The Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin

Frustration at Auckland Airport after cancelled and delayed flights. Earlier today nineteen domestic flights were cancelled and nine delayed due to fog at Auckland Airport. Travel commentator Megan Singleton, who organises group tours, has six people at the airport hotel intending to board regional flights today. She says they're at the airport with no information from Air New Zealand, aside from...

The cost-of-living crisis and increasing inflation may be having an adverse effect on our health. Rising grocery prices make it difficult for consumers to purchase healthy food, especially those from low-income households. Naturopath and wellness expert Erin O'Hara says even buying seasonal fruits and veges is more costly, especially for those trying to feed a whole family.  Erin O'Hara suggests h...

Former mountaineer David Vass has lived an exciting life outdoors- and wrote about his journey. He started out in caving and rafting and climbed his way through some of New Zealand's most challenging mountain routes. However in 2015, a minor slip while leaving a climbing trip in the Darran Mountains left David Vass with a broken neck and incomplete tetraplegia. David Vass wrote about his mountaine...

In a couple of weeks, we will be 6 months out from the general election. I know, the election has seemed an age away and then suddenly we‘re whipping through the year and October 14th is fast approaching. The last couple of weeks in politics have been interesting. The National Party released the basics of an education policy and their renewable energy policy. Neither set the heart racing. Their ed...

Welcome to autumn, and more so welcome to the crazy time that comes with feijoas!   They are truly one of those fruits that come all at once, and you'd better be ready for them!   Many of us have a love-hate relationship with feijoas, our kids love them! As I did when I was a kid, however now I can only have a couple and that's it. Why?   So this week, I want to bring you one of my all time favour...

This week, let's talk about why it's a good thing that New Zealand doesn't have hamsters! (We have guinea pigs)   Babies living with certain types of pets may be less likely to develop food allergies as they grow older compared to those living in pet-free homes according to new research published this week in the journal Plos One.   Food allergies in children has grown to over 10 percent of the po...

Flicks.co.nz editor Steve Newall highlights two new Apple TV+ original shows that depict catastrophic near-future scenarios. Extrapolations is the new all-star anthology series from Contagion and The Report writer Scott Z Burns showing the possible future effects of climate change. Stars include Daveed Diggs, Kit Harrington, Sienna Miller, Matthew Rhys, Heather Graham, Meryl Streep, Edward Norton,...

Australian author, actress and comedian Celeste Barber made it big on Instagram recreating photos of actresses and models. Her social media parodies earned her 9.4 million followers on Instagram alone, on top of her sold-out comedy performances and books Celeste Barber – Challenge Accepted and Flamingo Celeste is Not like the Rest. Celeste Barber's now taking on the wellness industry in her new Ne...

Donald Trump's campaign says it's raised more than $4 million US dollars in a day since his indictment. The former US president is due to appear in court on Tuesday after a grand jury indicted him in relation to his alleged role in hush money payments made to a porn star during the 2016 election. US correspondent Katherine Firkin says it'll be interesting to see how it affects his race within the...

More information may soon come to light about Stuart Nash's email scandal. Nash was sacked from Cabinet after it has been discovered that he had emailed two donors about secret Cabinet discussions about a proposed rent relief scheme during Covid-19. An investigation is ongoing into whether these emails should have been released two years ago under the Official Information Act. NZ Herald deputy pol...

Yesterday, New Zealand's Superannuation was raised as part of an annual adjustment. Meanwhile, people in France have been rioting and protesting over proposed changes to lift the retirement age from 62 to 64. These events have ignited discussion about how to reform NZ Super, with one economist suggesting an increase to the eligibility age and introducing means testing.  Infometrics principal econo...

One of Those Mothers by Megan Nicol Reed, New Zealand author. She’s a great observer of middle class life and this is set in a suburb called Point Heed, where everyone knows everyone else and they all live nice middle class lives with, every so often, a hint of hypocrisy. When a man amongst them is convicted of the possession and distribution of child pornography and granted name suppression, they...

BloggerAtLarge's Megan Singleton has touched down in Rarotonga and has found some personal highlight to share. Megan returned from the Saturday morning markets and says visiting them is an experience not to be missed. She also recommends Sunday's Muri Night Markets and their local cuisine.  This coming week will be a busy one for Megan, as she has a planned e-biking tour and a fishing charter trip...

This week on The Sunday Panel, BusinessDesk Investments Editor and host of the Cooking the Books podcast Frances Cook and p olitical commentator and partner at Freebairn and Hehir lawyers Liam Hehir joined in on a discussion about the following topics: Anti-trans activist Posie Parker's Auckland rally got out of hand- pushing and fighting broke out between the attendees and counter-protestors and...

Summer sunshine has plenty of health benefits and many Kiwis have felt disappointed with the last few months. This last summer has been plagued with rain, grey skies and extreme weather for the upper North Island, which has impacted the region's collective ability to enjoy the benefits of sunny weather. Naturopath and Golden Yogi director Erin O'Hara says the summer holidays are important for rest...

This week I will bring you some sad news.    Tony's Vineyard restaurant in Henderson has closed, the message on Facebook was very sudden and brought a restaurant of some 38 years to a very abrupt close.   The Tony's chain was originally established in Wellesley Street, Auckland, some 40 years ago by its' founder Tony White. But in 1983 Tony's Vineyard opened its doors in Henderson. Named after the...

If I was going to be a lab rat - I think I'd like to be these lab rats! A hormone injection that sobers up mice might offer hope for treating drunk humans according to a paper published this week in the journal Cell Metabolism. In the experiments, researchers gave mice so much alcohol that they fell unconscious and weren’t able to get back up when they were pushed onto their back (known as the rig...

New Zealand-Samoan director made his film debut with Pasifika-themed comedy 'Red, White and Brass'. Set during the 2011 Rugby World Cup, the film follows a group of Tongan fans who form a brass band to get in as pre-game entertainment in a bid for tickets to the match between Tonga and France.   Flicks.co.nz editor Steve Newall says this film manages to be a heart-warming and hilarious crowd-pleas...

Comedian Tom Sainsbury is bringing his impersonation skills to the world of true crime podcasts. 'Small Town Scandal' is set in the fictional Wairarapa farming community of Te Hoiho and delves into the mysterious death of wealthy Mitch Buchanan, owner of Mitch’s Automatic Mowers.   The six-part mockumentary podcast stars Tom Sainsbury voicing over 30 distinctive characters. Tom Sainsbury says true...

New Zealand's own Dawn Aerospace will be launching their newest venture out of Kiwi airports soon. Rocket-powered space planes have been granted approval from the Civil Aviation Authority of New Zealand to operate out of the nation's airports. The first round of Dawn Aerospace's planned test flights are set to begin within the next month. Dawn Aerospace founder and CEO Stefan Powell says the space...

Anti-trans activist Posie Parker was escorted out of New Zealand after a skirmish at her Auckland rally. A small fight broke out between attendees and counter-protestors as Posie Parker made her way to the front of the crowd, where she was doused with a red liquid and escorted out of Auckland's Albert Park. Posie Parker has since cancelled her Wellington appearance and left for Auckland Airport on...

There are concerns about what National's newly proposed education policy might mean for neurodiverse learners. The Dyslexia Foundation of New Zealand believe requirements from this proposed policy outline put neurodiverse students at a disadvantage. Dyslexia Foundation spokesperson Guy Pope-Mayell says it's highly concerning that National's educational policy doesn't mention neurodiversity, which...

7 weeks ago, I mentioned on air how impressed I was with my insurance company. We had a small amount of water seep through the back of our house during the flood on Auckland Anniversary weekend. Nothing major, nothing that evicted us from our property, nothing we haven’t been able to live around.   I left it a week before calling the insurance company to log a claim. I felt other people were much...

The British Royal family has provided some of the most iconic moments in history. After becoming the go-to photographer to cover them in 1975, Arthur Edwards was the person most-perfectly placed to tell their story. Edwards has released a book called Behind the Crown, with some of his most famous shots. He told Francesca Rudkin on the Sunday Session he hadn’t always dreamed of being a Royal photog...

The Last Orphan by Gregg Hurwitz. We’ve done his other books in previous years. This is the 8 th (and possibly last) in the series about Evan Smoak, who was taken from an orphanage as a young boy and trained in black ops by the US government but turned his back on all that and used the skills he acquired to help people in need. Now he finds that things have gone full circle and the government is a...