Saturday Morning with Jack Tame

Los Angeles garage pop band The Regrettes are back with their sophomore album How Do You Love?
Andrew Dickens joins Jack Tame to review the new album.
LISTEN TO THE AUDIO ABOVE

This week, Catherine Raynes reviews two new exciting books for you to read. 
One Good Deed - David BaldacciIt's 1949. When war veteran Aloysius Archer is released from Carderock Prison, he is sent to Poca City on parole with a short list of do's and a much longer list of don'ts: do report regularly to his parole officer, don't go to bars, certainly don't drink alcohol, do get a job--and don't ever associate with loose women.The small town quickly proves more complicated and dangerous than Archer's years serving in the war or his time in jail. Within a single night, his search for gainful employment--and a stiff drink--leads him to a local bar, where he is hired for what seems like a simple job: to collect a debt owed to a powerful local businessman, Hank Pittleman.Soon Archer discovers that recovering the debt won't be so easy. The indebted man has a furious grudge against Hank and refuses to pay; Hank's clever mistress has her own designs on Archer; and both Hank and Archer's stern parole officer, Miss Crabtree, are keeping a sharp eye on him.When a murder takes place right under Archer's nose, police suspicions rise against the ex-convict, and Archer realizes that the crime could send him right back to prison . . . if he doesn't use every skill in his arsenal to track down the real killer.
The Red Daughter - John Burnham SchwartzRunning from her father’s brutal legacy, Joseph Stalin’s daughter defects to the United States during the turbulence of the 1960s. For fans of We Were the Lucky Ones and A Gentleman in Moscow, this sweeping historical novel and unexpected love story is inspired by the remarkable life of Svetlana Alliluyeva.In one of the most momentous events of the Cold War, Svetlana Alliluyeva, the only daughter of the Soviet despot Joseph Stalin, abruptly abandoned her life in Moscow in 1967, arriving in New York to throngs of reporters and a nation hungry to hear her story. By her side is Peter Horvath, a young lawyer sent by the CIA to smuggle Svetlana into America.She is a contradictory celebrity: charismatic and headstrong, lonely and haunted, excited and alienated by her adopted country’s radically different society. Persuading herself that all she yearns for is a simple American life, she attempts to settle into a suburban existence in Princeton, New Jersey. But one day an invitation from the widow of the architect Frank Lloyd Wright arrives, and Svetlana impulsively joins her cultlike community at Taliesin West. When this dream ends in disillusionment, Svetlana reaches out to Peter, the one person who understands how the chains of her past still hold her prisoner. Their relationship changes and deepens, moving from America to England to the Soviet Union and back again, unfolding under the eyes of her CIA minders, and Svetlana’s and Peter’s private lives are no longer their own.Novelist John Burnham Schwartz’s father was in fact the young lawyer who escorted Svetlana Alliluyeva to the United States. Drawing upon private papers and years of extensive research, Schwartz imaginatively re-creates the story of an extraordinary, troubled woman’s search for a new life and a place to belong, in the powerful, evocative prose that has made him an acclaimed author of literary and historical fiction.

Mike Yardley's been in San Francisco, and has some off-the-beaten-tracks finds. LISTEN TO AUDIO ABOVE

Slow furniture 
Inexpensive store bought is often badly made with cheap materials like particle board, and the very cheap ones may give off formaldehyde.
These materials take masses of energy to make, and they don’t last long, especially if there is any water damage.
Solutions
* Buy furniture made from whole materials, including solid wood, which while it may cost more up front, the resale value is substantially higher down the line. With wooden products, check whether it is sustainable, Forest Stewardship Council is a reliable certification.
* Buy less and wait until the perfect piece arrives. A minimalist aesthetic is actually pretty cool. Don’t need to clutter up your place
* Buy used. This can be so much fun hunting down these treasures. Manage to afford much higher quality this way. Used furniture holds its value much better than new as well, or even gains in value if you catch the trends. Often the older styles are much tougher and can handle rough treatment from kids or flatmates
* Buy used. This can be so much fun hunting down these treasures. Manage to afford much higher quality this way. Used furniture holds its value much better than new as well, or even gains in value if you catch the trends. Often the older styles are much tougher and can handle rough treatment from kids or flatmates
 
* Be careful of old upholstery or foam. Check out carefully

How to grow Asparagus
* For Asparagus growing you’ll truly need a real garden bed. You'll need to grow it nice and deep; preferably raised if you have wet soils in winter; at least 20 cm above the soil level, 30 cm is even better.* Deep friable soil: Mix soil, loam with lots of compost; add some manure (animal excrement) or sheep pellets; dose with a good lot of lime: Asparagus likes a high pH (around 7 or even more)* Dig it all deep (at least 30 cm deep – or more if poss), so that the roots can go wandering down and side-ways with ease.* Planted my new plants with the roots splayed in all directions of the compass – (star-shaped). About 10 cm deep; rows about 50 cm apart and the plants are spaced around 40 cm in the rows.* Covered 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!!* Had good growth of ferns – let them go. They even produced heaps of bright red berries!! And the weeds tried to establish themselves in-between the asparagus plants, but I more-or-less kept on top of them.
* Mid-winter stuff to do: Get rid of all the last weeds (as much as you can); I also will cut off the old, brown fern-fronds and take them off the bed, trying not to spill too many red berries
* Once bed is cleared: lime it a bit; then top up with a fresh layer of organic compost – nice dark composty stuff. They also like some animal manure (I got the Halswell Quarry sheep well-trained!) and even some salty (unwashed) seaweed if you can find it somewhere. Just lay that over the top and in spring the spears will burst through the compostables…

Dr Bryn joined Jack to talk about early signs of dementia, and how to minimise risk. 
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There's a new way to get directions on your phone
Google Maps will now connect your directions to the real world - using Augmented Reality. 
If you're walking, you'll be able to hold your phone up and get giant arrows and street signs overlaid onto what you're seeing via the camera. No more fights over what way it is to the Empire State Building or what way 5th or 6th avenue is...
It's coming to a device near you over the next few weeks.
Expect to see more of this - it's starting with walking directions, but I wouldn't think it's long before it's added yo your driving directions. How handy would it be to have your phone on your dashboard and getting arrows to show you what lane to be in to make certain exits.
Look out for robots on the footpaths?
San Francisco has issues the first permit for footpath delivery robots. It's for the company Postmates, which will be delivering food via the robot. It's basically an electric chilly bin with wheels (and some camera technology) which can carry up to 23kg of stuff. Think a check in bag.
There's a catch though, there needs to be a human within 10m of the robot whenever its on the road.
 

Looking for a new TV show to watch? Tara Ward joined Jack Tame this morning to reveal the best shows on TV this week!
Back from Life: a British comedy/drama about Miri, a woman who’s spent the past 18 years in jail and returns to her small hometown wondering if anyone will let her move on (TVNZ OnDemand).Mindhunter: the return of the popular Netflix series set in the late 1970s, about two FBI agents who are tasked with interviewing serial killers to solve open cases.Derry Girls: a second season of the brilliant comedy about the personal exploits of a 16-year-old Derry girl and her family and friends during the Troubles in the early 1990s (Netflix). LISTEN TO AUDIO ABOVE

Anyone with children, will almost certainly have read at least a few books by prolific Kiwi author Dame Joy Cowley.And prolific is no exaggeration - she’s got 1,100 titles to her name - and they're not all kids books either.One of them, Veil over the Light, might surprise you. It’s a collection of spiritual writings, and it’s currently up for the Ashton Wylie Book Award.LISTEN TO AUDIO ABOVE.

In 2013, there was a death in the US that changed the face of race relations. African-American teenager Trayvon Martin was followed, and shot dead, for the crime of walking to a local dairy to buy some skittles.That led to a huge public discussion about racism in the US, and began the ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement. Then, the fatal shooting of another unarmed black man - Michael Brown - led to days of mass protests in Ferguson.School worker DeRay Mckesson joined the protests, then soon after quit his job to lead the Black Lives Matter movement.He joined Jack ahead of his appearance at TedXChristchurch.LISTEN TO AUDIO ABOVE.