Ben Macintyre captivates readers with true stories. He expertly unravels complex historical events, explaining sharp subplots and side characters while artfully deploying dry humour to make the true stories he tells digestible. His most recent non-fiction work is The Siege – a story of how in April 1980, six men stormed the Iranian embassy in Londo…

Prominent businessman, author and former politician Sir Bob Jones has died in Wellington after a brief illness - aged 85. Jones formed the New Zealand Party in 1983, which stood for 10 years. He received a knighthood in 1989 for services to business management and the community. Kevin Milne told Jack Tame he will be remembered as a terrific writer.…

One of New Zealand’s most treasured musical acts, Sir Dave Dobbyn, will perform at Auckland Town Hall, the first time he has hit the stage there solo. The 68-year-old has previously performed at the prestigious venue with his band Th’ Dudes, but has never showcased his own set. That will change on June 4, when he and his touring band look to cover …

The Good Mistress by Anne Tiernan Juliet never planned to be the other woman, but Rory was the only man she'd ever loved. She was sure he'd leave his frustratingly perfect wife - until he went and ghosted her, literally. Maeve is a bestselling novelist, and yet between her exasperating husband, teenage sons and ailing mother, success feels hollow. …

"Budapest has long been a punching bag for invading powers and battled over by a litany of imperial bullies. But the legacy is a city stacked with historic layer upon layer of intrigue and faded glory, some layers still decaying while others have been ambitiously restored. I was back in the Hungarian capital with Trafalgar, one of the headline stop…

Although we all try, budgeting doesn't work for everyone. Instead, Ed McKnight has what he calls the 'Economist's Pay Routine', an alternative that allows you to budget without budgeting. He joined Jack Tame to break down the method. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.By Newstalk ZB

On the Saturday Morning with Jack Tame Full Show Podcast for Saturday 3 May 2025, author Ben Macintyre joins Jack to discuss his expertise in espionage and latest non-fiction book ‘The Siege’ ahead of his trip to NZ for the Writer's Festival. Jack reflects on dear memories. Nici Wickes serves up a recipe that can be whipped up in no time with ingre…

With Mother’s Day coming up soon, many will be casting around for ideas of what to get that special figure in their life. Kate Hall has a few ideas on how to keep the day sustainable. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.By Newstalk ZB

Last week we discussed the six-month hiatus between noticing troubles with stone fruit and the time of activating prevention. Peach leaf curl is a rather ugly fungal disease that commences 6 months from now – in spring the leaf curl starts to become obvious on the newly emerged leaves of your peach trees. Taphrina deformans is the name of the disea…

Apple has given more details on the US tariffs iPhones being sold in the June quarter in the USA will be made in India, while almost all iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, and AirPods products will be made in Vietnam. Products made in China will be sold elsewhere in the world. Apple estimates that, pending nothing else changing, the tariffs will cost them US$…

Choir Games A documentary series about how music can change lives, as it follows two choirs from New York and Kaitaia as they take part in the World Choir Games in Aotearoa last year (Neon, from Sunday). The Four Seasons The decades-long friendship between three married couples is tested when one divorces, complicating their tradition of quarterly …

Marlon Williams: Ngā Ao E Rua – Two Worlds Filmed over the course of four years, this documentary follows musician Marlon Williams as he takes on a deeply personal project — producing his first album entirely in te reo Māori, Te Whare Tīwekaweka. Williams began his musical journey as a teen, songwriting in Lyttleton, then carved out his own distinc…

From thinking about it to plating it up... 10 minutes maximum for these boozy caramelised bananas! This is the best don’t-have-much-in-the-house dessert. Serves 4 Ingredients 4-6 bananas 3 tablespoons butter 4 tablespoons brown sugar a decent squeeze of lemon juice a pinch of salt 3 tablespoons brandy or rum (optional) softly whipped cream to serve…

I was taken aback by how long it had been since I’d last come to town. It’s amazing how time creeps up on you like that. One minute you’re at Grandma and Grandad’s place every few months, knocking around with your siblings. The next you’re going through Grandad’s drawers, packing him a bag of his most precious possessions. The next, you realise it’…

Ed Gamble is a man of many hats. Champion of the Taskmaster UK, podcast co-host, author, television host, standup comedian – on top of this, he’s an absolute food fanatic. He’s bringing a feast of comedy to New Zealand with his new show ‘Hot Diggity Dog’, filled with his classic “ranting, raving and spluttering”. Gamble told Jack Tame he describes …

Samantha Fish is offering up nine new powerhouse songs on her latest album ‘Paper Doll’. It’s Fish’s 13th album, and the first she’s recorded with her touring band, leaning into her strengths as a musician in a way she hasn’t before. Estelle Clifford joined Jack Tame to give her thoughts on the new release. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener …

The Perfect Divorce by Jeneva Rose Till death do us part. Yours. Not Mine. It's been eleven years since high-powered attorney Sarah Morgan defended her husband, Adam, against the charge of murdering his mistress. The Paris Express by Emma Donoghue Europe is racing towards the future. Steam travel is the emblem of progress; industry and invention ar…

Kevin Milne has been doing some research into his family history recently – notably the deaths of three of his uncles. All three were soldiers in the First World War, and Kevin was surprised how much research already exists into the lives of New Zealand’s fallen soldiers. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.…

On the Saturday Morning with Jack Tame Full Show Podcast for Saturday 26 April 2025, the master of combining comedy with his love for food, Ed Gamble joins Jack ahead of his tour to NZ. Jack marks an unusual anniversary. Winter warmers on your mind? Margo Flanagan of Two Raw Sisters delivers a delicious Halloumi Saagwala recipe and discusses option…

"Few cities in the world enjoy the stature of being a music mecca quite like Salzburg. It’s one of my favourite European destinations and I recently ventured back to this Austrian jewel with Trafalgar, as part of their magnificent 10-day Imperial Europe tour. It’s like a tasting plate of some of Central Europe’s most glittering destinations, steepe…

Some would argue our world has got too busy, too frantic, that we never get a chance to switch off. An estimate from a few years ago believes we have as much as 34GB of information coming into us every day. Some of this business is likely due to never being able to switch off from incoming info, as well as a loss of “stopping cues” around us, e.g. …

I’m trying a different tack on Newstalk ZB. It’s something I use with teachers and kids at school: the meaning of scientific names of living organisms helps to remind us how certain creatures operate or how they can be identified. Once you get that in your gardening vocabulary it becomes a lot easier to prevent or control the problem that’s causing…

Dengue fever is in the news right now after the death of a young Samoan boy at Starship Hospital last week. As many New Zealanders travel to the Pacific Islands, the recent outbreak means it’s something to consider. The other interesting fact about dengue fever is as well as being relevant to the Pacific, it’s becoming more common around the world …

OpenAI would be open to buying Google's Chrome browser Talk about an instant audience - imagine logging into your Chrome web browser and instead of getting Google results, you get ChatGPT. The DOJ ruled last year that Google is a monopolist in Search – now comes the search to decide what to do with Chrome. OpenAI told the judge the company would be…

Mobland Power is up for grabs as two warring crime families clash in a battle that threatens to topple empires and ruin lives. In the crossfire stands Harry Da Souza, a street-smart 'fixer' who knows too well where loyalties lie when opposing forces collide (Prime Video). Etoile In an ambitious gambit to save their storied institutions, two world-r…

Margo Flanagan of ‘Two Raw Sisters’ serves up a delicious recipe for Halloumi Saagwala. Serves: 2 Time: 20 minutes Ingredients Saagwala 1 brown onion, diced 1 tomato, diced - large ⅓ cup coconut cream 4 cloves of garlic 1 tbsp ginger, freshly grated 1 tsp garam masala ½ tsp chilli flakes ¼ tsp cinnamon 1 tsp sea salt 5 cups greens (spinach, rocket,…

The Correspondent The story of the arrest, trial and imprisonment of Australian journalist Peter Greste, who while reporting on the Arab Spring uprising becomes entangled in a deadly game of rivalries. Sinners Trying to leave their troubled lives behind, twin brothers return to their Mississippi hometown to start again, only to discover that an eve…

I had a funny entry in my calendar this week that took me a moment to decipher. ‘Mava 1C anniversary’ it said. My heart skipped a beat. Anniversary?! Oh, hang on. No. Stand down. Forget romance. What my entry was telling me I’d just reached the anniversary for this very radio show, in which I’d shared with you our decision to become a one car house…

Ciarán Hinds’ acting pursuits have taken him far from his roots in Northern Ireland. A quality actor - he lends himself to both villainy and simmering heroics. His long career has included intimate Shakespearean theatre productions right through to major franchises like Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings and the Disney animated film F…

In Beirut’s 7th album, Zach Condon returns to a place he had no plans to ever go back to. ‘A Study of Losses’ was commissioned by the Swedish circus troupe Kompani Giraff, and at first he was hesitant to write a soundtrack for a circus, the idea a reminder of a time he’d been pigeonholed, as he says, “as a whimsical circus waif”. However, videos of…

Nine Hidden Lives by Robert Gold Secrets only survive in the dark When journalist Ben Harper is asked to help re-examine an unsolved murder case from thirty years ago, he immediately agrees. It's not just that the victim was also a journalist, murdered after she'd published a series of shocking interviews with victims of domestic abuse. It's also t…

Less well known than the days that follow it is Maundy Thursday – the day in which Jesus Christ shared the Last Supper with his 12 apostles. A theme of the day is humility, and Kevin Milne had a taste of that and a bit of humiliation both earlier on this week. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.…

On the Saturday Morning with Jack Tame Full Show Podcast for Saturday 19 April 2025, Northern Irish acting legend, Hollywood royalty, and the man who has been in almost every major film franchise of the 21st century, Ciaran Hinds joins Jack to discuss the intimate character study of his new project The Narrow Road to the Deep North. Jack considers …

"You could spill vast rivers of blue Danube ink try to encapsulate the enduring brilliance of Vienna and all that it has lavished on the world. It’s the city that vaulted Mozart, Beethoven, Haydn, Strauss and his waltz into the world’s consciousness. The city that unleashed the genius of Freud, published the world’s first newspaper, conceived the d…

Food Appreciation Month is coming up, and Kate Hall is thinking about food scraps. New Zealand households are throwing away over 157,000 tonnes of edible food every year, costing the average household $1,326. Instead of tossing out your food scraps, Kate has a few tips on how you can reuse them, turning them into ingredients and saving money. LISTE…

A week ago I noticed one of those beautiful red toadstools in our garden – the classic red fungus with white dots all over the skin. Amanita muscaria or Fly agaric – there are a few different sub-species with different colourations (orange-red to yellow, and various colours of the “dots”). This is a Mycorrhizal fungus that is associated with a few …

Google and Meta are being raked over the coals in the US The two titans are facing antitrust suits for the methods used in their digital advertising networks. Google for running an illegal monopoly within its digital ad network, while Facebook is in front of the FTC for antitrust behaviour in its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp, as part of i…

Esk Valley Malbec Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot 2022, Hawkes Bay RRP from $24.99. From the Gimblett Gravels sub-regional GI of Hawkes Bay The Wine: Great colour concentration leading to a bouquet of ripe dark red berry fruits, blackberry and roasted plums, a mix of sweet and bitter chocolate, cacao and baking spices. The wood smoke from use of barrel a…

Patience Against the backdrop of the historic city of York, detective Bea Metcalf forms an unlikely duo with young autistic police archivist Patience Evans, opening a door into a whole new world for Patience (ThreeNow). The Stolen Girl A seemingly ordinary decision turns the world of Elisa, mom to two young kids, upside down. When her daughter Luci…

The Penguin Lessons An Englishman experiences personal and political changes after adopting a penguin during a turbulent time in Argentina's history. Warfare A surveillance mission goes wrong for a platoon of American Navy SEALs in insurgent territory in Iraq. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.…

These pancakes may not only be the most delicious thing you’ll eat this Easter, they may also be the most healthy! Makes 12+ Ingredients 2/3 cup rolled oats 1 tsp cinnamon 1 tsp mixed spice ½ tsp nutmeg ½ tsp baking powder ½ tsp baking soda 3 tbsps. currants or sultanas 1 banana, mashed 1 medium egg ¼ cup natural yoghurt ¼-1/3 cup water or milk But…

The pictures made it look like a parody. Eleven minutes after taking off from a West Texas launch site, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space capsule touched down with its all-female celebrity crew. Bezos opened the capsule door and greeted his fiancé. One by one the women filed out, each in their snazzy blue, flared space outfits. Having technically been …

Over a decade has seen Australian pop-dance royalty The Jungle Giants grow from simple lovers of music to fully-fledged artists on the world stage. They had a massive year last year – playing shows and headlining festivals from hemisphere to hemisphere. And now, they’re bringing their energy to New Zealand, with shows in Wellington and Auckland. Fr…

The creativity of Kiwi musicians is being recognised this month. The Taite Music Prize is being awarded next week, the purpose of which is to recognise outstanding creativity for an entire collection of music contained on one album. 80 albums were nominated this year, of which only ten made the cut to be finalists. Estelle Clifford joined Jack Tame…

Together We Roared by Steve Williams and Evin Priest Steve Williams, arguably the greatest caddie in golf history, teams up with renowned golf journalist Evin Priest to give his definitive account of his 12-year partnership with the legendary Tiger Woods, sharing personal, never-before-told moments of their friendship on and off the course. When Ti…

"As spring began to bud and bloom in Munich, I embraced the season of renewal by joining Trafalgar on their riveting 10 day Imperial Europe guided coach tour, which strings together a necklace of enchanting destinations. It’s a cracking introduction to the richness of Central Europe – kind of like a glorified greatest hits tour." Read Mike's full a…

Air New Zealand is refreshing their look, unveiling a brand-new uniform for their staff. The update comes 14 years after their last redesign – the collection designed by Kiwi designer Emilia Wickstead. And although Kevin Milne thinks they look pretty good, he does have a few questions. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy informatio…

School holidays and Easter are both just around the corner, so how do you make the most of your break? Taking a holiday boosts wellbeing, but the longevity of the benefits depends on several factors: time away, actives, and mental detachment from work. Dr Dougal Sutherland breaks down the data, offering advice to ensure that the benefits of your br…

On the Saturday Morning with Jack Tame Full Show Podcast for Saturday 12 April 2025, frontman of Aussie groove-makers the Jungle Giants Sam Hales joins Jack to discuss growing from simple lovers of music to fully fledged artists on the world stage. Jack considers the anti-climactic end to the Treaty Principles Bill. Awards are in the air... Chef Ni…

Trump’s tariffs have been wreaking havoc on share markets around the world. As a result, investment funds and KiwiSavers have been taking a hit, with Ed McKnight’s own account going down by $6.5k over the last month. He joined Jack Tame to discuss the impacts on Kiwis, and whether people are actually in the right type of fund for their needs. LISTE…