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Saturday Morning for Saturday 25 April 2020

08:10 Dr Chris Smith: virologist on latest Covid-19 science

Dr Chris Smith, a consultant clinical virologist at Cambridge University, and one of BBC Radio 5 Live's Naked Scientists, is back to assess the latest research and Covid-19 scientific developments as we try to understand the virus better.

This week, human trials on vaccines ramp up in the UK and Germany: so what kind of protections can a vaccine offer?

Also a new study casts doubt on the idea of children as active ‘super spreaders’ of the disease. Meanwhile, strange blood clotting effects, and a distinctive form of pneumonia, suggest Covid-19’s behaving very differently from other types of coronavirus.

Christchurch's mobile testing station for Covid-19 coronavirus at Pak n Save on Moorhouse Ave.

Christchurch's mobile testing station for Covid-19 coronavirus at Pak n Save on Moorhouse Ave. Photo: RNZ / Nate McKinnon

08:40 Lachlan Paterson & Angela Wanhalla: Māori Home Front

Angela Wanhalla and Professor Lachy Paterson from the University of Otago are studying the often overlooked history of the impact of the Second World War on Māori society at home in New Zealand.

3,600 Māori saw active service on the battlefields of North Africa, Italy and elsewhere. They were part of a much larger ‘army’ of 29,000 people (almost one-third of the total Māori population of the time), many of them civilians, who made less heralded but no less valuable contributions to the war effort on the Home Front.

From the importance of sport, to community and cultural activities, and economic opportunities, the war had a profound and long lasting impact on Māori history and experience.

Unidentified woman working in a munitions factory in Hamilton, 1944. Alexander Turnbull Library, ref: 1/4-000862-F

Māori Carpenters trained at Rotorua, Auckland Weekly News, 6 September 1944. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collection, ref: AWNS-19440906-26-4.

Welcoming the 28th Māori Battalion, Rotorua, 1946. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, ref: 1370-M008-4

Trench Digger. Artwork by Jordan Quinnell (2020).

Regatta at Ngāruawāhia, 1941. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, ref: 1370-M005-15

Four women in paddock holding piles of sheared wool. Auckland Museum Collection, ref: PH-2013-7-TC-B667-07

Māori member of the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force playing the guitar during a musical hour. New Zealand Air Force Museum, Christchurch, ref: R128a

Angela Wanhalla and Lachy Paterson. Photograph by Graham Warman

09:05 Christina Lamb: bearing witness to war crimes against women

Our Bodies, Their Battlefield, by Christina Lamb

Our Bodies, Their Battlefield, by Christina Lamb Photo: Supplied

The decorated war correspondent Christina Lamb (Farewell Kabul, I Am Malala) has written a harrowing history of what war does to women.

Our Bodies, Their Battlefield is her attempt to tell the true story of the injustices done to women in wartime.

And shamefully, rape and sexual violence have become commonplace in many modern conflicts as a weapon of terror and humiliation, and as a way of carrying out ethnic cleansing.

Author Christina Lamb

Author Christina Lamb Photo: Supplied/Carline Forbes

10:05 John Darnielle: Mountain Goats’ new lockdown album

Former punk, psychiatric nurse, wrestling fan, now novelist and musician John Darnielle (rhymes with ‘barn feel’, he says!) is a writer, composer, guitarist, pianist, and vocalist and the primary (and once the only) member of The Mountain Goats.

The band’s new album Songs For Pierre Chuvin is a product of the lockdown, recorded over 10 consecutive nights, one song a night, in self isolation at Darnielle’s home in Durham, North Carolina.

And it sees a return to the band’s lo-fi roots, with a decidedly analogue production process, and a distinctively homemade feel.

John Darnielle

John Darnielle Photo: Supplied

10:35 Sam Forbes: baking bread, breaking bread

With gluten-crazed hordes of home bakers stripping supermarket shelves of every last gram of flour, now sugar, yeast, and baking powder have become the new, must-have essentials of Lockdown Season.

And the lockdown’s also bringing busy times to some bakeries, especially those specialising in home delivery!

Sam Forbes aka the Shelly Bay Baker explains how Level 4 has transformed his business, explores some sourdough science, and expands on why more of us are trying to bake their own bread at home.

He’ll even have some handy tips on what to do (and what not to do) and will answer any bread-related questions you have for him.

Sam Forbes and Marton wheat farmer Suzy Rea

Sam Forbes and Marton wheat farmer Suzy Rea Photo: Supplied/Sam Forbes

 

Tracks Played

0808 'E Pari Rā'- The Tide Surges

Written and composed by Paraire Hēnare Tomoana and performed by Alexandra Foster with Jessica Hindin (violin), Katherine Hebley (cello), and Rosemary Barnes (piano) from the album Farewell Zealandia: Forgotten Kiwi Songs Of World War One Recorded For The First Time.

0905 Hoea Ra Te Waka Nei (the Canoe Poi Song) 

Written and composed by Paraire Hēnare Tomoana and performed by the Rotorua Maori Choir (1930).

1005 Until Olympius Returns by The Mountain Goats

From the album Songs For Pierre Chuvin (Merge Records)

1035 Exegetic Chains by The Mountain Goats

From the album Songs For Pierre Chuvin (Merge Records)


Book Discussed

Author: Christina Lamb
Title: Our Bodies, Their Battlefield: What War Does To Women 
Publisher: William Collins (an imprint of HarperCollins)
ISBN 978-0-0083001-2