Saturday Morning with Jack Tame

Former Broadcaster Kevin Milne is fascinated by the prospect of flying taxis in New Zealand.
They are already being tested around the South Island, with speeds of up to 180kmh and without a pilot!
He joins Jack Tame to give his take on them, and if he would ever travel in one. 
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Three months ago New Zealand changed.
You remember that morning after the massacre? I don’t think many of us had enjoyed a great sleep on that Friday night. That Saturday morning, the people of Christchurch lay flowers at the Police cordon of the Al-Noor Mosque. We weren’t sure then about a lot of things. How many people had died, how many were injured, if there were maybe still some ongoing security concerns, or what would happen next. 
Three months ago New Zealand changed.
And it’s actually the anniversary of another less-documented change in New Zealand.
Since 2009, New Zealand has had a policy which explicitly singles out refugees from Africa and the Middle East. Unless refugees from those parts of the World already have family members in Aotearoa, they’re not welcome here.
The National government introduced the law because of what officials called additional security concerns. That’s despite the fact they couldn’t tell us explicetly what those concerns were and despite the fact that all refugees, regardless of where they come from, go through a strict vetting process before they’re allowed into the country. The same standards don’t apply to refugees coming here from Asia and the Pacific. They don’t apply to refugees from Latin America.
I’m embarrassed to say I didn’t know this was our policy until recently. There have been a few scattered reports on it over the years, but my colleagues at Sunday highlighted it a few weeks ago and challenged the Government as to why, 18 months into their time in charge, the family link policy still hasn’t been dropped.
I should point out that in 2016, official advice to scrap it was ignored. I interviewed the immigration minister this week and for the first time, he admitted he hasn’t received any advice suggesting people from the Middle East and Africa pose more of a security risk than other refugees. Again, all refugees go through a huge vetting process. 
Is the policy racist? I asked Iain Lees Galloway. ‘I have a view’, he replied. But he wouldn’t share it. 
What’s interesting to me is that Kiwis don’t appear all that upset by this. For all the talk after Christchurch – You Are Us – there aren’t many people kicking up much of a fuss. Why is that? Why don’t we care that we’re blocking some of the World’s most vulnerable people from setting up a life in New Zealand, even when there are no security concerns at play?
I’ll just say it, shall I? We don’t care because a lot of refugees coming from Africa and the Middle East have the wrong coloured skin, or come from Muslim majority countries? What other reason could there possibly be?
I find hypocrisy maybe the least attractive of all human qualities. We’re all guilty of it, of course.  
I’m as much of a hypocrite as the next person.
But it’s for the big stuff, the really big questions, these moments of collective reckoning, where we should step back and check our collective hypocrisy. We should forget our words. You Are Us. And we should reflect upon our actions, instead.
Actions reveal true character. We’re happy to claim the victims of the Christchurch attacks. You Are Us.
But we’re not happy to claim many of their fellow Muslims. 
Three months ago New Zealand changed. Or maybe it didn’t.

Cemetery tourism seems to be trending around the world. it seems to be. The Aemricans have nicknamed tombstone tourism, and as D Day has illustrated, war graves are immensely popular pilgrimages too. In Bali, death tourism has gone next level. There’s been a bit of news coverage recently about how you can visit the northern island village of Tunyan, to see and even touch bodies that are laid out to rot in bamboo cages, instead of being buried or cremated. Tourists are flocking there. How crass is that! And once the flesh has rotted away, the skull and bones are added to a shrine under a sacred tree. That’s too macabre for my liking, I’ll stick to the stand-out cemeteries around the world.
Paris reigns supreme in these stakes with Pere Lachaise considered the world’s most visited cemetery.  First established for Paris’ rich and famous, business boomed and headlining the roll call of famous corpses buried there is Jim Morrison, who’s grave has been repeatedly graffitied. All manner of unmentionable offerings are laid at his gravesite, particularly underwear. Other luminaries at Pere Lachaise include Edith Piaf, Oscar Wilde, Gertrude Stein and Frederic Chopin.
If you’re in London, Highgate is fantastic. The most famous recent arrival to be interred at Highgate is George Michael, although his grave is currently off-limits to the public. But like a lot of the most famous cemeteries, it’s the landscaping, the ostentatious tombs and museums that pull in the crowds. Highgate’s so called Egyptian Avenue is very stately, home to Karl Marx and George Eliot.
If you’re a classical music fan and find yourself in Vienna, you must stroll through Zentral Friedhof, a veritable symphony of music gods. Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms and Strauss all lie at rest here,  and Mozart’s got his own cenotaph.
Hollywood Forever Cemetery is classic Hollywood, with palm trees, swaggering peacocks and stuffed with dead celebrities. Johnny Ramone’s tombstone is a life-size statue of himself. People go ga-ga over Judy Gardland’s grave, then there’s the likes of Mel Blanc and Rudolph Valentino. So it’s the place to schmooze with the ghosts of golden age Hollywood. There are even tour guides on hand.
Buenos Aires – Recoleta Cemetery would take the cake for me, in the beauty stakes. It’s like a small city lined with streets of marbled mansions. Thousands of them. Huge, ornate mausoleums – like trophy homes, housing the remains of Argentina’s one per centers. And as much as the extravagance and elitism is shameless, the sense of history and sheer artistry of Recoleta is impressive. Of course, it’s most famous resident is Eva Peron.
Other stand-outs include Calvary Cemetery in New York City, with towering tombstone monuments to mimic the city’s skyscrapers. There’s also a huge contingency of mobsters buried there, and the grounds served as the set for a burial scene in the Godfather. Mount of Olives cemetery in Jerusalem is pretty special. Jewish people earnestly believe they’ve got the front-row seat here, on Judgement Day. And Moscow’s prestigious cemetery is a stunner too, stacked with the who’s who of the Soviet Union, all the way through to Raisa Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin.
I appreciate that strolling through graveyards might creep some people out. But it never ceases to amaze me how you don’t just get a history lesson, but a personal sense of resonance with famous individuals. It’s a bit like seeing Elvis’ grave at Graceland. Somehow, even in death, there’s a very human connection. Seeing their final resting place makes them feel more real, more relatable.
Mike Yardley is our Travel Correspondent on Jack Tame Saturday Morning.

This week, Catherine Raynes reviews two new exciting books for you to read.
Dead at First Sight - Peter James
A man waits at London Airport for Ingrid Ostermann, the love of his life, to arrive. Across the Atlantic, a retired NYPD cop waits in a bar in Florida’s Key West for his first date with the lady who is, without question, his soulmate. The two men are about to discover they’ve been scammed out of almost every penny they have—and that neither woman exists. 
Mama's Boy - Dustin Lance Black
From the Academy Award-winning screenwriter and political activist, a candid, vivid, powerfully resonant memoir about growing up as a gay Mormon in Texas that is, as well, a moving tribute to the mother who taught him about surviving against all odds.

J.R.R. Tokien is an author firmly embedded in the hearts of New Zealanders, thanks of course to the Lord of The Rings.
Now, his life story is being told in the aptly named new movie: Tolkien.
Playing the man himself is Nicholas Hoult, an actor whose first foray into major acting roles in 'About a Boy with Hugh Grant' and more recently starred in 'Skins' and 'X-Men'.
He joins Saturday Morning with Jack Tame to discuss his career and featuring in the new movie.
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Can't decide what TV shows you should be watching? TV critic Tara Ward joins Jack Tame to gives us her top picks for your viewing pleasure!
Big Little Lies: Meryl Streep joins the all-star Hollywood cast for a second season of this award winning drama about a group of friends and their seemingly perfect lives (SoHo, 10 June)
When They See Us: Ava DuVernay directs this hard-hitting drama about the true story of five Harlem teens who were wrongfully accused of a brutal crime in Central Park (Netflix)
Great Canal Journeys: join actors Timothy West and Prunella Scales for a journey with heart, as they continue their canal boat trip around Great Britain (Living, Sunday 9 June, 8:30pm)

Feijoa pruning
When the last feijoa has fallen off, you can have a real go at it.
No difficult techniques needed (as with apples and pears and grapes – thinking a year or more ahead!): Feijoas fruit on new wood that grows in spring.
So even if you literally whack them with a hedge trimmer (I do that!), next spring’s new growth will give you fruit.
But what about a tree that’s getting a bit too high?
Easy: you can really cut them back quite hard, because they’ll grow again; but seeing you’re going to do some surgery, you might as well do it real well: thin some of the branches inside the tree; That opens up the interior and gives the new growth a bit of space.
It also gives the birds a bit of wriggle room to move.
Birds – like blackbirds and silvereyes – are the main pollinators of the feijoa flowers!
(hence the colour red – birds can see red well)
If you see a blackbird violently attacking the red flower stamens in late spring, don’t panic! It’s doing its job.
For those of you that consider having a feijoa tree in the garden, here are two tips:
1) plant two trees next to each other (they require crosspollination)
2) Plant them now, while there is still some warmth in the soil – otherwise they’d sulk most of the winter.
Sunny, well-drained soil – little bit of fertiliser each spring, topped by compost of good mulch, to keep roots moist during dry periods.
For the sixteenth floor, may I suggest a reasonably large pot with quality Living Earth Tub mix and the variety Bambina, a small grafted plant with small feijoas that can be eaten skin-and-all.
Just a bit of liquid fertiliser and regular watering – you’ll love it!

Chernobyl is based on the real-life events of the catastrophic nuclear disaster in northern Ukrainian SSR in 1986.
Broadcaster Kevin Milne has been watching HBO's recent miniseries "Chernobyl". He shared his thoughts on the show with Jack Tame.
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Every Saturday morning, movie critic Francesca Rudkin joins Jack Tame to take a look at what is playing at the movies this weekend.
X Men: Dark Phoneix
In DARK PHOENIX, the X-MEN face their most formidable and powerful foe: one of their own, Jean Grey. During a rescue mission in space, Jean is nearly killed when she is hit by a mysterious cosmic force. Once she returns home, this force not only makes her infinitely more powerful, but far more unstable. Wrestling with this entity inside her, Jean unleashes her powers in ways she can neither comprehend nor contain. With Jean spiraling out of control, and hurting the ones she loves most, she begins to unravel the very fabric that holds the X-Men together. Now, with this family falling apart, they must find a way to unite -- not only to save Jean's soul, but to save our very planet from aliens who wish to weaponize this force and rule the galaxy.
Tolkien
TOLKIEN explores the formative years of the renowned author's life as he finds friendship, courage and inspiration among a fellow group of writers and artists at school. Their brotherhood strengthens as they grow up and weather love and loss together, including Tolkien's tumultuous courtship of his beloved Edith Bratt, until the outbreak of the First World War which threatens to tear their fellowship apart. All of these experiences would later inspire Tolkien to write his famous Middle-earth novels.

One-rise Seed Bread
Begin preparing this wholesome nutty-tasting bread the day before baking. The finished loaf is simply wonderful toasted.
Makes 2 small loaves or 1 large loaf
Prep time: 20 minutes Prove time: 30 minutes
Cook time: 40–50 minutes
Tip If wishing to use active dried yeast in this recipe, allow 1½ teaspoons.
1½ cups seeds (use a mixture of linseed, sesame, pumpkin or sunflower)
½ tablespoon honey
½ tablespoon molasses or golden syrup
2 cups boiling water
1½ teaspoons salt
4 teaspoons active yeast mixture (dried yeast with bread improvers)
½ cup warm water
1 teaspoon sugar
3 cups high grade flour
2 cups wholemeal flour
In a large bowl, stir together the seeds, honey, molasses or golden syrup, boiling water and salt. Cover and set aside at room temperature overnight.
The next day, preheat the oven to 200°C (180°C fan bake). Set the rack in the centre of the oven. Grease two small loaf tins or one large loaf tin well.
Mix the yeast with the warm water and sugar. Set aside for 10–15 minutes until frothy and porridge-like. Add the yeast mixture to the seed mixture. Stir in the flours and work well to make a thick, sticky dough. Transfer the tacky mixture into the prepared tin(s), or alternatively turn out onto a floured bench and knead, dusting with flour if required, until the mixture forms a smooth ball. This will give a firmer textured loaf of bread when baked.
Set aside in a warm place for 30 minutes to rise by 30–50%. Do not allow the dough to double in bulk as it will collapse on itself when cooking.
Bake in the preheated oven for 40–50 minutes (35–40 minutes for smaller loaves) or until the loaf is golden brown. When cooked, it will sound hollow when tapped from underneath. Transfer to a cake rack to cool.
This bread is better cut the next day. Keep in an airtight container and eat within 4–5 days. As this is a very moist loaf, it will mould faster than plain breads. It also freezes well. Cut into slices before freezing so you can take out the bread a slice at a time.