Afternoons for Tuesday 17 December 2019

1:10 First song: Foxtrots

The Auckland Folk Festival returns to Kumeu in January and one of the stars is Zoe Scott, more famously known as Foxtrots.

Ahead of the festival she's traversing the country, playing music and living out of a van as she takes her Baby Y? single release on tour.

Today she's in our Christchurch Studio to tell us about the Auckland Folk Festival, her tour and to play LIVE for First Song.
 

1:17 Tricky octopus targets unsuspecting PhD student 

Octopuses are well-known for their intelligence, and one of the temporary eight-tentacled residents at the Goat Island Marine Discovery Centre has learned a new trick. 

 

1:27 Should teachers be able to post about their students on social media?

Sharing photos from your day at work is the norm, thanks to social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. But if you are a teacher - how much should you be allowed to share?

1:35 Surfer spends 70th birthday looking for stolen longboard

Christchurch surfing legend Ron Carter spent his 70th birthday on the hunt for his longboard, which was taken from New Brighton beach over the weekend.

1:50 Pauline Bolay breaks the world sheep shearing record

A Canadian woman, now living in the Waikato has broken the world 'women's solo eight-hour' record by shearing 510 lambs in a day.That's just three more than the previous record that has stood for seven years. Pauline Bolay explains how she did it and what her motivation was.

2:10 Claire Mabey's top ten reads for 2019

In our last book chat of the year! Claire Mabey Director of Verb Wellington is in to share her top ten reads of the year.

The Old Drift - Namwali Serpell (Fiction) 
There There - Tommy Orange (Fiction)
Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl - Andrea Lawlor (Fiction) 
The Burning River - Lawrence Patchett (NZ Fiction) 
A Mistake - Carl Shuker (NZ Fiction) 
Lives of Great Men - Chike Frankie Edozien (Non Fiction/Journalism) 
Fifteen Million Years in Antarctica - Rebecca Priestley (NZ Non Fiction)
Notes to Self - Emilie Pine (Non Fiction)
Native Son - Witi Ihimaera (NZ Non Fiction) 
The Absolute Book - Elizabeth Knox (NZ Fiction)
 

2:20 The best songs about places in New Zealand

We asked for your suggestions for the best songs containing New Zealand place names - and we were inundated! We've picked a selection - some you will instantly recognise, and others you may not have heard before.

The RNZ Music team has also collected songs about New Zealand places together and located them on a map (see below), as well as creating the ultimate Spotify playlist - check all that our here

3:10 Billy Bragg talks music, British politics and his upcoming New Zealand tour

For more than 35 years, singer songwriter Billy Bragg has channeled his anger about politics, the working class and injustice into music.  He believes music can inspire empathy and that is the way forward in our divided world.  He sings about social change and now he's written a new book that offers a diagnosis for what he calls a crisis of accountability in Western democracies. We'll talk to Billy Bragg and music, the election in the UK and his upcoming tour.

3:30 Elemental: Zirconium

RNZ's Elemental podcast is celebrating one hundred and fifty years of the periodic table of elements. Science producer Alison Ballance and chemistry professor Allan Blackman look today at zirconium.

Zirconium is a tale of a shape-shifting time-capsule, and the most well-known forms of the element are fake diamonds, says Prof Allan Blackman from AUT in Elemental.

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

4:05 The Panel with Michele A'Court and Thomas Pryor