The Weekend for Saturday 8 January 2022

 

08:12 Melbourne closed for Novak Djokovic

In October last year state and federal officials confirmed vaccinations would be mandatory for any athletes participating in the tournament, leading to speculation the world number one, Novak Djokovic, who is unvaccinated, would be unable to defend the championship. 

However, in January of this year, Djokovic posted on social media confirming he would be participating, as he had a medical exemption approved by the Victorian health department. After some hefty public backlash the Australian prime minister Scott Morrison confirmed Djokovic's visa had been cancelled and he seemed likely to be deported. But Djokovic has now appealed the decision; at present, he remains in immigration detention at a Melbourne hotel. A legal hearing on whether Djokovic will be allowed to play in the tournament is expected to begin on Monday.

Caitlin Thompson is the co-founder and publisher of Racquet Magazine and she joins Emile to discuss the impact of the events in Melbourne on the world of tennis. 

8:30 Cinema legend Sidney Poitier remembered

News broke earlier this morning that cinema legend Sidney Poitier has passed away. Poitier is one of the most important figures in film history. The Bahamian American actor was the first black man to win an Academy Award and he starred in a series of hit films whose resonance is still being assessed today. Professor of history at the University of Memphis Aram Goudsouzian is the author of the biography Sidney Poitier: Man, Actor, Icon.  

8:45 Paleontology shifts gear in a Covid-19 world 

Aotearoa has one of the world's richest troves of marine fossils, but we're still just finding out exactly what it is we're sitting on. A recent research project in Canterbury used medical CT imaging to scan plesiosaur fossils collected in New Zealand back in 1872.The scans reveal a new level of detail, confirming that plesiosaurs swam mostly with their heads down, in contrast to the Loch Ness creature, and showing a close link between the New Zealand fossils and South American specimens from 70 million years ago. 

Paul Scofield is a Senior Curator Natural History at Canterbury Museum and adjunct Professor in Geology at Canterbury University. 

9:06 Josh Wardle: The power of Wordle 

Wordle. If you know, you know. For the uninitiated, Wordle is a very simple, brainteaser-style word game. You can only play once per day. Every player is trying to guess a word - the same word, for everyone. They're given six attempts. If one of your guesses has any of the correct letters, the game tells you. 

It has certainly taken off online - every day hundreds of thousands of people head to the Wordle website to guess the word, to preserve their streak and compete with friends and family. The game was created by New York-based software engineer Josh Wardle , he joins Emile to discuss his simple but viral game. 

9:45 The complicated legacy of Peter Bogdanovich

Peter Bogdanovich, the US film director known for films such The Last Picture Show and Paper Moon has died aged 82, his agent confirmed on Thursday. Film critic Dan Slevin joins Emile to discuss the life and work of a Hollywood stalwart. 

10:05 Alice Procter: an international game of Elgin Marbles 

News broke this week that Italy is returning a fragment looted from the Parthenon in Athens to the Greek Government. The piece of marble is part of a carving of a draped figure from the eastern side of the Parthenon's frieze. While the chunk seems small, it's significance in the ongoing global debate about repatriation of stolen artefacts is hard to overstate. Alice Procter is an Australian art historian living in London, a city at the heart of the Parthenon drama. She runs "Uncomfortable Art Tours" at six London cultural institutions and hosts a podcast called The Exhibitionist looking at museum culture. 

She is also the author of The Whole Picture: The colonial story of the art in our museums & why we need to talk about it, which came out in 2020. 

10:35 Lady and the Tramp: Milford Sound 

Time for the first episode now of Lady and the Tramp ! Over the next few weeks we'll be taking a few trips  around the country with the former Prime Minister, head of the UN's development programme, and tramping enthusiast Helen Clark, who after many years of travelling around the world has put her time in Aotearoa to good use by walking some of the Great Walks around the country. Today Helen is taking us on a journey to Milford, and into her tramping past. 

11:05 Who Lived There? Cascade Brewery 

We're going on a journey into Aotearoa's past now! We're continuing our series  'Who Lived There'. It's based on a book of the same name which came out last year. Jane King took the photographs and Nic McCloy researched and wrote down the stories of dozens of significant buildings and places. Nic is taking us through these amazing buildings over the course of the month. Today we're looking at a brewery in Taihape! 

11:20 Aotearoa's DJ scene: 3 Dimensional 

The news cycle the week of Christmas is always dominated by something unexpected. But did any of us really have "DJ controversy" down on our last week of 2021 bingo cards? But that's what we got. UK DJ Dimension became the centre of a debate about who was allowed into the country and why were permits being given to touring musicians. It got us curious about the DJ scene here. What is the local talent and what is the history of djing in Aotearoa? To walk us through it I'm joined by Chris Cox who performs under the name DJ Frank Booker