Afternoons

Evie Ashton joins Jesse with her podcast picks: The Interesting Nuggets Podcast The Asian Madness Podcast Available wherever you get your podcasts!

Novelist Pip Adam joins Jesse to talk satire - and some good examples of it: A Few More Slices of Heaven (2025) Daniel Vernon Night Night Fawn by Jordy Rosenberg (One World Penguin Random House, 3 March 2026) Universality by Natasha Brown (Faber & Faber, 2025)

It's time for Mayoral minutes, our new segment where we speak with a local mayor about the challenges they're facing, how they're working to solve them and what makes their community special. Today we're heading to the Central Hawke's Bay District, from where Mayor Will Foley joins Jesse.

Could Wellington become New Zealand's culinary capital? It certainly seems the Government hopes so, after Minister Louise Upston announced the latest funding from the 'major events and tourism" package will include a plan to help re-establish Wellington as more than the home of politics and water woes. But how will do you actually make that happen? To discuss, we're joined now by veteran Welly restaurant reviewer David Burton.

The issue of cultural appropriation has been back in the news recently after an Australian brand called itself Aroha. That got us thinking about the process of naming your business. In the case of the activewear company called Aroha, the founder has admitted her research was "surface level" and since the backlash is now weighing up whether to keep using the word. The Hoka shoe brand is another high profile example of using te reo Maori words as a brand name. Hoka roughly translates from te reo Maori as "to fly". So we asked Johnson McKay from Maori owned consultancy Ira to join us to discuss.

He says building knowledge about how landscapes behave, means people can make more informed decisions about how to interact with them. He chats to Jesse.

The fallout from the release of the Epstein files continues to dominate headlines around the world.

Celebrity weddings, the war in Ukraine, election outcomes; the future is now a marketplace with the rise of prediction apps like Polymarket and Kalshi. Users can put money on trades about what might happen in politics, pop culture and sports. Bobby Allyn is a technology correspondent for National Public Radio who met two traders making $100,000 a month on these sites. Supporters say the wisdom of crowds is more accurate than polls. But there are fears prediction markets are ripe for misinformation and manipulation. Allyn explains how they work, who is making money and what is being done to manage what some see as nothing more than high-tech gambling.

Every Monday Jesse joins the hard core ravers and hits the club. Last week we heard from Warren about his Ham radio club, before that we had Anastasia from the Manawatu Cactus and Succulent club. If you'd like Jesse to come and join your club for a day, text us on 2101 or email us [email protected] Today he's talking to Brendon Covich from the Auckland Bonsai Club.

The Israeli President has just arrived in Sydney for an official state visit in the wake of last year's Bondi terror attack. Police have been given special powers ahead of the protests against Isaac Herzog's visit. Brad Foster joins Jesse to discuss this and other notable stories from across the Tasman.