Kevin Milne's son bought him a special treat - dinner cooked for him at home, by a professional chef. He's been talking to Jack about the experience. LISTEN TO AUDIO ABOVE 
 

One of my best mates in the U.S is a Donald Trump supporter, and he texted me yesterday morning to ask if I had put aside some time later in the day to get in front of the TV? 
For the basketball? I asked. 
“Come on... you’re supposed be a politics man!” he said. 
“DJT. Hashtag 45. Trump’s convention speech.” 
Got it. Of course. We got to comparing notes. 
I asked him how he thought Trump was handling the coronavirus. He said he figured the case numbers were only so high because they’d been testing so many people.  
What about the deaths? I said. Some reports are now suggesting 300 thousand people will die of covid-19 in America before the end of the pandemic. That’s a death toll a hundred times the greater than 9/11.  
‘We’re a big country,” he said. “300 thousand out of 330 million.” 
We weren’t arguing. It was all very low key. I was just getting his steer on things and he was getting mine... after a Republican convention where speaker after speaker used fire and brimstone to paint a Joe Biden presidency as a huge threat to suburban American life.  
This is a direct quote from the current Vice-President Mike Pence and his convention speech.  
“You won’t be safe in Joe Biden’s America.” 
Three hundred thousand deaths. Hmm. But of course Pence wasn’t talking about the coronavirus. He was talking about Black Lives Matter. While the convention was underway, protestors were back on the streets after the Police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin. If you haven’t seen the video, think carefully before you look it up. It’s pretty hard to watch someone take seven bullets in the back... especially when you know his kids are sitting right there.  
But perhaps even more disturbing to me was the video a couple of nights later. After the Kenosha protests had turned violent the night before and some protestors had burnt buildings and looted businesses, self-appointed militia decided to join protestors and take to the streets. There were videos of police officers handing out water bottles to civilians with rifles and tactical gear. And then what do you know... a 17 year old fanatic, apparently obsessed with law enforcement, took it upon himself to shoot three people with an AR-15. There’s video. It’s chaotic. It’s awful.  
And this is actually the thing I can’t stop feeling anxious about.  
What’s going to happen when the election results roll in? Is it too extreme to wonder if there could be really serious violence in the streets?  
I told my friend I thought it was concerning that Donald Trump is already suggesting the election results might be illigitimate. How will his most gung-ho supporters react in November if they think the election has been stolen? How many 17-year-olds with AR-15s would take to the streets and decided to do more than just parade their guns? How many might cross the threshold and feel compelled to start shooting? Could that happen in America? Could there be a major historic civil conflict? 
My mate said, ‘Well, you can’t trust the postal voting system.’ 
The future is uncertain for all of us but increasingly I worry that November in America has the potential to be very nasty, indeed.

Music reviewer Estelle Clifford has been listening to the new album from The Naked and Famous, Recover. LISTEN TO AUDIO ABOVE

Relationship expert Steven Dromgool has been giving Jack some tips on how to prioritise your relationship when you also have kids.LISTEN TO AUDIO ABOVE

Book reviewer Catherine Raynes has been reading Eighth Detectives by Alex Pavesi and The Stranger by Simon Conway.LISTEN TO AUDIO ABOVE

Travel writer Mike Yardley has been taking a trip to Tauranga.LISTEN TO AUDIO ABOVE

Plotting and Planting for spring 
You might not believe it, but judging from the weeds sprouting up, warmer weather and longer days with more sunlight are definitely on their way.
1) My very first asparagus spear was starting to emerge a week ago! This year I’ll be harvesting some of the spears as the bed was constructed three years ago. Asparagus is now for sale in garden centres, it pays to create a good raised bed with well-drained soil and plenty of organic compost, some lime and Nitrogen-rich fertilisers or manures. Plant them in trenches, about 10 cm deep. Rows about 50 cm apart and the plants are spaced around 40cm in the rows. Roots splayed out when planting to give them possibility to move in all directions. 
Cover them with friable soil that will warm up in spring, waking the plants and starting their growth. Don’t let the plants dry out in winter, keep them moist but not soaking wet. And they hate weeds. It's very long-lived, up to 20 or 30 years! 
2) In the warmer north you can consider sowing lettuce seeds to start the season off. In the cooler south I’d buy a punnet to plant out, but they will take advantage of the longer day-length.   3) Usual run of the mill vegies: broad Beans, carrots, celery, cauliflowers, spinach, and spring onions can be sown or punneted outside from now on. These plants all need quite a bit of sunlight.
4) Woosy plants; chillies, capsicums, tomatoes and even eggplant would appreciate to be sown in an indoor spot to grow with light and warmth. In the south I reckon it’s best to start this lot in September/October! Use good quality seed-raising mix and keep them damp, not soaking wet to prevent damping off and other fungal problems 
5) Don’t forget the herbs: thyme, parsley, chives, sage…go for it! Either small punneted plants or seeds.

Bob's best buy this week is the Yealands 2019 Riesling, Marlborough $15.95.LISTEN TO AUDIO ABOVE

Apple has become the first US company to hit $2 Trillion 
It's more than New Zealand ($205 Billion) and Australia's (1.4 Trillion) GDP combined! It was only two years ago that Apple hit $1 Trillion - so it's doubled in value in 24 months. 
As we talked about last weekend, it's facing pressure to open up the walled garden and this milestone may now work against them. 
An important reminder to make sure you're backing up your data 
An update to Adobe's photo editing Lightroom app for iOS has caused user's photos and presets to be wiped clean. This affected any users of the app who didn't have an Adobe Cloud subscription - but Adobe hasn't said how many customers that is. It wasn't just photos that were wiped, presets were too - including those that people had purchased.  Backup important digital assets to the cloud and if something is super important try to keep a copy on a physical drive or across multiple clouds. 
Instagram's found a new way to keep you scrolling 
You used to be able to hit the bottom of your feed of photos, but now Instagram will start showing you suggested posts - basically bringing the content from the 'discover' tab into your main feed. The 'you're up to date' message will still be there between the content you follow and the suggested content. 
My guess is that this is likely a move to try and free up space in the tab bar to promote Reels - their TikTok clone. They'll remove Discover from the menu and give people one-touch access to Reels which currently is placed inside the Discover screen. 
It's also turning Instagram more and more into Facebook with a never ending supply of content - something the original users of Instagram hate. LISTEN TO AUDIO ABOVE

Teenage Bounty Hunters: After joining forces with a veteran bounty hunter, sixteen-year-old fraternal twin sisters Sterling and Blair dive into the world of bail skipping baddies while still navigating the high stakes of teenage life (Netflix) 
Ted Lasso: a comedy that follows US American Football coach Ted Lasso (Jason Sudeikis) as he moves to the UK to manage a struggling London soccer team in the top flight of English football (Apple TV+). 
Glow Up NZ: In the brand-new reality series hosted by Megan Papas, talented young Kiwis compete in makeup artistry challenges, exploring different genres and mind-blowing, internet-trending styles (TVNZ OnDemand).  LISTEN TO AUDIO ABOVE