Afternoons for Tuesday 30 April 2013

1:10 Best Song Ever Written

Niall Mugan from Little River has chosen Imagine by John Lennon.

1:20 Critical Mass

TV review - Phil Wallington
Books - Nicky Pellegrino
New music - Colin Morris
Web - Ben Gracewood

2:10 Radio ham

They call it 'the magic band' - that six metre strip of frequency along which amateur radio enthusiasts can chatter away to their hearts content. The band is international, and can be used by radio hams from all over the world - except here in New Zealand, in the South Island, where the magic band has been blocked by the signal from TV2. But that all changed this week, with the switch-over to digital television. And when the analogue signal was finally switched off in the early hours of Sunday morning, there was one man who lost no time in jumping straight back on. George Boorer is Timaru's resident amateur radio expert.

2:20 Beehive rental
 Busy bees are the basis for business success in Mosgiel, as two keen apiarists are finding out. When horticulturalist Murray Rixon and his wife Heidi came back to New Zealand after years  abroad, they decided it was time to put their bee-keeping expertise to good use. Fast forward a couple of years and their 'rent-a-hive' project, providing locals with everything they need to start their own hives and learn how to harvest honey, is keeping the Rixons busier than, well, a pair of bees.

2:30 Reading - Garibaldi Did Not Sleep Here, part three
In our 2.30 story, New Zealand writer Paul Horan is taking us through southern  Italy in a bid to uncover the truth about his eccentric ancestor Colonel Peard . Yesterday we heard how he and a handful of fellow adventurers achieved their  Triumph - surrender of an entire army of 10 thousand Neopolitan soldiers. But there are more such victiories awaiting us in today's's episode of 'Garibaldi Did Not Sleep Here'.

MUSIC DETAILS:     
CD evo 015:  "Hip Trip Mediterranean" , Tk 16: 'Sicilian Sunset' Comp by Emanuel Kallins. FirstCom Music 2004 (RNZ in-house CD)

2:45 Feature Album

Billy Idol by Billy Idol (1982).

3:12 Tune Your Engine - Mike King

Every year, one in 6 New Zealanders thinks about suicide. We have one of the highest suicide rates amoung young people in the world. It has improved, but it is still tragically too high. We often whisper about it when ithe tragedy affects someone we know, or skirt around the topic in conversation. But not Comedian Mike King. Silence, he says, is not the solution. So he openly shares his story of depression, addiction, and near disaster in community meetings up and down Northland. Community Korero gets the conversation about this difficult topic going. The next meeting is a week from tonight in the Bay of Islands.

3:33 Asian Report - Market gardening

In today's Asian Report; They've toiled the land since the 1860's to produce arguably the best vegetables in our country. Lynda meets the authors of Sons of the Soil and Success through Adversity, two publications covering the history of our Chinese market-gardening community.

4:06 The Panel