Saturday Morning for Saturday 12 July 2008

Guest details for Saturday 12 July

Broadcasting live from the Dunedin studio of Radio New Zealand.

8:12 Aaron Hawkins

Aaron Hawkins is the breakfast show host on Dunedin's Radio One 91FM, and writes for the student newspaper, Critic.

8:30 Phil Bishop

British-born Dr Phil Bishop is Senior Lecturer in Zoology at the University of Otago, and has spent most of his life studying the first vertebrates on the planet to use air-borne sound to communicate. He is an expert in how frogs use sound to express their sex, species and even genetic fitness, and undertook his doctoral research in South Africa, where his interest also extended to the conversational skills of dung beetles and hippos. Since 1995, his interests have become increasingly involved with frog conservation and causes of frog declines and as well as the study of the biology of rare, and sometimes earless, frogs. In 2005 he was appointed as co-leader of the New Zealand Native Frog Recovery Group, and he was recently appointed as the Amphibian Specialist Group Working Group Chair for New Zealand.

9:05 Fiona Stanley

Professor Fiona Stanley was Australian of the Year in 2003. She is the Founding Director of the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research; Executive Director of the Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth; and Professor, School of Paediatrics and Child Health at the University of Western Australia. She sits on the Prime Minister's Science, Engineering and Innovation Council and has been named a UNICEF Australia Ambassador for Early Childhood Development. Professor Stanley is a keynote speaker at the New Zealand International Science Festival in Dunedin.

9:45 Geoff Henderson

After successfully raising equity funding to build their first wind turbine, Geoff Henderson and four other directors founded Windflow Technology Ltd. Construction on the first turbine was completed in 2003, and the company is now moving towards continuous production of at least five turbines per month for a 97-turbine wind farm near Palmerston North. He is visiting Dunedin as one of the keynote speakers at the New Zealand International Science Festival.

10:00 Graeme Downes

Dr Graeme Downes is senior lecturer in contemporary rock music at the University of Otago. His doctorate is on the music of Gustav Mahler. He is also a founding member (vocalist, songwriter, guitarist) of The Verlaines, one of the seminal bands formed in Dunedin in the early 1980s. The band's most recent album, Pot Boiler (Flying Nun), was released in 2007, and a career retrospective, You're Just Too Obscure For Me (Flying Nun), in 2003. Graeme released his debut solo album, Hammer and Anvils (Flying Nun) in 2001.

NB. In a forthcoming programme of Musical Chairs on Radio New Zealand National, Trevor Reekie researches the Contemporary Music Course, which is unique to New Zealand's oldest university. This will be broadcast at 4:10 pm on Saturday 9 August during Music 101 with Kirsten Johnstone, and repeated at 7:30 pm Friday 15 August during Nights with Bryan Crump.

11:05 Food with Jim Byars

Jim Byars worked with French chef Albert Roux at London's legendary Le Gavroche restaurant. He started the Highgate Bridge outlet in the Dunedin suburb of Roslyn Village to sell a huge range of home meal replacements, making all the food on site, and only opening on Friday mornings.

11:25 Steve August

Dunedin physiotherapist Steve August is the inventor of a portable hot tub, developed from trials with his father's old Thermette. It took four years and five prototypes to get it to its present pinnacle of shed technology.

11:45 Roi Colbert

Roi Colbert has been writing about sport and music since the 1960s. He is a former cricket writer and sports editor of the Dunedin Evening Star, and currently writes a monthly golf column for The Cut. He has been writing about and reviewing television for the Sunday Star Times for the past year, and contributes to a number of magazines on a variety of topics.

Music played during the programme

The Verlaines: Yangtze Cod and Chips
The 2008 single
Available for free download from www.myspace.com/theverlaines
Played at around 8:30am

The Verlaines: Dirge
From the compilation album: You're Just Too Obscure For Me
(Flying Nun Records)
Played at around 11:45am

Playing Favourites with Graeme Downes (between 10-11am):

Simon Comber: Jaws of Life
A 2006 live recording (at Arc Café) of a track from his forthcoming 2008 album: Endearance

The Tweeks: Happened Before
From the 2008 album: The Tweeks
(Borderline)

Tono and the Finance Company: Daffodils & a Cashbook
From their 2008 EP: Love & Economics
(She'll Be Right Records)

The Low Spark: Perfect Love
From the 2007 album: Out in the Ozone
(Low Spark/Global Routes)

George and Queen: Spoon Fork Knife Cross
From their 2007 album: City
(Gone Quiet Records)

Hannah Curwood: Dead Desire
From the 2007 album: Sky Above Horse Below
(Luggate Records)
Played at around 10:25am

Studio operators

Dunedin engineer: Martin Balch
Wellington engineer: Anna Veale