I was driving up Ngamotu Road a couple of years ago when someone on Radio New Zealand NationalĀ made a brilliant suggestion. Given what we know about the power of hope and positive thinking, perhaps the Ministry of Health has got it wrong about the warnings on packets of smokes.Ā Rather than pictures of diseased lungs and […]
I can’t resist a request. Daina owes me a Manifesto Confession for this post! (I also work for chocolate.) Daina wants to hear from y’all about pocket money. What is your approach? What did your parents do with you? Like many of us, she’s keen to build some financial literacy into her kids’ lives, so […]
One of the perils of parenthood is believing we’re in charge. I’m talking about how we can overestimate the influence we have on our kids. They look like blank slates when they come out, right? Gunky, wrinkly blank slates. Ready for us to clean up and write the story of their lives on. But of […]
I don’t have time for ads, generally speaking. Largely for this reason, I don’t watch tv except online or on dvd, and I rarely read newspapers and magazines in print anymore. But yesterday I caught up with two contrasting ad campaigns, both for men’s formalwear. (My interest in my husband’s wardrobe makes me more their […]
Nicholas said to me in 2005, using his sharply-tuned crap-o-meter, that saying ‘I don’t have time for that’ is, consciously or otherwise, code for ‘I don’t want to do it.’ I’ve been hyperaware of the phrase ever since. I think I’d just told him I didn’t have time for getting back into yoga. Oops. Clearly, […]
Oops. I bought shampoo and conditioner today. Normally it’s an oops if I forget to get more in time – frequently – and spend a few days eking out a dwindling supply, only ever remembering the need to restock when I’m actually in the shower. But it’s oops today because I have beenĀ meaning andĀ meaningĀ andĀ meaningĀ to begin […]