My partner is a kleptomaniacal cross dresser

My partner is a kleptomaniacal cross dresser.

That is, he steals my black socks and wears them. It doesn’t seem to matter if they have pink stripes, yellow polka dots or purple daisies. He wears them anyway.

You would think that after spending all day every day in a room with thirty hormonal, judgmental 12-year-olds, he would succumb to pre-teen pressure and desist. But any tween ribbing (good natured or otherwise) seems to slide right off him like eggs off Teflon (or socks off sweaty feet).

You would also imagine that working in an industry where the ratio of men to women is something like 1:30, one of his female colleagues would have gently worded him up on his fashion faux pas. But if they have, it’s had about as much impact as a nerf ball on a Sherman tank.

When we first cohabited, he announced that any black socks in the house were his. I thought he was kidding. Then I found everything from my black trouser socks to my lacy love heart socks in his drawer and realised he was serious.

I think he was amused by his black sock rule. I think he thought I ought to be amused, too. After a month of having to hunt for any pair of my black socks, I no longer found his little sock foible endearing. After a year of  finally tracking down my expensive silk socks, only to find them pilled and stretched beyond recognition, I could no longer see the funny side. After a decade of living with a partner whose sock drawer closely resembled a black sock devouring vortex, I was more than a bit over the sock saga.

I tried pointing out the vast differences between black Explorers and frilly black knee-highs (you Tarzan, me Jane) to no avail. He still wore my black socks. I tried explaining the question in to which he placed his masculinity every time he donned floral footwear. He still wore my black socks. I tried crying, shouting, joking, bribery and the silent treatment. He still wore my black socks.

I could have worn his socks, but floppy, holey Explorers were just not my scene. I could have hidden my socks but he’d only have hijacked them during the laundry process. I could have just capitulated and gone with blue or green or magenta but there really are some occasions where a girl needs to wear black socks. Besides, by the time we had hit the second or third year of our relationship, he had manoeuvred well in to the navy, forest and scarlet realms with the excuse that they all look black in his drawer in the dark. My two excellent points (one: turn the light on, two: why are my socks in your drawer in the first place?) seemed to bounce right off his ear drums like a kid on a castle.

I continued to pursue a solution in a non-screaming-and-tearing-my-hair-out kind of way.

And he relentlessly, systematically and heartlessly continued to kidnap my socks.

Finally, after more than a decade, three pairs of miracles materialised. I found them in Target: black socks with iridescent rainbow stripes/stars/dots on the bottoms. For all intents and purposes, black, but totally and unmistakeably feminine and distinctly mine, even in the dark...or so I thought.

He wore them today – the ones with the stripes.

But that’s okay. It won’t happen again.

On my way home from work tonight, I am going to K&D to buy a chainsaw to cut his feet off. Then he won’t need socks anymore.

Mwah-ha-ha-ha!

The Monstress foody myth busters #4

I received an email the other day, claiming that microwaving food in plastic wrap or plastic containers releases dioxins into the food and that these dioxins cause cancer:

Is this true?

In a word: nope.

Firstly, most plastics used in food wraps and packaging containers do not contain the chemical constituents that can form dioxins. Producing dioxins with these plastics would be like trying to make a ham and cheese sandwich without the ham...or the cheese...or the bread.

Secondly, dioxins are a family of compounds that are produced by combustion at high temperatures – I’m talking above 700 degrees Fahrenheit. In other words, even if all of the dioxin ingredients were present, you would need to have a very hot fire in your microwave oven, in which case, not only would your food be cremated but your  microwave would be melted and you would probably have to call the fire brigade to put out the flaming inferno that was once your kitchen.

If you’re really intent on reducing potentially harmful carcinogens in your food during cooking, give your frying pan a rest instead.

Frying is the only form of cooking that produces trace amounts of dioxins in food. Oils and fats used in frying contain substances that begin breaking down into known carcinogens at high temperatures.

But for Thai fried rice, I'll take my chances.

11 new collective nouns

A collective noun is a word used to define a group of objects. For example, in the phrase ‘a pride of lions’, pride is the collective noun.

Here are some that I reckon should be added to the official list:

1. An ambush of salespeople.
2. A gush of sycophants.
3. A hatchet of restructures.
4. A huff of exes.
5. A google of geeks.
6. A lechery of priests.
7. An absence of waiters.
8. A flounce of teenagers.
9. A nag of inlaws.
10. An ulcer of deadlines.
11. An excess of bloggers.

Do you have any to add?

Top 10 things not to eat on your first date

On her first dinner date with my father, my mother ordered spaghetti bolognaise…and immediately wished she hadn’t. My dad's too polite to say more and they ended up getting married, so it can’t have been that bad. But I do have a vision of slurpy sauce-coated pasta slopping down her chin.

A first date is stressful enough without worrying about tricky utensils, flying food, smears on your face, gunk in your teeth or bad breath. Think carefully about the implications of your order before you make your selection. Aside from stringy pasta, here are 10 menu items that should send you running.

1. Pesto anyone? Not unless you want your smile to look like a shrubbery. Avoid any clingy, leafy greens including spinach, seaweed and coriander.

2. Poppy, strawberry and sesame seeds are harder to dislodge than the aforementioned greenery. This goes double if you have braces.

3. Corn on the cob is a horror show waiting to happen. Not only will the kernels get stuck in your teeth, there’s no neat way to eat them and chances are you’ll end up with butter dribbling down your chin.

4. Garlic and onions - either of these pongy culprits could ruin any chance of a goodnight kiss.

5. Tacos ¬ putting your tacos together makes it hard to focus on your date. Tacos also have a massive potential slop-on-shirt factor.

6. Asian food - unless you’re confident with chopsticks. Eating Chinese with a fork looks uncouth and pathetic.

7. Spicy foods - gasping for breath, turning an interesting shade of beetroot, sweating and gulping your drink is not sexy.

8. A Big Mac.If you are on a first date at McDonald’s and you are old enough to watch an M-rated movie, this is utterly lame. If fast food was your date’s idea, ditch him. Now. Forever. If it was your idea, just go and shoot yourself.

9. Lobster - the other end of the spectrum but also fraught. Yes, it will look like money is no object but it stinks and it is harder to eat nicely than corn on the cob. You need a bucket of breath mints and a bib to even attempt lobster.

10. Beans - beanz meanz fartz. You don’t want to spend the post-dinner movie blasting the big brown horn.

Image: Paul

Gold would be worthless...

Apart from being an episode of Star Trek: Voyager, imperfection is said to be a human affliction… But maybe we could see it as a human comfort – or even a cause for celebration, instead.

Look, don’t get me wrong, a perfect life would have its advantages: cars would never break down, your skin would never break out and your favourite shoes would never wear out. You would always have change for the parking meter, you would never forget your wedding anniversary and when you asked for 200 grams of Primo mild salami, the deli girl would get it right the first time, every time.

But let’s face it, human perfection, apart from being completely unattainable would be dead boring. If my life was perfect, there’d be no point getting out of bed.

Perfection has no character. It is the human equivalent of dark denim that stays dark forever. No designed-to-fade, no pre-fab holes, not even any worn out hems from where they dragged under your sneakers. There is no scope for perfection to wear in to your unique shape. Perfection is bland one-size-fits-all, off-the-rack uniformity.

Perfection has no entertainment value. Imagine having a Monday morning tea room chat that went like this: ‘The curry night was flawless, my outfit was immaculate, I did every speck of housework faultlessly and enjoyed every moment of it, and I had exactly the right amount of sleep.’ Your colleagues would either puke or fall asleep. Describing flopped kofka, stapled hemlines, hiding the mess in the geek cave and sleep deprivation because of the neighbours’ three a.m. domestic are much more engaging. It’s our screw ups that make us endearing – and real.

Perfection is no fun. Without imperfection, there’d be no rom coms or sitcoms, no email funnies and no stirring up your mates. Many of these are based on error and misjudgment. The funniest ones are the ones we identify with. We can really imagine ourselves unknowingly wiping our girly bits with a glittery washcloth on the way to the gynaecologist. It’s the ‘OMG, that could have been me’ factor that really makes these stories rock.

Perfection is monotonous. What would you strive for in life if you were perfect? There’d be no room for phrases like ‘personal best’, ‘medal for bravery’ or even 'Darwin awards'. There’d be no more trying to hone your muscles – you’d already be built. There’d be no more experimenting with hair colours – your hair would be exactly the right shade already. There’d be no more messing with recipes – your soufflés would work first time. Everyone would have a McMansion, eight percent body fat, a Lamborghini and a limitless supply of money. And it would all be meaningless – common as mud. In short, there’d be no bigger/better/faster/more anything.

Perfection is drab. Imagine living without amazement. You’d see a brilliant Olympic athletic performance, read a breathtaking poem or enjoy a mind blowing orgasm and go ‘oh, yeah’. Perfection would make miracles ho-hum.

Perfection is plastic. Freudian slips are natural. Text templates are not. Wormy apples are natural. Multivitamins are not. Body hair is natural. Silicon implants are not. Hey, I like an eyebrow wax as much as the next girl but sometimes we become so focused on some elusive idea of perfection that we forget we’re humans in the real world, not Barbies in pink townhouses. It’s bumps and freckles and receding hairlines that make us unique and special. Every scar on your body has a story attached to it. And every story is a testament to your fallibility.

Barbara Bloom says: ‘When the Japanese mend broken objects, they aggrandize the damage by filling the cracks with gold. They believe that when something's suffered damage and has a history it becomes more beautiful.’

Take a leaf out of her book. Don’t think of your imperfection as being faulty, broken or incomplete full stop. Think of your imperfection as being faulty, broken or incomplete – and lovin’ it because imperfect is exactly as you should be.

Appreciate the quirky, the wonky, and the cockeyed. Love that teddy with all its fur sucked off. Embrace that cardigan with the missing button, delight in that odd shaped bowl you made in Prep and, most of all, love your hairy toes.

Malillumination

Convert and be saved

Unless you’ve been on Mars for the past year or two, you will have noticed that the Australian Government is phasing out ('evil') incandescent light bulbs and encouraging people to use ('friendly') compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) - the curly Cindy Brady-piggy tail fluorescent bulbs - instead.

This will supposedly save around 30 terawatt hours of electricity and 800,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions between 2008 and 2020. It is expected to save Australia around $380 million per year by 2020 and mean net savings of more than $50 per year for each household that changes all of its incandescent light bulbs to CFLs (as if we have a choice).

The bulbs are supposed to put out about three times as much light per watt used as Edison's bulb (we’ll look at that in a mo) and last about five times as long. Theoretically, you save about thirty bucks over the life of the bulb. But it’s hand-to-mouth for some and when they’re in the supermarket trying to cut this week’s grocery bill, paying more than ten bucks (instead of a dollar) for a light bulb can be hard to swallow (unless they happen to be The Amazing Jonathon).

Besides, while Edison's old-fashioned incandescent may be a villain, has anyone looked closely at its replacement?

Are CFLs really that good?

For a start, it seems CFL low-energy light bulbs are up to twenty times more expensive to produce than the standard tungsten-filament bulbs and the manufacture process for CFLs reportedly uses up to ten times the energy used in the manufacture of traditional bulbs.

Critics complain that CFL bulbs cause migraines and epilepsy episodes because they don’t give off a steady stream of light, instead, flickering fifty times a second.

Studies of school children show that cool white fluorescent lighting negatively affects children's behaviour, learning, health, hardiness and longevity.

Critics also point out that CFLs do not work well in colder temperatures nor do they work with dimmer switches.

I don’t know about you, but fluoro light highlights every wrinkle and blotch on my skin and makes me look vaguely anaemic. Stores can measure a similar effect on their stock - coloured merchandise does not sell as well under the cool white of CFLs because it simply doesn’t look as good.

And has anyone else noticed that CFLs are a nightmare to try and read by? A UNSW study found most new CFLs fail to live up to manufacturers' claims that they emit as much light as an equivalent incandescent lamp.

The big issue

But here’s the big one: disposal.

Exposure to mercury vapor is dangerous if the bulbs are broken. Mercury can affect the nervous system, damage the kidneys and liver and, in sufficient quantities, can kill.

In terms of clean up if a bulb is broken, American authorities tell people to keep pregnant women, children and pets away from the site then open windows and doors to ventilate the area for at least 15 minutes. They must then cover their hands and use stiff paper to scoop up the remains and place them into a disposable container such as a plastic food container. Using sticky tape, they should pick up the remaining residue then place the rigid container and tape into a plastic bag that can be tied off at the top. Then they are advised to place it in an outdoor rubbish bin and keep children or pets away from the site for several days.

Massachusetts even advises cutting out the section of carpet where the breakage occurred.

(Nothing to worry about really – we’ll save a few bob and a bit of electricity.)

The American Environment protection authority (EPA) acknowledges that if broken CFLs are thrown into the household rubbish, some mercury will be released into the environment. It doesn’t take a genius to work out that the CFLs will likely leech deadly compounds into the air or water. (How many of these things are Australians buying?)

Hmmm.

In Australia there is not even any legislation covering the disposal of CFLs. The Australian EPA passes the buck to the states. Tasmania’s EPA website throws up no results on a search for ‘CFLs’. Clearly, mercury poisoning is a high priority - not.

The entire country (and half the world) is hell bent on enshrining the CFL and eliminating the only real alternative.

If CFLs turn out be a complete screw up, what’ll we do? Return to candle power?

Oh, silly me. Plan B won't matter. We'll all be dead from mercury poisoning.

Image: jscreationzs

Resumé bloopers

We’ve all heard some the weird things people write on their resumés. Here are 10 of my favourites.

1. My ruthlessness terrorised the competition and can sometimes offend.

2. Married, eight children. Prefer frequent travel.

3. Graduated in the top 66% of my class.

4. I am a rabid typist.

5. I am a wedge with a sponge taped to it. My purpose is to wedge myself into someone’s door to absorb as much as possible.

6. I’m intrested [sic] to here [sic] more about that. I’m working today in a furniture factory as a drawer.

7. My fortune cookie said, ‘Your next interview will result in a job’. And I like your company in particular.

8. I demand a salary commiserate with my extensive experience.

9. I saw your ad on the information highway and I came to a screeching halt.

10. I eat computers for lunch.

It's a wonder unemployment isn't higher.

(See also 13 real resume comments.)

Image: graur razvan ionut

Gorillas in the midst

Sometimes, being absent-minded is a good thing, for example, if you are a goldfish swimming round and round the same bowl for years, forgetfulness probably staves off boredom-induced insanity – ‘Oh, what a fabulous bubbling clam, I’ve never seen one like that before’... ‘Oh, what a fabulous bubbling clam, I’ve never seen one like that before’... This probably works for car park attendants, foyer security guards and lift men, too. (Do they even have lift men, anymore?)

However, forgetting to invite a table of ten guests to a black tie gala ball is not a good thing. I speak from experience. Oops.

How does this sort of memory lapse happen, this side of dementia?

My theory is that you can’t think about everything at once. Your mind has only so many tracks. And your thinking becomes more like a monorail if the main thing you are thinking about is:
• really urgent (gotta get to the loo before I vomit)
• really important (got to unplug the hair straightener or I’ll burn the house down)
• really engaging (banging your secret lover).

Take Beethoven, for example. While performing a new piano concerto, he started conducting from his seat at the keyboard (I’m assured this was a pretty normal thing to do at the time). At the first big dramatic note, however, he raised his arms with such passion that he knocked over the piano lights. He probably said, ‘Oh, bother', or words to that effect.

He started over with choir boys holding up the piano lights – but again dramatically raised his arms, this time smacking one of the boys (who dropped his light). The other kid ducked.

Understandably, the audience fell about in fits of laughter and the whole thing was a total shemozzle.

My point, of course, is that Beethoven was so involved in playing his music that he totally forgot about the lights (and the boys holding them). Twice.

Priority can work the other way, too. For example, if your brain was a lifeboat and could only be filled with a certain number of tasks, it would likely be the non-urgent, non-important and deadly boring ones that would be left behind to sink with the ship.

Let me tell you, sitting on hold for half an hour waiting for a CEO or CFO to decline my kind offer to attend a gala ball because they’d rather be playing Monopoly with their kids/eating dinner with the in laws/banging their secret lovers does not make my pulse race or my breath catch.

See, you focus on the critical stuff and scrap the rest.

There's a study where participants watch a video of people passing a basketball to each other. They are told to count the number of passes. After the video, they are asked if they noticed anything unusual. Generally, more than half say no.

The experimenter runs the video clip again – this time with no instructions. After about 30 seconds of people passing the basketball, a person dressed in a gorilla suit walks right through the centre of the scene, stops, turns, looks at the camera, then turns again and walks out of the shot. The gorilla is on screen for a full five seconds.

During that first viewing, the gorilla’s nowhere near the lifeboat. He’s going to drown. No doubt about it. During the second viewing, he’s in the lifeboat with a PFD and supplies for a month at sea.

This ‘one-trackness’ theory has me thinking about all the stuff we miss in our lives because we’re too focused on the loo, the hair straightener and the secret lover. We’re almost certainly missing out on the gala ball invitees and the gorillas. But what else might appear in our field of vision if we only jumped the track – even for a moment?


Image: Michael Elliott

A busy girl’s best friend

Normally, I’m a French gel nails kind of girl. But lately I just haven’t had a couple of hours to throw away on beautifying my fingertips. So, for the last month or so, I’ve gone the nail polish route.

Nail polish is great. It’s quick and cheap but still gives you that ‘finished’ look. Because polish doesn’t last very long, you can have fun with colours in a way that is not practical with gels. You do have to consider your likely outfits for the ensuing few days – Scary Red does not work with teal – but this is doable.

Let’s face it; the only downside of polish is drying time. Yes, you can buy the 50-second speed dry products, but have you noticed they generally come in colours designed for colour-blind twelve-year-olds? I’m talking Radioactive Tangerine and Hypothermia Blue. While Scary Red clashes with teal, these shades clash with everything in your wardrobe and your skin colour. Also, these products are of such poor quality that they chip halfway through your Monday morning team meeting and you spend the rest of the day picking at the edges of the ruined varnish until you look as though you have little continents floating on your nails. The only thing worse than Acid Tutti-frutti is scungy, hacked Acid Tutti-frutti in the shape of South America.

Salvation is at hand.

Sally Hansen’s Insta-Dri Speed Dry Drops claim to make all the layers of any type of polish touch dry in 30 seconds and completely dry in five minutes. When I read the box, I wasn’t so much convinced as desperate (nails in disarray, dinner date in ninety minutes). So, feeling like Jack (of beanstalk fame), I dutifully handed my dosh to the Priceline checkout chick in return for a few measly Priceline points (that may, one day, buy me half an eye shadow applicator) and the magic drops.

I’ll cut to the chase. I didn’t do my dough. Much to my astonishment, the product actually freaking worked.

After five minutes, the (Antique Rose Gold) polish and (High Gloss) top coat was, indeed, dry. Granted, it was still a little soft, so I wouldn’t have wanted to go and skin a chicken or clean the oven, but my nails were absolutely fine for picking up a wine glass and wielding cutlery.

At around 17 bucks, I’m here to tell you, this stuff is a busy girl’s best friend.

Dangerous games (a vote for deprivation of liberty)

There seems to be a shocking vogue among teens for dangerous games.

In the news last weekend there was a report about the ‘Train Game’ where Colombian youths lie on train tracks and let trains pass over the top of them (see the video here)

One youth explains the attraction, thus: ‘To me, it's a way to do acrobatics by risking ourselves in a heroic way there at the bridge.’

To me, it’s a way to demonstrate what a complete tool you are.

Research shows that teenagers take more risks than those in other age groups (someone got paid to research that???), with the most risky behaviour seen in 14-year-olds (so that's why I'm suddenly going grey!).

It's been shown that while teenagers are good at weighing up the pros and cons of their decisions, they take risks because they enjoy the thrill of a risky situation more than others do – particularly when they have a 'lucky escape'.

Here are four other games teens around the world play to give them a rush/give their parents wrinkles/demonstrate their total tool-ity:

1. Vodka eyeballing – 'drinking' by pouring a shot of vodka into their eyes. Those who do it claim that it induces feelings of drunkenness at breakneck speeds, providing an instant high. Vodka is 40% pure ethanol. It causes inflammation and scarring on the eyeball and can result permanent pain and vision loss. Great game, huh?

2. Sack tapping involves punching boys in the groin and has led to teenagers having their testicles amputated. There are dozens of videos on YouTube featuring boys getting punched in the groin in this latest ‘right of passage’ initiation. Jeez, what happened to Monopoly?

3. Car surfing is where teens ride outside a vehicle while it's moving. While another person drives the vehicle, the car surfer climbs out the window and on to the bonnet, boot lid, ute tray or roof. Alternatively, they are towed while skateboarding or rollerblading. In some instances, surfers leap from one moving vehicle to another. Do I need to tell you this is insanely dangerous and a bunch of people have died doing it?

4. The Choking Game (aka the Fainting Game, American Knockout, Space Monkey and California Dreaming) involves inducing unconsciousness by holding your breath and having another person briefly put pressure on your neck or chest. It gives teens a ‘high’ and is usually done as a dare. The generations-old game has recently caused a rash of accidental deaths, especially when teens attempt the game alone and strangle themselves. What an embarrassing way to die.

Based on the prevalence and stupidity of these games, I advocate locking teens up from the time they’re 12 until they can sign contracts. What do you reckon?

Psychological warfare – on the supermarket

I just cut my grocery bill by 25% by tweaking my thinking. It's all in the mind.

This advice is not the usual 'write a list' garbage. These are seven gentle mental gymnastics tricks that might help you shred a quarter off the total at the bottom of your docket, too.

1. Don’t buy junk food to ease your conscience – a box of Magnums will not make you a better parent. A giant Aero bar will not undo the fact that you missed your child’s band concert and a Dolly magazine will not compensate even slightly for the new fashion item/iPhone/Wii that ‘everyone else has’ and that you did not buy for her.

2. Don’t buy goodies in the hope of getting love, admiration or thanks in return. Forget the treats – children don’t grow an appreciation gene until they can vote. Yes, they will like the donuts. Yes, they will scoff the donuts. No, they will not give you a moment’s gratitude, save the cursory ‘thanks’ that stops you refusing to buy more donuts on the grounds of bad manners. Your partner won’t love, admire or thank you for treats because by the time they get to the pantry, the kids will have devoured the lot.

3. Don’t buy munchies because you are hungry. If you’re smart, you’ll eat before you shop. And if you happen to shop hungry, keep in mind that a frozen pizza, a kilo of chicken breasts and a packet of triple chocolate sponge pudding mix are going to do bugger all to assuage your appetite in the next half an hour. Wait til you get home and eat an apple - or even a peanut butter and choc-chip muffin.

4. Don’t buy anything to elevate your mood – this is what exercise, rom coms and Lovan are for. If you’re sad, phone your mum for a virtual hug – don’t shop. If you’re pissed off, kick a tyre or yell at the dog – don’t shop. If you’re depressed, call Lifeline – don’t shop. If you must shop when you feel like something you scraped off the bottom of your Nikes, remind yourself repeatedly that iced buns, sports socks and a three-pack of aloe vera tissues will not make you happy.

5. Don’t attribute human qualities to your pets. Your dog doesn’t care whether the treat she gets is the size of a marble or a ruler – she likes it regardless, so buy small things to make them last longer. Your budgie cannot tell the difference between designer birdseed and the plain brand stuff. It’s a bird. It cares about surviving, not pretty packaging. Your cat does not give two hoots whether or not you buy it a stuffed mouse filled with catnip. If you don’t buy the mouse, the cat will chase leaves or moths instead. You buy cat toys to make yourself feel good, not to please the cat (see item 4).

6. Don’t impulse buy useless crap at the supermarket. If it’s not on your list, red warning lights should flash and piercing alarms should shriek in your mind when you even think about putting the item in your trolley. Generally speaking, sheets, towels, toys, books, ornaments (especially ornaments), clothing and storage solutions are better purchased elsewhere after some research and thought, not impulse bought at Woollies because you stumbled across them and needed an instant retail high. When you unpack that pink bathmat at home, you know it’s going to look cheap and nasty, fade faster than a bedroom scene in a PG movie and end up in the bin quicker than a used rubber.

7. Don’t buy things to make yourself feel posh. Your family doesn’t care whether the meal is gourmet and contains rare African artichokes that took you hours to prepare. They’re just hungry and they want to shovel something down, right now, so they don’t miss Neighbours/hockey/a message from Harriet. And by the time you actually have to cook the wretched gastronomic extravaganza, you’ll feel tired and fed up and wish you’d gone with a spag bog that you could (and sometimes do) make in your sleep. If you give them something nutritious but cheap, quick and bland (frozen mixed vegies and pre-fab rissoles), nine times out of ten, they will cover it in barbecue sauce and eat it without a peep of complaint. Because they just don't notice.

Let me know how you go with your next grocery shop  - or share some supermarket mindset manoeuvres of your own.

Album-phobia (or how Ms Cole invoked the f-bomb)

Does anyone buy CDs anymore?

For Christmas in – God, was it 2007? - Santa brought me Pink’s I’m not dead. But I also received an iPod, so the songs were promptly imported to iTunes and the disc never saw the light of day again.

I don’t buy CDs anymore.

More than that, I don’t buy whole albums anymore.

Bzzzzzzt – phone a friend.

I was in Tusk (a little gift shop in North Hobart) yesterday. I didn’t buy anything but I did ask the lady what the music playing was (there are no iPhones to be had for love or money in this town, therefore, I have no Shazam – you’ll be pleased to know the old fashioned method of song identification worked fine).

This is how I discovered Angus and Julia Stone.

I’m a shocker for cherry picking only the songs I know – the stuff on the radio or from channel V in the gym – and then further whittling my selections to those that I actually like. Out of the gazillions of songs she has released, I have four Lady Gaga tracks in my iTunes, for example.

But this was different. I previewed A&J in the iTunes store and loved everything they came up with. But then a funny thing happened.

While I will happily part with $1.69 or even $2.19 for a song, I balked at shelling out $17.99 all at once for music of any sort – even music I had just fallen desperately and passionately in love with. (This is especially weird when, once upon a time, I’d happily pay thirty bucks or whatever it was for a new release CD).

However, it occurred to me that this was album-phobia, episode two.

A couple of weeks ago, I caught myself singing Unforgettable (that slightly macabre version that Natalie Cole dubbed over her dead father’s recording) in the shower/while washing dishes/while walking the dog. Songs that get stuck in your head like this are the musical equivalent of telemarketers. Sometimes, the only way to get rid of them is to hear them out. Either that or sing something even more annoying – Video killed the radio star usually works.

In any case, I went to buy the stupid Natalie Cole song rather than digging through the pile of CDs gathering dust in the lounge room trying to find it. But it turned out that you can’t just buy the song. You have to buy the whole album. For $16.99.

I only had two words to say about that – the first one was rude and started with ‘f’ and the second one was ‘off’. Force feeding toddlers mashed swede does not engender in them a deep and abiding love for the vegetable. Does Nat think this musical gavage will endear her to potential listeners?

Luckily, I became so irate about this blatant revenue raiser that I forgot about singing the song (though, having written this rant about it, I can feel it trying to sneak back into my vocal chords via my impressionable psyche).

I’m figuring this nasty run in with the world of albums predisposed me to album purchase aversion because no matter how much I liked the music, I couldn’t bring myself to buy Down the Way.

Luckily Torrent came to the rescue and I am now happily grooving along to Big Jet Plane.

But seriously, does anyone buy CDs anymore?


Image: Francesco Marino

11 facts about my life

One chocolate frog just isn’t enough - ever.

Two is the atomic number of helium but who cares, because, more importantly, two is how many weeks it is until Lee Child’s 15th book comes out.

‘Three last singles’ is balm to my burning quads, hammies and glutes in a lunge track at the gym – it means we’re almost done.

Four days is how long weekends should be.

Five o’clock equals wine o’clock. (This assertion is general in nature only and is subject to variation without notice.)

Six minutes is how late for work I run if I sit down for a cup of tea in the morning. (Yeah, I know, it’s utterly anal to know this stuff.)

Seven – no, not dwarves, deadly sins or days of Creation, rather the number of ingredients on my fav Domino's pizza – the Godfather – not counting the extra cheese I order. (For the full taste sensation, you need to eat it cold, of course – see Hot and cold).

Eight is my shoe size.

Nine is how many cool Myron Bolitar novels Harlan Coben has written (the next one is tentatively scheduled for release next autumn). There are no uncool ones.

Ten bucks is the value of the voucher you get when your friend signs up for Brands Exclusive and then buys something (they’ll hate you forever – in the nicest possible way - because they won’t be able to resist those daily emails full of designer handbags, shoes, towels and toys).

Eleven is the number of my house – in numerology, this is apparently a ‘master number’ for a house, all about creativity, intuition and spiritual truth.


Image: Paul

Say it again, Sam

‘What?’

‘Huh?’

‘Stop mumbling!’

‘There is nothing wrong with my hearing.’

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

People (mostly men) would rather admit to having contracted gonorrhoea than having developed a hearing impairment. Don a hearing aid? They would prefer to wear a nappy...on the outside...to a business meeting.

My dad can barely hear. Watching him negotiate conversations is like watching a toddler cross the West Gate freeway. He claims he can’t afford a hearing aid. (Did I mention he’s travelling Europe on holiday as I write this?)

Growing up, my sisters and I made it a sport to mutter things about my father, right in front of him, that he had no hope of catching. (‘That wrap-around baldy hairstyle sure looks spunky’; 'God I wish I had a lumpy shit-brown jumper like that'; 'Quick, somebody fish in the Steradent and hide his teeth'.)

A couple of my friends (both men, as it happens) tell similar stories about their fathers and, over the years, we’ve had some good laughs about the ridiculous behaviour of our paternal parents as they dodge deafness discussions and jump through convoluted conversational hoops to avoid at all costs wearing a hearing aid.

Now, no doubt as a result of house-shaking stereo volumes and deafening machinery, I think these two friends are slowly but inexorably losing their hearing.

But I am wrong – just ask them. And they’ll tell you...if they hear your question.

The clues are bigger than Dumbo's auditory appendages: they don’t always respond when I speak to them, they sometimes bluff answers when asked a question, they can’t always identify unexpected sounds and they ask me to repeat myself frequently.

Further, for some time, I thought one of my work colleagues had a superiority complex that made mine look like a minor bandaid-able affliction. Then, one day, while he was fixing my computer, fiddling with cables under the desk, I told him my phone was also playing up. I went in to considerable detail about the nature and duration of the problem. He left without fixing the phone and I thought he might log the problem with the IT helpdesk or come back later to repair it.

When nothing had eventuated by that afternoon, I asked him how I should go about getting my phone fixed and he said ‘Is your phone not working?’

Not aloof, I’m figuring – just deaf.

Maybe what drives these people is a fear of looking different, a fear of looking old or a fear of looking as though they have a disability (notice the common element here?). Or maybe they don’t realise how bad their hearing loss is or that it is causing problems in their daily interactions.

The solution to this deafness denial, I reckon, is to make hearing aids the latest must-have fashion accessories. They need to be the new Fossil wristwatches, the new Dunhill tie bars, the new Gucci glasses.

Marketers need to make hearing aids so ubiquitous, so attractive, so hip and so desirable that even people who can hear perfectly will want them.

I can just see the conversations now:

‘...don’t you think, Marjorie?’

‘Eh?’

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake. Where’s your hearing aid? I’ve told you a million times you don’t have to take it off with your rings when you do the laundry.’

‘Oh my god. I’m turning in to a fashion fiasco. Yesterday, I forgot my scarf and the day before I went out without my mascara. Now I’ve left my hearing aid at home...’

And this:

‘Pass us another beer, will you, Tom? Hey, the missus was saying Harris Scarfe has sunglasses and hearing aids discounted this week.’

‘Really? Terrific. I left my Bollés on Frank's yacht last week and I could use a spare hearing aid. Maybe something in red with studs.’

With up to 22% of adult Australians having significant hearing loss, it’s important we add a massive cool factor to hearing solutions.

I said, ‘With up to 22% of adult Australians having significant hearing loss, it’s important we add a massive cool factor to hearing solutions.’

Of course there’s nothing wrong with your hearing.

3 (fairly dreadful) ear jokes

Mike Tyson has agreed to fight Prince Charles for his next boxing match.
It seems that no one else has big enough ears to go 12 rounds.

A guy walks into work, and both of his ears are all bandaged up.
The boss says, "What happened to your ears?"
He says, "Yesterday I was ironing a shirt when the phone rang and shhh! I accidentally answered the iron."
The boss says, "Well, that explains one ear, but what happened to your other ear?"
He says, "Well, geez, I had to call the doctor!"

Q. What is it called when a blonde blows in another blonde's ear?
A. Data transfer.


Image: Yaron Jeroen van Oostrom

Disaster!

Imagine this: you wake up one sunny morning and open you email. Nothing happens. You click on your browser. You get lots of black – no websites, not even any errors. You check all your connections. Everything looks okay. And then you hear the news on the radio – the real radio, not streaming radio – the internet has been eaten by aliens.

What do you do? (Apart from having a complete and total nervous breakdown because your life is over.)

This eventuation totally and instantly reshapes your life:

1. The publishing industry is ecstatic – you will have to buy newspapers again.

2. Australia Post is thrilled – you will have to snail mail your far away friends.

3. You will have to use recipe books and write shopping lists rather than SMS-ing pantry needs to your phone.

4. You will have ugly shoes and boring clothes – you’ll have to fly to Melbourne if you want real things to wear.

5. But you’ll need to book your flights and accommodation through a real travel agent – like, an actual person.

6. And you’ll need cash and a cheque book and will have to stand in bank queues again – there’ll be no EFT.

7. You’ll have to buy one of those twee birthday calendars that hangs on the back of the toilet door without Facebook to remind you who’s celebrating.

8. You’ll have to buy CDs.

9. If you want to research something, you’ll have to go to the library. It will take forever to know anything.

10. You will have to receive The Monstress by carrier pigeon.


Image: Simon Howden

The quietest and most constant of friends

Looking for a book to read?
Here are the last three I’ve devoured (Mills & Boon’s excluded).

Women, food and God
Geneen Roth

Firstly, no, not God as in Christian God – just God as in that’s as good a name for the source of the universe as anything.

I was a bit skeptical about it, so I ordered it from the library rather than buying it. At first glance, it looked a bit blah and trite and same-old. But then it wasn't. I sat down for a quick squiz one night as I was heading to bed (exhausted) and read the first 70 pages. I had to stop when my eyes just wouldn't stay open any more.

It mainly focuses on overeaters (I guess they're the market) but also looks at all women who have any kind of difficult relationships with food (practically every woman I’ve ever met). It shows how our eating reflects and perpetuates our attitudes to our world/spirituality/self/place in space/relationships - everything.

It’s an easy read with lots of anecdotes that work - but BIG concepts. MEGA, in fact. (It's not really about food at all - but, on the other hand, it kind of is.) It changed my life as I read it. And when I finished it, I started it all over again - slower. I love it.

61 hours
Lee Child

I am never sure whether I want to be Jack Reacher or sleep with him. He’s a sexy, menacing giant drifter with a moral code more impenetrable than Saddam's bunker and with more unacknowledged dysfuctions that even Dr Phil would know what to do with.

Reacher appears for the 14th time in 61 Hours. After the slightly disappointing (but still read-worthy) Gone Tomorrow, Lee Child is back on top of his game with this latest offering.

In this tome, Reacher’s passing through Nebraska, when he encounters some twitchy people who want him to leave pronto. He’s driven to find out why. And, of course, in due course, gets in all kinds of life-threatening and spectacular strife that will leave you holding your breath until you turn blue for lack of oxygen.

The best bit? Book 15 is due out at the end of this month. Yay!

The life of Pi
Yann Martel

This is a strange little book that seems to be a slow starter – but by the time you think about complaining, you realise you’re well and truly sucked in.

When Pi is sixteen, his family emigrates from India aboard a Japanese cargo ship, along with their zoo animals.

The ship sinks. Pi finds himself in a lifeboat, his only companions a hyena, an orangutan, a wounded zebra and Richard Parker, a 450-pound Bengal tiger.

At its simplest, this is an adventure story about a boy trying to survive a shipwreck. It could be called a zoo parable. Or it could be seen as a quirky metatext about faith, food and fiction.

Read this to relieve your literary cynicism – and be entertained.



On the way to the library or the bookstore, keep in mind the wise words of Groucho Marx: 'Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.'

Image: Francesco Marino

Conversational dynamite

Looking for a conversational gambit to put a rocket up a dying dinner party or dreary car trip? I have two words for you: man bag.

Contentious, much?

See, you’re already lining up your opinions, rallying your arguments and frog marching your supporting examples towards the spot right between my eyes, aren’t you? Whether you’re pro or ‘not unless hell freezes over’, chances are you’re not anywhere near the fence. For some reason, the man purse turns even the most mild mannered person into a green, bulging, shirt-shredded, red-eyed menace.

I’ll be up front. I like a man with a murse. These accessories are practical, stylish and demonstrate the unwavering security a fellow has in his own masculinity. This is sexy.

Besides, with all the gadgets everyone carts around each day, it's only fair that men have the same options as women have. Equality. See? How else are you meant to transport your phone, laptop, wallet, emergency hair product, cigars, hardcore porn, Samurai sword and other masculine items to and from your home?

(And you can forget putting them in your mum’s/sister’s/girlfriend’s handbag – do you know how much this pisses her off?)

Hark? Is that the lame chorus of ‘backpack’, I hear?

I have one primary objection to the backpack solution: style (or total lack thereof). A clean, brand name backpack is fine for the gym. It is not cool for the cocktail bar. Further, a backpack in any business context is not so much a bag as a public declaration of your utter fashion ineptitude.

And as for using a briefcase as a carryall - what are you? My dad?

Did someone really say ‘bum bag’? Just go crawl back under your abalone shell ashtray, will you?

Man bags are hip. They are happening. They are now.

So, if a guy you know turns up for a lunch date or meeting carrying a satchel, a messenger bag or even an over-sized leather wallet with a shoulder strap, you can leave the gay gags packed up and the snide ‘girl’ asides under wraps. Some of us think he’s got sex appeal. And he’s certainly got his act (and his iPod, keys and shades) together.

Hell, fellas, maybe one day soon, you’ll stop being a scaredy sheep and get one, too.

Friends by gift

I wanted to buy a birthday present for a woman at work. I’ve known her less than three months but I like her a lot. So, she needs more than a box of chockies but probably not, say, beads or a book.

This got me thinking about the types of friends we all have.

1. The e-card friend
You have drifted apart but you stay Facebook friends. You want to keep in touch in case you ever need accommodation in Uraguay. Don’t feel bad. Why do you think she stays in touch with you?

2. The foot scrub and moisturiser friend
She’s more of an acquaintance, really. You don’t know her that well but she has a huge network and always comes through if you need a discount on carpet or a part time job for your neighbour’s son - not to mention class A gossip. And you’re happy to edit her job applications in return.

3. The let’s not start buying each other presents friend
You’ve known each other for ages and you have a few basic interests in common (sport, children or a previous job). A coffee meet twice a year is perfect to sustain things.

4. The don't send chockies friend
An online buddy you’ve never met is rare and precious and can add a certain je ne sais quoi to your life – especially if you really click. Just don’t try sending chocolates internationally. Major headache.

5. The joke gift followed by a bottle of his fav friend
Great for one-on-one or group dinners, laughing at shared memories, catching a show together and offering a helping hand if you’re moving house – he is what you call a close friend. He keeps in touch because he actually does miss you, wants to spend time with you and genuinely cares what’s happening in your life. He will even remember your birthday - unfortunately, he'll also remember the time you peed your pants (but he won't tell too many people).

6. The gorgeous funky handbag friend
Forget speed dial - you know all her phone numbers off by heart. You’ve grown up and thrown up together. You share everything from teabags to tiaras. You finish each others’ sentences. Sometimes, you laugh until your bellies ache and you've been each other's shoulders plenty of times, too. Being with this type of friend is fun and fulfilling. When you’re with her, you’re happy to be alive.

(Btw, I settled on a scarf – plain but quality, somewhere between khaki and olive – definitely her colour – with a small, thin fringe, designer but discounted. Perfect. Maybe next year we'll graduate to pranks and personalised poison.)

Image: graur razvan ionut

Body beautiful?

Gross body facts.

1. When Eskimo babies have colds, their mothers suck the snot out of their noses.

2. The longest recorded projectile vomit is 8.2 metres. I wonder what he ate.

3. If you are right-handed you will sweat more from under your left arm. If you are left-handed, you will sweat more from under your right arm. (Maybe consider buying some Rexona.)

4. Ear wax naturally dries up and forms tiny little balls that drop out when you yawn, chew, or swallow.

5. Speaking of ear wax, your ears secrete more earwax when you are afraid than when you aren’t.

6. The world's greatest contemporary farter is said to be an eleven-year-old who farted 217 times in five minutes on a radio call-in show.

7. The acid in your stomach is strong enough to dissolve razorblades.

8. So, if your body's natural defenses failed, the bacteria in your gut would consume you within 48 hours, literally eating you from the inside out.

9. If your head gets chopped off your brain still functions for 15 seconds.

10. Over your lifetime you will produce enough spit to fill a swimming pool.

Image: Roland Darby

9 random really expensive things

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9 random really old things

Oldest person
Supercentenarian, Jeanne Calment of France was the oldest person to have ever lived. She died at age 122 years and 164 days in 1997, five years after she quit smoking.

Oldest animal
A 400-year-old clam from Iceland is the oldest animal ever. When this animal was a juvenile, King James I replaced Queen Elizabeth I as English monarch, Shakespeare was writing his plays and Giordano Bruno was burnt at the stake for saying the sun rather than the earth was the centre of the universe (we all know he was wrong and that the teen is the centre of the universe - just ask her).

Oldest tree
The world's oldest clonal tree is the Old Tjikko, a spruce tree in Sweden. The tree is 9,550 years old, taking root at the end of the last ice age. (No part of a clonal tree is particularly old at any given point in time - the the plant has been alive for a long time and just keeps sprouting.

Prometheus, the oldest non-clonal organism, a pine tree in eastern Nevada, was cut down in 1964 by a graduate student and U.S. Forest Service personnel who didn’t realise it was important. It was about 5,000 years old. Oops.

Oldest recipe
The oldest surviving recipes were impressed into three clay tablets 3,700 years ago somewhere in what is now Iraq. They were originally mistaken for pharmaceutical formulas.

Oldest toy
Barbie of the Bronze Age, a 4,000-year-old Italian doll, is the world's oldest toy. The doll's head is about four centimetres long, with carved facial features and a curly head of hair. The body was wood or material and rotted away. Clearly, the playing habits of children have barely changed in 4,000 years.

Oldest goldfish
The world's oldest captive goldfish, Tish, died in 1999, 43 years after he was won as a prize at a funfair. Tish was buried in a yoghurt carton in his owner’s garden. Classy casket.

Oldest .com domain name
The first .com domain name ever registered was Symbolics.com , on 15 March 1985 by the now defunct Massachusetts-based computer manufacturer Symbolics. Symbolics.com didn’t change ownership for nearly 25 years but domain name investment company, XF.com Investments, bought the domain name last year for an undisclosed sum.

Oldest mother
Omkari Panwar, 70, underwent IVF treatment to produce a male heir. Her husband mortgaged his land, sold his buffalos, spent his life savings and took out a credit card loan to finance the treatment. She gave birth to twins (a girl and – thank goodness – a boy). The boy was subsequently run over by a news van (only kidding about the death).

Oldest bottle of wine
A bottle of wine from approximately 325AD was unearthed in 1867 during excavation for building a house in Germany. The ancient liquid has a lot of silty sediment but if you left it until late in the night, it would probably go down better than the dodgy old port in the bottom of my pantry.

Marmalade is toast

Kaos café (and its alter ego, Soak) – a long standing Hobart icon – is no more. I’m told it’s now called Marmalade.

What a stupid name (though no more stupid, I suppose, than Aubergine, The Lazy Bull, Say Cheese or Pop - what is it with these people???)

As far as I’m concerned, Marmalade is a cat’s name for the unimaginative (unless, of course, the cat is, say, black).

Does anyone even like marmalade?

Marmalade is old people’s food like bran, porridge, buttermilk and lambs fry. When I think marmalade, I picture a dusty old jar with a rubber-banded red gingham hat lurking in my grandmother’s pantry and filled with lumpy bitter orange glue.

Marmalade on toast? I think not. Give me a Sausage and Egg McMuffin any day.

Maybe Marmalade's target clientele is septuagenarians who don't like Maccas.


Image: healingdream

Fickle fashion

How bad clothes happen to good people*:

1. You buy a new item of clothing – let’s say, for example, you actually find a pair of knee-high boots that more or less fit around your skinny calves and if they are a little loose, the style has a slight slouch to it, so they look as if they are meant to be a bit saggy.

2. You are dying to wear the new item, so (if you are an iron-on-demand aficionado like me) you iron a tried, true and seemingly appropriate skirt and top the night before you want to wear the boots to work.

3. While you’re lying in bed, drifting off to sleep, you wonder what on earth possessed you to iron a khaki long-sleeve tee and mentally rearrange your outfit to incorporate a teal tank with a fitted black cardi, instead – neither of which needs ironing (you’ve spent so long lying awake worrying about your outfit, you just know you’re going to sleep through the alarm and ironing time will be annihilated).

4. You sleep through the alarm.

5. For obvious reasons (like you dreamt it up at around midnight) you fail to try on the outfit to make sure it works until you are running hideously late for work - and when you put it on, it doesn’t (in oh so many ways – your legs look like tree trunks because without the tops of the boots visible, the cut of the boots make your ankles look like cankles, the shiny leather just doesn’t work with the soft velvet and the slight cowboy leaning so does not set off the long feminine A-line in the way you had hoped – or in any way at all, really). Hmm.

6. You change the skirt for something else black but shorter and shiny from Supré and things are looking better.

7. You do your makeup to complement the teal top but as you are drying your hair you notice the clothes that you have put together and wonder if you are blind, got dressed in the dark or flushed your fashion sense down the toilet by mistake.

8. You are now running so late that you are going to have to invent a flat car battery or dog diarrhoea when you finally get to work. You sooo don’t have time to iron anything else (you are now strictly limited to non-iron items) and your peachy coloured makeup precludes three-quarters of your wardrobe. It’s the ratty black polo neck or the floaty, sheer shirt. Did I mention it is four degrees?

9. You bravely vamp up the tragic ensemble with a black leather jacket, muss your hair, shooting for a breezy, insouciant style and try to break up the goth impersonation with some bling – and then discard it because it makes you look like a tragic Christmas tree.

10. Your friend’s warning that there is a fine line between an outfit and a costume rings loudly in your ears as you arrive at work inexcusably late without your coffee, muttering about Australian idol auditions running behind and trying to brazen out the puzzled stares at your wardrobe choices. You know it’s going to be a long day and you are going to feel stupid and ugly for every drawn out second of it. But you survive.

11. The next day, three admin girls and the receptionist are wearing dingy all black clothing with bedhead hair and cowboy boots. The general manager circulates a memo reminding staff of the dress code.

* For the enlightenment of those guys who just grab the first items they see, put them on and don't give their clothing another thought all day, even if the items clash, no longer fit or if they spill mustard down their fronts.

Cacophony

Music to make your ears bleed

There are two people in the world who like the bagpipes – my partner and the person who lent him a CD probably entitled How to torture mercilessly anyone unfortunate enough to be a passenger in your car. (Or perhaps someone lent him the CD as a joke and he just hasn’t twigged yet – in which case there is only one person in the world who likes the bagpipes.)

To be frank, when presented with the option of listening to a CD of bagpipe ‘music’, I would rather listen to a) a Tassie devil screeching for a week, b) all three High School Musical DVDs - at full volume - one after another, c) a Justin Bieber song (okay, half a Justine Bieber song).

Alfred Hitchcock once said, ‘I understand the inventor of the bagpipes was inspired when he saw a man carrying an indignant, asthmatic pig under his arm. Unfortunately, the man-made sound never equalled the purity of the sound achieved by the pig.’

Personally, I think bagpipes sound more like what would happen if you ran a feline through a garbage disposal; taught a cow to yodel to Marilyn Manson and played back the soundtrack in slow mode; or recorded a hippopotamus giving birth...to a caterpillar D4.

The only time I have ever heard a song with bagpipes in it and not wanted to hack coat hanger hooks through my eardrums is in AC/DC's It's a long way to the top. This is because AC/DC’s cool-factor marginally outweighs the bagpipes’ horribleness.

Imagine if your child came home from school and said they were going to learn to play the bagpipes. Hot cross buns on the violin was excruciating. As a result of Three blind mice on the bagpipes, you'd get a doctor's certificate for a month off work. And when you impaled the music teacher's head repeatedly on a large spike, the judge would rule the homicide justifiable.

Listening to the bagpipes is worse than hearing fingernails screech down a blackboard. It also tops the whine of a dentist's drill. It has more of a shudder-factor than the squeal of polystyrene, the shriek of microphone feedback or even the relentless irritatingness of a Crazy Frog ringtone.

If a migraine were a noise, it would sound exactly like the bagpipes.

(I hear CDs make excellent clock faces, sculptures and coasters.)

See also 20 people who shouldn't have inflicted themselves on the world.

Hot and cold

I’ve just polished off a cold slice of Godfather-with-extra-cheese pizza for breakfast (and I didn’t even have a wine last night!).

I’m not prepared to get into a discussion about whether liking Domino’s is lame or not (there are worse brands). However, I am eager to defend my position on preferred pizza temperature.

Don’t get me wrong – hot, freshly cooked pizza when you are ravenous rocks. However, micro-zapped morning-after pizza tastes like wet cardboard, however luscious the topping, especially if you have the hangover from hell.

One person in my household thinks cold pizza is disgusting. That person is wrong. Serendipitously, it turns out that there is actually science behind cold pizza’s deliciousness.

A Scottish chemistry lecturer, Dr Maureen Cooper, from Stirling University, says cold morning-after pizza tastes so good because of the watery properties of the tomato puree.

A traditional pizza base has fibres that trap water, preventing it from seeping through to the cooked dough and making it soggy. Given that fat and water do not mix, the melted cheese topping then sits nicely above the puree.

‘Because the fat does not go through to the base, the pizza itself tastes so much better,’ Maureen says.

So there you have it, floating fat is the secret to the deliciosity of cold pizza (I'm glad I ate before I discovered that.)

Image: Suat Eman

Love spells

There’s a chick from San Antonia, Texas who says she is ‘a professional and authentic god gifted psychic spellcaster’.

She says she specialises in love spells, relationship restoration and repairing the broken hearted. She can reunite lost lovers, prevent separation, stop impending divorce and remove negative blockages that can be causing a relationship to fail.

She works fast - results can take as little to 72 hours and her love spells start at just US$300.

This spellcaster says her genuine love spells are for people who are very serious about fixing their love problems and healing their relationships.

Did it ever occur to the people who sign up for this type of codswallop that maybe their relationships are failing because they are – I don’t know - tragic, stupid and gullible? That maybe their absent lovers are not so much ‘lost’ as running screaming for the hills in response to their naïveté and idiocy? That the separation they should be most concerned with might be the ‘psychic’-assisted parting of themselves and their cash? And that perhaps the negative blockage causing their relationship to fail is actually a malfunction in their frontal lobe (if they still have one)?

Call me cynical, but if my partner came to me and said, ‘Honey, I’m so serious about tackling the problems in our relationship that I have hired a professional and authentic god gifted psychic spellcaster to help us’, I would call that the last straw, throw the food processor at his head and leave forever.

Three 'tells' - how to know if someone's lying

My partner told me a lie on Monday (it was one of those nice, white, I-have-your-best-interests-at-heart lies, but it was a lie, nonetheless). My bullshit-ometer beeped instantly and furiously and I called him on it. He confessed immediately. But how did I know he was lying?

These are the three most common 'tells' to help you catch out a liar.


1. Body talk

Liars often freeze. They don't quite face you, and hardly move during the lie. Others counteract the impulse to be still by being overly dramatic, moving the body much more than usual.

Rapid blinking, scratching, itching, swallowing and fidgeting can all reflect the discomfort of telling a lie.

And touching the nose, or covering the face or mouth are a subconscious attempt to ‘cover up’ the lie.

2. The eyes have it

Most people have a hard time lying to you while looking straight into your eyes. Sometimes they will only look away at the moment of the lie, for example, a brief glance to the floor. Again, some will try to sell the lie by making and maintaining eye contact fiercely.

Looking up and to the right stimulates the part of the brain associated with imagination (that is, making things up), whereas looking up and to the left stimulates the part of the brain associated with recalling memories (that is, telling the truth).

Also, wide-eyed innocence is based on the ‘who, me?’ fake innocence of a kid denying he’s stealing cookies while his hand’s still in the jar.

3. Voicing suspicions

A liar's voice can become higher and squeaky.

There might also be a noticeable pause in a liar's speech, especially just before the lie. Most people can't come up with a plausible fiction in an instant, so they have to take a moment to think something up.

 
These are all helpful indicators that someone is fibbing but most people have a decent lie detector built in. Trust your trusty bullshit-ometer and it will usually point the way.