Dame Lynley Dodd is a staple of Kiwi childhoods.

The beloved children’s author is best known for her Hairy Maclary series, the first of which was released over 40 years ago.

She’s sold millions of books worldwide, and just this week she was honoured at the New Zealander of the Year Awards.

Dodd was granted the Legacy Award for fostering a love of literature in generations of children.

While she admits it sounds a bit silly, Dodd admits to feeling slightly guilty at the level of acclaim and the legacy she’s built.

“Well I obviously, I think, been spending all these years thoroughly enjoying myself producing these books,” she told Jack Tame.

“It sounds a bit, you know, I’ve been indulging myself, and I have, doing these things, but no, it’s been great fun.”

Dodd’s love of wordplay and language stems back to her childhood, as her parents were, in her words, much into words, and there was an “awful lot of fun” with language in her home.

“Both my parents were fond of books, and also fond of fun, and so, you know, obviously there were serious times as well, but there was a lot of fun with words,” she explained.

“My father and I used to make up games, make up sort of imaginary animals and all sorts of silly things and have nonsense conversations about them.”

The language used in her home was also a contrast to the things she was given to read at school, which were “incredibly old-fashioned".

“There were, you know, millions of gnomes and fairies and bits and pieces, and it was talking down kind of language,” Dodd told Tame.

“And I got a bit bored by those books, and it was only much later on, when I met books like Dr Suess’, I suddenly realised you could be mad with language and have a fantastic time.”

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Our parents are some of our biggest influences.

It was Kevin Milne’s birthday last week, and also the anniversary of his father’s death, and it got him thinking about the influence fathers have on their sons.

This is compounded by the release of Louis Theroux’s Manosphere documentary, which reinforced to him the importance of a positive male influence in a child’s life.

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Gorillaz have returned with their ninth studio album.

The Mountain was recorded across a range of locations, primarily India and London, and draws heavily from the Indian classical instrumentation, pairing it with the group’s eclectic electronic and pop influences.

It features performances in multiple different languages, including Arabic, English, Hindi, Spanish, and Yoruba, with themes of death, grief, and the afterlife threading through the album.

Chris Schulz joined Jack Tame to share his thoughts on the release.

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Look What You Made Me Do by John Lanchester

What if the year's most talked about TV show was all about your marriage?

Kate, thirty years into her marriage, has a seemingly idyllic metropolitan, North London life. Phoebe, a young screenwriter, is the creator of the year's hit TV show, Cheating.

When Kate's world takes a darker turn, she thinks she sees details and intimacies in the show that only she and her husband Jack could possibly have known. But who has betrayed who? Who gets to tell whose story?

A black comedy of resentment and entitlement, Look What You Made Me Do is the story of two very different women from two very different generations, heading toward a battle only one of them can win.

A Far-Flung Life by M.L. Steadman

Western Australia, 1958. A truck rumbles along a lonely outback road. A moment’s inattention, and in a few muddled seconds the lives of the MacBride family are shattered.

Instead of leaving them to heal, fate comes back for them in a twist of consequences that will cause one of them to lose their life, and another to sacrifice theirs for the sake of an innocent child.

Set in the expanse of a vast and flat landscape, where the weather is a capricious god and a million-acre sheep station is barely a dot on the map, A Far-flung Life explores the hearts of a handful of isolated souls and the secrets they shield in order to survive.

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"The weather could not have been a more idyllic. I was basking in the brilliance of Lake Taupō aboard the glorious replica steamboat, Ernest Kemp, as were several dozen guests from all over the world. Cruising the great lake for over 40 years, this gorgeous little vessel that accommodates 50 guests, began life in Kerikeri, named in honour of the last member of the Kemp family to live at Kemp House. A massive and damaging flood in the Kerikeri Inlet in 1981 prompted the sale of this shallow draught vessel, and Ernest Kemp began a new life feeling the lake’s freshwater on its hull, a year later.:

"For a complete change of pace, I was itching to rock some of Taupō’s much-vaunted mountain bike trails. And they won’t disappoint."

Read Mike's full article here.

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Kiwis are struggling with their health and wellbeing in the workplace.

Umbrella Wellbeing has released its annual report into the state of workplace health and wellbeing, which surveyed over 11,000 people across 33 workplaces over the last two years.

It found:

• More than half the workplaces surveyed struggle to support staff wellbeing and mental health
• About 25% of workers were experiencing high or very high levels of psychological distress – the main things affecting this were a mixture of personal and work factors including:
  • Not getting enough sleep
  • Their workplace not prioritising mental wellbeing
  • Not getting enough leisure time
  • Poor diet
  • Bullying or harassment at work
• 12% of people’s productivity at work was explained by a mix of personal and work factors including
  • Not getting enough physical activity during the day
  • High workload
  • Not being clear about their role at work
  • Poor sleep

Overall, this shows a picture of how people’s personal health and features of the work environment combine together to impact people’s wellbeing and their job performance.

A couple of examples from the past few years that highlight this relationship:

• A tragic case from 2016 investigated a tractor driver who had an accident while driving in the early hours of the morning, leading to his death. It was revealed that fatigue was the key contributing factor in this case, given that he had worked almost 200 hours in the fortnight before his death, including a 17-hour workday the day that he died.
• In Australia, a police officer suffered from PTSD after witnessing some traumatic incidents. The stress associated with this led to an increase in stomach acid secretion which led to development of a gastrointestinal disease and later the development of cancer. Sadly, some of the policeman’s coping personal coping strategies including drinking and smoking made the situation worse.

So what can be done?

It’s a partnership between individuals and their workplaces. Things like sleep and diet are largely in the control of individuals, but given these things impact on people’s productivity at work, workplaces might want to consider how they could support people in these areas, e.g., making sure healthy food is available rather than lots of junk food, supporting people to get their sleep patterns checked for things like sleep apnoea.

Workplaces are directly responsible for some of the other factors like workload and bullying in the workplace, so they need to address these to both protect the health and wellbeing of their people and make sure they are getting maximum productivity from their workforce.

In the past many workplaces have split off workplace and personal health risks, treating them as separate. Our results and the couple of examples I’ve given show how important it is to think about how these two factors combine together and the need to look at workplace health from a holistic point of view.

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Seeing as it’s getting towards autumn, a number of bulbs need planting in the garden - I’ll pick on a few of them.

Tulip

Fabulous early spring colour – remember the historical stuff with the Dutch making heaps of money out of often virus-ridden “varieties” (early 1600-s AD) – around Fl 3000.00 per bulb while the average yearly wage of a skilled craftsman was around Fl 300.00. The bubble burst in 1637 AD.

These days they are a bit cheaper and more reliable. They grow well in the South Island with very cool winters – up north they need winter chilling (taking out of soil and put in fridge for 8 weeks). In mild climates it pays to plant later in the year, say May/June.

But in the South Island, planting the bulbs can start in a few weeks; order them now! Some great bulb outlets: Bulbs direct, Garden Post, NZBulbs, Fiesta Bulbs, and Hadstock Farm in Springston.

Work the soil to 20 cm deep in sunny to semi-shade position (generally bulbs prefer well-drained soils). Plant 15 cm spaced and 15 cm deep. In warmer climates, plant them a bit deeper (20 cm deep).

A bit of mulch over the planting site will keep weeds down. Bulb fertiliser is recommended and after flowering some blood and bone will feed the green leaves.

Do NOT cut those green leaves after flowering: they gather sunlight (photosynthesis) for re-stocking the food reserves inside the bulbs underground.

Narcissus Daffodils

Prep the soil to 40 cm or so – daffodil roots go way down! Plant them 10 cm deep and space 10 cm apart in well-drained soils (perhaps under deciduous trees). Hagley Park is a great example. Planting them in full sun is okay too.

Mass planting works really well, and bulbs come up year after year and they’ll multiply. Apart from the Far North, the whole of New Zealand can grow them.

Leucojum

Leucojum is also known as “snowflake”, and in the Netherlands it’s known as the “Zomer Klokje” (summer clock).

This wonderful plant has a special place in my heart: we used to have this rare and endangered native species in the wetlands where I used to roam as a nature nerd in the Netherlands.

There are many different varieties now, flowering in spring, and planting is best done in early April.

Must get some more!

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