Saturday Morning With Jack Tame

Grass grub have always been a “problem” in NZ gardens and lawns. They are c-shaped grubs that live underground, feeding on roots of grasses and other plants/shrubs. There are a number of species in the Beetle Family Scarabeidae (scarab beetles), but the native grass grub, Costelytra zealandica has always been in NZ. It’s traditional habitat and host plants were native grasses, such as tussocks, and they occur at quite high altitudes. There is no doubt that these beetles considered the new, high-nutrient imported grasses as ice-cream, especially when we started planting whole paddocks full of that stuff! Tiny larvae emerge from eggs and slowly grow larger, shedding their skin as they grow. Each growth phase is an “instar”. Larvae creamy coloured and shaped like the letter C.   Their damage pattern is grasses losing roots and becoming stunted and leaves yellowing – in bad situations these plants die en masse. If you can literally roll the dead grass mat up (as if it were a carpet), your problem is likely grass

The programme will be rolling out across the country by the end of the year. The idea is to to detect the early signs of changes in the bowel which could indicate bowel cancer. Bryan Betty is a GP and medical director for the College of GPs, he’s also on the Covid-19 advisory committee and he talked Jack Tame through the ins and outs of the initiative.  LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Twitter's subscription service has launched The $3 a month service is starting in Australia and Canada.  It comes with an "undo Tweet" feature (which really just delays the posting of your Tweet for 30 seconds), a more robust bookmarking feature for saving tweets and a "reader mode" to make threads of Tweets easier to read. These features feel more like evolutions of the core product, rather than being unique enough to build a subscription business around. Apple's updating the AirTags to address privacy concerns The tech is great at finding your keys, but it also makes it very easy to track a person without them knowing. At launch, the trackers would only make a sound if they were away from their owner for three days - which Apple has now recognized was too long. It'll now be between 8 & 12 hours. They're also working on an Android app to allow people to detect when an AirTag is traveling with them - something that's currently only available on iPhone. Facebook's u-turn on political speech Facebook is now

Too Close: Emily Watson stars as a forensic psychiatrist who has to assess a woman accused of a heinous crime, who claims she can't remember a thing (UKTV, Mondays). Bump: From the team behind Love My Way comes Bump. The series centres around Oly, an ambitious and high-achieving teenager who has a surprise baby; and the complications that ensue for two families (Monday on Vibe/Sky Go, Neon 13 June) Why Women Kill: A second season of the darkly humorous American series that details the lives of three women living in three different decades: a housewife in the '60s, a socialite in the '80s, and a lawyer in 2019, each dealing with infidelity in their marriages. The series examines how the roles of women have changed, but how their reaction to betrayal has not (TVNZ OnDemand). LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Kiwi Emma Outteridge was born into a life a million miles away from Uganda.   Growing up in an America’s Cup family, she spent her 20s running Louis Vuitton’s international sailing hospitality programme, totally comfortable in a world of celebrity athletes and billionaire sponsors.  But a six month trip to Uganda to work at a school has led to a life switching between the glossy world of international sailing, both working there and supporting her sailor-spouse Nathan Outteridge, and time spent growing Kiwi support for the St Paul KAASO primary school for orphans.  She’s written a book about her experience, aptly named “Between Two Worlds” and Emma Outteridge joined Jack Tame.LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This dessert celebrates mandarins and will make you feel better about the weather getting cool! Instead of the usual biscuit base I use a circle of crisply-baked sweet short pastry – try it, you’ll like it!    1 sheet sweet short pastry  2 tsp caster sugar  500g cream cheese  ¾ cup caster sugar  2 tbsps brown sugar  1 heaped tbsp plain flour (gluten free is fine)  3 large eggs ¼ cup cream  2 tbsps brandy  Zest from 4 mandarins + juice from 2  ½ cup sultanas    Topping  1-2 mandarins, peeled and thinly sliced to garnish  Olive oil for brushing  1/3 cup sugar  Juice from remaining 2 mandarins    Preheat oven to 180 C. Grease and line a 20cm spring form tin. Lightly flour and roll pastry sheet to slightly larger than it comes. Sprinkle with first measure of caster sugar and sandwich between baking paper and 2 oven trays. Bake until crisp – about 15-20 minutes. Set aside to cool then cut into a circle to fit base of tin.Make the filling by beating cream cheese until smooth. Add sugars, flour and eggs and continue

Dream Horse  The true story of Dream Alliance, an unlikely racehorse bred by small-town bartender Jan Vokes. With very little money and no experience, Jan convinces her neighbors to chip in their meager earnings to help raise Dream and compete with the racing elites. Their investment pays off as Dream rises through the ranks and becomes a beacon of hope for their struggling community. (Toni Collette and Damian Lewis)  Lapsis  In a parallel present, delivery man Ray Tincelli takes a job in the gig economy. He begins pulling cable to link together the new quantum trading market. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Black Caps debutant Devon Conway has continued to wow British media after breaking a slew of records on his way to a maiden double hundred at Lord's against England.Conway was the final wicket to fall in New Zealand's 378-run first innings, with dismissal by run out the only way England managed to find to end his score at a well-rounded 200.On Thursday, after posting a century on day one of the opening test of this two-match series, Conway's performance was lauded by local media with adjectives such as stunning, skilful and lovely. After converting that start into a double-century, the acclaim only continued.LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week, Jack and Kevin talk about "life-hacks"...those little gems of advice you find online that make life so much easier.LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

‘Paddy is a black sheep dog, but is no good for sheep. Daddy says we have spoilt him. We have a big bell near the kitchen; Paddy will jump up at it and ring it with his nose. The cook gets cross with him because the men often come for their meals before they are ready. We taught him to do it.’ My Dog Paddy was published in the Australian Correspondence School Magazine in 1935. It was written by an eight-year-old girl, living on a remote sheep station in the South Australia outback. The Magazine credited her as third-grader Barbara Kidman. I know her as Granny.  I spent this week with her in Adelaide, the first time I’ve been able to visit Granny since the start of the pandemic. The 8-year-old author of My Dog Paddy is now 94. And on my last evening with her, she fetched a plastic folder with photos from those early years way out in the middle of nowhere, a child mucking about in the red and the dust.  “I remember being scared when I heard rainfall on the roof,” Granny told me. “Just a normal rain shower. It w

This week’s album is at the centre of yet another millenial vs Gen Z debate.It’s “Sour” by Eighteen-year-old Disney Channel alum Olivia Rodrigo.  Estelle Clifford has been taking a listen.LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A Quiet Man - Tom WoodOne day a man arrives in town. Unassuming. Quiet.  The assassin known as Victor is hiding out in a small motel in Canada after a job across the border. A few days laying low and he'll be gone and leave no trace behind.  He doesn't count on getting to know a mother and her boy who reminds him of his own troubled childhood. When both vanish, only Victor seems to notice.  Once he starts looking for them, he finds himself at odds with the criminals who own the town. They want him gone. Only Victor's going nowhere until he discovers the truth and to them he's just a quiet man asking the wrong questions.  But that quiet man is a dangerous man. The Pact - Sharon BoltonA golden summer, and six talented friends are looking forward to the brightest of futures - until a daredevil game goes horribly wrong, and a woman and two children are killed. 18-year-old Megan takes the blame, leaving the others free to get on with their lives. In return, they each agree to a 'favour', payable on her release fro

Modern factory farming and processed food have bought the cost of some food right down. But the price we pay with our health, and loss of good soils, is far too much. It’s a bad deal and there are alternatives.Malcom Rands told Jack Tame how we can make small adjustments to improve our diet and wellbeing. We know they’re full of ‘bad’ stuff – but why else should we avoid processed foods?  Processed foods are “hyper rewarding,” leading to overconsumptionMany people become addicted to junk foodThe majority of processed food products are low in nutrients and fibre Less time and energy is required to process these foods – again leading to overconsumptionIn the last 40 years, Earth has lost a third of its farmable land to human-caused industrial farming erosion and pollution. Soil is now blowing or washing away 100 times faster than it can form, and without that soil humans may not be able to feed their growing populationWhat can we do? Michael Pollen has some great advice Don't eat anything your great grandmother

In NZ, we have more than 200 described species of Earthworms, and we’re still finding new ones!   Most of them, about 170 species, are NATIVE earthworms belonging to 3 families. They are more or less restricted to native habitats; forests and tussock-lands. We know relatively little about these species – some may be very rare.   INTRODUCED species are in pasture and modified landscapes. They got here in plants and soil material from overseas. Some were deliberately introduced as they were found to improve pastures for farming. These introduced species are the ones you find in your garden.  How do they move?Let’s go back to their Classification and we find a clue: class oligochaeta. From Greek "oligos", few, and "chaite" , hair. That means that these worms have “few hairs”. I tend to disagree with that: when you pick up an earthworm and stretch it a bit between your fingers, the skin often feels like an “un-shaven face”. There are many hairs per body segment to give it friction and “purchase” to move through t

Hannah McQueen told Jack Tame it’s a great time to review not only your contributions, but your settings and provider.LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What can we learn from the Waikato DHB hack? Ransomware is usually added to a system by an individual. There was a very good chance that someone either clicked on a bad link, or opened a bad file (it could even be a Word or Excel doc) which infected the network. It only takes one person to do this. It's crucial that people are on the lookout for phishing scams - you should be very careful about opening things sent to you by unknown senders. These actors will sometimes appear to be legitimate by emulating well-known brands, but you need to be on the lookout for that too.  You can finally password protect your Google history Google has a rather transparent activity page which shows you all the things you've searched for, videos you've watched, places you've been, things you've said to your google assistant and more.. but it's always been quite easy to access which is obviously problematic for a vast range of reasons.  Now though, you can be forced to re-login before you see that activity. That way you need to v

Tara Ward takes you through her top picks on the telly this week.The Me You Can’t See: Exec-produced by Oprah and Prince Harry, this docuseries explores mental health issues and emotional well-being with special guests (AppleTV+)In Treatment: Ten years after the last season of this Emmy award winning drama, In Treatment returns for a new season. Starring Uzo Aduba (Orange is the New Black), the series focuses on a therapist in session with various patients, and now the office is her home due to the pandemic and she’s in crisis herself (Neon).   Start Up: this American drama series is currently sitting in Netflix’s top 10 and is about a desperate banker, a Haitian-American gang lord and a Cuban-American hacker who are forced to work together to unwittingly create their version of the American dream - organized crime 2.0 (Netflix). LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Anyone who’s watched the movie Pursuit of Happiness will know the story of Chris Gardner.   The movie is based on his best settling book and details his life sleeping rough with his young son while he was doing an internship as a stock broker.  Chris eventually founded his own brokerage firm Gardner Rich & Co and has now written a new book, 'Permission to Dream.'   LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Eggs are a wonderful source of protein and they’re often included in curries in countries where meat and poultry is more scarce, to add protein to the dish. This super simple curry is perfect for a quick dinner. Serves 2 4 free-range eggs, hard boiled & peeled ¼ cup cooking oil 1 onion, sliced thinly 2 tbsps red curry paste 1 cup crushed tomatoes, canned is fine 1 cup coconut milk  Heat a pan and fry boiled eggs in hot oil until brown and crispy on all sides. Remove and set aside. Fry onions in oil until golden. Add curry paste and cook until fragrant. Pour in tomatoes and coconut milk and simmer for 10 minutes until thickened. Add eggs, some halved and stir gently. Serve curry with rice and roti or naan bread.LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Cruella  A live-action feature film following the evil exploits of Cruella de Vil, the villain from the Disney film, "101 Dalmatians'.  A Quiet Place 2  Following the deadly events at home, the Abbott family must now face the terrors of the outside world as they continue their fight for survival in silence. Forced to venture into the unknown, they quickly realize that the creatures that hunt by sound are not the only threats that lurk beyond the sand path.LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.