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Catherine Chidgey is incredibly talented.  The Kiwi author is highly acclaimed, having won the Prize in Modern Letters, the Katherine Mansfield Award, the Katherine Mansfield Fellowship, the Janet Frame Fiction Prize, and the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction twice.  A theme Chidgey explores in some of her novels is that of "ordinary people who do terrible things", and it's one she explores in her most recent work, 'The Starving Bride'.   The novel is based off a 1930s sideshow act, resurrected in the future, in which a young woman dressed as a bride would lay in a glass casket for a month without eating, in full public view.  And although in real life, this act disappeared last century, the novel paints a comparison between the Starving Bride of old and modern social media.  "I do include the voices of the crowd who come to see Hazel, the starving bride ... it's kind of like sitting behind a screen, you know, those keyboard warriors who think they can say whatever they want to, to other people online," Chidey told Jack Tame.  LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A pioneer in the Kiwi music scene is taking his largest tour around the country.  Che Fu is celebrating the 25th anniversary of his 2001 album 'The Navigator', touring New Zealand alongside his band The Kratez and a few special guests.  Chris Schulz joined Jack Tame to discuss the tour.  LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Thursday was a special day for Kevin Milne.  His wife Linda loves pigs and won't eat pork, which naturally means Kevin also doesn't eat pork at home.  But Linda was away on Thursday, which means Kevin cooked his annual pork chop.  LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Tell Me Something True by Michael Robotham   Arlo Hackett doesn’t expect mercy when he emerges from a twelve-year prison sentence and makes his way back to his home town, Yulara, a waypoint on Australia’s Great Southern Road. The last time Arlo was home, his brother Luke was charged with a terrible crime and Arlo was found guilty by association.  His return to the goldrush town is like cracking open a time capsule full of hatred and violence, along with memories of the people he loved – the ones he couldn’t save.  The town wants Arlo gone, or worse, but every insult and humiliation pushes him to confront what really happened all those years ago.  The truth will shock you, surprise you, and break your heart.     The French Illusion by John Grisham   After Paul and Chelsea Tanner’s fairytale wedding, their future is full of promise. But their honeymoon to Paris takes a dark, shocking turn when they are kidnapped while on a day trip to the French countryside. Who would target them, and why? It turns out this is not the first crime of its kind. The search for clues soon stretches across borders, with the FBI, CIA, and French Intelligence trying to work together to put the pieces of the puzzle together. Struggling to find answers, a young lawyer is recruited to be the bait in an elaborate CIA operation.    LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the Saturday Morning with Jack Tame Full Show Podcast for Saturday October 10, 2026, Kiwi author Catherine Chidgey has a new novel on the shelves, so she joined us to tell us all about 'The Starving Bride'.  Jack recently found out a product he thought was left in the nineties has come back into vogue.   Claude is now banning rude and abusive behaviour from users; our tech expert Paul Stenhouse weighs in on why.  Ruud Kleinpaste has all the details on how you can spot the stunning Australian two-spined spider in your backyard this spring.  And Mike Yardley takes us on an island escape to the Great Barrier Reef!  Get the Saturday Morning with Jack Tame Full Show Podcast every Saturday on iHeartRadio, or wherever you get your podcasts. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

"If you’re sizing up a great foray on Queensland’s holiday highway, the Pacific Coast Way, it’s not just the mainland that serves up so many temptations. On my recent road-trip between Cairns and Rockhampton, I mixed and matched some overnight stops in Mission Beach, Townsville, Cape Hillsborough, and Yeppoon with some quick and easy jaunts to the Great Barrier Reef. "The Pacific Coast Way straddles the full length of the Great Barrier Reef, so hopping off the highway for some island time presents a glittering necklace of options. Comprising roughly a 1000 islands and coral cays, several dozen islands have dedicated resorts and hotels. Last year, I lapped up my first visit to the dreamy Whitsundays, headlined by the resort-style panache of Hamilton Island. It’s very easy get to from Airlie Beach. But on my latest trip, I ticked off two more Barrier Reef boltholes: Magnetic Island and Great Keppel Island. " Read Mike's full article here. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When people begin to make the shift to more sustainable choices, shopping second-hand becomes a default, but is it always the right option?  Kate Hall looks at the different factors involved in deciding whether or not you should buy something new, second-hand, or if you should buy it at all.  LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Spring and summer time is spider time.    If you take the time to look around your garden from now on, you'll find that these useful little helpers are everywhere, taking advantage of the abundance of prey that comes with the warmer days.   Some hunt on foot while others construct a web or a snare; the technology of silk and spatial spider memory is being studied, and they're slowly revealing the most surprising facts.   There are spiders that recycle the protein of their silk, simply by eating it. A good example is the Australian two-spined spider (Poecilopachys australasia).    This beast belongs to the orbweb spider family Araneidae and arrived in New Zealand, quite by accident, more than 50 years ago. It is a real stunner and probably the most common spider to feature on talkback radio: everybody that finds a female of this arachnid in their garden believes that an alien has invaded the quarter acre paradise.   This spider occurs mostly on the North Island and top of South Island.  The female colours are a vibrant yellow, dark red, and green, and the carapace or abdomen is punctuated by two distinct spines. They're about eight millimetres big.  The puny male (three millimetres) literally looks like nothing, lacks the two spines, and is much smaller.    From mid-summer onwards the small, brown males can be found – if you are lucky, that is! You can always identify them by their relatively large swollen "palps", which are appendages at the front of the body.   Poecilopachys loves to live in citrus bushes or camellias; anything with sizeable, shiny leaves. During the day it sits motionless on the underside of a leaf, and despite its colours it can be pretty hard to find. At night she'll spin a large, rather incomplete, orbweb that acts as an aerial filter for flying insects. The preferred food is small moths.   When the morning sun peeps over the horizon, the two-spined spider literally removes all evidence of her nocturnal web by hauling it in and devouring the silk, complete with some of the catch. The next evening the whole process starts all over again.  The egg sac of this species is quite distinct: a spindle-shaped container made from a sturdy, mid-brown silk, suspended with fine strands between some leaves.    When the spiderlings hatch they chew a neat round hole in the outer skin of the egg sac.   As soon as they make their way out of their nursery, they spin a long strand of silk, allowing the wind to pick them up and transport them to other spots in the garden.    Free ballooning!  LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As political parties consider various wealth taxes, it raises a question: who exactly is in the top 10%?  Ed McKnight runs through how much money you need to have to be considered within the top 10%, both for New Zealand in general, and for your specific age group.  LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Starlink is making moves to be a full mobile provider   They've got two big pieces of their puzzle underway this week. The FCC has approved the launch of 15,000 satellites optimized for high-speed internet from space. And now they've announced they're going to acquire frequencies from a company that will allow them to use the frequencies that can penetrate walls, like traditional satellite carriers. That acquisition is expected to cost them $8 billion. Most standard smartphones already have the 800 MHz band built into their internal modems, so they'd instantly be able to connect to this network. Together the satellite coverage and more traditional cellphone tower networks will provide their foundation for total coverage connectivity. The traditional telco stocks fell on the news.      You need to be nice to Claude!   It's now written into their terms and conditions that users will be banned for "sustained and needless abusive or cruel behaviour" directed at the AI models. I guess it's reassuring to know the policy explicitly does not apply to standard user frustrations and pushback. Claude will end conversations when faced with persistently harmful or toxic user interactions – why? I truly don't know. Is it a waste of compute? Yes. Perhaps they want to make sure the data being input is of a higher quality?   Other changes also forbid users from engaging in broadly deceptive campaigns, such as using Claude to run fake accounts or fabricated news outlets, or undermining democratic processes.      Apple's "Welcome Home" event announced for next week   We're expecting new devices, with screens, to be announced next week as Apple makes a move into the home. It's thought the new devices will be able to identify you by appearance or voice to provide personalized content. Apple & LG have reportedly also entered into partnership to create doorbells, thermostats, and indoor security cameras.     LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Big Girls Don't Cry   Over one transformative summer, 14 year-old Sid Bookman discovers desire, identity and the internet, as she imitates the people she longs to be loved by.     Sense and Sensibility  A fresh adaptation of Jane Austen's 1811 novel, centring on the Dashwood sisters as they face sudden poverty and navigate romance, class expectations, and heartbreak.    LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Carrie   After her father's sudden, untimely death thrusts her into the unforgiving ecosystem of public high school, Carrie is forced to navigate a viral bullying scandal that tears through her community, the relentless pressure and casual cruelty of the social‑media age, and the awakening of mysterious telekinetic powers that rise alongside her adolescence (Prime Video).     Knife Edge: Chasing Michelin Stars   Experience thrilling highs and crushing lows as the world's best chefs pursue the ultimate accolade: a Michelin Star. These anonymous inspectors have never let anyone in on their mysterious ways, until now (Apple TV+).    LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On a recent trip to Italy, I can hand on heart say that my consumption of tiramisu was impressive! It was almost a daily occurrence, usurped only by the frequency of my gelato eating. Serves 2-4   Ingredients   1 cup strong espresso coffee   1-2 tbsps. liquor – frangelico, brandy, kahlua (optional)   2 large eggs, separated   4 tbsps. sugar   300g good quality mascarpone (I use Tatua)   16-20 savoiardi biscuits / lady fingers   Cocoa for dusting      Method  Make the coffee, mix with liquor if using, and set aside.   Beat the egg yolks with 3 tablespoons of the sugar until very thick and creamy. Add the mascarpone and beat some more to combine.   In a clean bowl, whisk the egg whites until very foamy, then add the remaining sugar and whisk until it is stiff and glossy. Be patient, this can take a while.   Fold a third of the egg whites into the mascarpone mixture and carefully mix until combined, then add the remaining and gently fold until fully incorporated.   To assemble, dip each biscuit into the coffee mix —a mere two seconds on each side— then lay in a serving dish (I used a 15x15cm ceramic dish) in a single layer.   Using half the mascarpone mix, cover the layer of biscuits. Dust with cocoa. Repeat with more soaked biscuits and the remaining mascarpone.   Dust the top liberally with cocoa, cover, and chill for at least four hours or overnight.   Cut or spoon into four bowls to serve for an instant pick me up.    LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I don’t know about you, but before we had screens in our pockets to distract us from the screens in our living rooms, I used to find TV infomercials absolutely absorbing.    Actually, I’d go beyond that – some infomercials had a kind of hypnotic quality. You’d change the channel just for a second and then find you’d lost 15 minutes of your life to the Ab King Pro.   I had a couple of favourites. Do you remember the Bodyblade? It was basically a long piece of plastic that you whipped back and forth, apparently stimulating a strong core response that would get you in the shape of your life. I never saw one in real life but apparently, it’s still a thing.  And I’ll tell you what’s definitely still a thing: vibration boards. You know them. Those big plastic platforms that you stand on and apparently watch the fat melt off your body in something near to real time. As per usual, I’m late to the trend on this one. A few weeks ago, I saw one being used as a prop on Taskmaster, and I remember thinking ‘oh, a vibration board? How quaint. I wonder where they dug up one of those old antiques?’    Turns out I just haven’t had my social media algorithm tweaked to the latest fitness trends. Over the last six months, Gen Z fitness influencers, most of whom are too young to have ever seen an infomercial, have inundated TikTok and Instagram with all sorts of get-slim and-toned-fast promises. Vibration boards are very much back in vogue.  Truly, I thought these things had been left in the late nineties. I’ve only been on one, once – a school friend’s mum was a bit of a sucker for the old daytime TV, buy-one-get-one-free promotion, and she bought a dubious vibration board sometime around the turn of the century. I remember it giving slightly ominous fire hazard vibes, but it was a bit of fun for a couple of teenagers who wanted to feel their teeth chattering and the house slowly being moved off its foundations.  The real genius of vibration boards is that compared to a lot of other as-seen-on-tv fitness junk, it kind of looks like it should work. For the grand total of two and half minutes I probably spent experiencing the vibrations, it felt more likely to spur a bout of urinary incontinence than any sort of miracle transformation. Maybe I’m too cynical. Maybe you swear by your vibration board, and you’ve transformed yourself from a melting scoop of ice cream into a lean, taught, tanned adonis, simply through the magic of standing and vibrating.   I reckon the real secret is hiding in plain sight, behind the influencers and their various vibration board sales promotions. The real purpose of vibration boards isn’t to pull off a quick physical transformation, it’s to make a quick buck. And while there’s no such thing as an original idea, there’s a new sucker born every day.   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Kevin Milne walks with a bit of a limp.  He's got an arthritic knee, which specialists have advised him not to get replaced just yet, and despite the suggestions of a physio friend, he refuses to use a walking stick. But why? Kevin joined Jack Tame to chat about why he refuses to use one.  LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.