Saturday Morning with Jack Tame

Kevin Milne joins Jack Tame this morning fresh from a trip to one of the Cook Islands, and shares some thoughts on the experience.

As numerous women come forward to accuse Donald Trump of being a lecherous, serial sexual assaulter, it looks like his run at the American presidency might be faltering. 

But just one question should decide whether he gets anyone's vote, Jack Tame thinks.

Nici loves the theme of breakfasts and how much they differ depending on where you are.

For example in Egypt the breakfast staple is foul, which is beans and spices, lashings of garlic and olive oil, chopped tomatoes and more. It's delicious and fills you up all day!

In Greece, it's flaky cheese and pastry-filled pies, drizzled in honey and puddles of dark black coffee.

In Spain, it's the tortilla, and in Japan it's breakfast is dominated by salmon, nori and miso soup.

Holding Up the Universe - Jennifer Niven, HarperCollins, $29.99

From the author of the New York Times bestseller All the Bright Places comes a heart-wrenching story about what it means to see someone - and love someone - for who they truly are. Everyone thinks they know Libby Strout, the girl once dubbed 'America's Fattest Teen'. But no one's taken the time to look past her weight to get to see who she really is. Since her mum's death, she's been picking up the pieces in the privacy of her home, dealing with her heartbroken father and her own grief. Now, Libby's ready: for high school, for new friends, for love, and for  every possibility life has to offer.

 

The Underground Railroad - Colson Whitehead, DoubleDay, $34.99

Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. Life is hellish for all the slaves but especially bad for Cora; an outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is coming into womanhood - where even greater pain awaits. When Caesar, a recent arrival from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad, they decide to take a terrifying risk and escape. Matters do not go as planned and, though they manage to find a station and head north, they are being hunted.

What do you know? It's raining again. Sigh. So let's pretend it's not...

It's time to start preparing your soil to plant for summer. Think of the next fortnight as the sand-and-prime preparation for Labour Weekend, at which point the soil should be warm enough to go out all guns blazing and start sowing and planting all your favourite summer crops.

Key tasks:

1. Get the weeds out first. If you don't weed before you plant, it makes it that much trickier to keep on top of them. Fast growing annual weeds will also steal all the goodness (nitrogen) applied as fertiliser. 

2. Dig in compost to improve soil structure and nutrition. Blood and bone and sheep pellets also help on this front. 

3. Think about the orientation of the sun and how it will affect what you're growing. Plant taller crops such as sweetcorn so that it doesn't shade your tomatoes, but can offer shade to crops that often bolt to seed, such as radishes, coriander and basil. 

4. Buy good quality stakes for tomatoes, capsicums and eggplants. Once they're in fruit, the stems will be quite heavy. Thin bits of bamboo won't cut it.

5. Stock up on seeds. Crops to sow direct include beetroot, carrots, cucumbers, courgettes, pumpkins and all beans. Don't waste your money on potted individual plants or punnets of these. Save that cash for grafted tomatoes - they grow rapidly, fruit more prolifically (especially in cooler areas with shorter summers) and don't need to have the laterals pinched out. Just wait until Labour Weekend to transplant them.

Nigel Owens holds the record for the most international test match appearances, with 71 games under his belt.

He was also one of the first men in the game to come out as gay.

Off the field, Nigel is a TV personality, presenting a rugby chat show and hosts his own quiz show - both in Welsh!

Nigel is visiting New Zealand for an Auckland Writers Festival event later in the month and spoke with Jack Tame about his career.

Resident movie reviewer Darren Bevan joins Jack Tame to take us through the latest releases, including memory loss thriller The Girl on the Train starring Emily Blunt, and disaster flick Deepwater Horizon with Mark Wahlberg. 

Darren also takes a look at Money Monster, which is out on DVD.

Kevin Milne  joined Jack Tame this morning to discuss the rapid rise of the automated, driverless car, and considers some of the consequence: Will you need a license to drive? And what will happen to all the driving jobs?

At the age of 24, New Zealand artist Parris Goebel has become a dance superstar, in demand by the biggest musicians and influencers around. At the end of this month, she'll be returning to New Zealand with her famed show. 

Parris joined Jack Tame this morning to discuss her work, and what means most to her.

Resident movie reviewer Darren Bevan joins Jack Tame to review the latest releases, including updated Western The Magnificent Seven, and Tim Burton's Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children.