Breakfast With Spanky - Thursday 13th October 2011

The mighty Alphabethead came down to the RDUnit to play an epic set and this is the reult. On tour for the Flying NUN 30th Anniversary he also played at local venues The Roastery and darkroom - mean!

Spanky talks to the education spokesman for the Maori Party on the inevitable clashes with Act over policy. What will National do with their two fueding kiddies?

Spanky talks about Act's New Plymouth Chairman Morris Hey confronting John Key in a mall about not honouring Nationals deal with ACT on the Epsom candidate...sounds like someone got the wrong end of the stick.

Spanky grills Nicky Wagner, National MP for Christchurch, as well as coversations with musician Timothy Blackman and Professor Leo Paul Dana on the Amish community. He also gets the latest news from Tauranga from Dr Brett Gartrell who is in charge of the beach clean up and chats to New Scientist blogger Michael Slezak.

Spanky talks to Kath Taylor, Chief Executive of Maritime NZ about the Rena boat disaster as well as Catherine Savage, Chief Executive of Maori Tertiary Education Orgnaisation Te Tapuae o Rehua on her submission to the Central City Draft Plan meetings and talks about movie "Shark Night" with movie reviewer Andrew Todd.

We spoke to good ol’ Garry Moore this morning, the God Father of our fair city because we really wanted to hear his opinion ob Bob Parker’s media attention during the quake aftermath. There was a report which was amended, written by the senior civil defense manager at ECan that said Bob’s media presence contributed to a crisis situation being depicted by the media. ALSO we wanted to find out a little bit more about the ‘community’ he lived in for 10 years.

Next up was a Dr. of psychology - William Helton - who’s been looking into dogs of all shapes and sizes and comparing their intelligence, or at least working out whether size has anything to do with the ability to be trained. It’s kind of hard to explain, so have a listen

We spoke with some very interesting people this morning, a Professor and a Doctor. First up with the Professor, John Blunt who has been involved in researching sponge growing off the coast of Kaikoura, that has remarkable properties that could be used in the fight against cancer. Anything to do with moving forward in the battle against the Big C is worth talking about in our books, so have a listen:

We also had a really interesting talk with a gentleman by the name of Gordon McKenzie. Now he belongs to a group called The Aetherius Society, who for lack of a better explanation (and everybody basically wants to know) believe in aliens. Oh there’s much more to it than just that, so you should definitely check out the link to their website, but one thing in particular which caught our interest was their walk up Mt. Wakefield on Christmas Eve. What’s it all for? Find out here:

How about Phil Goff ay? He’s a good man, and as per usual on a Wednesday morning he called at his allocated time (8:15am) for a chat about all things current in politics. Today we covered the Pike River Coal liquidation, why Labour has pulled its support for the Government’s Maori backed law change of the foreshore and seabed issue, further evidence of Pansy Wong’s business dealings conducted on tax payer’s money and the racial spat between Trevor Mallard and Tau Henare. Juicy stuff!