Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcast

This week another caller on the 'Bass Strait Highway'? The Grey Fantail. 

Today's winners were John and Fiona from Katoomba.

It's forever twisting and turning in pursuit of small insects, and of course showing off that fanned tail too.

And birders in Victoria can entertain themselves at this time of year by trying to tell the difference between Tasmanian and Southeastern Grey Fantails.

Tasmanian birds tend to be darker overall, and have reduced white tailtips - if only the birds would stay still!

Our most southerly Grey Fantails also have the the deepest-coloured, 'buffy' breast. Compare that to inland or tropical birds, whose breasts are pure white.

The 2007 HBO series Flight of the Conchords launched stellar international careers for Kiwi band members Brett McKenzie and Jermaine Clements … and Rhys Darby who played their manager Murray. He has gone on to star in numerous TV and film roles and written three children's books.

Now after a very productive decade away from the stage, he’s back on the standup circuit with a new show “The Legend Returns”.

Guest: Rhys Darby, comedian

A new documentary called  Seen explores the benefits of personal healing for parents and explores how those benefits can be transformative for their parenting style. 

Guest: Sam Jockel is the producer of Seen and CEO and founder of Parent TV

In America's current political climate, you might wonder exactly what Americans are thinking. Jon Krosnick has been studying the opinions of the American  people for more than 30 years and is  in Australia to share his wisdom.

Guest: Jon Krosnick is a Social Sciences Professor at Stanford University who specialises in the psychology of voters and elections. He’s the co-principal investigator of the American National Election Study.

There have been an estimated 300,000 protestors in the streets of Serbia recently which would make them the largest protests since those that toppled Serbia's former leader Slobodan Milosevic back in 2000. What is behind these latest protests?

Guest: Bojan Pajtić  Professor of Law at the university of Novi Sad and former member of parliament Prime Minister of Voyvodina and head of Serbia’s Democratic Party

Malcolm Fraser was elected leader of the Opposition 50 years this month.

It was the beginning of a remarkable, and at times, hugely controversial political career.

What's his legacy, and is it possible to judge Fraser's time in office beyond the optics of the dismissal?

GUEST: Margaret Simons Journalist and author

Huge protests have been taking place in Turkiye following the arrest last week of the Mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoglu, who has now been jailed on alleged corruption charges. 

So just how serious a threat do the protests represent to Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s hardline conservative leader who has dismissed the protests as ‘street terrorism’?

GUEST:

Henri Barkey adjunct senior fellow for Middle East studies at the Council on Foreign relations and the Cohen Chair for International Relations at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania.

When Sue Black was only 23, she found herself living in a women's refuge with three young children. Determined to make a better life for her family, she went back to evening college and got her A levels in maths. She is now a Professor of Computer Science at Durham University. Along the way she has set up organisations to support women in tech and saved Bletchley Park, where an estimated 8000 women worked during WW2.

Guest: Sue Black, Professor of Computer Science and Technology Evangelist at Durham University

Complex and sarcastic, but also funny, generous and warm.

Vittorio Bianchi, known more simply as Vito, was all of those things and more.

For the best part of 60 years, Vito held court at the Piccolo Bar, a hole in the wall cafe hidden down a side street in Sydney’s Kings Cross.

Vittorio Bianchi passed away last week, aged 90, and is being fondly remembered by the customers, friends and acquaintances who were regulars in the little cafe Vito ran for much of his life.

Guest:

Barry Divola Journalist and author 

The idea of the lazy bureaucrat can be found as far back as the idea of bureaucracy itself. Charlie Tyson charts the concept  from Ancient Egypt through the decline of the Ottoman empire to the current iteration being pushed in Trump's America, primarily by renowned workaholic Elon Musk. But was there any evidence then or now for its accuracy?

Guest: Charlie Tyson, author of The Long Nap of the Lazy Bureaucrat, published in The New Yorker