifftops, and swaggers walking in remote and beautiful locations. Even at that early age, deep inside Paul stirred the sp

Slugs and snails are a real pest in the garden at this time of the year - moisture and new plant growth encourages them, while egg shell barriers don’t work at all. Control measures that work: Weed control will expose them to predators such as thrushes. Give your local song thrush an ‘anvil’ to smack the shells of snails on - a large flat (decorative!) rock is perfect. Using bait pellets in a pottle dug into soil. Try a take-away container with the lid on and bait inside. Cut holes in the side of the container to let slugs and snails in but prevent dogs and cats from getting at the bait. An alternative version is to use some off-cuts of plastic waste-pipe - 15-30 cm long and a diameter of 50 to 75 mm. This allows access for slugs and snails but not to birds. Put some bait in the pipes and anchor them down with a heavy brick. They also love to hide in half grapefruit skins (upside-down). Encourage Carabid Beetles (ground beetles) - they often feed on slugs, snail juveniles and eggs. (Photo / Ruud Kleinpaste)‘H

New Zealand author Sonya Wilson has released a teenage fiction book called Spark Hunter - an epic Kiwi adventure-fantasy and story of survival in Fiordland, one of the world’s last great wildernesses.Sonya has been speaking to Jack Tame about her first novel.(Photo / Supplied)LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Kevin Milne updates Jack Tame on a story he told him last year about a man with mental health issues, who had been sent to jail for seven years under the three strikes law for kissing a stranger on Cuba St, Wellington.LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Nici Wickes joins Jack Tame, bringing to the table her recipe for a delicious chocolate and plum ripple cake.LISTEN ABOVEA little cake for a big celebration.Layer cakes don’t have to be just for large groups of people. This small celebration cake is perfect for 2-4 people but it still screams ‘show stopper’! Serves 2-4 2/3 cups self-raising flour 2 tablespoon cocoa ¼ teaspoon baking soda Pinch salt 50mls neutral cooking oil, I use grapeseed oil 50mls natural yoghurt 1 small egg 1/3 cup white sugar 1 heaped tablespoon brown sugar 75mls strong coffee or hot water Filling 300mls cream 1 tablespoon icing sugar 4 tablespoons plum puree (I used tinned Black Doris plums, pureed) 70g white chocolate  Preheat oven to 170 C fan bake. Grease and line a two 10cm springform tins. Place all the ingredients up until the coffee or hot water in a bowl beat to just combined. Add the coffee/hot water and beat for one minute. Scrape into the prepared tin. It’s quiteliquidybut don’t worry.  Reduce oven temperature to 160 C and ba

Yotam Ottolenghi is the trailblazing Israeli-born, British chef whose name has become a cooking style of its own.He spoke to Jack Tame about his new cookbook, Ottolenghi Test Kitchen: Shelf Love and raiding the kitchen cupboards to cook with what's on hand.  LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I’ll be frank.If you’re due for one of your vaccination shots and you PAY for a coffee today...well, sorry, but you’re an idiot. Because no matter where you are, in what corner of this wonderful country of ours, I can pretty much guarantee you that a vaccination centre near your place is giving away free coffees to everyone who gets the jab today.Call it double shots for double shots! I’ve gone through the plans in every single DHB in the entire country and my main takeaway for Super Saturday is that we are in for some serious caffeine crashes.If you need something to compliment your Java Jive on this most Kiwi of occasions, the good news is New Zealand has the smorgasboard to match.Cromwell Pharmacy has home baking. Life Pharmacy on Manners Street has free donuts. Newton School has Halal sausages and in Rotorua they’ve cooked up hangi. Get the pfizer, see a geyser!Actually, one of the things I enjoyed while researching all of the Super Saturday events was playing ‘match the free food to the DHB'.Guess where

Our music reviewer Estelle Clifford has been listening to US rocker Melissa Etheridge's album One Way Out.LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Paul Stenhouse joins Jack Tame to talk about the major Facebook outage on Monday that left many unable to access the social media giant, along with Instagram and WhatsApp.Monday's Facebook outage showed just how big Facebook's footprint is Monday's outage, which disconnected Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApps's servers from the internet, showed just how reliant we are on this private service. Families couldn't text each other, news couldn't get out, businesses lost revenue, others couldn't sign into their smart TVs because they used Facebook's login system. It was pretty extensive. This outage was caused by a single engineer making an error. Frances Haugen - the Facebook whistleblower who was testifying on Capitol Hill - would say that the country had never been safer.  The questions have popped up again this week... Should all these services, which are now basically digital infrastructure, be more regulated? Should they all be allowed to be supported by the same data centres? The biggest question - should Fac

Relationship expert Steven Dromgool joins Jack Tame, and has some tips on how men can build more love into their relationships.LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Tara Ward joins Jack Tame to talk about the latest in television and streaming series'.Maid: An American drama about single mother Alex, who turns to housecleaning to make ends meet as she escapes an abusive relationship and overcomes homelessness to create a better life for her daughter, Maddy (Netflix). Murder at the Cottage: A true crime docuseries that examine the murder of French TV producer Sophie Toscan du Plantier in West Cork, Ireland in 1996. Discovered brutally murdered at her holiday cottage, the murder rocked the quiet Irish town and 25 years later the case remains a mystery (Neon). Great Kiwi Bake Off: In cheerier news, the feel-good baking show is back for a new season, this time on TVNZ1. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Our resident doctor Bryan Betty has been talking to Jack Tame about osteoarthritis which affects 10% of the population.LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hankering for a blissed-out wilderness escape to blow out the cobwebs in the Mackenzie and savour wide open spaces? The year-round beauty, glorious topography and sweet seclusion of the Mackenzie powers its magnetic appeal. Here’s a recommended line-up of tried and tested signature wilderness stays to stimulate your senses and leave you feeling refreshed and revived. Just four hours’ drive south-west of Christchurch, Aoraki/Mt. Cook is permanently cloaked in a glistening snow coat – even in the height of summer, so the promise of postcard scenery is all part of the package. In fact, much of the Mackenzie region, which enjoys an altitude over 700 metres above sea level, boasts snow-draped landscapes deep into spring.Proudly New Zealand & family owned, the Hermitage Hotel, Aoraki/Mount Cook is a hotel legend with a stirring history spanning 137 years. The first Hermitage was built in 1884, under the direction of Frank Huddleston, who was appointed ranger for the Mount Cook area because of fears that local v

Codling moth caterpillars in apples are a real nuisance: the young caterpillars tunnel straight into the developing tiny apple (known in old English language as a “codling”) and consume the growing fruit and seeds that form inside. It’s not nice to bite into one of those caterpillars! To keep the caterpillars out of your crop there are a few tricky things you can do. The first thing is to employ a codling moth pheromone trap. This often triangular contraption has a sticky base and a small rubber cap full of artificial pheromone, that leaks a good dose of sex-attractant for the local male population. The guys will get very excited about this smell and literally race towards the trap, while preparing for the mating sequence in mid-flight. Of course, it all ends in tears for the poor blokes as they may find themselves stuck with their Family Benefit on the sticky surface. The technical term for this is "mating disruption". But it also allows us to precisely time the peak mating flight period of the first generat

On August 1 in 1990, British Airways Flight 149 departed Heathrow for Kuala Lumpur but it never made it. The flight stopped in Kuwait to refuel - the very same day Saddam Hussein invaded.The nearly 400 passengers and crew, including two Kiwis, were trapped by Iraqi soldiers and used as human shields.(Photo / Supplied)An explosive new book on Flight 149 called OPERATION TROJAN HORSE has been written by Kiwi journalist Stephen Davis. He’s uncovered proof that Margaret Thatcher authorised a team of intelligence officers to travel into Kuwait on 149 while all other flights were rerouted.Stephen Davis speaks to Jack Tame about his investigation. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Nici Wickes joins Jack Tame to talk about a delicious recipe for a picnic tar, which she describes as a favourite and best served at room temperature, making it perfect for taking on a picnic.A PICNIC TARTThis tart is a favourite of mine and it’s good served at room temperature so perfect for taking on a picnic. Serves 6-8 2 sheets short crust pastry 3 eggs, beaten with a fork 200g cream cheese or crème fraiche, room temperature 1 cup roughly chopped herbs – any or all of parsley, coriander, basil ½ tsp sea salt + ground black pepper 1-2 zucchini, or use asparagus or broccoli, sliced thinly 75 g parmesan, grated Chutney to serve  Preheat oven to 180 C and place an oven tray in to heat. Grease a 26x34cm shallow roasting dish or tart tin. Press pastry into tin, moistening the joins and pressing firmly to seal. Trim edges. Whisk together eggs, cream cheese and seasoning. Add herbs. Pour into pastry case. Lay vegetable slices on top and sprinkle over parmesan. Bake for 25-35 minutes or until set and pastry crust

Movie reviewer Francesca Rudkin speaks to Jack Tame about the Show Me Short Film Festival, Netflix's The Guilty starring Jake Gyllenhaal and French film The Rose Maker.LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Kevin Milne joins Jack Tame to talk about the latest pictures of Mars, taken by Perseverance.Images captured by the rover have allowed scientists to peer back in time at what Mars was like billions of years ago.Jezero Crater, the rover's exploration site on Mars, was a quiet lake 3.7 billion years ago. A small river fed into the lake, sometimes leading to flash flooding that was so energetic, it could carry large boulders from miles upstream and drop them into the lake. The massive rocks are still there today.These findings, which were published Thursday in the journal Science, come from the first scientific analysis of rover images that show outcrops of rocks inside the crater.The new information shows the importance of sending rovers to explore the surface of Mars. Previous images captured by orbiters had shown that this outcrop resembled the kind of fan-shaped river deltas we have on Earth. Perseverance's images show definitive proof of the river delta's existence.(Photo / CNN)"It helps us understand so mu

It couldn’t have been simpler.I logged into the new ‘My Covid Record’ website. A big banner up the top warned me the website is still under development and might have a few hiccups, but it was seamless for me. I entered my identification details and soon the confirmation stared me back in the face.Jack Renfrey Tame. As of Thursday October 7th, 2021, officially doubled vaccinated for Covid-19. I could show my name and a little QR code. My NHI number. Proof of vaccination. Easy as that.The development of a vaccine passport (or whatever you want to call it) is another little milestone in our response to Covid. In my opinion, it’s taken far too long to get to this point. The passport system should have been under development as soon as we ordered vaccines, if only as an insurance policy. Despite similar systems being used in countries all over the World. as recently as August Jacinda Ardern was ruling out a requiring a vaccine passport in New Zealand. But Delta and the drop-off in our vaccination rates has change

Released Friday, New Zealand alternative folk artist, Reb Fountain’s 2021 record IRIS is the award-winning artist’s second release with Flying Nun Records. The perfect extension of her 2020 self-titled record, IRIS elevates Reb Fountain’s music to new heights. Reb effortlessly combines pop elements with her trademark noir folk-punk sound; weaving authentic and anthemic tunes that create an instant and indelible impression. Reb also has released the visual counterpart to this week's lead single, and title-track 'Iris'; the video directed and filmed by Lola Fountain-Best. IRIS is out now via Flying Nun Records on both black and turquoise vinyl, CD and digitally. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.