Saturday Morning with Jack Tame

This week, Catherine Raynes reviews two new exciting books for you to read. 
The Flatshare - Beth O’Leary
Tiffy and Leon share a flatTiffy and Leon share a bedTiffy and Leon have never met… Tiffy Moore needs a cheap flat, and fast. Leon Twomey works nights and needs cash. Their friends think they’re crazy, but it’s the perfect solution: Leon occupies the one-bed flat while Tiffy’s at work in the day, and she has the run of the place the rest of the time. But with obsessive ex-boyfriends, demanding clients at work, wrongly imprisoned brothers and, of course, the fact that they still haven’t met yet, they’re about to discover that if you want the perfect home you need to throw the rulebook out the window…
Life will be the Death of Me - Chelsea Handler
In a haze of vape smoke on a rare windy night in L.A. in the fall of 2016, Chelsea Handler daydreams about what life will be like with a woman in the White House. And then Donald Trump happens. In a torpor of despair, she decides that she's had enough of the privileged bubble she's lived in--a bubble within a bubble--and that it's time to make some changes, both in her personal life and in the world at large.At home, she embarks on a year of self-sufficiency--learning how to work the remote, how to pick up dog shit, where to find the toaster. She meets her match in an earnest, brainy psychiatrist and enters into therapy, prepared to do the heavy lifting required to look within and make sense of a childhood marked by love and loss and to figure out why people are afraid of her. She becomes politically active--finding her voice as an advocate for change, having difficult conversations, and energizing her base. In the process, she develops a healthy fixation on Special Counsel Robert Mueller and, through unflinching self-reflection and psychological excavation, unearths some glittering truths that light up the road ahead.

Gardening expert Ruud Kleinpaste joins Jack Tame to remind us not to forget our feathered friends as the days begin to shorten. Listen to the audio above.
Food is becoming scarce, unless you’ve planted a heap of trees and shrubs that provide nectar and honeydew to keep the nectivores happy.
A lot of people feed birds dodgy supplements such as stale bread and food scraps; yes – sparrows and starlings (as well as mynahs and the odd blackbird) might initially seem to appreciate your gestures, but so do rats and mice (who are also looking for fodder)
Interesting to note how all these organisms are not native to NZ, but largely culture-followers or exotic imports.
Bread, by the way, is not a great food for birds – stomach troubles etc. And it certainly doesn’t help our native species.
Another point about feeding birds in your garden is that you’ll need to keep going till spring; Your generosity is something the birds rely on and when you stop, there will be consequences for the artificially-high populations created by extra feeding!
I tend to target nectar feeders in winter assistance: things like Tui, bellbird and silver-eyes; especially the last one is pretty useful to have around in the garden: Silver-eyes are also insect eaters, specialising in scale insects, mealybugs, aphids, psyllids, whitefly and a heap more of those quite damaging garden pests.
I hate spraying systemic insecticides, so birds’ help is always welcome.
Two types of feeding stations are of importance here:
Sugar water (NOT Honey water!!!) in a container from which the birds can feed (many different types on the market)
Lard blocks in an old onion bag or in a small, metal “cage” where the birds can hang from. This last contraption feeds a wide range of birds that over-winter in my garden.
Replenish frequently and remember to place the feeders in a spot out of reach from neighbourhood cats. 
A source of water might also be handy as – even in winter – birds need water
My goal is to get the largest flocks of silver-eyes on the lard blocks and sugar-water stations throughout winter and right into spring, when the silver-eyes start to disperse to go breeding.
You might think you will have “lost” them from the garden... they are getting very secretive around nesting time, but they will remember your place as a heaven full of food, so...
In spring and summer they’ll come and do the pest control business for you by scouting the scale insects and aphids from your plants, to feed their kids!!!

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!
Good Omens: David Tennant and Michael Sheen star in this TV adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s book, about an angel and demon that have to team up to save the world (Amazon Prime Video, 31 May)
Dead to Me: part dark comedy, part mystery, this American drama is about two women who become unlikely friends after they meet at a grief support group (Netflix)
Deadwood: the much loved Western drama returns more than a decade after it ended, giving the series closure in a 2 hour, one-off special (SoHo & Neon, 31 May)

Today is the big day. Parents all over Auckland are getting ready to take their children through one of hour performances of perennial favourites, The Wiggles.
The Aussie band has been around since 1991, making its founders tens of millions of dollars from music and merchandise.
In more recent years, three of the four original Wiggles have stepped down, opening the stage to a younger group including the new purple Wiggle Lachy Gillespie.
He joined Saturday Morning with Jack Tame to chat about what it has been like being part of the world renowned group.
LISTEN TO THE AUDIO ABOVE

Every Saturday morning, movie critic Francesca Rudkin joins Jack Tame to take a look at what is playing at the movies this weekend.



Godzilla 2The new story follows the heroic efforts of the crypto-zoological agency Monarch as its members face off against a battery of god-sized monsters, including the mighty Godzilla, who collides with Mothra, Rodan, and his ultimate nemesis, the three-headed King Ghidorah. When these ancient super-species - thought to be mere myths - rise again, they all vie for supremacy, leaving humanity's very existence hanging in the balance.
Asterix: The Secret of the Magic Potion
A fall during the picking of mistletoe led Druid Getafix to make a decision: he will travel through Gaul with Asterix, Obelix and Pectin in search of a young talented druide to guarantee the future of the village. He must indeed find the one who will take his suite and to whom he will transmit the Secret of the Magic Potion. Sulfurix, an evil druid, intends to take advantage to steal this secret ...

They stood there prone. Single file. A line of bright reds. Yellows. Fancy climbing clothes worn by figures with no faces. All of them breathing oxygen from bottles on their backs, queued up in a line on the ridge leading to the summit of Mount Everest. 
The wind was blowing from one side of the mountain. It had cleared the rock bare, and whipped up a little cloud of snow on the other side of the ridge. In one sense it was glorious. Magnificent. Climbers on top of the World. In another, it said so much about our species. Always seeking to conquer. 
I haven’t seen a photo like that in a long time. It might be the single most memorable photo I’ve seen since the photo of that little Syrian boy, Alan Kurdi, who drowned whilst fleeing the Syrian civil war and was scooped up by a Turkish Police officer. Remember that? That was four years ago. But strangely, the Everest photo affected me in a similar way. It was not distressing in the same way, even though 11 people died up there in the last two weeks, but it was just... amazing.
In the 66 years since Tenzing and Hillary climbed Mt Everest for the first time, fewer than five thousand people have stood at the top. Climbing has become the folly of the rich. People will pay more than a hundred thousand dollars for the best guides and the best gear. But for all our advances, all our technology, all our down jackets and goretex, all of our helicopters and nutritional guidance, it’s still really really hard to get to the highest point on Earth. 
I went adventuring in the Andes a couple of years ago. It wasn’t anything near an Everest expedition, but it was stunning to note the affects that altitude had on my body. I got up to the high fives... almost six thousand metres above sea level, more than a mile higher than Aoraki Mt Cook, but about three vertical kilometres lower than the summit of Mt Everest. Climbing was gruelling. I was fit as, and yet i could only climb for 20 seconds or so without stopping and gasping for air. My head throbbed. I sucked back water. It was exhausting. 
That photo on Everest said so much. It said we humans love a trophy. People who have comfortable lives in good parts of the World - doctors from Alabama and lawyers France - will risk it all for a certificate and a photo. It said that even when human beings think they can conquer Mother Nature, they can’t conquer the flaws in their own species. After all.. there’s only a very small window every year in which people can summit that mountain but because so many people tried to summit at once, eleven people died on Everest.
Once upon a time I would have looked at that photo and been drawn in only by the adventure. The queue of people, the freezing conditions. The breathing equipment. The glory and death. 
Now I look at that photo and can’t help but think how ugly it all is.

A cake fit for a Queen’s Birthday, this cake manages to be both spectacular and sensible at the same time.
Serves 8-10
1 ½ cups sugar
Rind of 2-3 lemons
2 eggs
1 cup oil
1 cup yoghurt
Pinch salt
3 tbsps lemon juice
2 cups self-raising flour (for GF use 1 ¾ cups GF self raising flour)
1 cup frozen blueberries, dusted in a little flour

Preheat oven to 180 C (or 160 C fan bake). Grease a 20cm loose-bottom cake tin.
Put sugar and rind in food processor and blitz until rind is chopped finely. Transfer to bowl of a standing mixer. Add eggs and oil and beat until creamy. Add yoghurt, salt and juice and beat until mixed. Fold in flour and berries and mix until just combined.
Scrape into prepared tin and bake for 45 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.
Serve cake with dollop of soft-whipped cream.

With autumn well underway, this is the perfect opportunity to look after the health of our soil:
Rake up fallen leaves from lawns and paths. If left on the lawn they will cause the grass to yellow off and die, while those on paths and driveways can become slippery, creating potential hazards.
Fallen leaves make a good mulch, so rake them up under trees and use them to cover bare patches of ground. Used in this way they can act as a weed suppressant as well.
If you want them to compost quickly, sprinkle some Nitrogen (a hand full of Urea) on them – that will speed up the decaying process and it prevents the bacteria, fungi etc robbing Nitrogen from the soil profile... it means your plants won’t get that yellowing deficiency” od Nitrogen as a result.
Add leaves to the compost heap in layers, and blend in. Continue clearing the garden and add those layers of leaves and carbon (sticks, twigs, newspaper, wood chips, etc)
Some people “seed” the compost with bokashi formula.
Bin or burn anything displaying fungal infection; often the overwintering stages of these pathogens can survive a composting and come back next year to bite you in the bum.
My very favourite method of creating leaf-mulch is the leaf-mould technique:
Go outside and fill a huge wheelybin full with leaves – compress them as much as you can ((stand on them, but don’t do a “Jason Gunn”, please; watch out!
Wheel the bin to a space where you can store the layered leaf-mulch for a year or so.... I like dark, shady places under a woodland full of trees.
After a year you’ll find that the leaves have more or less broken down into friable layers of dry mulch (“leaf mould”) which makes the very best carbon-rich mulch for weed control and soil shading (protecting from fierce summer sun!)
Chuck the mulch on the soil to a depth of – say – 4 inches (10 cm); this suppresses the germination of weed seeds (too dark) and keeps moisture in the soil when you need it)
It also creates a great habitat for all sorts of creepy crawlies, like useful predators that gobble up grassgrubs and codling moths’ caterpillars overwintering near the soil.
Plus... that leaf-mould looks fabulous!

This week, Catherine Raynes reviews two new exciting books for you to read. 
The Better Sister
From Alafair Burke—New York Times bestselling author of the runaway hit, The Wife—comes another twisty tale of domestic noir. When a prominent Manhattan lawyer is murdered, two estranged sisters—one the dead man’s widow, the other his ex—must set aside mistrust and old resentments . . . but can they escape their past?
The Beekeeper of Aleppo
Nuri is a beekeeper; his wife, Afra, an artist. They live a simple life, rich in family and friends, in the beautiful Syrian city of Aleppo - until the unthinkable happens. When all they care for is destroyed by war, they are forced to escape. But what Afra has seen is so terrible she has gone blind, and so they must embark on a perilous journey through Turkey and Greece towards an uncertain future in Britain. On the way, Nuri is sustained by the knowledge that waiting for them is Mustafa, his cousin and business partner, who has started an apiary and is teaching fellow refugees in Yorkshire to keep bees.

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!



Who Killed Lucy the Poodle?: A Kiwi documentary investigating the truth about one of New Zealand’s strangest days, when a performing poodle was mysteriously fed to three circus lions, who later escaped into a crowded Rotorua lakefront (TVNZ OD)
The Victim: Anna Dean’s son was murdered 15 years ago – now she is accused of revealing his killer’s new identity online and conspiring to have him murdered. But is this a case of mistaken identity? Who really is the victim? A Scottish legal thriller (TVNZ OD)
Keeping the Faith - 25 Years of the Warriors: a new documentary series following the ups and downs of the New Zealand Warriors rugby league team over the 25 years (Prime, Saturdays at 6pm, also available on Sky Sport)