It has been a little while since my last post but I feel I had a distinctly good reason to leave you all dangling expectantly, like...no, cant think of a not unsavoury simile to end that sentence wit...
Okay.Okay.Look, at some point when Im more emotionally stable Ill write something deep and meaningful that convinces you that Im up to the task, of the task that Im about to tell you that Im up to, b...
There are so many things that are not delightful about life in New Zealand in 2012 but Ill tell you one thing - and it doesnt just apply to me here in my homeland - the internet is really on form. I ...
If you wouldnt mind indulging me for a moment:Ive become slightly infatuated with Cinemagram, this app on my phone. It lets you create little gif-like moving images that can border from the barely me...
I grew up with some fully-formed ideas about, of all things, Toblerone chocolate bars. Firstly, as a kid I convinced myself that the droning chorus-y bit to Heavenly Pop Hit by the Chills was them si...
I have come to recognise that while Im pretty brainy (maths/science aside, but what have either of those disciplines ever, ever done for humanity?) said brain will sometimes mix things up entirely fo...
You know how you learn something and then find you see it everywhere? Like youll learn a new word and then hear it in a song and read it in an article and hear someone say it in passing. I recently r...
Look, when youve been 26 as long as I have, which is about 48 hours now, you learn some things, okay? Like...I may get older, but it looks like Ill never grow out of being deeply clumsy (spilled lemo...
A big thanks to everyones cool responses to my last post. Made me glad Id shared it.When I made this dinner last night my camera battery went flat and before it obstinately shut down entirely, I...
On Wednesday night I had a panic attack. Wait, dont click another tab. I know, food bloggers are supposed to drift round in a content haze of aspirational recipes, instagrammed photos of coffee and n...
I was never excited by breakfast as a kid. Breakfast meant having to go to school, inevitably sitting round all day with wet shoes because there was this puddle right by the steps to my first classro...
Lessons I was reminded about this week: just because you refresh and refresh your inbox it doesnt mean a particular person is going to email you. And then a little (1) will appear but its just a news...
There are so many things Im no good at. Ill be the first to tell you. But no false modesty about one thing: I can speed read. When I was a kid with no income (I lived in the country! There was no suc...
Before getting into why you might or might not win friends with salad, guess what I did on Monday? Okay, apart from arguing with the internet about how slow it was being, in the hopes that my yelling...
When I was a kid I thought Robin Hood: Men In Tights was the last word in genius filmmaking. The very last. I rewatched it a few years ago and boo-urns, it really wasnt that hilarious ...
"And you may tell yourself, this is not my beautiful house..." Shrewd readers will note that these photos havent been taken at my place. Less shrewd readers will note that these photos h...
While there are large-scale diseases with varying degrees of manageability, on the day-to-day level the human body can still be pretty unfair to its inhabitant. I say this with full acknowledgement o...
Apropos of nothing: If - although lets go with when - I get famous, I should like to do many things. Id like to start a trend for not having to wear a bra if you dont want to. Not that I can necessar...
When I was a kid I used to draw and draw and draw and draw. When youd get your stationary at the start of the year Id ask to get an extra "jotter pad" (those A4 notebooks with weak, brownish ...
For something so simple - just rice that you biff into a pan, cover with water and ignore for a bit - pilaf goes by many names. Some call it pilaff with the sneaky double f. Some call it pilau. Still...
This morning Tim said "Oh yeah, happy...um" and I romantically finished his sentence for him by saying "meh." Weve never really done anything particular for it - our first ever V...
"Oh jeeez Tim, youve got a huge bit of sleep in your eye. Dont let it fall in the cornmeal, I wont be able to find it." And other such romantic truisms of our time. As I say every year, I don...
I know Im always trying to work more ice cream into my life, but bread-making is well up there on the continuum of my favourite things to cook. Plunging your hands into soft dough, their warmth kicki...
Did all of you have to write and say a speech in school, as part of the curriculum? Here in New Zealand its a long-standing tradition. I wrote a rather excellent think-piece on the Spice Girls (admit...
Ive already professed my affection for the sadly late Hudson and Halls (they made a chicken salad and named it after a New Zealand beauty queen!) but its the kind of thing that I can easily re-profes...
For the first time in a long time on this blog, I found myself writing paragraphs and deleting them, venturing forward with sentences and then frustratedly reeling them back in with the backspace but...
Disliking, and having zero aptitude for science at school doesnt preclude me coming up with several scientific theories, the hypothesis and measurement both being "I think its real and so...yeah....
So Christmas has been packed up and put back in the cupboard where you keep the Christmas things. The giant ham from lunch on the big day is being slowly whittled down with each leftovers-based meal,...
Cat tension at Christmastime has to be the tensest tension of all, dont you think? No-one does room-filling awkward silence and passive-aggressive stares and face-clawing like two mistrustful cats.I ...
A true story about an untrue story: During my dictionary-reading, daydreaming, dancing, painting-my-nails-with-twink-i ng youth, I tried writing a Baby Sitters Club book. I didnt know it was "fan ...
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