RNZ: Saturday Morning

Don Brash was Governor of the Reserve Bank of NZ for 14 years before leaving the post in 2002 to enter Parliament. He became leader of Opposition and the National Party in 2003, and edged, but did not beat, the incumbent Labour Party at the 2005 election. He then went into academia before leading ACT New Zealand into the 2011 election, resigning from that role on election night. As well as a number of directorships and other roles, in 2016 Brash became the spokesperson for a new lobby group called Hobson's Pledge, a group formed to oppose what Brash has described as Maori favoritism and to advocate abolishing the Maori electorates. He has weighed into the debate about the use of Te Reo in the past few weeks, saying he's "utterly sick" of the use of the language by RNZ reporters and presenters.

Damion Searls is a translator and author based in Brooklyn, New York. He has translated many classic modern writers, including Proust, Rilke, and Nietzsche, edited a new abridged edition of Thoreau's Journal, and produced a lost work of Melville's. His newest work is called The Inkblots: Hermann Rorschach, His Iconic Test, and The Power of Seeing, and traces what New Republic calls "Rorschach's short and undramatic life in Switzerland, Russia, and Germany, and his inkblots' far longer and more interesting afterlife in the United States, where they came to play a crucial role in postwar organisational psychology".

A selection of feedback from today's show.

Long-serving New Zealand actor Ginette McDonald and her daughter, Kate McGill, also an actor, team up to perform Tom Scott's play, Joan, which tells the story of his mother. It's a special project for McDonald and McGill as they both knew Joan Scott very well. Joan opens January 20 at Circa theatre in Wellington. McGill's solo show, Weave: Yarns with New Zealanders, is on at Bats theatre in the Capital, November 28 to December 2.

David Marr is a Guardian Australia journalist. He is widely regarded as one of Australia's most influential progressive commentators, writing on subjects such as politics, censorship, the media and the arts. He has been a journalist since 1973 and is the recipient of four Walkley awards for journalism. He will talk to Kim about what happens next to legalise same-sex marriage, after an overwhelming vote in its favour in a recent referendum. Marr will also discuss the continuing plight of Manus Island refugees, and whether New Zealand's offer to take 150 of the refugees has helped or hindered our relationship with Australia

Campbell Smith is a lawyer, band manager and promoter. He staged his first Big Day Out in 2005, and now runs Auckland City Limits, which will take place for a second time on March 3, 2018.

Steve Lazarides was a photographer when he met Bristol graffiti artist Banksy on a shoot. He began selling the artist's works to friends, and together the pair launched the Pictures on Walls website in 2001, selling not just Banksy's work, but that of other street artists. Business thrived, and Lazarides opened his first gallery in London in 2006. He and Banksy parted ways in 2008, but Lazarides continues to tour the artist's work around the world. He's also added several other artists to his stable including Jamie Hewlett, the man who created artwork for Damon Albarn's virtual band Gorillaz, and the painter Antony Micallef, whose show at Lazarides' gallery sold out in half an hour. Lazarides' The Art of Banksy collection will be in Auckland January 5 to February 6, 2018. It is the largest collection of Banksy work in the world.

It's been 100 years since the first mechanical milking machine was patented, a few years after being devised at the kitchen table of Wairarapa dairy farmer and inveterate tinkerer, Norman John Daysh. There had been attempts to free farmers from the milking stool in the decades preceding Daysh's invention - but his was the first to simulate the effect of the suckling calf and also be comfortable for the cow. Daysh was forced to look offshore for capital for his invention, and teamed up with the De Laval company of Sweden. After 100 prototypes, the De Laval Milker was patented and ready for sale in 1917 in the US, where the Daysh family temporarily moved. Norman's grandson John joins Kim to talk about the ingenuity that created an agricultural revolution.

Richard F. Thomas is Harvard University's George Martin Lane Professor of the Classics. He was born in London and brought up in New Zealand, and educated at the University of Auckland and at the University of Michigan. He is a world expert in classical poetry, with the works of Virgil a particular area of expertise. Four times during a long career at Harvard, Professor Thomas has taught a class called 'Bob Dylan', which studies Dylan's memoir and extensive music output in the context of classical poets such as Virgil and Homer. Thomas was initially ridiculed by his colleagues for teaching a course on Bob Dylan, but Dylan's Nobel Prize in Literature in 2016 brought him vindication, and he immediately found himself thrust into the spotlight as a leading academic voice in all matters Dylanological. He talks to Kim about his new book, Why Dylan Matters, which asks readers to reflect on the question, "What makes a classic?"

Kim Hill reads emails and text messages from listeners to the Saturday Morning programme.

New Zealand-born Angus Vail has lived in the US for 24 years, during which time he's been the business manager for the rock groups INXS and Kiss, plus Kiwi bands Shihad, Steriogram and 3 Doors Down, and most recently, pop sensation Charlie Puth. During a visit to London in 2012, Vail visited Shakespeare's Globe Theatre and as a result of the experience developed an idea to build Container Globes, or mobile theatres, based on Shakespeare's Globe and built out of shipping containers. The idea has progressed to reality, fundraising has started, and prototypes are being made in Detroit, Michigan, where Vail hopes to play a part in reviving the fortunes of the once-thriving city.

Not just a garden but a 'city' of gloomy octopuses has been discovered off the east coast of Australia, and it isn't the first. Philosopher and scuba diver Peter Godfrey-Smith talks with Kim Hill about the discovery.

Arthur Young is the son of 2nd Lieutenant Edgar Young, an officer in the 1st Infantry Brigade during WW1. The Taranaki solicitor was 31 when he went to war in 1915, and was seriously wounded in the last hours of the Battle of Broodseinde which began on October 4, 1917, just a few days before New Zealand's darkest day in war, the Battle of Passchendaele (12th October, 1917). When he returned to New Zealand, Edgar married and had four sons, all of whom were high achievers. His third son, Arthur Young, was head boy and dux of King's College in Auckland before following his father into the legal profession. He later co-founded national law firm Chapman Tripp Sheffield Young and, at 81, still goes in to work every day. He talks to Kim about his father, his family, and the 100 year commemorations of Passchendaele happening in the upcoming week.

Stephen Goldson is a grassland entomologist who works to find ways to suppress exotic pest species running riot in Aotearoa's pastures. In 1991, after a painstaking search and much research, Goldson and his group introduced a tiny parasitoid wasp, about the size of a very small ant, from South America to kill the Argentine stem weevil that can devastate our pastures. The plan worked very well for around 20 years - then the weevil found a way to fight back and scientists think it has achieved this through rapid evolution. Goldson joins Kim to discuss the battle against the weevil and what's next for biocontrol, the country's unique pasture ecology, and the collision of our bush and pasture ecosystems. Goldson is Deputy Director at Lincoln University's Bio-protection Research Centre that is focused plant pest management, a Principal Scientist in the Crown Research Institute AgResearch, and strategy advisor to the Prime Minister's chief science advisor Professor Sir Peter Gluckman.

Declan O'Rourke is a critically acclaimed Irish singer-songwriter who has worked and performed with many of the world's top artists, including Snow Patrol, Glen Hansard, John Prine, and the Transatlantic Sessions, in an award-winning career that has seen him release five studio albums, including one that was released one song at a time to fans who signed up to an e-newsletter. His next album, Chronicles of the Great Irish Famine, is due out at the end of October. The Dubliner's songs are heavily influenced by folk and traditional Irish music, and he has a loyal following amongst Irish communities in his home country and across the world. O'Rourke will tour New Zealand, October 7 -15, playing most of his gigs with French-Canadian Acadian musicians, Vishten.