Saturday Morning with Jack Tame

The fifth studio album from British singer-songwriter Billie Marten, ‘Dog Eared’ is an album filled with nostalgia.  The title comes from the practice of dog earring books, Marten having a fondness for marking up the books she reads – underlining passages, scribbling ideas in margins, and folding corners.   It tells the story of who she was as she wrote and recorded the album, each song...

"Few British cities can match eye-catching York and its wondrous layers of history. Northern England’s walled city was founded by the ancient Romans, was conquered by the Vikings and also boasts a trove of medieval riches. The city’s storied history is woven into virtually every brick and beam. All these ingredients underpin York’s star-power, serving up a stirring sense of Ye Olde England, when t...

The Forsaken by Matt Rogers   In the twilight of his career, Logan learns he has been a vessel for furthering government interests, not a rogue hitman for a band of vigilantes. The revelation destroys him.  But when Jorge Romero – an investigative reporter and Logan's oldest friend – is brutally and inexplicably murdered, Logan allows his fury to deliver him from despair.  With an a...

On the Saturday Morning with Jack Tame Full Show Podcast for Saturday 26 July 2025, a man with up close and personal access to Tour de France, Kiwi bike mechanic Craig Geater joins the show to discuss his 21 years of experience on the Tour, his former years as Lance Armstrong's personal mechanic, and what it's like to travel behind his Jayco Ulula crew as they ride the mountains.  Jack consid...

Times are tough, many businesses unable to survive the cost of living crisis and downturned economy.  Cultural institutions and smaller businesses alike are closing up shop, and Kevin Milne is dismayed by the loss of Kiwi enterprises.  One in particular, the colourful Matakana ceramics firm Morris & James, is particularly saddening for him.  LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com...

The number of Kiwis making withdrawals from their KiwiSaver due to hardship is on the rise.  In the year to June, more than 50,000 were made, compared to 18,000 five years ago.  Early withdrawals can have compounding effects on someone’s financial future – so what other options are there?  Lisa Dudson joined Jack Tame to delve into the topic and offer up some other ideas.  LIST...

Last week we started to look at the jobs bugs do on Earth. This topic was launched by some teachers during the Blake Inspire sessions, out there in Nature. It became a bit of a game to question what their role is in ecological systems – especially critters that are usually perceived as a pain in the bum.  Gardeners often complain about almost every creature that inhabits the soil; holes and t...

What's the news?  Fonterra has announced an On Farm Services incentive programme for qualifying farmer-shareholders.   The scheme allows farmers who meet their cooperative difference standard, a baseline performance and efficiency standard, to receive what is effectively a $1,500 yearly subsidy to invest in on-farm technology or services.   Ranges from animal performance tools from...

Washington Black   Follows the 19th century adventures of George Washington "Wash" Black, an 11-year-old boy on a Barbados sugar plantation who must flee after a gruesome death threatens to turn his life upside down (Disney+).     The Game   Detective Huw Miller is haunted by one case he failed to solve. As he settles into retirement, he suddenly thinks he has found the elusive...

There’s no other way to say it – this cake is magical! The way the simple batter settles into layers of custard and sponge seems impossible and yet it works, and the tamarillos are all tart and jammy and YUM.        Ingredients  3 large eggs, room temp   2/3 cup sugar   90g butter, melted   1 ½ cups milk, lukewarm   1 tbsp vanilla extract   Generou...

The Fantastic Four: First Steps  Forced to balance their roles as heroes with the strength of their family bond, the Fantastic Four must defend Earth from a ravenous space god called Galactus and his enigmatic Herald, Silver Surfer.    Four Letters of Love  Nicholas and Isabel are made for each other, but as destiny pulls them together, family, passion and faith drives them apa...

In the end it was only a matter of time.   It took a day or two of virality for the CEO caught cheating in the now truly infamous Coldplay kiss cam to publicly announce his departure from the company. I’m frankly surprised it took much longer for the woman caught canoodling in his arms to do the same thing. She was, after all, the Chief People Officer for the same company. On top of what I ca...

Who else could pull off the animal transformation of one of the world’s biggest rockstars but Wētā FX?  Wētā is well known for its visual effects mastery, and so when Robbie Williams said “make me an ape!”, it’s only natural that they were the ones for the job.  The man responsible for Williams’ simian visage in Better Man was Visual Effects Supervisor Luke Millar, who was nominated for...

Written over the course of twenty years, from 1993 to 2019, 'Strange Visions 1' details the apocalypse in a sci-fi infused, post-modern satirical manner.  It’s the work of underground artist, producer and engineer Quaint, part one of a project called 'Polar Extremes'. Estelle Clifford joined Jack Tame to give her thoughts on the album.  LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for...

"It’s undoubtedly Britain’s equivalent to our Queenstown Lakes district. Windermere and the Lake District is England’s favourite national park, a sprawling tourist honeypot that stretches across hundreds of square kilometres of rugged Cumbrian countryside, woodland valleys, shimmering tarns and lakes – all backed by strikingly craggy mountains. It was the 18th century Romantic poets who captured t...

While we all have difficulty remembering and placing faces sometimes, some people are unable to do it altogether.  Prosopagnosia, otherwise known as face-blindness, is a psychological condition that renders people unable to recognise faces – sometimes including their own.  Dr Dougal Sutherland joined Jack Tame to delve into this rare condition.  LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com...

Polkinghorne by Steve Braunias   In Polkinghorne, literary journalist Steve Braunias takes readers on an extraordinary and often chilling journey through the most high-profile murder case in modern New Zealand history.   With unparalleled access to the key players, Braunias offers readers his unique insight into the investigation, the trial and the astonishing revelations that kept the N...

Just spent a week with 30 teachers in various environmental locations of Auckland. The Sir Peter Blake Trust do this every year under the umbrella of BLAKE Inspire.   Learning outside is part of the curriculum: water quality, Matauranga Māori, rockpools, school gardens (with pigs etc), climate change, StarDome, political policy simulation, corporate sustainability, and good, old nature nerd s...

On the Saturday Morning with Jack Tame Full Show Podcast for 19 July 2025, Oscar-nominated visual effects artist at Wētā FX, Luke Millar joins Jack to discuss just how he turned one of the world's biggest pop stars into a chimpanzee for the Robbie Williams biopic Better Man. Plus, Millar shares his insight on AI's role within filmmaking.  Jack pays tribute to the legendary Fat Freddy's Drop p...

A new weightloss medication is now available in New Zealand – accessible on a private, nonsubsidised script.  Dr Bryan Betty joined Jack Tame to discuss Wegovy – what it is, how you use it, the side effects, and why people are seeking medical treatment for their weight.    What is Wegovy?   A once-weekly injection for weight loss known as a ‘GP-1 agonist’.   It mimics a ho...

Weddings aren’t cheap – well, most of the time.   In New Zealand, the average wedding costs between $35,000 - $45,000, but depending on your tastes and needs, it can grow much higher.   The recent wedding between Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez cost somewhere between $20 million and $50 million USD – roughly 200 times more than what the average Kiwi spends.  However, one columnist poi...

ChatGPT is ready to take on more involved tasks   Agents are the next phase of the AI evolution, in which the AI can go away and can complete multistep tasks on its own. So, you could give it a bunch of information —PDFs, emails, spreadsheets— and ask it to find the narrative or insights and create a PowerPoint. It'll then go away, do it, and let you know when it's done. There's less hand hol...

Untamed   In the vast expanse of Yosemite National Park, a woman's death draws a federal agent into lawless terrain, where nature obeys no rules but its own (Netflix).    Sneaky Pete  Marius, a fraudster, finds himself followed by a dangerous criminal whom he once robbed. Soon, he disguises himself as Pete, his cellmate from the past, for safety (Netflix).    Game On...

Grace: A Prayer for Peace   Artist Robin White (Ngāti Awa) has spent more than five decades creating work which ranges from iconic New Zealand landscapes to collaborative tapa cloth. Grace: A Prayer for Peace, directed by Gaylene Preston, traces White’s evolution as an artist, and her creative response to the world around her.   Filmed in Aotearoa, Japan and Kiribati, the documentary fol...

This cake is literally crammed full of the intense and fragrant flavours of oranges, and it stays moist for days. A slice with a cup of tea seems to make the world a better place.     Makes one loaf tin cake but doubles nicely if you wish to make a larger cake.      Ingredients  1 cup raw sugar    Rind of 2 oranges + 1 lemon – avoid the white pith, I us...