Nights

Historian Peter Clayworth talks about how a weekly half-holiday eventually became Saturday off for most people - the birth of the weekend. Its 19th century origins in the Judeo-Christian Sabbath involved a three way struggle between Sabbatarians (who wanted nothing but worship to happen on a Sunday), business people (who wanted as much commerce as possible on the Sabbath) and those folk who just wanted to have fun.

Miles Buckingham began a series on Kiwi Reggae last week. Elizabeth Turner was listening. She recently completed a doctoral thesis on Herbs' first album, Whats Be' Happen? The album, that changed New Zealand music for ever (she reckons). Elizabeth Turner is a senior lecturer at the School of Language and Culture at Auckland University of Technology.

Adopt a pohutakawa to stop myrtle rust. A Royal Wedding is on the agenda within the next six months and in Dateline Pacific - the Cooks Islands tackles stray dogs.

Hamish Campbell has just come back from Gondwana 16 in Bangkok - does that refer to the 16 countries that would have once been part of the continent? 'Course, we didn't have countries back then - or did we? Bryan is rather intrigued!

This week thousands of athletes converge on Wellington for the NZ Special Olympics, and unusually the capital the weather is set fair for the event.

now something the weekend - although they tend to last a lot longer than that. The New Zealand Tattoo & Art Festival, billed as the biggest in Australasia, is on in New Plymouth this weekend. Brent tAYLOR - is one of the organisers

This week's Cultural Ambassador is Dr Kirsten Zemke, ethnomusicologist at Auckland University - by day - Hip Hop afficianado by Night.

Groups of Rohingya children who had lost both parents while fleeing Myanmar are among the hundreds of thousands flowing into refugee camps on the Bangladesh border, says a Wellington nurse who has just returned from the camps.

Peggy Revell Joins us from Medicine Hat, Alberta with the big stories from Canada including the Keystone XL pipeline, Justin Trudeau's LGBTQ Apology and what Canada is making of the Paradise Papers.

Wellington folk duo, Ktoo - Kevin Ikin and Kevin McLoughlin - are live in the studio tonight playing some tracks from their new album of West Coast songs, Land of the West.