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Afternoons for Tuesday 24 April 2018

Short Story Club

This week our story is Antony Millen's Fishing the Pungapunga

The prize for the writer of the best email about this is his novel Te Kauhanga

1:10 First song

1:17 Mayor's push for a Te Reo capital

Wellington wants to become the nation's Te Reo capital and encouraging street names to be in Te Reo Māori, is part of that push.

Last week Wellington mayor Justin Lester failed to get approval from Wellington city council committee to overturn a recommendation to call a waterfront path Lady Elizabeth Lane rather than Taimona Lane. But he says the battle isn't over.

Wellington Mayor Justin Lester

Wellington Mayor Justin Lester Photo: RNZ - Rebekah Parsons-King

Bobby the littlest war hero

Bobby the littlest war hero Photo: Supplied

1:25 The Canary war hero

War historian Glyn Harper tells the story of a tiny canary who helped a band of tunnellers survive the First World War.

The story is in the form of a children's book and it IS based on a real-life canary that survived several incidents to save the lives of many Allied men.

Glyn also did a lot of research into the experiences of the former miners who laid explosives in tunnels under German trenches at Arras and other locations.

Glyn Harper

Glyn Harper Photo: Supplied

1:35 Hawera cinema's "no onesies" dress code goes viral

When a cinema in the Taranaki town of Hawera banned patrons from wearing pyjamas, dressing gowns, dirty gumboots and onesies to their screenings it likely didn't expect to become a global story.

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Photo: Pixabay

1:40 Great album: REM Out of Time

2:10 Book critic Elizabeth Heritage

Elizabeth looks at gender in children's books

2:20 Music Feature: Eurovision with Jared Mackley-Crump

Songs that ended wars. Songs that sparked political coups. Songs that brought walls down and threw the closet doors open on celebrating gay culture.

Yes, it's Eurovision. It's one of the most watched non-sporting events in the world and we're going for a journey through its murky history along with Jared Mackley-Crump who is a lecturer in event management at Auckland's University of Technology.

Conchita Wurst won Eurovision for Austria in 2014.

Following Conchita Wurst's performance, the presenter for Lithuania famously pulled out a disposable razor and said, "it's time to shave."

Lys Assia's Refrain won the first ever Eurovision in 1956.

Fazla was Bosnia & Herzegovina's entry in the country's Eurovision debut in 1993. The group had to get out of the siege of Sarajevo to get to the competition in Scotland and six members of the band's entourage died in the journey.

Verka Serduchka is a fictional drag persona of popular Ukrainian actor/comedian Andrey Mikhaylovich Danilko. Sung in German and English, the Ukranian's song “Lasha Tumbai”, sounds rather close to "Russia Goodbye".

Father Ted's song My Lovely Horse was the subject of a petition in Ireland calling for it to be the country's entry in the 2014 Eurovision.

This year's Eurovision will be in Lisbon.

3:10 Jeff Kinney: stuck in the head of a wimpy kid

200 million book sales isn't bad for the wimpy kid who grew up to be one of the most successful children' authors of all time. Jeff Kinney produced his first book in the Diary of a Wiimpy Kid series in 2007. 

The stories of Greg Heffley negotiating the challenges of intermediate school are drawn from his own experiences and have given him enough material for 12 books and 4 movies with a 13th book in the works. 

Kinney will visit New Zealand for the first time in May for the Auckland Writer's Festival   

Jeff Kinney and Greg Heffley

Jeff Kinney and Greg Heffley Photo: supplied

3:30 Ours

3:45 The Pre-Panel Story of the Day and One Quick Question

4:05 The Panel with Penny Ashton and Michael Moynihan