10 things we know but don’t want to admit

1. Credit cards are evil.

2. We don’t really know what will make us happy but an iPhone/back rub/kitten seems like a pretty good start.

3. Even if it’s your favourite item of clothing, if it has holes, it’s a rag and belongs in the rubbish.

4. Penises are funny. At least vaginas are neat and compact, not swaying around in the wind like stray windsocks or leaping to attention at inopportune moments.

5. High school trigonometry lessons are pointless and painful for almost everyone concerned.

6. We love musicals. Face it. If Gran is watching The Sound of Music or the kids are revisiting The Lion King – pretty soon, you’re bopping along to the songs and you even know most of the words.

7. It’s our fault – we are responsible for our own lives. There will always be ‘circumstances’ and deep down we know that if we keep waiting for conditions to be perfect, we’ll wind up 70, in a rocker with nothing but continence pads and a big basket of blame and regrets.

8. Motorcycles are unsafe. There are two kinds of motorcycle riders – those who have crashed and those who haven’t…yet.

9. Skinny does not automatically equal sexy.

10. We care what our parents think – even when we’re old – probably even when they’re dead.

Image: graur razvan ionut

Bah! Humbug!

Christmas Day was great when I was six. I’d sit patiently beside the plastic tree (hung with paper chains and mismatched ornaments) with my sisters, waiting for my parents to awaken and pour their coffee. Then we’d open our gifts – one at a time with excitement and reverence. I’m talking Baby Alive or a plastic piano – no Xboxes or iPhones.

Someone would take a couple of photos and, looking back, each year you notice the daggy pyjamas passing from sister to sister and getting more and more faded.

After breakfast, we’d hit the road and picnic (sangers and Fanta not some Lipscombe Larder hamper) in the Midlands with the rellies – the cousins were dorks but we could hang out with them for one afternoon.

And that was pretty much it. It was nice.

Nowadays, if you’re older than six, Christmas is overrated.

Christmas in the noughties is a good time to block your ears and poke your eyes out with swizzle sticks – Jim Carey will appear as the Grinch at every turn and Home Alone will rerun as unstoppably as diarrhoea (granted, Christmas is a great excuse to revisit Die Hard, but that’s a small consolation).

And don’t even start me on cheesy Christmas muzak in every public place from stores to doctor’s surgeries. A nice choir singing Silent Night can be moving – but not in the ladies loos. Santa Claus is Coming to Town is not a Christmas carol – it’s a public nuisance.

And  – aaah! – Christmas correspondence. Whatever happened to handmade cards with actual news and thoughtful and inspiring sentiments. Nothing says ‘I don't give a rats about you’ like a Christmas card from a box of twenty identical Christmas cards from Chickenfeed – except perhaps an I-can’t-be-stuffed-writing-you-a-personal-message Christmas mail merge e-card full of PhotoShopped family snaps and boastful lies about the last tedious twelve months of someone's pitiful life.

Christmas time means spending most of December vacuuming up pine needles from your colour coordinated tree and stressing about the politics of what to provide for not-so-secret-Santa at work and what to wear for the office party (that you really feel like attending after a long work week – not).

And if that's not enough, advertisers start pestering you in October; you have to buy and prepare enough food for Christmas lunch to keep Namibia going…for a year; everyone scrambles to regift presents they don’t need for people they don’t like; and, on the day, precarious family peace treaties are decimated by excesses of grog and proximity.

These days, kids get so many presents that I’ve seen them wander off from the tree out of the sheer boredom of unwrapping more crap than they could use in ten lifetimes. They’d rather have cash – ask them, they’ll tell you.

And as for the real spirit of Christmas, somehow making a tax deductible online donation to the Salvos doesn’t give that authentic buzz of having done something meaningful.

And religion? The one time I dragged my arse to Midnight Mass in a blinding flash of romantic delusion, before the first hymn, my child projectile puked down the back of some lady's dark green floor length gown.

That about sums up Christmas, I reckon.

Image: Salvatore Vuono

No news is...dull as dog poo

In 1954, Roger Bannister broke the four-minute mile and the first issue of Sports Illustrated was published, Godzilla premiered and Marilyn Monroe married Joe DiMaggio.

Amid the historic events of 1954, 11 April has been identified by experts as the most boring day of the 20th century – a day when nothing happened.

(Previously, 18 April  1930 was considered the dullest day of the 20th century. On that day, a BBC radio announcer informed the nation in the 6.30pm bulletin, ‘There is no news.’)

After feeding 300 million facts into a new computer search engine, experts announced that on 11 April 1954, there were no key news events and no one important was born or died.

The best the machine could dredge up was Belgium's fourth post-war general election (whoopee) and the birth of Turkish academic, Abdullah Atalar (who?).

There were only a few hours in this day’s utter inauspiciousness. Bill Haley and the Comets recorded Rock Around The Clock the next day.

I guess the irony is that the day is interesting for being exceptionally boring…unless you are Abdullah Atalar.


Image: healingdream

What sex is your baby?

A young lady at work announced her pregnancy yesterday and, of course, the conversation turned to the sex of the baby. I was astounded by the many old wives tales that sprang up around the room as supposedly foolproof methods for predicting the baby’s sex.

The oldest and best known tale that reared its inevitable head was the ring test. This is where, using a string, you hang your wedding ring over your pregnant belly. You are having a girl if the ring swings back and forth and it’s a boy if it swings in a circle. The lady at work isn’t married, so I’m guessing she’s having a turnip.

Another test involves a key. If you pick up a key at the top (the roundest part), you will have a boy. If you pick up the key at the bottom (smallest part), you will have a girl. If you grab the key in the middle, congrats, it’s twins! If you pick up the whole bunch by the key ring, you’ll have octuplets. (Okay, I just made that last bit up but it’s probably as reliable a gauge as the other key indicators.)

After these two surefire methods, someone came up with the idea that if a woman is carrying high with a big, round belly, she is having a girl. If she is carrying low with a smaller belly that sticks straight out, it’s a boy. Because boy babies are so vastly different in shape from girl babies… Not.

And this one: when the pregnant woman is asked to show her hands, it’s a boy (or her manicure is fresh and gorgeous) if she keeps her palms down. If her palms are up, it’s a girl (or she’s hoping you’ll hand over that cookie).

Do you feel as though your nose is growing? If so, you might be having a boy – a little wooden boy, perhaps?

Then some budding mathematician came up with this equation: add the mother’s age at conception and the year of conception. If the result is an even number, then you are having a girl. If the result is an odd number, then a boy is on the way. I had better get my daughter to the quack for a sex change. Clearly she missed the memo.

The tests got weirder after this. In the Drano test, you combine a tablespoon of Drano and urine (nobody said whose, but I’m guessing the mum’s). If the mixture turns green, it’s a girl. If it turns blue, it’s a boy. If it turns pink, you’ll give birth to an all-in-one copier/printer/fax, so just drink the concoction and be done with it.

Apparently cravings are a diabolically accurate baby sex indicator. If you crave salty foods while pregnant, you can count on having a boy. If you crave sweets, fruit and orange juice, you are having a girl. What if you want to eat the whole world from KFC chips to five dozen Neenish tarts and even your lavender soap? Maybe hide the Drano.

And the last test? If a pregnant woman eats a clove of garlic and the smell does not come out of her pores, it’s a girl. If the smell seeps out of her pores, it’s a boy. At least you can be sure you won’t end up giving birth to a vampire.


Image: Jonathan Fitch

10 fascinating fruit facts

Okay, I'm nearly done on the food/drink theme (promise!) but I liked these fruit facts too much to abandon them:

1. Pineapple is the international symbol of hospitality.

2. Pineapples are classified as berries.

3. Cranberries are sorted for ripeness by bouncing them; a fully ripened cranberry can be dribbled like a basketball.

4. Strawberries are the only fruit which has its seeds on its outer skin

5. Lemons contain more sugar than strawberries.

6. 'Orange' does not rhyme with any other word.

7. Cherries are a member of the rose family.

8. The banana plant is the world’s largest herb. It’s often mistaken for a tree, but it does not have a woody trunk or boughs.

9. Olive trees can live for more than 1,500 years.

10. Smelling bananas and/or green apples (not eating) can help you lose weight.

Image: xedos4

10 fascinating drink facts

1. A 375ml beer has fewer calories than two slices of bread and contains no fat.

2. A bottle of champagne contains 49 million bubbles and has a pressure three times that of a car tyre.

3. Coca-cola was originally green.

4. Drinking too much water too quickly can lead to water intoxication. This occurs when water dilutes the sodium level in the bloodstream and causes an imbalance of water in the brain.

5. Guinness, after pouring, produces bubbles that sink to the bottom.

6. It takes, on average, 91 squirts from a cow’s udder to yield one litre of milk.

7. Instant coffee was invented by Japanese American chemist Satori Kato of Chicago in 1901.

8. Yelling for eight years, seven months and six days produces enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee.

9. A raisin in a glass of champagne will keep floating to the top and then sinking to the bottom.

10. Terri Comer, 42, of Oregan was arrested in 2008 with a .72 blood alcohol level. This seems to be the highest blood alcohol reading ever recorded for a person not dead. (This is not a challenge.)


Image: Paul

10 fascinating food facts

1. Brain freeze was invented in 1994 by 7-Eleven to explain the pain you feel when drinking a Slurpee too fast. The medical term is sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia.

2. Almonds are a member of the peach family.

3. Chilli heat is measured in Scoville units, after the pharmacist, Thomas Scoville.

4. Corn always has an even number of ears.

5. Apples are more efficient than caffeine at waking you up in the morning.

6. Corn makes up about eight percent of the weight of a box of corn flakes.

7. Carrots were originally purple, changing in the 17th century to new orange varieties.

8. Fortune cookies are not Chinese, they were invented in Los Angeles around 1920.

9. Vanilla can be mildly addictive as it increases the adrenaline and epinephrine levels.

10. Rice paper does not contain one grain of rice – it’s made from either rice straw, bamboo, hemp, mulberry leaves, wingceltis or gampi.


Image: Simon Howden

20 differences between men and women

Okay, there are some fairly obvious differences between the sexes, like a man has a penis and a woman is grateful she doesn't. Here are twenty differences that are not so outstanding:

1. In general, women are paid less than men, except in one field: modelling.

2. When a woman yawns, she covers her mouth with the palm of her hand; a man usually covers his mouth with his fist.

3. The World Health Organisation reports that women have a 78% greater chance of becoming blind than men (this is probably because they live longer).

4. When a woman gets dressed, she puts on a top before her bottoms. Men put pants on first.

5. Men make decisions by stripping away all the ‘muddying’ details and focusing on the bare bones – that’s their idea of the big picture. Women believe you can’t understand the big picture without complexity and context.

6. A woman has larger kidneys and a larger liver, stomach and appendix than a man, but smaller lungs.

7. Sex is more physical for men and more emotional for women.

8. Women can dance with each other even if they’re not gay but straight men don’t usually dance together.

9. Although 58% of the world’s TV news readers are women, only 21% of news subjects are about females.

10. Men have more car crashes than women; and crashes men cause lead to more severe injuries.

11. 60–75% of women prefer feeling and 55–80% of men prefer thinking.

12. 93% of deaths on the job involve men.

13. Women never shudder when a male character gets kicked in the groin in a movie.

14. More males than females are diagnosed with autism and Asperger syndrome.

15. Price discrimination favours men and women in different scenarios. For example, some nightclubs offer free entry for women, while many hairdressers offer cheaper haircuts for men.

16. Both men and women rank kindness and intelligence as the two most important qualities in a partner. But men value beauty and youth next, while women value financial and social status next.

17. Men generally compete in sports that require muscle and strength, while women generally compete in sports that require flexibility and finesse.

18. As children, girls more interested in toys with faces than boys are; boys are drawn to blocks or anything they can manipulate.

19. Women hear better than men – a dripping tap will get a woman out of bed before a man even wakes up.

20. According to Playboy, more women talk dirty during sex than men.

Image: healingdream and doctored by The Monstress

14 reasons to eat more chocolate

(As if we need reasons!)
Read this and you could almost believe chocolate is a health food.

1. Chocolate contains tryptophan, which helps you create serotonin, your body's own antidepressant.

2. Contrary to popular belief, chocolate doesn’t contribute to acne (though the milk in milk chocolate might), so enjoy the benefits of dark chocolate without worrying about your skin.

3. Chocolate contains high-quality antioxidants that can slow ageing and protect you from developing cancer and heart disease. Eat chocolate to stay young and healthy.

4. Melting chocolate in your mouth raises brain activity and heart rate more intensely than passionate kissing, and lasts four times longer!

5. Chocolate is rich in magnesium, which helps maintain normal muscle and nerve function, keeps heart rhythm steady, supports a healthy immune system and keeps bones strong.

6. Chocolate is rich in iron, which is essential for your good health.

7. Support the nut industry – chocolate makers use 40% of the world's almonds and 20% of the world's peanuts.

8. Need a caffeine hit but don’t want to overdo it? An average chocolate bar contains about half the caffeine you'd find in a Coke and a third what you'd find in a cup of coffee. So, chocolate is a good choice.

9. Chocolate is poisonous to dogs (and other domestic animals), so eat it before Fido does.

10. Fundraising chockies help worthy causes. Did you know the first fundraising drive using chocolates was by Mexican nuns from the 1700s? They created and exported the first solid chocolate product as a fundraiser for their convent.

11. Many believe that chocolate is an aphrodisiac, possibly because of the simple sensual pleasure of its consumption; but scientists suggest that chemicals in chocolate act as mild sexual stimulants.

12. Chocolate contains phenylethylamine (PEA) which is similar to amphetamine. PEA reproduces the feeling someone has when he or she falls in love. So maybe chocolate could help soothe a broken heart.

13. A UK study found that theobromine, a component in cocoa, may be more effective as a cough medicine than standard drug treatments.

14. It tastes sensational.


Image: Graeme Weatherston

Musical greed

What makes a song popular? A study has come up with an intriguing clue: people will choose a song if they think others like it.

In other words, at least one key to musical success is the buzz or the bandwagon effect – and while this can be unpredictable, getting a song out there and on people's radars increases its likelihood of it becoming popular.

So, the music industry is doing everything it can to get music to the masses, right? It’s begging public arenas with captive audiences like buses, sports centres and museums to play its stuff, right?

Wrong.

Here’s an eye-popping example of greed and short-sightedness.

A mob called Phonographic Performance Company of Australia (PPCA), representing Sony Music, EMI, Universal, Warner and Australian recording artists brought legal action against gyms in a bid for more bucks – and won.

If they want to use popular music for their classes, gyms now have to pay fifteen times more to play it. Copyright fees per class have gone from an affordable 96.8 cents to a whopping $15 a class – which could add an extra $1 to the cost of the class for each attendee.

In a world where money is tight and replicas and substitutions rule, I was gobsmacked by the PPCA’s CEO’s naïveté when he said, ‘Gyms are kidding themselves if they think that cover version music is going to cut it.’

Hobart gyms have decided price hikes for classes is just too big an ask, so it seems most of them have, indeed, ditched original music for cheesy muzak. And people are still turning up to classes.

There is no doubt that this ‘fake’ music is inferior and makes the classes slightly less enjoyable but here’s something else for the PPCA to consider:

When I started at the gym about 20 months ago, my iPod was filled with 80s bubble gum pop. I hadn't bought more than a handful of new songs since 1986.

Being exposed to current hits via classes at the gym – and liking them – I found myself on iTunes fairly regularly, downloading the new music I had heard. In the space of a few months, I threw more money at PPCA members than I had in the previous three decades – because the music was suddenly on my radar.

Since the change to covers, I might have bought one new song (but I don’t think so).

The CEO of PPCA is right when he says about covers: ‘To call it a second rate product is to wildly overstate it.’

These versions are so crappy, they don’t inspire me to buy the originals – or any music at all.

So, gyms aren't coughing up for licensing and, if I am even remotely representative of the gym population, gym members are now buying less music because we don't hear it.
So, who wins?

Image: Francesco Marino

10 things you didn’t know about duct tape

‘Duct tape is more than a miracle adhesive, it's a balm for the soul of the unprepared and inept.’

– Garrison Keillor

1. Duct tape was invented during World War II as a water resistant sealant tape for ammunition cases – so, military people call it ‘gun tape’.

2. The amount of duct tape sold every year could stretch to the moon 1.2 times or wrap around the equator 12.3 times.

3. Gaffa tape is related to duct tape but gaffa tape can be removed cleanly – it’s often used in theatre.

4. The NASA manual for spaceflight operations on the International Space Station recommends using duct tape to restrain an astronaut who goes troppo mid-mission.

5. These days, duct tape is usually silver but it was originally dark olive green.

6. The astronauts on Apollo 13 used duct tape to repair carbon dioxide filters on a failed command module, saving three lives.

7. A 2002 study claimed duct tape could be used as an effective treatment for warts.

8. It takes more than 30 kilos to break a strip of duct tape.

9. You don't need scissors to cut duct tape - you can rip it with your bare hands. But the tape doubled over can pull a 900 kilo car out of a ditch.

10. You can’t use duct tape to seal ducts (it goes brittle).

5 things to buy secondhand

Is plastic wrap and a glossy cardboard box really worth the money you’re paying for them?

Here are five things you’re better off buying secondhand.

1. Books – used books have more character. My fav book is so well worn it’s falling apart – and I love it just like that.

2. CDs/DVDs – you play them; you don’t lick them. Used works.

3. Cars – even if you're desperate for that new car smell, you can actually buy 'new car smell' spray. A new car depreciates dramatically as soon as you hit the street. Buy secondhand.

4. Games machines – Xbox, Wii, Playstation... You’ll likely get secondhand gear at a fraction of the new price and some stores offer warranties.

5. Exercise equipment – the original owner probably used the tready twice and then gave up and employed it as a clothes horse. You get it for less than half price. Good deal.


Image: Francesco Marino

The Monstress mysteries #1

You decide

The case sounds like an urban legend about the Bermuda Triangle; however, it's a well documented disappearance that left authorities puzzled.


On 21 October 1978, a clear day with no wind and perfect visibility, 20-year-old Frederick Valentich disappeared while flying a Cessna 182L light aircraft over Bass Strait. He was an experienced pilot, with a class four instrument rating and over 150 hours of air time. He planned to land at King Island, pick up some crayfish and return to Moorabbin Airport in time to attend a family reunion.

A search and rescue mission was sent out only minutes after Frederick's plane disappeared from radar, however no trace was found.

Weird stuff

• Cessena aircrafts are meant to stay afloat for up to an hour after crashing in water, but the plane was not found.

• Frederick had four life vests on board but didn’t seem to try getting out of the plane.

• The radio beacon he had on board didn’t activate.

Other weird stuff

• To begin with although he did submit a flight plan, Frederick didn't file it with King Island; unusual, given he aspired to become a commercial pilot.

• Police found no one who had arranged to sell crayfish to Frederick (and that was his whole rason for flying that day).

• While the six-minute transcript is available, the original audio has never been made available to the media or the general public.

• Not long after his disappearance, Frederick's mother contacted the late French marine explorer, Jacques Cousteau, to enlist his help in the search for the aircraft's wreckage. Reports from the time claim Cousteau agreed to help but was denied permission by authorities.

The weirdest stuff

During the 235 kilometre flight, Frederick advised Melbourne air traffic control he was being accompanied by an aircraft about 300 metres above him. At first, he described it as long but travelling too fast to describe in more detail. Shortly after, he said the aircraft was ‘orbiting’ above him and that it had a shiny metal surface and a green light on it. He then reported that his engine had started running roughly and finally reported, before disappearing from radar, that: ‘That strange aircraft is hovering on top of me again. It is hovering and it's not an aircraft.’ The last thing traffic control heard were metallic scraping sounds.

That night, there were a number of UFO sightings reported by the Australian public. Among the accounts given were 20 in which people claimed to have seen ‘an erratically moving green light in the sky’ and, in one instance, a witness two kilometres west of Apollo Bay, said that they saw a green light trailing or shadowing Frederick's plane, and that his plane was in a steep dive at the time.

Ufologists say these accounts are especially significant as most were recorded several years before the 1982 release of transcripts in which Frederick described the object above him as having a green light.

Ken Williams, a spokesman for the Department of Transport, told the Associated Press that ‘it's funny all these people ringing up with UFO reports well after Valentich's disappearance.’


So, did Frederick suffer some sort of stroke and start seeing things, in which case why couldn’t his plane be found? Did he stage his own disappearance? Did he commit suicide? Was he killed by drug smugglers? Or was he abducted, plane and all, by little green men?

10 things I don’t get about sport

It seems that this week I have some serious issues about understanding. Here are 10 things I so don't get about sport.

1. Futsal – during the game I watched, the ball spent more time off the court than on it.

2. Posey guys at the gym who – even after they are told to go easy – load up with stupid big weights for their first ever bar class and then pike halfway through the first set.

3. Parents who explicitly coach their kids to hurt the other team.

4. Extreme ironing – why would you ruin a perfectly good adrenaline pumping experience by including housework?

5. Staying up until three a.m. to watch tennis or cricket.

6. Streakers.

7. Old fat guys who wear lyrca and muscle shirts.

8. Banning the Mexican wave.

9. Rugby – throwing the ball backwards to go forwards… Eh?

10. Anything with a horse.


Image: Lisa McDonald

10 more things I don't get

Clearly there is a whole universe of things out there that I am clueless about...

1. Plastic carpet protectors.

2. The maths in RG-146.

3. Electric woks – how does that concept work?

4. Spam – who buys all that viagra?

5. People who put barbecue sauce on everything.

6. Sudoku.

7. How phones, televisions or the Internet can possibly work.

8. How a person figures out that he can swallow a light bulb.

9. Twitter.

10. How to fold a fitted sheet.

Image: nuttakit

10 things I don’t get

The older I get, the more I don't understand...

1. Five cent pieces – the point of them would be…?

2. Vampires – how are fangs sexy?

3. Clip on flip up/down sunglass lenses – they might possibly be practical but their cool factor is minus 17.

4. Food surplus’ versus world hunger.

5. Spencer Tunick’s art.

6. Why you can't smile in a passport photo.

7. Why anyone would drink Ouzo.

8. Why a man needs a book to go to the toilet.

9. SpongeBob.

10. Colonic irrigation.

Image: luigi diamanti

60+ words my grandmother wouldn’t understand

From ADHD to Zumba

If my grandmother suddenly came back to life, she wouldn’t have a clue what I was talking about. If I said 'Apple', she would only think fruit. Here are just a few aspects of modern life/language that would totally bamboozle her:

1. Wii/PS3/Xbox

2. Hybrid vehicle

3. Internet/world wide web/online

4. McMansion

5. Facebook/LinkedIn/MySpace/Twitter

6. Alcopop/jelly shots

7. Snail mail/email

8. Upsize

9. mp3/jpeg/mpeg4/PhotoShop file/PDF/Word document

10. Labradoodle

11. LOL/WTF/L8R/:-)

12. Torrent

13. Viral marketing

14. Text message/MMS

15. iPod/laser pointer/data projector/smart phone/netbook/laptop

16. Nicotine patch

17. Fashionista

18. Webinar/webcam/webcast

19. Safe sex

20. Sexting

21. Vuvuzela

22. Human genome sequencing

23. eBay/Google/YouTube/Wotif

24. Roller blades/Razor scooter

25. Cybersickness

26. Brangelina

27. Gen Y

28. Landline

29. Tamagotchi

30. Bluetooth

31. Jimmy Choos

32. Self-harm

33. Wiki

34. Mac/PC

35. Reality TV

36. Cola War

37. Front loader

38. CD/DVD/thumb drive

39. Cougar

40. Defriend

41. Meth/ice/ecstasy/fantasy/roofies

42. Bucket list

43. Lean Cuisine/Fantastic Noodles/Red Bull/Mount Franklin

44. GPS

45. EFTPOS/ATM

46. Plasma TV

47. Chunnel

48. Metrosexual

49. EI

50. Cloud computing

51. BPay/Paypal/internet banking

52. Muggle

53. Spray tan

54. 9/11

55. Road rage

56. Noughties

57. GFC

58. Boho

59. Windfarm

60. Blog

I had to stop, I could have gone on forever. What are your thoughts?

Image: Andy Newson

6 things not to say

1. I’ll call you – don’t say it if you’re not going to do it. Where’s your integrity?

2. I want... You have to... or Give me... – I would like... Could you please... May I please have... Manners, people!

3. What are you doing tomorrow? – it depends. If you have a spare ticket to an Ani DiFranco concert – nothing. If you want me to help you move house – there's a neuropsychology class I can't miss.

4. I told you so – I know you did; I was there. How about some support and empathy instead of gloating, eh?

5. Heads up, pushing the envelope, hit the ground running, on the same page or any other business jargonesque phrase masquerading as English.

6. It's not my job – try: Unfortunately, I can't help you with that. I’ll be happy to find someone who can. Or better still, just do it.

Maths and The Monstress – star-crossed lovers

Maths and I were childhood sweethearts but things went sour when hormones started bursting out of my every orifice and I began to prefer men to multiples.

Everyone said Maths was good for me; that we were the perfect couple. But no one saw the barely reined antagonism and hidden aggression in this increasingly dysfunctional relationship. It was a textbook case of domestic violence. Trigonometry triggered bruises, algebra broke bones. Looking back, he almost killed me.

Hindsight: even in the beginning when the relationship seemed so idyllic, the cracks had already started to show. He introduced a few kinky multiplication problems. He said they were fun. Call me a prude, but I thought they were harmful, demeaning. ‘Everybody’s doing it,’ he told me. And it was true. But I was always going to be a plain vanilla kind of a girl. He didn't hide his displeasure.

Yes, there were good times – Maths and I cruised through quadratic equations and actually enjoyed geometry. But, as usual, the spiral of hostility cycled back around and by the time we reached probability – for the sake of my sanity and my battered self-esteem – I threatened to break it off for good. I think I meant it.

In a desperate effort to rebuild, we ditched calculus and returned to a simpler time of fractions, decimals and percentages. We signed up for counselling, and renewed and reaffirmed our commitment to one another. But we were tired – battle weary. Our hearts weren’t in it. The damage had been done and the rift was plainly irreparable. In the end, I could deny it no longer. I had failed.

So, in my seventeenth year, we parted company, quickly and bitterly, forever.

Or so I thought.

Apart from an unavoidable passing nod during household finance calculations and a cool hello during the occasional business budget, I have not laid eyes on Maths in a quarter of a century. Over the years, he's barely changed – bastard! – he’s still dangerously attractive and deceptively engaging. He has traded in his blackboard for an electronic whiteboard and his book of trigonometric tables for a scientific calculator. I have to admit that the new look suits him.

Really, that grudging concession costs me nothing. I can be gracious, momentarily stepping outside my bubble of contempt, because in the next instant, I can forget him again. Dismiss him instantly and effortlessly from my life like a stray hair from my brow or an unwanted contact from my iPhone.

Such was my illusion of safety.

Last week, to my horror, I found myself staring at him across the Boardroom table. RG146 – my employer inspired financial planning qualification – means we are forced to spend two weeks together, practically joined at the hip. It’s a situation worthy only of a really trashy romance; clichéd and contrived enough to make me puke.

In this love story, though, there will be no reconciliation (he likes his women young and impressionable and I like my enemies toasted for breakfast).There will be only icy politeness and brittle congeniality. I will dredge up sufficient civility to ensure that, this time, I get what I want. I can only hope he will see that it’s in his best interests to cooperate. I am not above playing dirty, if that’s what it takes. I still have the evidence and I lost my qualms years ago.

I’m not asking for an old-times'-sake fling, a charitable donation or a rose garden, for that matter. I just want what's rightfully mine  – what I deserve – what I always deserved. I want to pass. And I'll leave him no choice but to help me.

And so begins the temporary, murky and edgy alliance between Maths and The Monstress.

Can you find chocolate with your nose?

If you were blindfolded and wearing earplugs, could you follow a chocolate aroma with only your nose to guide you? Research shows, most of us could.

Some of my favourite smells belong to hot things – clothes being ironed, freshly baked bread, paper rolling off a printing press. There is one more favourite but it’s a bit more complex.

Everything from whales to bacteria can smell. Although the human sense of smell is shabby compared to that of many animals, it is still very keen. And women have better senses of smell than men, especially in the first half of their menstrual cycles. An area of your brain the size of a postage stamp can process 10,000 different smells.

You can detect odours even in microscopic quantities. For example, if you put a drop of androstenedione (a compound in human sweat) in an Olympic swimming pool, you can tell the difference between the pool with the drop and the pool without it.

Police in the Netherlands have capitalised on the power of human smell, recently handing out 30,000 scratch 'n' sniff cards, so citizens can tell if their neighbours are growing something they shouldn't be.

Newborn infants locate their mothers’ nipples by smell. And as children grow, they learn to identify many more scents. However, after puberty, your sense of smell deteriorates.

Surprisngly, the human nose is the main organ of taste as well as smell and your smell cells are replaced every 28 days. The tastebuds on our tongues can only distinguish four qualities – sweet, sour, bitter and salt. All other ‘tastes’ are detected by the olfactory receptors in our noses. For example. 'strawberriness' and 'mintiness' rely on the nose, not the tongue. I’m guessing this is why some people with food allergies have reactions even if they only smell the foods they’re allergic to.

Schizophrenics, depressives, migraine sufferers and very-low-weight anorexics often experience deficient or dysfunctional senses of smell. Zinc supplements and acupuncture can sometimes help. Smoking is widely believed to reduce your sense of smell but this is not always the case. On the flipside, blind people do not necessarily have a keener sense of smell than sighted people.

To complicate things further, a smell is not always just a smell. Many stinky substances activate not only the olfactory system but also the ‘somatosensory’ system – the nerve endings in our noses which are sensitive to things like temperature and pain . This is why ‘anosmics’ – people who have completely lost their sense of smell – can still detect scents like menthol.

Your sense of smell is strongly connected to your memory. For instance, the smell of popcorn could remind you of your first kiss at the movies.

Which reminds me of my other favourite smell. Interestingly, I only catch it once in a blue moon. When I attended pre-school, lunch was a picnic made up of everyone’s food shared between all the students. The scent of it was some mixture of peanut butter, celery, bread and fruit. Occasionally, I’ll be walking down a city street and that smell will waft by. I’ll try to pause and catch it but it never lingers. But every time, I am drawn back to being three and learning ‘la vache’ and ‘l'oiseau’, making God’s eyes while someone read to us and painting with powder paint (which has a memorable smell of its own).

So, there you have it. Your nose sits in the middle of your face, quietly going about its business all day, every day. Now, you know what it does.

Your smellprint
Like your fingerprint, how you smell is unique. No two people have the exact same pong. Your smellprint is determined by  factors including genes, the environment, diet, medicines, your emotional state, your skin type and even the weather.

Image: Tina Phillips

6 financial lessons from the cartoons

Are you still reeling from the GFC? You could be forgiven for feeling a bit woozy after a hammering from the not-quite-recession and the head-spiining rebound to fiscal health (last week, the Aussie dollar exceeded parity with the US dollar).

These lessons from our favourite cartoon characters will help you take advantage of the strong Aussie dollar and grow your money.

1. Wile E. Coyote – mail order is good. eBay junkies rejoice. Imports are cheaper than ever. (But probably avoid ACME products – the devices invariably fail improbably and spectacularly causing you to be burnt to a crisp or squashed flat at the bottom of a canyon).

2. Bugs Bunny – ‘What's up, doc?’ Now’s the perfect time to give your finances a health check. Do you have ‘bad’ debt like credit cards you need to pay off? Are your investment choices right for your life stage? Do you have insurance to protect your financial assets? Give your savings a shot in the arm and trade your carrots for carats.

3. Dora the Explorer – Dora embarks on a trip in every episode. Take a leaf out of her book and travel, travel, travel – especially to the US or even Asia where the greenback is used as currency. In these places, you’ll get heaps more bang for your buck, right now.

While the Aussie dollar has firmed against the euro and the British pound, the rise is not as sharp, but your credit card might have a smaller meltdown over the price of a plate of paella in Spain.

And with about 70% of all overseas travel from Australia being to our neighbours, the good news is that the AUD has strengthened against the New Zealand dollar too.

4. Felix the Cat – get a bag of tricks together. Buy a reputable 'how to' book like Nice girls don't get rich, skim the finance pages or see a financial planner to collect strategies (like salary sacrificing or transition to retirement), entitlements you may be allowed and other easy-to-implement tricks of the financial trade.

5. The Grinch – In the end, Christmas rocks. Coming up to Christmas you may find goods like plasma TVs, computer gear and imported cars being sold cheaply. On the other hand, while many stores source their product overseas, many other companies such as JB HI-FI and David Jones deal with local companies who are subsidiaries of the manufacturers, so their prices are likely to be much more stable.

Nevertheless, now is a great time to bargain, as many retailers are enjoying bigger margins, so they have more room to manoeuvre on price.

6. Angelica Pickles – plot, plan and manipulate (your money, that is). Show your finances who's the boss and strategise to maximise.

Inventions via grossness

It seems grossness is an excellent attribute to foster if you want to become a famous inventor. Here are four breakthroughs that happened largely because the people responsible were slobs.

Penicillin
In 1928, Scottish scientist and Nobel laureate, Alexander Fleming, returned from holidays and noticed that mould was growing in one of his dirty petri dishes. He realised that the area with the mould had no bacteria. This led him to discover that penicillin could be used to fight bacterial infections.

Note to self: don’t bother cleaning the fridge – mould is your friend.

Saccharin
Saccharin, the oldest artificial sweetener, was accidentally discovered in 1879 when researcher, Constantine Fahlberg  forgot to wash his hands before lunch. He had spilled a chemical on his hands and it caused the bread he ate to taste unusually sweet.

Another sweetener, cyclamate, was discovered by graduate student, Michael Sveda, when he smoked a cigarette accidentally contaminated with a compound he had recently synthesized.

Note to self: don’t wash your hands – and smoke your guts out.

Icy poles
Frank Epperson was just 11 in 1905 when he accidentally created the icy pole (or ‘popsicle’ as he called it). He left a mixture of powered soda and water out on his porch, leaving his stirring stick in the mixture, too. The next morning, after a record cold front. Epperson woke up to his mixture frozen on a stick.

Note to self: don’t clean up after yourself.

Corn flakes
In 1894, Seventh Day Adventists, Dr John Harvey Kellogg and his brother Will accidentally left some boiled wheat out and it went stale. Rather than throwing it away, the brothers sent it through rollers, hoping to make long sheets of dough, but they got flakes instead. They toasted the flakes and fed them to the patients at their sanitarium (as you do). When they replicated the process with corn, corn flakes were born. So, there you go, next time you leave food out and it goes stale, consider the possibility of making a fortune before you chuck it out. Congealed egg balls, anyone? Dried cheese strips? Curdled milk globs?

Note to self: don’t put food away.

7 texts not to send – ever

1. The breakup text
If you’re going to kill the relationship, do it in person. Text to set up a time and place to talk, but do the guillotine routine schnoz to schnoz.

2. The pissed off text
If you regret sending it later, it’s hard to reframe 'you lying, cheating seagull turd' when you've written it down. Save the sentiment for later when you can hash it out then kiss and make up.

3. The health issue text
Don’t text your HIV status or your schizophrenia diagnosis. Get the support you need with a face-time talk.

4. Another text
If you’re texting him 24/7 and getting angry because he’s not replying at the speed of light, you have issues. Get help – or a career as a telemarketer.

5. The coming out text
A coming out text can be seen as the close of the conversation as opposed to the start of an ongoing dialogue. How will you feel if they don't respond? If you're ready to come out, tell them face to face.

6. The text while driving
Duh – crashing and dying (or killing someone else) to win half a pencil in some lame radio competition? Not cool. Wait until you pull over.

7. The drunk text
Phones should come with breathalyzers. I don't care how well you hold your booze, after three drinks, forget it or regret it.

Image: br3akthru

10 orgasm facts

1. Marilyn Monroe claimed she never achieved orgasm with any of her famous lovers (including John F. Kennedy, Frank Sinatra and Joe DiMaggio).

2. Have a headache? Maybe you should have sex, after all. Orgasms can relieve all kinds of pain—including pain from arthritis, pain after surgery and even pain during childbirth.

3. A pig’s orgasm can last 30 minutes.

4. According to the Kinsey Institute, the average speed of ejaculate during a male orgasm is 45 km/h (in contrast, sperm, travel less than 4 centimetres in15 minutes of intense swimming).

5. Ladies, there are plenty of things to gripe about when it comes to getting older, but as you age you get more orgasms and they are bigger and better.

6. Studies show that males orgasm 59% of the time while their partner is screaming in ecstasy, and only 2% of the time while he or she’s lying quietly, counting the holes in the acoustic board in the ceiling.

7. According to a university of Kansas study, 25% of guys say they have faked.

8. The most recorded orgasms in an hour: 134 for a woman and 16 for a man.

9. In When Harry Met Sally, the woman who says ‘I'll have what she's having’ after Sally's faked orgasm is director Rob Reiner's mother.

10. You can have an orgasm when you are dead. By stimulating the sacral nerve root (the headquarters for orgasms, along the spinal nerve) with an electrode, scientists can trigger an orgasm, even in the legally dead.

Image: Jenny Solomon

Swearing 101

There’s no such thing as Swearing 101 but by the time we’re about five, we all know which words, if used in front of Grandma, will result in a paddle with a wooden spoon.

Did you know your brain processes swearing differently to the way it handles other words?

In early childhood, you can show strong emotion by crying. As children (especially boys) grow up, we discourage them from crying and swearing steps in as acceptable stress relief. In one study, volunteers who cursed could tolerate pain for nearly 50% longer than volunteers who didn’t.

In most people, the left hemisphere of the brain is in charge of language. The right hemisphere creates the emotional content of language.

Language processing is a ‘higher’ brain function and takes place in the cerebral cortex (this is the thin layer of grey matter about the size of a formal dinner napkin that covers the surface of each cerebral hemisphere).

Emotion and instinct are ‘lower’ brain functions and take place deep inside the brain.

When you’re about to speak, the brain generally comes up with a bunch of phonemes (units of sound) and has to put them together to make a word. This would be like having several different parts to a Happy Meal toy and having to put them together before producing a plastic car.

But the brain processes swearing in the lower regions, along with emotion and instinct. Instead of processing a swearword as a series of sound units that must be combined to form a word, the brain stores swear words as whole units (a squeaky rubber Bart Simpson head with no assembly required). So, the brain doesn't need the left hemisphere's help to process expletives.

Swearing specifically involves:
• the limbic system, which also houses memory, emotion and basic behavior – this is the system primates use to vocalise
• the basal ganglia, which play a large role in impulse control and motor functions.

So, swearing is a motor activity with an emotional component.

And magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies show that the higher and lower parts of the brain can actually struggle with each other when a person swears.

Shit, if you swear, you’re a chimp.

Five facts about swearing

1. Most swear words are either deistic (related to religion) or visceral (related to the human body and its functions) – there are also racial slurs but I think these are slightly different.

2. Swearing originates from early forms of word magic – people believed that spoken words could curse or bless people or otherwise affect the world – Voldemort!

3. Men swear more than women (and they often do it to seem more blokey).

4. In studies where people must identify the colour a word is written in (instead of the word itself), swear words distract the participants from colour recognition.

5. You can remember swearwords about four times better than other words.


Image: Michael Elliott

Lazarus clothing

It's the old story. Last night, you didn’t iron anything to wear to work today – you watched four episodes of your latest vampire/forensic/reality show instead. Half asleep, you throw together an outfit. The look basically hangs together but you can’t find a jacket that works. You reach down the back of the wardrobe and – voila! – the perfect thing.

Okay, it’s the perfect thing except that it hasn’t seen the light of day for three years and it was old then; you’ll need to hang it in the steamy bathroom while you shower to lose the wrinkles and waft it through a cloud of deo to get rid of the musty smell; and how long has that button been missing?; also, you have never liked it that much – it doesn’t quite fit right, the sleeves are a fraction short and the colour is a couple of shades darker than you would prefer. But it will do. Won’t it?

Come off it, Not-very-deep in your heart, you know that jacket is out of style – hell, was it ever in style? Nobody is going to tell you that you look great today and you’re going to feel vaguely yuck until you peel the wretched thing off tonight (and throw it in the bin, if you have any sense.)

Lazarus clothes are those items that we resurrect again and again. Somehow they fly under the radar when we’re doing wardrobe purges. And somehow, they always end up back in the wardrobe ‘just in case’.

But you know what? Nine times out of ten, they should be thrown out. My theory is, if you don’t have it, you can’t wear it. And that’s probably a good thing. You’ll be forced to do without or buy something more suitable to replace it.

So, when should you keep clothes?

For a start, you’re unlikely to keep anything forever (except maybe your wedding dress, if you’re the sentimental type and you don’t get divorced) and, even then, you’d be better off selling it and buying yourself a nice piece of jewellery.

You can keep classic pieces – good quality wardrobe basics in styles and shades that flatter you (Levis, a Burberry trenchcoat, a Chanel LBD) but throw them out when they are showing signs of wear. Also, replace them when the classic style is significantly updated (yes, even classics change over time).

You can keep unique/rare pieces if they’re in good nick – a gorgeous retro velvet smoking jacket in exactly your colour, a one-off skirt tailor-made for you, vintage shoes that precisely match your favourite evening bag.

You can also keep accessories you love.

You can even keep ‘fat clothes’ or ‘skinny clothes’ that you can’t wear right now if they fit in to these categories, but box them up and store them until you can wear them again so they don't clutter up your wardrobe.

And, allow yourself to have one box of ‘maybes’ at any given time (I'm talking a copy paper box, not a shipping container). Pack them up, put them in the garage, and if you don’t need them in the next 12 months, turf the box – without opening it.

Luckily, the pink jacket I’m wearing this morning is a rare retro piece and not a fashion disaster. I know. The boss already told me I’m looking great today. And I'm pretty sure she wasn't being sarasctic.

The difference between 14 and 40

  

A lot of things change between 14 and 40: jeans are no longer part of a dressy outfit – even with heels; socks and soap from your auntie for your birthday are 'handy' not 'lame'; and most of the time you spend on a computer is for actual work, not Face Waste .

The teen and I wrote a couple of lists separately and were delighted to find at least some common ground. Bring on the Baygon.

Fourteen:

5 things I can’t live without

1. phone (for texting)
2. iPod (music wherever you want)
3. hair straightener
4. Chocolate Teddy Bear biscuits
5. mirror

5 things I’d happily never set eyes on again:

1. broccoli, Brussels sprouts and cauliflower
2. a maths textbook (900 pages of misery)
3. dust pan and broom (sweeping is the worst chore)
4. Miss Boyd (grumpy teacher)
5. spiders

Forty:

5 things I can’t live without

1. iPhone (for everything)
2. car
3. L’Oreal (not because I'm worth it, more because I'm past it)
4. credit card
5. gym

5 things I’d happily never set eyes on again:

1. alarms and reminders
2. pantyhose
3. my reflection first thing in the morning in the magnifying mirror (maybe I shouldn't have had that laser surgery - soft focus was so much kinder)
4. credit card statement (did I really need those shoes?)
5. spiders

The ups and downs of pantyhose

Do you love sexy, silky pantyhose?

I don’t.

Ernest G. Rice (inventor and sadist) ought to be hanged by the neck with nylon for having come up with this hideous garment. But, hey, there wouldn’t be much point, seeing as he’s already carked it.

Apparently ‘spandex and elastane are much more comfortable than the original nylon’. This was clearly written by a man because, in a woman’s world, ‘pantyhose’ and ‘comfortable’ never belong in the same sentence.

How can you be comfortable when a band is digging in to your skin in the place where the undergarment sticks out above the top of your skirt? Hmm, yummy: thick synthetic fabric and red welty skin dents above your waistline, Sunshine.

Sheesh, at least stockings (with a garter belt and a bit of lace) have some sex appeal to make up for your legs feeling like they’re impersonating a pair of about-to-explode sausages. But stockings do tend to cost about three times as much as pantyhose, you can’t get them at the supermarket and their destructibility increases with every dollar you spend on them.

Tights and leggings are alternatives, of course, as are bare legs. Though, from the 1960s, the miniskirt supposedly made pantyhose ‘essential’. Clearly whoever alleges this has never walked through the Elizabeth Street mall on a spring day – either that, or all the visitors to said mall missed the memo.

Some pantyhose have an inbuilt instant liposuction effect in the form of panels that squish bulges into weird and unnatural flatness – which is fine, as long as you don’t take your clothes off in front of anyone.

Ditto if you’re wearing support pantyhose (they’re meant to improve circulation and reduce leg pain, swelling and discomfort). Doctors are now advising some men to wear these. (Great, we'll have a whole swathe of medically induce Brian Adams impersonators.)

Even regular pantyhose make foreplay more like an army camp obstacle course and impede getting to the main event.

Trying to put pantyhose on – especially if you’re getting dressed in a hurry or in the dark – is like wrestling a pair of aggressive giant spaghetti noodles.

Pantyhose do, I grant you, even out your skin tone and offer some concealment for leg blemishes (like that bruise where you walked in to the table after the fourth champagne, winter stubble, razor burn, freckles, unfortunate ankle tattoos or varicose veins). And they are a great emergency stand in for a spray tan if your legs are white enough to illuminate the MCG.

Pantyhose also provide a slight warmth factor in cool weather. But ‘this warmth might mean people who wear them every day might risk developing; yeast infections, urinary and bacteria problems’. (Um, okay, I read this somewhere but I speak from experience when I say this is crap.)

Surfing? Pantihose will protect you from jellyfish stings.

Robbing a servo? Maybe go with semi-opaque tights.

Brightly coloured pantyhose or any pantyhose of more than 15 denier are generally fashion disasters and should be avoided unless you’re over 80 (especially if you're a man). It's black or skin tone. That's it.

Patterned pantyhose can work but only under very limited circumstances.

And pantyhose of any kind look tacky with open toed shoes. They just do. I don’t know why people debate about this.

Finally, if you’re going to a job interview, who cares what you think about pantyhose? It’s about what your prospective employer thinks. Girls, be on the safe side and wear the hose. Boys, maybe don’t.

15 signs you have no friends

1. When Kermit says, ‘Hi ho, everybody,’ you say ‘Hi ho, Kermit’.

2. You wait anxiously by the phone around dinner time, hoping for calls from telemarketers  –  you know them by name.

3. You are a world champion Solitaire player.

4. All the contacts in your phone start with 1300, 1800 or – worse – 1900.

5. You pretend to be lost just to talk to someone.

6. You check out the mannequins in the Country Road window as potential buddies.

7. You sign up for longitudinal studies because you can count on the researchers calling you back every year.

8. You go to your local pizzeria, DVD store or bottleshop and say ‘It’s my turn to choose, you chose last time’, out loud to yourself.

9. You think James Taylor's You’ve Got a Friend is aspirational.

10. You think the Do not call register's for wimps.

11. Someone tries to rob you at knife point but gives up when you finish talking about your religious beliefs and start on your career plans.

12. You drive around looking for speed cameras and roadworks just so you can call the radio station and talk to someone about the traffic.

13. Your favourite drink is Solo.

14.  You look for crowded restaurants so you can share a table with someone.

15. You look forward to death threats from your stalker.


If any of these signs appear in your life, just change your name to Nigel and be done with it.

Bring on the bread armour

When I go to the supermarket, the bread section is first, so I carefully place my loaves in the separate compartment at the end of the trolley. I baby them along as though they are crystal champagne flutes or fluffy newborn chicks, not even placing light items like paper towels or bags of lettuce on them.

When I get to the checkout, I gently add the bread to the conveyer belt last and, after the purchase, I position the bread back in the separate compartment on the way to the car.

I lay the bag with the bread in the backseat, away from the boot full of other groceries.

And when I get home, I carry the bread tenderly to the kitchen where it can be safely put away.

I hate squashed bread.

This is not because I am neurotic or anal. This is because once bread is mangled, there is no way to re-fluff it. Bread is not Nerf. It is warped for life.

I freeze my bread.

Have you ever tried to pry a slice of bread from a misshapen frozen loaf? Sometimes it works. Most times it doesn’t – even if you lever the slice loose with a knife. Frozen slices of deformed bread break. Then the broken edges burn in the toaster and set off the smoke alarm (or burn your house down if the battery is flat and you’re hanging out the washing).

So, that’s why when, after 15 aisles of care and protection, the thoughtless checkout bloke mindlessly squeezes the loaf in an almighty paw or crams it in to a bag beside a couple of jumbo tins of dog food and a bottle of soda, I want to smack him.

That’s why, when the backseat completes an inexplicable and inconvenient dive (probably scoring about  9.3 but smashing the bread), I want to scream.

And why, when a kitchen helper clearly subscribes to the 'speed and pressure' theory of fitting the bread into the overstuffed freezer, I feel like kicking someone’s head in.

I do not want to make breadcrumbs with it, bake a bread and butter pudding with it or feed the ducks with it. I want to freeze it. I want to toast it without needing a fire extinguisher.

A bent sense of humour is admirable. A bent loaf of bread is unacceptable.

I wish bakers would package bread in something robust to alleviate my angst.

Image: Paul