Afternoons

A dubious honour for New Zealand this week. The country received the 'Dirty Ashtray' award at a WHO tobacco control conference, and that followed the news that we've fallen from second to 53rd in the global tobacco industry interference index. That's on top of news that the tobacco black market in Australia is doing a raging trade right now. All of this has had us thinking about smoking rates, reputation, vaping and the black market here in New Zealand. Professor Janet Hoek is co-director at ASPIRE Aotearoa, a University of Otago research centre, she joins Jesse.

The tv programme A Dog's Show ran from 1977 to 1992. It seems slightly bonkers in 2025, but for those of you who don't remember it, it was a show about sheepdogs wrangling sheep and for many it was must watch tv. Now a new feature film inspired by A Dogs Show is in production, due for release late next year.

Black Friday traditionally marks the start of the Christmas shopping season in the US and is the busiest shopping day of the year there. Over the years, retailers here have embraced the promotion, and we are now bombarded by offers of specials and discounts for Black Friday. But are these discounts really specials? And what do we need to look out to make sure we don't get end up getting sucked into the hype. Abby Damen from Consumer NZ chats to Jesse.

We want to start the show with some good news; Black Sticks' Grace O'Hanlon has been awarded goalkeeper of the year by the International Hockey Federation. It's the first time a New Zealander has won the prestigious award. Grace O'Hanlon joins Jesse.

Wallace Chapman previews tonight's instalment of The Panel.

It's time to talk about your money now, personal finance whizz Mary Holm joins Jesse and today she's going to address some of your feedback. Focusing on home ownership versus renting and investment strategies.

It's time for NZ Sporting History, and today Jesse is joined by our oldest living Olympic medalist Barry Magee. Barry is best remembered for taking home Bronze in the 1960 Rome Olympic marathon. In 1961 he led the world 10,000m rankings and was part of New Zealand's world-record-breaking 4 × 1 mile relay team. After retiring from international running in 1965, Barry moved into coaching, where he became one of the country's most influential distance running coaches.

It's time now for group chat, a chance for us to talk about the topics filling up your phone, distracting you from work or helping pass the time while you wait for coffee. Culture 101's Perlina Lau and Afternoons Senior Producer Olivia Wilson join Jesse to talk about Tom Cruise's Oscar win and whether honorary titles and awards actually devalue the prestige, plus if smoking cigarettes is back in vogue.

Recently on the show we've been talking a bit about Genetic Modification, and the Gene Technology bill currently in front of Parliament. So far, we've mostly focused on food. The pros, cons and issues with labelling. You can listen to all of those via the afternoons page on the RNZ website. Today we're looking at another application of the technology - helping us meet our predator free 2050 goal. To that end, Professor Peter Dearden is leading a research project at the university of Otago to create genetically modified wasps. He talks to Jesse.

When we talked about how the country is running out of cemetery space last week we were inundated with your messages. So when we saw that the NZ's first water crematorium, which was opened earlier this year, is proving a popular option for people, we wanted to know more. Also called Alkaline Hydrolysis, the process claims to be gentler on people and the environment. Debbie Richards started Christchurch Water Crematorium back in June, and she joins Jesse.