Sunday Morning

8:10 Can anyone actually win the Iran war? 

British historian and geopolitical commentator Mark Almond says the US government may hope airstrikes and overwhelming force will bring Tehran to heel, but history suggests wars between democracies and ideological regimes rarely end so neatly. 

Almond, who has written for The Independent, Daily Mail and The Telegraph, among others, is the director of the Crisis Research Institute in Oxford (CRIOx), an organization dedicated to analyzing historical and contemporary crises. 

He joins Jim to discuss what history can teach us about the possible outcome of the Iran war. 

8:30 Sunday Morning Quiz with Jack Waley-Cohen 

Quiz master Jack Waley-Cohen is back with his Sunday Morning quiz.  

Jack is the mind behind the questions on BBC's quiz show Only Connect, known for being both hard — and at the same time totally obvious.

 Wake up your brain and have a go!    

8:35 Al Jardine: Bringing the Beach Boy hits to New Zealand 

Original Beach Boy Al Jardine is heading downunder later this year with The Pet Sounds Band – a group dedicated to performing the music of Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys, particularly their 1966 masterpiece Pet Sounds. 

The Pet Sounds will be bringing a welcome dose of California sunshine to Christchurch, Dunedin and New Plymouth for the mid-winter tour. 

Al joins Jim to discuss Brian Wilson’s legacy and how Brian inspired him to keep touring. 

9:10 Mediawatch  

Mediawatch asks if the media’s response to one poor poll result put undue pressure on the Prime Minister recently - and if third parties paying for polls are changing the game. Also: Country Calendar is almost as old as Coronation Street. Is it current affairs, documentary or reality TV? Or all of the above? 

9:40 Sir Ian Mune: celebrating a remarkable on-screen career  

With a career stretching back more than 50 years, Sir Ian Mune is a mainstay of  our screens. His incredible body of work includes Kiwi canon films Sleeping Dogs, Came A Hot Friday, The End of The Golden Weather and What Becomes of the Broken Hearted, alongside more recent films The Rule of Jenny Pen and Pike River. 

The actor, writer, and director is being celebrated with a special retrospective, The Ian Mune Collection curated by NZ On Screen. 

Sir Ian joins Jim to discuss his approach to acting, and his love of painting landscapes and portraiture. 

10:15 The secret to keeping secrets 

Secrets can be a burden – especially when they flash back into our minds when we least expect. Should we share them, or is it better to just learn how to cope with them?  

Dr Val Bianchi is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Psychology at the University of Melbourne and her work focuses on the psychological load of carrying secrets. Her latest research is funded by the Australian Office of National Intelligence. 

Dr Bianchi says most people have nine secrets and joins Jim to talk about the type of secrets we keep and how we can more easily live with them. 

10.30 The Kiwi who lent his voice to Bohemian Rhapsody  

Marking its 50th anniversary this year, Queen’s six-minute mock opera ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ is widely considered a landmark in music history. The song features as a centrepiece in the 2018 Queen biopic of the same name, starring Rami Malek as Freddie Mercury. 

Scottish-Kiwi John Nelson is one of the voices used for the choral crowd scene of Bohemian Rhapsody in the Live Aid part of the film, having being selected after entering a competition. 

John joins Jim to tell him about the experience and his other encounters with members of the band. 

10.40 Useful Science with Bonnie Harrison 

Bonnie Harrison is here guiding us through the latest weird and useful headlines from the world of science including whether we should be drinking cold drinks on warm days and why sleep-deprived, exhausted people are more likely to confess to crimes they didn’t commit. 

11:05 Is getting a university degree worth the money? 

Is getting a degree value for money, or can you earn more without one?  In the UK, graduates from 42 percent of universities earn less than the average person in their twenties.  

Economics commentator Bernard Hickey is with Jim to discuss the financial position for New Zealand graduates, as well as the economic outlook for New Zealand, and the impact of the global energy shock. 

11:40 What’s My Book About: Ian Gill 

Manila-based NZ author Ian Gill set out to find out more about his mother’s remarkable life and the result is Searching for Billie. Ian’s mother. Billie Gill was one of the first prisoners of war from Hong Kong to arrive in Wellington on the Maunganui hospital ship on October 7, 1945. They were greeted by the Governor General, a band and hundreds of New Zealanders, who turned silent as the emaciated POWs started to disembark.  

Ian joins Jim to talk about the political landscape of his mother’s life and how meeting her friends, colleagues, fellow ex-prisoners of war and his father, helped him fill in the gaps.