Afternoons for Wednesday 21 September 2022

Hey COTW fans - critter t-shirts are back with a new design and a tote bag.

The money raised from the sale of the products goes directly to community environmental groups.

You can pre-order your t-shirts, tote bags and tea towels via the link below. You have two weeks to place your orders so they arrive in time for Christmas.

https://joyya.nz/critter-of-the-week/

1:15 Eel mystery on the West Coast

There's been heart break at a West Coast motel near Greymouth after several hundred eels went missing from a nearby creek.

The eels were being taken care of by Joe Verberne and Stephanie Tims who co-own the Apostles View Motels near Coal Creek.

Joe had been regularly feeding the local wild life and showing them off to visitors at their accommodation.

Recently all of the eels disappeared overnight.

1:25 Original 'Blossom Queen' heading back to Alexandra

The first ever 'Queen' for Alexandra's blossom festival is heading back there this weekend for the event.

Karen Peterson was given the honour back in 1957 when she was fourteen years old. She's making her way back to the 65th event in the small Otago town, complete with sash to join the 'senior Queen's float'.

Karen talks to Charlotte about the event and the tradition of appointing a queen at the annual festival.

1:45 Demystifying folk dancing

Getting together to dance doesn't have to look like the doof doof chaos of a night club might look more like a scene from Bridgerton.

Learning to dance engages the brain and gets the blood pumping, and New Zealand has a solid wide spread social dancing scene.  

Fiona Murdoch is the director of The Dance Folkus (Focus) social and recreational dance group. She talks to Charlotte.

2.12 Podcast Critic: Alex Barnes

2:25 Bookmarks with Shandre Kushor

Today's bookmarks guest is one of New Zealand's youngest self-made millionaires.

In 2013 Shandre Kushor, together with two other Kiwis, co-founded Crimson Education, which is now one of the World's leading education businesses.

The company, which has recently been valued at $900M, is only part of her impressive portfolio - she also co-founded YourCycle, the go to hub for everything related to menstrual and hormonal health, and One Billion, a foundation with the goal of improving a billion lives over the next 50 years.

3:10 How music played in movies across the decades

When Bill Haley rocked around the clock in a movie featuring His Comets, the Platters and other music stars in 1956, he opened the door for rock music films, and everyone from Elvis to The Beatles and Lady Gaga would follow. Fred Goodman is a former Rolling Stone magazine staffer who  says rock films give us insight into the music scene of the era in which they were produced.  He chronicles 70 years of rock & roll and cinema in his book,  Rock on Film: The Movies That Rocked The Big Screen.

3:35 Stories from Our Changing World

This week on Our Changing World, we revisit a favourite episode from 2017, Alison Ballance heads to the stratosphere with NASA’s SOFIA mission, to observe the birth of stars and the supermassive black hole at the center of our universe. 

3:45 The Panel with Susan Hornsby-Geluk and Phil O'Reilly