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Five Lions (and an almost King)
1977 The first time I saw the Lions was in a smoky little bar at Mt. Cook. I didn’t know it, but it’s where I was conceived. Presumably not at the bar (though people do funny things at high altitude)....
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Brick by Brick
I guess it’s a question for the AFOL community. How long are you happy to be separated from your bricks? The question seemed a good one. It came during the first of several presentations at a Well-LUG...
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First of All
Firstly: I think it’s great that our Prime Minister is having a baby. It’s nice. It makes me happy. Secondly: I love all the discussion it has provoked. Yes, there is plenty of vitriol born of sexism,...
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To Think, to Speak
Last night I dreamed I slept with Ellen. We didn’t sleep. We were standing up, face-to-face. Her blue eyes were stunning, invitingly playful, and their beauty almost diverted me from the delicious...
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Yuke-Yuke
I’ve always loved musical jokes. Q. How do you know if a drummer’s knocking your door. A. The knocking keeps speeding up and slowing down. Q. What do you call someone who hangs out with a group of...
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Thinking Inside the Box
I’m a little bit psychic. At least, that’s what I tell the girls when I see things before they’re revealed. And even though my daughters believe in magic 2-1, they don’t believe me. They understand the...
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Being a Pain
People love pain. They seek it as entertainment, strive to share their hurt with the world while simultaneously blocking out the agony of those they do not care for. I’m not referring to the action...
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Reading Minds
I used to work in a job where people read books. Some read them on their devices, but most brought along actual books. Books they loved. This wasn’t the distant past. People also chatted, messed around...
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Doubting Thomas
Last night I did something I never do. I posted a photo of our cat on social media. He was curled up in the way-too-small box he’s been trying to sit in all week. He has attempted resting his chin on...
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Beyond Doubt
It’s hard to accept absence as loss. There is no way to mark the grief of the inexplicable. You seek multiple explanations and none satisfies, or offers true relief. You can bury a squashed cat or one...
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Standing Up
I was alone in the house, thinking about something I wanted to write, composing words of little consequence in my head, when something funny happened. I had just stepped outside to check on the...
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Museum Piece
Swayed into… town. It was windy. Dark. Not a night to be out. I leaned into the gusts to make headway through the blasts screaming around the waterfront. Not your usual Friday night, I was meeting an...
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Unspeakable
The wife-to-be is quite fond of faggots. Me, I’m not so sure. I mean, some things just bring up long-embedded reactions. Thoughts of toffs bullying young fags in Tom Brown’s School Days, or bundles of...
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Absolutely Wedded
I got married in the weekend. It was quite a lot of fun. More than I expected. But now I’m buggered. Beyond buggered. Exhausted. I still have the bounce of the thrill, the buoyancy of happiness, so...
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A Voyage around My Mother: The Story of a Notebook II
Why do we need to write words? Is it to entertain ourselves or others? Is it to display or to conceal? Why spend so much time presenting an acceptable image, while hiding in plain sight? These are the...
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Pants-off Hot: 1 Day in Nelson
Nelson, Nelson, you blow my mind. So much sun, so many smiles So much to see, so much to eat. The market, my God, the market… Vegan sprouted gifts galore Raw cocoa Snickers bars Spicy wholemeal...
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Fair Vanity
I’m obsessed with words. Big, small. Odd. Not. How they look, how they sound. Music and meaning. The other night, while waiting in A & E, I picked up a magazine. It was full of articles I found...
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A Night at the Opera
Tonight I am going to the opera. It will be my fourth. The first was 25 years ago in Christchurch. Tosca at the Theatre Royal, the wonderful venue where I saw Basil Brush, Sonic Youth, Rowan Atkinson,...
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Camping by Numbers: A Listicle of 48 Numbers. Derived in Caravan and Tent. At...
47 Number of times I will hit my head on the caravan door frame before I punch the caravan (or devise a cunning way to stop doing it). 9 Number of $2 coins the wife will ask for to do one load of...
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Get On Up, Y’all!
As the first to rise in the house I’ve taken to blasting big bad tunes to rouse the house while we establish the unfamiliar routines of new schools and new house. The wife, never an early riser, tends...
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