Show Notes
What is scabies and how common is it in New Zealand? They're tiny mites that burrow into the top layer of skin, causing allergic reactions with intense itching and a rash. It's common in New Zealand, but exact numbers are difficult to know. It's more common where there is close contact or household crowding, and particularly children and young people. Anyone can get it – it's not a sign of poor hygiene.
How do you catch it? Mainly through close skin-to-skin contact with someone who has scabies. It spreads between household members, family members, and sexual partners. It can spread through shared bedding, towels, or clothing. You can spread scabies before realising you have it – symptoms can take weeks to appear.
How do you recognise it? Classically, it causes very itchy skin, particularly at night. Small, red bumps, scratch marks, and tiny burrows, often between the fingers, on the wrists, armpits, waist, and groin. In babies and young children, the face, scalp, palms, and soles of the feet can also be affected. It can look like eczema or other itchy skin conditions.
How do you treat it? A prescribed cream applied over the body, left on for about 10–12 hours, then washed off – repeated one week later. Everyone in the house needs treatment at the same time, even if they have no symptoms. Wash bedding, clothing, and towels to prevent reinfection. Tablets called ivermectin can be used if cream doesn't work. The itching can continue for up to six weeks after successful treatment. New spots, burrows, or worsening symptoms should be rechecked by your GP or nurse.
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More from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame
Derek vs Derek On a country road in Devon, intensive dairy farmer Derek Banbury is horrified at the “devastation” of his neighbour’s once productive farm. Dubbed a “maverick rewilder” by the media, Derek Gow is an unrepentant ex-sheep farmer hellbent on turning his land into an oasis for nature. Shot over three years the film charts the two Derek’s turbulent relationship, as tempers fray, wild animals run amok, and the land is radically transformed.
BBQ season is here! Serve these with homemade chilli tomato jam and you’ll be so happy! Makes 4 large skewers
Last month, I woke to a message on my phone with a link to a YouTube clip. It was a film teaser (not to be confused with the trailer). In the clip were two familiar faces. One was Nathan Fielder, a Canadian comedian and TV host. The other was Elizabeth Holmes, the disgraced and now jailed founder of the blood testing company, Theranos. A woman notorious globally for one of the best-known scams of the modern age. The teaser was brilliant in its intensity and its simplicity. The two of them sat centimetres apart, staring into each other. Elizabeth Holmes made a strange, rhythmic movement with her head, but barely blinked, her giant eyes reaching maddeningly into her counterpart. “Why would I deceive you?” asks one of the best-known fraudsters on the planet. The frame cuts to a wide shot. As the two of them are locked in each other’s gaze we see what has been causing Holmes’ strange movement. She’s rocking a baby. The teaser ends. How do you know when something’s overhyped? We’ve all experienced it. Maybe you’ve read about a travel destination, or a restaurant, or someone has promised you an album or a TV show is the greatest thing ever, only for the reality to leave you underwhelmed. Hype can be a great thing. It can get you to watch or listen or experience something you might otherwise never have touched. But it can overcook things, too. Something you might have enjoyed perfectly well can end up being a bit of a letdown relative to your expectations. Hype —especially with something you already love— can be a bit of a dangerous phenomenon. I love Nathan Feilder’s work. If you’ve never heard of him, there’s probably no other person working in television who is harder to explain. He’s most often described as a comedian —I just did so myself— but I actually think his work has morphed into something else. He’s hosted a couple of his own TV shows. On ‘Nathan For You’ he found absurd and humorous solutions for businesses who were experiencing various problems. But his most recent show, 'The Rehearsal', has moved into something more akin to performance art. You’d just be forgiven for thinking after 70 or 80 years, there would be no truly original ideas left for TV genres: dramas, sit-coms, satires, documentaries, and reality. We’ve kind of done it all. But 'The Rehearsal' breaks new ground. It’s a mug’s game to even try and explain what it is, but the broad concept is that Nathan uses a huge HBO budget to help people rehearse for big moments in their lives. It’s such an intoxicating, mind-bending, twisted ride and I’ve found myself ranting and raving to anyone who’ll listen to me about it. I’m the hype guy. But now the shoe is on the other foot. The teaser clip for the film ‘You Can See Everything’ revealed that for the month right before she went to prison, one of the strangest characters in modern Silicon Valley lore invited the strangest creative in Hollywood to live in her home, with cameras rolling. And now that the film has been released, the hype couldn’t be greater. Here are a few samples of the kinds of reviews that most producers would chuck on a poster: “Truly ingenious.” “A reality-splitting masterpiece.” “A stunning re-evaluation of what documentaries are capable of.” The New Yorker said, “the film is more than fascinating and ingenious; it's strangely, poetically, poignantly beautiful." The New York Times compared it to Orson Welle’s War of the Worlds. Despite a limited release, the film has already broken a 20-year box office record in the US. Tickets to cinemas are being scalped. Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, the big online reviewers, currently have it as one of the greatest films of all time. How can anything possibly live up to that hype? I’m both absorbing all the noise about this film, the reviews and the praise, and at the same time trying not to get my hopes up. But while most New Zealanders are counting down the days until the election, there’s another milestone on my
Witi Ihimaera Smiler has published over forty written works, including novels, memoir, non-fiction, and short stories, and he's not slowing down. This year alone he's already released three books – ‘Te Kaikaukau | The Swimmer’, ‘The Star Path of the Whales: A Return to the Realm of The Whale Rider’, and ‘Ariā and the Monster Island’, the third children’s book in the Astromancer series. He broke new ground as the country's first Māori novelist and has inspired generations of writers to find and tell their own stories, shaped by Māori culture and identity. Ihimaera Smiler is appearing at the Nelson Arts Festival later this month, and joined Jack Tame to chat about his journey as an author and his work towards achieving his dream of writing a novel in te reo. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Fontaines D.C. has released their newest album. 'Dopamine Chamber' follows on from 'Romance', continuing the alternative rock sound the band created in the 2024 album. Its garnered positive reviews since its release yesterday, and so Chris Schulz joined Jack Tame to share his thoughts. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.