Nights

It's not often you hear the words "academic" and "comedian" in the same breath, but Jonathan Falconer is that rare combination.

It might not be everyone's cup of tea, but every winter Lynette Bailey and her husband Gregg Smith leave New Zealand and head to Queenland where they go 12 meters underground. The pair purchased a mining claim in 2013 and hunt for precious gemstones such as sapphires. Lynette joins the show to tell us about life down a mine shaft.

When 10-year-old Ross Taylor laid eyes on a North American sarracenia, it was love at first sight. Fast forward to today, and Ross has a sprawling collection of sarracenia - aka pitcher plant - at his property in Geraldine, which also doubles as a carnivorous plant nursery. He joins the show to share the ins and outs of caring for these curious flora.

In this week's edition of Midweek Mediawatch, Hayden Donnell talks to Karyn Hay about a media tussle with Pharmac, a so-called 'trainweck' interview by the broadcasting minister and two interesting Media Council decisions.

Wales' national vegetable and emblem, the Welsh Leek, is now officially protected. Karyn talks with food historian Carwyn Graves.

Invercargill's streets are set to be a lot more colourful. Artists from as far as Japan and the United States are taking to the city's CBD - armed with spray cans. The South Sea Spray Festival is the brainchild of Invercargill-based graffiti artist Danny Owen (aka Deow).

Dillon Mayhew, Associate Professor from the School of Mathematics and Statistics at Te Heranga Waka/Victoria University of Wellington joins us once again to talk mathematics. This week, the discipline of origami or paper folding has received a considerable amount of mathematical study. Fields of interest include a given paper model's flat-foldability and the use of paper folds to solve up-to cubic mathematical equations.

Sleeping in separate beds is more common our later years. It could be because one person snores, or becuase a parent is co-sleeping with a child. Steven Dromgool is a relationship therapist and author with specialties in connection and communication issues. He's the director of Relate Counselling in Auckland. He joins to the show to explain how to navigate night-time separation.

The BBC's Robert Hughes-Jones fills us in on a major court case in Belgium's capital, strikes in the UK, and the Nobel Peace Prize

A new record has been set by a pet in south-east London as the world's oldest living cat.