Rhys Darby, famous for a multitude of TV and film projects, has another string in his bow that you might be less familiar with: kid's author.
The second book in his Buttons McGinty series has just been released. This time it’s The Top Secret Interdimensional Notes of Buttons McGinty.LISTEN TO AUDIO ABOVE

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Green pancakes
We hear a lot about kale but in fact any leafy greens are the answer to good health! Greens greens and more greens, getting plenty of these leafy wonders into your diet is a good thing. Loaded with vitamins A, B and C as well as antioxidants.
Makes 6
Pancakes
3/4 cup buckwheat flour
2 eggs
1 ½ cup regular or plant-based milk (I used rice milk)
2 cups baby spinach leaves
2-3 kale leaves, stems removed
Big handful of parsley
1 cup frozen peas, thawed
½ tsp sea salt + decent grind of black pepper
Oil for cooking – I used coconut oil
Topping
Chutney
Feta
Chilli flakes
Olive oil
Squeeze of lemon
Chutney
1. To make the pancakes, place all the ingredients except oil, in a blender, food processor or a bowl and use a sick blender and blend until a smooth batter forms. Heat a pan and coat surface with a little oil. Pour in enough batter to coat the pan in a not-too thin layer. Cook on medium until edges lift, flip and cook for 1-2 more minutes. Repeat with remaining batter.
2. To serve: Top with anything you like really – I like a combo of a swipe of chutney, feta, chilli flakes, a squeeze of lemon juice and torn herbs with salt and pepper and a lick of olive oil. Sprinkle this tasty mixture along with crumbled feta over pancakes and serve!
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Joker
Forever alone in a crowd, failed comedian Arthur Fleck seeks connection as he walks the streets of Gotham City. Arthur wears two masks -- the one he paints for his day job as a clown, and the guise he projects in a futile attempt to feel like he's part of the world around him. Isolated, bullied and disregarded by society, Fleck begins a slow descent into madness as he transforms into the criminal mastermind known as the Joker.Yuli: The Carlos Acosta Story 
A chronicle of the life and career of the first black guest dancer in London for the Royal Ballet.
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Kevin's been wondering why "morning people" walk the high moral ground as opposed to "night people"? 
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Music reviewer Estelle Clifford has been listening to Drax Project's debut album. 
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Chastise - Max Hastings
Openside - Sam Warburton
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En-route from Vilnius to Riga, an extraordinary inflexion point on my Insight Vacations’ guided journey of the Baltics was a whistle-stop visit to the Hill of Crosses. It is a unique place in terms of its breath-taking scale and blood-stained history, with over 200,000 crosses currently adorning the hill. It is statement Christianity on an epic scale, which gained immense significance for Lithuanian believers during the long and oppressive Soviet era, a statement of resistance to the totalitarian regime.
Following independence, the hill took on added stature as a symbol of the country’s unshakeable faith, prompting visits and crosses to be placed by Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI. I’ve never seen anything quite like it. Dubbed the “Paris of the North and “the Baltic Berlin,” reinvented Riga is Latvia’s hip little capital. Small, green and beautiful, Riga is big on architectural styles, from art deco to rococo, while stamping its mark as art and food destination. Riga’s handsome and historic Hanseatic Old Town is the locus for city exploration, which is where my loquacious Insight Vacations’ guide, Julia, came in handy, to unpack the secrets.
The city walls, warehouses, houses and churches here have been painstakingly renovated since the fall of communism – Riga feels like a giant, breathing museum. Julia shared a plethora of fascinating insights with us, like the building that was built for Soviet troops and awash with bugging devices. It turned out to be the lovely hotel we were staying in – thankfully, swept of all bugs! Riga is beloved for its head-swirling trove of Art Nouveau buildings – 800 of them, at last count. Alberta Iela, just north of the Esplanade and Kronvalda Park, is the best single street for viewing these treasures. Mikhail Eisenstein, father of the film director Sergei, designed several of the most striking buildings.
The biggest lingerer of Soviet statement architecture is one of Stalin’s “birthday cakes”, nicknamed the Seven Sisters. It’s a carbon copy of the structures still standing in the likes of Warsaw and Moscow. But the city’s Soviet gloom has been largely eviscerated by the peppy sense of Baltic optimism. The city was first founded by the Crusaders and Teutonic Knights in the 13th century. In addition to the Soviets, Riga has also been ruled by the Poles, Germans and Swedes, and all have left their mark. Dipping into Riga is a like a journey into the ravages and vagaries of European history on a very intimate level.
For a crash course in recent Latvian history, our group headed to the Museum of the Occupation With clear English explanations, it is a thoughtfully designed and well-curated historical museums. Its comprehensiveness is extraordinary, spanning everything from Latvian partisan Nazi and Soviet uniforms to propaganda posters, from chess sets carved from scrap and wood in the gulags to heartbreaking, frantically scribbled notes hurled from trains by deportees to Siberia. Among the Old Town’s cabinet of wonders, the museum is a must. Just across from the Occupation Museum, is the city’s colossal medieval cathedral, begun in 1211 by Albert von Buxhoeveden, the German missionary-warrior who sailed north to convert the Livonian heathens.
Our group were most enthralled by building directly opposite, the House of the Blackheads. Flanking the southern side of the square. Built to house bachelor Hanseatic traders and sailors, it derives its name from their patron saint, Mauritius, traditionally depicted as an armed Moor. As Julia explained, the Soviet’ obliterated this majestic Gothic-Dutch Renaissance building. Its Teutonic architecture was deemed by them to be too decadent, but after independence, it was one of the first structures to be rebuilt. Being very close to Rigans’ hearts, the work was financed by individual donations. We also doted over a cluster of merchant houses called the Three Brothers, all clad in miniature windows to mitigate the...

Steven's been giving Francesca tips on how to talk to your kids about relationships. LISTEN TO AUDIO ABOVE

Fleet-footed spidersDon’t know if you’ve noticed, but spiders are becoming popular at this time of the year.
Not everybody is fond of them, though -they build little webs everywhere and create long silk strands that stick to paint, weatherboards and window panes.Of course, all spiders are pretty useful predators in our gardens and in our forests; their consumption of plant pests should be welcomed by gardeners.An old, but still cool statistic from the UK gives us some idea of the predation potential of spiders in that country: On an annual basis, all spiders in the UK eat so much insect/invertebrate meat as the equivalent total weight of the human population in that good old country we know and love as England!
That’s impressive stuff, don’t you think? But not all spiders spin a web to catch their prey. Some species are just fast runners and grab their prey “on the hoof” so to speak.
Avondale Spiders, for instance, love to live inside your home, hiding behind pictures and paintings on the wall, during the day. Outside they prefer to hide under flakes of bark
In the evening they emerge and go hunting; their target is medium to large sized moths, caterpillars, even cockroaches – and they’re all run down with stealth and speed.
While Avondale spiders are quite restricted in their distribution in New Zealand (they are originally Ozzies that emigrated in the parcels of Australian timber from which the Avondale racecourse was built), another Ozzie interloper is now wide-spread in Aotearoa.The Fleet-footed spider runs everywhere fast; it is a medium-sized black spider with small white markings and two long, orange front legs – quite remarkable and easy to spot.
They love to live on your patio and your deck; When the concrete is hot in the sun, their speed is extra-ordinary (hence their name). Watch them go – and if kids are interested in physics and maths: film the beasties and time their run between to measurable land-marks. Now calculate the speed in meters per second of this remarkable and fast arachnid!LISTEN TO AUDIO ABOVE

Francesca's worried she might be the last person in New Zealand who still supports private fireworks displays. LISTEN TO AUDIO ABOVE