Alaska. The land of blood beer, lakes and Sarah Palin

I'm really rather cross with Sarah Palin. She has a lot to answer for in my eyes.

It's not that she comes across as a complete fruit-loop every time I see her on Fox News. That's taken as read. At least she's consistent in her fruit loopiness. At least she's a full-time fruit loop. In that sense you know what you're getting with Sarah Palin. I can't stand those pollies who come across as all smart and intelligent and then they get into power and ... wham! ... they suddenly become complete muppets. And then you've got to wait 4 or 5 years to get rid of them. Good old gun-toting, hunt 'em down, shoot 'em up and skin 'em clean, Sarah P is never like that. What you see is what you get. She's as mad as a cut snake. 

What really annoys me about Mrs Palin is the fact that she's from Alaska. That's all.

It's really that simple.

But it's important. I really wish she was from Ohio. Or Nebraska. Or at least from somewhere that I don't really care for or I don't know too much about. That way I could just ignore her and not be so annoyed with her. But I am. She's from bloody Alaska. And bloody Alaska will never recover. It's going to be forever linked with Sarah Palin. It's destined to be 'that place' where 'that nutty woman' is from. And the Alaskans? They will always be tarred with the nutty Palin brush when I'm fairly sure that they are, by and large, a pretty normal bunch. All 722,717 of them.

I first fell for Alaska at Uni. I was going through my left-wing radical phase. I even threw an egg at Margaret Thatcher. It missed. In fact it missed by so far that I doubt she even noticed that I'd thrown an egg at her. In hindsight it was a waste of a good egg. It was a good egg thrown badly at a bad egg.

When I wasn't throwing eggs (badly) at British Prime Ministers, I was listening to protest songs, wearing a woolly fez-type hat and smoking Gauloise cigarettes because they were French and France had had a revolution. Mostly I was listening to Billy Bragg. And Michelle Shocked. In between the rabble-rousing, burn the barricades stuff that Michelle put out, she recorded a simple and stunning little song called 'Anchorage' (have a listen here). It contains the words,

'You know it's kinda funny
Texas always seemed so big
But you know you're in the largest state in the Union 

When you're anchored down in Anchorage, Alaska'.

That's when I first got thinking about Alaska. 

& then a few years later when I'd stopped throwing eggs and wearing woolly fez-type hats, I met a chap in a pub. He was standing next to me and he ordered a beer. Nothing wrong with that I hear you say. Well, no. Except that he asked for a shot-glass of tomato juice to be dropped into his pint. Dropped into it. Right into the middle of a decent pint of English beer. Of course, I couldn't help myself. I asked him what the heck he was doing. Had he gone barmy? He told me that he was having a cool and refreshing pint of ... blood beer. Apparently he was just back from a spot of salmon fishing in Alaska (like you do) and blood beer was all the rage out there.

Blood beer. A pint of beer with a shot glass of tomato juice dropped into it. Naturally I had one too. It was a million times better than it sounded. And looked. In fact it was really rather nice. Alaska. It's full of little surprises.

Alaska.

It's the largest state in the USA and the least densely populated. Half of all Alaskans live in or around Anchorage. Basically, the rest of Alaska is more or less empty. It's twice the size of Texas and has more coastline than the rest of the United States combined. In short, it's big. Very, very big. And very, very empty.

It also has 3million lakes. Yep, 3 million. And 100,000 glaciers. In fact, more than half the world's glaciers are gently sliding south in Alaska.

There's a few rather quirky things about Alaska too. First off, the locals pay no income tax. And no sales tax. None. Lucky Alaskans I say. But that's not the quirkiest thing. Not by a long shot. The quirkiest thing, without a shadow of a doubt, is this:

Alaska used to be part of Russia. Yep, it sure did.

It was bought by the US in 1867 for $7.2million. That's $120million in today's money. That works out to be 0.2c an acre. Alaska, the largest state in the Union is officially worth just $120million. That's less than Manchester City football club's midfield line-up.

Of course, this valuation came before Mrs Palin arrived on the scene. I fear that the value of Alaska might have diminished in recent years. That's a real pity. It's always sounded like a truly awesome place to me.

Alaska. Flogged by the Russians to the Americans for just 2c an acre on March 30th 1867. Palin or not, I reckon the Yanks got a bargain. I'll raise a glass to celebrate. Of blood beer. Maybe. Maybe not - me and Picky are all out of tomato juice.

Btw ... on Sept 11th 2008 Mrs Palin made her infamous comment. She said that she could see Russia from her back yard in Alaska. Far be it for me to leap to Palin's defence, but in one sense she was spot on. The Big Diomede Island (Russia) is separated from the Little Diomede Island (Alaska, US) by just 4km. For much of the year, if you're game enough, you can actually walk between the two. That's 'cos the sea is fully-frozen. Don't forget your passport.

pip pip

Ps ... next up I'll be posting a few words about those very special grown men who cry at the movies.

The great oversized day-bed swindle

When it comes to interior design there’s no two ways about it; I’m rubbish. I simply don’t have the eye for it. I used to think I did. I used to think I was a shoe-in for the final four on Top Design. & then I met Picky and she put me straight. 

Picky came round to my apartment for dinner just after we’d met. I was desperately keen to woo her. I cooked dinner and bought a nice bottle of vino. During the afternoon I even tidied up my apartment a bit too. That’s how keen I was. I stuffed all my socks and other assorted odds and sods into a cupboard, and I put the toilet seat down. In my book that counted as 'tidying up a bit'.

When Picky arrived she wasn’t so much woo-ed as blinded. 


My apartment consisted of seven rooms. Seven multi-coloured rooms. The hallway was orange. Bright orange. Orange like ... er... an orange. My lounge was a two-colour split; mustard yellow at the bottom with bright yellow above. The kitchen was green. Pea green. The main bedroom was baby blue and the spare bedroom was deep maroon. I'd left the bathroom white. For impact. 

The bathroom certainly had an impact. Picky spent most of the evening in it to protect her eyes from the glare of the walls in the other six rooms. It was a good job I’d remembered to put the toilet seat down.

When me and Picky eventually moved in together, she politely suggested that we should re-decorate ‘our’ apartment. I thought she just meant re-painting the walls. She didn’t. She meant repainting the walls and replacing each and every item of furniture that I owned. 


My multi-coloured apartment was, apparently, a 'bachelor pad'. Picky wanted a 'love-nest'. I thought about putting up a fight. But the truth was that I was sitting on my oversized day-bed in front of my wall-mounted plasma TV watching the English Premier League in full Dolby surround-sound through my Bose home entertainment system. And I had a beer in my hand. Picky on the other hand was standing up. She had no choice. My bachelor pad had just one piece of decent furniture to sit on. The oversized day-bed. It took up most of my lounge. My mustard and bright yellow lounge.

It was time to go neutral. We painted the orange hallway first. It needed four coats before it even approached neutral. Covering bright orange, pea green and deep maroon with neutral tones of white and grey is no mean feat. After each coat I was convinced we’d hidden it all, only to find in the morning that the orange or pea green had peeked through. It was a right old job. It took weeks. I’ll never paint a wall orange again. 

Once the love-nest was neutral, it was time to farewell the furniture. The oversized day-bed was photographed and uploaded onto eBay. I used a wide-angled lens, and I still couldn’t get the whole thing in one photo. It was like photographing a car. Or a bus. 

Last week was National Fraud Awareness Week. Apparently Australians are e-scammed out of more than $85m every year. 


I reckon we’ve all received the classic ‘I’m the executor of a massive Will. You’ve inherited $10million from old uncle Eric, please send me your bank account details and password for on-line banking and I’ll pop the entire $10million into your account forthwith” email. And we’ve all deleted it quicker than you can say “my password is 389721’ (it isn’t by the way, before you think you’ve struck gold).

But there are other scams knockin' about too. Scams you wouldn’t even imagine. Scams you wouldn't know were scams. Scams you'd struggle to spot no matter how un-scammable you think you are.

Or maybe you would spot them. Maybe you have spotted them. Maybe you’ve been scammed yourself. Maybe National Fraud Awareness Week brings back terrible memories for you. Maybe it makes you shake your head and go a nice deep maroon colour with acute embarrassment. 

My oversized day-bed wasn't on eBay for long. A ‘lady from Perth’ contacted me and offered $500. Just like that. My first thought was ‘I’ve struck gold here’. My second thought was, ‘what else can I sell her?’.

We only communicated by email. She said that she really wanted my oversized daybed. My oversized daybed sounded like the answer to all her prayers; the solution to all her problems. It was the only thing she desired in life. She lived in Perth. She was going to have it collected and shipped all the way over from Sydney. By road. That’s 3938km’s. 

I was stunned. She was paying me $500 for a used daybed and shipping it nearly 4000km's by road. She could quite easily have bought a brand new one from Bay Swiss in Perth for $800. Brand new. No shipping. No slight red wine stain on the right arm. I pointed this out to her, but she was smitten with my daybed, and my day-bed only. 

Fair do’s. I tried. I did the right thing. More fool you, lady. 

More fool me.

On the morning of the ‘pick-up’, 'she' emailed me nice and early with a link to my Paypal account. Excited, I clicked on the link and saw that she’d transferred a cool $500. Bingo. Deal done. Bye bye day-bed, hello seating for Picky and distinguished guests.

The removalist rocked up. Removalist. Singular. He was all alone. Poor chap. The poor 'lady in Perth' could only afford one removal guy. I felt sorry for him. My apartment was up six flights of stairs. I'm a nice guy. I took my t-shirt off and grabbed one side of the day-bed. I think it was the side with the red wine stain.

It took us a good 30-minutes to get the damn thing down six flights of stairs. My oversized day-bed was a big bugger and the angles were all wrong. When we reached the bottom I was sweating buckets. I needed to rest but he was keen to get off. He had 3938kms ahead of him. I took a few breaths and helped him to load it into the back of his van.

Back in my apartment I was exhausted. I needed to sit down. There was no-where to sit. Still, it was worth it. I was $500 richer. 

The next morning I woke up and walked into the lounge. I stood and stared into the space where the oversized day-bed had once been. The apartment felt empty.  And, strangely enough, so did I.

Why? Why? Why?

I couldn’t put my finger on it. 

As I stood in my newly neutral lounge and stared into the void left by my oversized day-bed, I wondered how ‘the lady in Perth’ had managed to send me a link to my own PayPal account. It seemed just a little odd to me. How had she done that?


She hadn’t. 


'She' had created a mock-up of my PayPal account and had emailed me that mock-up. It looked real and it looked like it had $500 in it. It didn't. My real Paypal account was empty. As empty as my lounge. I’d been scammed. It was daylight robbery. I'd been robbed of my oversized day-bed and what's more I'd taken the shirt off my back and helped the thief carry it down six flights of stairs and load it into his truck. I’d even waved him off my driveway. And he’d waved back at me. Bye bye. Bye bye badman.

There's a lesson for us all in this sorry tale. Somewhere. 


I think it might be this; if something looks too good to be true, it probably is. The other lesson is this; if someone's going to nick your oversized day-bed don't help him carry it down the stairs and don't help him lift it onto the back of his truck. Let him do the work.


National Fraud Awareness Week. Be aware and be alert. Or lose your day-bed.

hope you had, or are having, a super weekend. pip pip 

Life. Lived perilously close to the bleeding edge

I can't be accused of being an 'early adopter'. I definitely don't live my life on the 'bleeding edge'. You'll find me a few feet back; just close enough to peek over the bleeding edge. But only just.

When facebook was invented I thought it was a right load of old rubbish. I told Picky it'd never catch on. My mantra was that I knew who I knew and I didn't need to know who I used to know. Now, of course, I love being in touch with everyone I used to know, and at the same time I can snoop hourly - sometimes more frequently - on everyone else. 

Then there's blogging. Picky loves reading her favourite blogs. She dips into a fair few of them on a fairly regular basis. Mine is partway down her list. I once told her that blogging would never catch on. And now? Well now I'm writing this and telling Picky what I'm blogging about, and she's sitting next to me telling me that I will never be accused of being an early adopter.

When the first iPad was released and I saw the queue outside the Apple store in Sydney, I thought the fanbots were stark raving mad. Then we visited our mates Dale and Tony in San Francisco,  and I saw them using their iPad. I had to have one. NOW. These days I couldn't live without mine. I'd literally die on the spot if I didn't have it, and I feel lost and bereft if I ever forget it. It's a little sad I know.

There's other things too. I recently upgraded to the iPhone and now I wonder how I lived with a blackberry for so long. I could go on and on, but you get the idea. I'm behind the curve, behind the 8-ball, blah blah blah.

That's why I have Picky. Well it's one of the reasons. Me & Picky. You probably haven't realised it but (and I know this will come as a complete surprise, if not a total shock) Picky is a wee bit younger than me. Yep I know, you'd never have guessed from the photos and all the other stuff.

The upside of this startling fact is that she's able to keep me abreast of all the new-fangled stuff that comes out. And she's perfectly positioned to advise me on the stuff thats 'trending'. She was even able to tell me that the word 'trending' is perfectly appropriate for use in that last sentence. That's how 'with it' she is. And how 'un-with it' I am.

Admittedly she does have to explain things to me in detail. And slowly. But I do get it. Eventually.

She recently introduced me to Instagram.

I didn't get it at first. I thought it was just the camera on my new iPhone by another name. Then I got it a bit mixed up with telegrams. Picky didn't even know what they were. There's that age gap again.

& then I got it. And now I'm addicted. I'm Instagram-ing all over the place. Right, left and centre. And I'm loving it. I've gone all creative with my iPhone. But it's a bit of fun and I love seeing other people's stuff too. If you're on there please let me know. I'd love to follow you.

I'm all over it - like a seagull into a bucket of sick prawns. If you wanna follow me and look at the amateurish stuff that I think is 'o so professional', you can follow fourseventen (that's me) or 3littlepichs (that's Picky) ... she's the one at the bleeding edge!

On Sunday I'm being introduced to Pinterest. By Picky, of course. I've already made my feelings known. It's a right load of old rubbish. It'll never catch on. Look out for my Pinterest account details over the next few weeks. & do send me yours!

Have a great weekend. Pip pip

Ps ... On Sunday I'll be tackling the tricky topic of Nigerian email scams and other less popular frauds. 

A view from THE bridge

I landed in Sydney on May 3rd 1997. I'd left England on May 1st. So technically-speaking I skipped May 2nd 1997 entirely. I wasn't overly bothered. May 2nd has always been quite uneventful for me.


At 7am on May 3rd 1997 I took a taxi from Sydney International Airport to The Holiday Inn in Coogee. In the years since 1997 both of these have changed beyond all recognition. Back then, the International Airport was basically a well-mowed strip of grass in the middle of a field a few kilometers to the south of Sydney. Some bloke had to shoo the cows off the field whenever a 747 from Europe approached. I'm not even sure if he was paid to do the cow shoo-ing.


& then the bods in charge of the Olympics announced 'the winner is Syd-e-ney', and Macquarie Bank somehow convinced everyone that the city needed a shiny new airport to accommodate the hoards that were expected in the year 2000. They also convinced us that it was perfectly OK to charge the earth for parking at their shiny new airport, and for taking a train to their shiny new airport. Now, thanks to Macquarie Bank, Sydney's shiny new international airport is little more than an overpriced shambles. 


It's a right royal rip-off. It was far better when I first rocked up on May 3rd 1997.


The Holiday Inn in Coogee is now called The Crowne Plaza. I haven't stayed there since 1997, but I can guarantee that if Macquarie Bank were involved in any of the changes it'll be overpriced and shambolic now too.

When I got to the Holiday Inn, after what felt like a six-week flight from a different world in a different hemisphere, I had just one thing on my mind. The Sydney Harbour Bridge. I was itching to see it and even more itchy to whizz across it.


For me Sydney was the Harbour Bridge. I'd never been to Sydney before I moved Down Under. I'd seen pictures of the bridge and I liked the look of it. The truth is that I don't mind a good bridge. I remember going over the Clifton Suspension Bridge when I was about 11 and thinking, 'how the heck does this thing work?' And that's the rub of it for me. I have no idea how they work, why they don't collapse in the middle and fall in a heap into the water below. When I was at Uni a very bright Engineering boffin - who is probably sitting at his desk right now, designing bridges - explained it all to me in great detail. I did a fair bit of nodding and mmm-ing and ah-ing, but the truth was that I had no idea what he was on about. He lost me when he said that 'through-arch bridges' (the Sydney Harbour Bridge is technically a 'through-arch bridge') don't rely on the four concrete towers on either end in any way at all. They are there for purely aesthetic reasons. I thought they were crucial. I still do if I'm being honest. But they're not. They're cosmetic.


I left the Holiday Inn in my rental car. It was a Holden Commodore. The previous driver had left a half-eaten MacDonald's meal in the glove compartment. As a result, the drive to my first crossing of the Sydney Harbour Bridge wasn't as pleasant as it might have been.


The approach to the bridge from Sydney's Eastern suburbs is a strange one. You don't see 'the Coathanger' until you're almost on it. I was so excited I could hardly contain myself. There I was in a, if a little pungent, car, in a new city, on the cusp of a new life, cruising the streets of the iconic Bondi Beach, on my way to cross the even more iconic Sydney Harbour Bridge.


& then I missed it.


Just like that. I missed it. I didn't see the sign with the arrow pointing up the left that said 'Cahill Expressway and Sydney Harbour Bridge'. I went straight ahead and ended up in the Sydney Harbour Tunnel.


From an engineering perspective I have no doubt that tunnels are just as fascinating as bridges. I suspect that the Sydney Harbour Tunnel is - as tunnels go - a real belter. It burrows under Sydney Harbour for god's sake. That's really quite impressive. But the truth is, when you're in it, and going through it, and you really, really wanted to be on the Sydney Harbour Bridge, going across it, you can't help feeling a little bit gutted. Let down even.


The view from THE Bridge was supposed to be spectacular. The view in the tunnel was nothing special. It was - and still is - mainly concrete and cars. The tunnel is as functional as THE Bridge is spectacular.


Of course, when I popped out of the tunnel I was totally lost. It was my first day in Sydney and I was in a strange car that reeked of half-eaten MacDonalds. I ended up in Lane Cove. Those people who know Sydney will know that if you're looking for the Sydney Harbour Bridge and find yourself in Lane Cove you're having a bit of a nightmare. Your day ain't going well.


Being a typical bloke I was reluctant to ask a passer-by for directions. That was mainly due to the language problem. I'd just arrived from England and I had no idea what dialect the people in Lane Cove spoke. So I just cruised the streets hoping I'd end up on the Sydney Harbour Bridge. I didn't.


Eventually I did manage to turn around. I retraced my steps from Lane Cove. Past Crows Nest. Through North Sydney. McMahon's Point. Milsons Point. Kirribilli.


Bang. There it was. In all its glory. The Sydney Harbour Bridge. And it was as magnificent as I'd hoped and imagined.


The Sydney Harbour Bridge. As bridges go, it's a cracker. One of the best I reckon. It's 80 years old today. Happy birthday to it.


Here's a few bits 'n' bobs that you might not know about the old Coathanger ...

• It was built by the English firm Dorman Long and Co. Their winning bid was touch over 4million quid
• The winning design was one of seven. The other six are over there on the right
• At 42 metres it's the widest longspan bridge in the world. It's also the heaviest, but not the longest.
• It's 1149m long (including approaches), 503m between the arches and 49m above the water
• The bridge can rise and fall up to 18cms due to heating and cooling
• 272,000 litres of paint are needed to spruce it up completely

As for traffic crossing the bridge, in 1932 about 11000 cars whizzed (!) across each day and a few horses pulling carts. Today that figure is close to 200,000. Today no horses are allowed. Daily traffic across the bridge dropped by about 50,000 cars on 31st August 1992. Why? That was the day that the Sydney Harbour Tunnel opened.


Since 1992 drivers have had two options when needing to cross the harbour by road from the north, east and city.  Tunnel or bridge. Bridge or tunnel. There's pros and cons to both. But, in my view, the Bridge wins hands down. Always.


It's been that way since May 3rd 1997.


drawings from www.sydneyharbourbridge.info

PIFD ... a day to remember

There's a heap of 'those days' in a typical year.

I don't mean regular days like Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and the rest. They're boring days. I mean 'celebration days'. Look, I reckon most them are a bit of a waste of space. Walk to Work Day is a big one down here. I don't get that one at all. I'd imagine that if you live close enough to walk to work you pretty much always do (work to walk). In most cases, I reckon that's probably why you've chosen to live close to work ... so you can walk to work. I'm not sure that the people who live close to work really need a special day to remind them to leave the car at home.

I work a good 40kms from home. They could offer a whole heap of Walk to Work Days each year and you wouldn't find me getting involved in any of them. Walk to Work Day just makes me feel guilty. Guilty that I can't walk to work. It may as well be called Feel Guilty that your Buggering up the Environment by not Walking to Work Day. Although I guess that doesn't have the same ring to it. 

On the other hand if you are on the lookout for a decent celebration day - if your birthday, Christmas Day, Pancake Day and all the other 'big ones' aren't enough for you - I've come across one that might just tickle your fancy; 26th April 2012.

It's International Pay it Forward Day.

Yep, it's international. It's a worldwide day. Woo-hoo! Pop the date in your diary right now.

I mean it. I really do. I like the sound of this one. To start with it doesn't involve me having to walk 40kms to work. 

Pay if forward. It's a really nice concept. A great idea. A nice way to live. Even for just one day.

I'll explain it, but only because I've only just heard the phrase myself. You might already know what it's all about. Hell, people might have been 'paying it forward' on April 26th for years and years, and I might just not have been told about it.

Admittedly, I have been living under a rock for a few years. I've been lost in my own little world. Picky tells me there was a movie made about paying it forward. It was called 'Pay it Forward'. I do like a movie title that doesn't mess about, that isn't too cryptic and gets straight to the point. I think it had Jennifer Aniston in it*. Or someone. Like I say, I've been under a rock on the movie front. I've not plonked down on me bum at the cinema with a family-sized box of salted popcorn since Pearl was born.  That's almost two years. I thought Jennifer Aniston was only in Friends, and was knocking about with Brad Pitt. That's how 'in the dark' I am. My darkness is pretty dark. 

Pay it forward.

It's the idea that you do someone a favour - help someone out - with whatever resources you have, whatever skills you possess. You lend-a-hand. And you don't expect anything in return. But because you've done something nice for that person, you hope that they will do something just as nice for someone else. Not for you (technically that's 'paying it back'), but for someone other than you. In the future. That's paying your kindness forward.

It's nice don't ya think? You help someone out, give them a break, do a good turn, and you don't expect anything in return. You just hope that they will Pay it Forward. It's simple and cool.  I like the idea that, for one day at least, the world will be full of people who are busy doing nice things for other people and not expecting anything in return. 

Me, Picky and Pearl - the 3 Pichs - have an odd living arrangement. Not odd as in we sleep in different parts of the house or anything. Although that might have crossed Picky's mind from time to time. We live in a beautiful apartment in Manly. Our place has got super views out over the ocean. I say 'our place'. It's not. We just rent it off the parents of some friends of ours. They live in England and they come back to Manly each year for three months to visit family. So, the deal is that we live in their apartment for nine-months and then we move out for three-months. For those nine-months we pay them reduced rent. That's why we live in such a beautiful apartment with great views. We could never afford it if we didn't have this funny '3-months / 9-months arrangement'.

The downside is that for 3-months every year we're homeless. 

We're not complaining. It's a great set up. It works a dream. Of course, it's a bit of a hassle moving out and finding somewhere else to live for three months. Particularly now we've got Pearl. Imagine packing up and moving out and into somewhere temporary, and then - three months later - doing the same thing in reverse. It's a right old hassle.

This year we found a great place to live. For two out of the three months. We struck gold. But we were a month short. We tried everything to find somewhere for the final four weeks; friends, the internet, friends of friends, Facebook friends, friends of Facebook friends. Nothing. Nada. We could hardly blame people. Who really wants three Pichs rocking up on their doorstep with 25 bags bulging with assorted bits and bobs?

Finally as a last resort we decided to pack Picky and Pearl off to Europe to visit her mum and dad for a month. That way at least it was just one Pich and my 25 bags of assorted bits and bobs in need of a place to stay for a month. 

& then I popped down to grab a couple of takeaway coffees from our local coffee shop. As I was waiting for my cappuccino (with a double shot) I told the fella making it that I was packing the girls off to Europe for a month due to our impending homelessness. There was a lady with a pram standing next to me. She'd just grabbed her own coffee. She asked me what my problem was. I told her. She asked for my number & she called later that day to say that she'd chatted to her husband and we could have their apartment for a month if we wanted it. The three of them would move into her husband's parent's place. For a month.

I was stunned. Picky was stunned. Pearl was stunned. Pearl was more stunned at all the new toys she spotted when we popped to see what was destined to be our home for a month.

That was a week ago. I'm typing this from the sofa in our 'new place'. They moved out and we moved in. They cleared some space in their wardrobe, talked us through the set-up of their TV, said we could use their wireless, hopped in their car and said they'd be back in four weeks. Just like that.

Is it me, or is that odd? It shouldn't be odd though, should it? It should be how things are. I think it was how things were back in the olden days. In our grandparent's day. People helping other people out, doing a good turn, pitching in, doing people a favour. Even strangers. Just because they could. I don't think it happens too much these days. Maybe it does. Maybe everybody is secretly helping everybody else out. Under the radar. Maybe. I doubt it.

I said to Picky that I'm going to make sure that I do a bit of that myself from now on. Consciously. That I will try to help people out whenever I can, if I can, just because I can. When you think about it, it's really not too much of a hassle to do someone a small favour from time to time. And you never know, to them it might actually be a huge favour.

Cheers Anna, Kris and Hugo. You did us a huge favour and I'll pay it forward - hopefully before the big day itself. Pay it Forward Day. April 26th 2012

*crucial fact check. The movie Pay it Forward (2000) did not star Jennifer Aniston. It starred Kevin Spacey and Helen Hunt. Jennifer Aniston is no longer with Brad Pitt and Friends finished ages ago. Jennifer Aniston was indeed in Friends. Picky brought me up to speed on a few things when she read this post.

Dr Spock (& not the one with the funny ears)

So, I’ve written a book. I’m officially a 'wannabe author'. It's officially not a book. It's only a book when it's published, if that ever happens. Until then it's officially a 'manuscript'.

So, I've officially written a manuscript.

It’s currently with a professional editor being professionally edited (whatever that means), but really it’s done & dusted.  

I thought I’d unveil a small part of my book right here, right now. 


I can’t promise it’ll be anything like the unveiling of a sparkly, new, Apple gizmo (or gizmo mark 3). It’s only my book. It’s quite hard to achieve the elusive 'wow-factor' with the unveiling of a small bit of a wannabe author's first manuscript.

But anyway, it is what it is. My first book. Ah. 

It’s taken me almost 2 years. 


It was like laying an egg. I've never laid an egg. But I imagine it's hard. Not for hens. It's water off a duck's back to them. But to us laying an egg would be agony. Just like my book. I started tapping away on the keyboard the day after Pearl was born - on 5th July 2010 to be precise - and I didn’t stop ‘til a few weeks back. My head was full of ideas and stuff. 


& then it kind of all came together as a story.   

Talking of books, Dr Benjamin Spock died on March 15th 1998. He wrote one of the best-selling books of all time. Baby and Child Care. It sold more than 50million copies and it turned the whole world of parenting upside down. It quite literally changed the world. It was that big. If you’re reading this blog I can guarantee that your childhood was probably influenced by Dr Spock. You might not think that it was, but the vast majority of our parents or carers were influenced to some degree by Spock. & not the one with the funny ears.

It seems so simple now, but guess what he said back in the mid-1960’s?

Parents know more than they think they do. 

That was pretty much it. 

It wasn’t completely it. He said a whole heap more. But really, in a nutshell, what he said was that mothers need to trust their instincts more; that parents are the real experts in parenting. Before he said this, parents were pretty much told that they knew nothing. They were told how to be parents and this mainly involved punishment, discipline, little emotion and limited individualism. All babies and kids were the same, apparently. Emotion was a bad thing. The experts were experts and parents ought to listen to the experts and not to their instincts. It was complete twaddle. 

Dr Spock changed all that. Thank god. Well, thank Spock. 

This small snippet from my book kind of says the same thing as the great Dr Spock (& not the one with the funny ears)  

... 

from ch. 2 of & then there were three by David Pich

... Since Pearl’s arrival I had handled her only three times. On each occasion I had been petrified. My hands felt like bunches of bananas every time they went anywhere near my tiny daughter. The problem was that Pearl looked so tiny and fragile and, when I held her, she felt like little more than skin and bones. I was scared to death. Scared that I would drop her, crush her, hurt her, or inflict some combination of each of these on her tiny frame. My desire to avoid a father-induced, newborn baby catastrophe meant that, on each of the three occasions, I had been forced to rely on the same trusty technique that has been deployed down the ages by a significant proportion of the male population in situations demanding concentration and a steady hand; I held my breath and clenched my tongue between my teeth, with the very tip showing clearly between my lips. It wasn’t ideal but, so far at least, it had worked; Pearl was still undropped. Uninjured. In one piece. Alive. 

I stood, rather sheepishly, next to the bed and watched Dr Dunlop as he examined Pearl. It was chalk and cheese. The way that Dr Dunlop interacted with Pearl was a different kettle of fish entirely. He definitely wasn’t holding his breath. I was absolutely sure about that because, as he was unswaddling my daughter, he was talking to me. Talking! Perfectly normally and coherently. When I had fleetingly held Pearl, anything resembling conversation was not only out of the question, it was the stuff of dreams. I found it hard enough to inhale and exhale when my daughter was lying amongst my bunches of bananas. 


I looked at Dr Dunlop’s mouth. There was no sign of the tip of his tongue. No sign at all. I had to face facts, Dr Dunlop oozed confidence. Knowing that he had handled a fair few babies during the course of his professional life was no consolation whatsoever. This was my daughter; my Pearl. I was a real papa now and I desperately wanted to act like one. I definitely didn’t want to act like a dithering idiot. There would be plenty of far more appropriate moments in my future life as the papa of Pearl Pich for me to prove myself a dithering idiot.  

In the end I couldn’t help myself. There was an expert in the house and he seemed perfectly capable of conducting a conversation whilst doing his job. So, trying my best to sound as nonchalant as I possibly could, I asked Dr Dunlop if newborn babies were really as fragile as they looked. I didn’t mention holding my breath, or my tongue gymnastics. Dr Dunlop’s answer to my question didn’t sound particularly earth-shattering, nor did it feel overly significant. Little did I know that, in the weeks and months ahead, his words would to return to Eileen and I time and again or that, in many ways, they would shape us as new parents and help us to navigate our way through the minefield that was parenthood. 

Dr Dunlop was partway through the process of giving Pearl a very thorough check from top to toe. He certainly wasn’t intending to offer us any particular pearls of wisdom. In fact, as he spoke he was fully-focussed on Pearl. He only really said three things, but each of them was a gem; a genuine pearl of wisdom. Unintended they might have been, but pearls of wisdom they definitely were. 

Dr Dunlop’s 1st Unintended Pearl of Wisdom

(He took a torch from the inside pocket of his jacket and he looked into each of Pearl’s ears)

'Follow your instincts and common-sense as a parent. Your instincts and common-sense will usually turn out to be right.'

Pearl’s ears seemed to be fine.

Dr Dunlop’s 2nd Unintended Pearl of Wisdom

(He turned Pearl onto her back, wiggled her arms around in circles at her shoulder sockets, and her legs in bicycle-kick motions at her hip sockets)

'Throw all the books that people have given you about parenting in the bin. The baby-book market is based on creating fear and guilt amongst new parents. Books cause parents to stop trusting their instincts and using their common-sense. They make parents doubt themselves.'

Pearl’s arms, shoulders, legs and hips seemed to be fine. 

Dr Dunlop’s 3rd Unintended Pearl of Wisdom

(He directed the light from his torch into Pearl’s eyes and ran his hands over her skull from front to back. He then turned her over and felt all the way down her spine)

'As a parent the worrying starts now and it never really stops or goes away. You have to learn to live with this worry and not allow it to prevent you from being great parents.'

Pearl’s eyes, skull, the back of her neck and spine all seemed to be fine. Throughout the examination Pearl hadn’t made a sound. Neither had I. I had been too busy holding my breath, my tongue was clenched between my teeth and I was acutely aware that its tip was showing between my lips. That was it, the examination was over. Three unintended pearls of wisdom had been delivered. Dr Dunlop gathered Pearl up and passed her over to me.

This was it. My time had come. I knew it. Dr Dunlop knew it. I could see by the look in his eyes as he was passing Pearl over to me that he knew it. I could continue down the same road as before - a complete bag of nerves, with my breath held and the tip of my tongue clearly visible. Or I could leave all that behind. I could trust my instincts. I could let common-sense overcome fear. I could let the force be with me. This really was it. My own personal Luke Skywalker moment had arrived.

I decided right there and right then that it was time for me to become a proper papa. I concentrated. Focussed. Relaxed. And I took Pearl from Dr Dunlop. He smiled. It was a smile of pure encouragement. A smile that told me that I could do it; that he wanted me to do it. I concentrated. I concentrated on concentrating. I focused on focussing. On breathing. On keeping my tongue in. On holding my daughter. And eventually, finally, I gave Pearl Matisse Pich her very first - and the first of very many - papa-daughter cuddles. It was only a gentle cuddle, but for the very first time my hands didn’t feel like bunches of bananas. It was our first cuddle without any obvious sign of fear and it was the happiest moment of my short life as a parent. 

Of course, lurking somewhere at the back of my mind there was still a hint of doubt. I knew it was there, I could feel it bubbling away. But for the first time I was able to control it, to see beyond it. I discovered that right there, on the other side of my worries and fears, was something very different, something new and beautiful; joy, excitement and happiness. 

For a brief moment I caught my first glimpse of the joy, excitement and happiness of fatherhood.

(copyright, of course)

...

RIP Dr Spock


Hope you have a great week.

Pip pip

an idiot's guide to fad diets (pt 2)

cont ... fad diets & superfoods

I spent last Sunday on a mission with Picky. We were scouring Sydney's supermarkets ... for pasta.

Pasta is not something that is normally especially hard to find. Any supermarket worth the name has a fairly decent aisle of the stuff. Sometimes two aisles. If you ask me there's actually too much pasta in your average supermarket. And it's all pretty much the same, only the shape of the stuff differs. Do we really need pasta in the shape of cars, horses and other recent domesticated animals? Probably not.

Anyway, we weren't desperately seeking any old pasta, we were after special pasta. SLIMpasta. Picky had read about it on a blog she follows (I note with interest that she doesn't yet follow this bloody blog, but offer her a blog about SLIMpasta ... and she's hooked!).

SLIMPasta is currently the flavour of the month around these parts. It's big and it's set to get bigger. The blog she was reading listed all the places that sell it. All of them had sold out. It's THAT big.

SLIMpasta is still pasta. But with no carbs, no fat, nothing. It's AirPasta. Invici-Pasta. You think it's there ... but it's not.

'Carb-less carbs' are the latest craze to hit the food world. I freely admit that I'm a bit of a sucker for all these new crazes. It was exactly the same when the whole 'detox-diet' craze hit. It was all for it. I was all over a decent detox diet.

I did the detox that was commonly-known as The Two Fruits Diet.

It was the diet of the day. Everyone was doing it. Celebs - A, B & C-grade. Everyone. I think Mick Jagger did it. And he raved about it. I wanted a piece of it too. If Mick could do The Two Fruits Diet, it couldn't be too hard.

On paper The Two Fruit Diet looked easy-peasy. It was built on one easy-to-understand principle;

'Starving yourself is the road to deep & long-lasting happiness'.

Look, I fully understand that this principle has long been discredited. It's been shown to be a right load of old tosh. But, back in the day, in the innocence of my mid-20s, starving yourself - at least in short bursts - was all the rage. It was the in-thing. Everyone was doing it. People were starving all over the place. Especially at the weekends. Basically, when I was 23 and living near London, no-one was eating at the weekends. Saturday and Sunday were food-free zones. And The Two Fruits Diet was the big-mama of weekend starvation diets. If you hadn't done The Two Fruits Diet you weren't fully human. It was as simple as that. Do the diet - starve yourself - feel alive, detox your body.

Or don't and be cursed.

The Two Fruits Diet worked like this; you could select two fruits (hence the name) and you had to live with - and on - them for a whole weekend. From 6pm on Friday evening, to 9am Monday morning.

I suspect you're thinking ... 'that doesn't sound too bad. It sounds bad, but not TOO bad'.

It is & it was.

The thing about the Two Fruits Diet is (was) this. It might sound OK because you could at least eat. It wasn't 'proper' starvation. You could binge on your chosen fruits to your heart's content. Plus, it had variety. It was two fruits, not one.

My two fruits were grapes & pineapples.

We could debate the ins and outs of my two chosen fruits til the cows come home. I didn't pick them at random. I gave them both a good old ponder. My thinking was simple;

Grapes are small, hassle free (no peeling required) and relatively 'filling' (as filling as fruit gets).

Pineapples were a different story. I don't actually like pineapple. I never have. There's a lesson in there somewhere. If you're staring down the barrel of an entire weekend on nothing more than two fruits, don't pick a fruit that you don't like. I picked pineapple because I viewed it as a good, solid, 'meaty' kind of fruit.

It wasn't. It isn't. It was pineapple. Plain and simple.

Pineapple is fiddly. Getting into a pineapple is tough. And it's even tougher when you're starving hungry because the only thing you've eaten since 6pm the previous evening is 3kgs of grapes.

I walked into my friendly local supermarket at 4pm on the Friday and I bought 12 pineapples and 7kgs of grapes. The checkout chick didn't bat an eyelid. I knew she wanted to. She was doing everything in her power to stop her eyelids batting vigourously. There was a bloke standing in front of her with 12 pineapples, and every available grape in the supermarket. I knew she had questions. She also had bright red streaks in her hair. She was way too cool for fruit-based conversation.

At home I lined up my 'meals' in rows on the kitchen bench. Grapes at the front, pineapples at the back. It was 5pm. The Two Fruits Diets started at 6pm. I had an hour. Plenty of time to have a beer and a block of chocolate. But I didn't. I really wanted to dive into my detox. So I had a handful of grapes.

By 9pm I was starving. And I was cursing my rejection of that beer and chocolate way back at 5pm. I was also cursing my choice of fruits. I was sick to death of grapes. I desperately wanted a banana. I'd have killed for a banana. Killing for a banana at 9pm on the Friday evening wasn't a good sign.

The Two Fruits Diet allowed you to drink water on top of your two fruits. So I drank buckets of the stuff.

I was up most of the night taking trips to the toilet. Each time I got back into bed, I realised I needed to go again. And then I realised I was starving. Trudging back and forth to the toilet burns calories. I was burning 6 or 7 grapes-worth each trip. I'd eaten around 200 grapes. By the morning I was so hungry that I woke up chewing my pillow. It tasted of grapes.

For breakfast I sliced open my first pineapple. That was when I realised that I didn't like pineapple. I had expected it to be meaty. I had hoped that it would be the fruit equivalent of a big plate of sausages and crispy bacon. It wasn't. It was the fruit equivalent of pineapple.

By mid-morning on the Saturday I was famished. Ravenous. And delirious. I couldn't stomach another grape, and my only other option were the 11 pineapples I had left.  I was a broken man. I had a glass of water and scuttled to the toilet to pee ... and cry.

That was when the real doubts started to creep in. And the questioning. Why am I doing this? Man cannot live on bread alone. Yes he bloody well can. It's grapes and pineapples alone that man cannot live on. Not this man anyway. I was hungry, tired and tetchy. And thin. I'd wasted away overnight. I could see my ribs. All of them. I hadn't realised how many ribs humans have until I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror. I was all skin and bones. And ribs.

I walked back into the kitchen and faced down my nemesis. My nemeses. All 11 of them. And the grapes. There was a good 5kgs of those on the kitchen bench.  They didn't blink. I did. I couldn't do it.  I was beaten. And not only beaten. The Two Fruits Diet had chewed me up and spat me out.

I persevered.

I sat huddled on the sofa wrapped in a blanket in front of the TV with a bowl of grapes and pineapple pieces for company and sustenance. At bang on 3pm I noticed my bowl was empty. I crawled to the kitchen. I was down to my last 8 pineapples. The kitchen was a war zone. There were bits of pineapple everywhere. It was a pineapple disaster area. The thought of 8 more pineapples and 3 more kilos of grapes was more than I could bear. I was as weak as a kitten. I needed help.

I was faced with a stark choice; give up or go on.

I gave up.

I had to. I couldn't go on. I was starving.

I can't stand all that motivational tosh about not quitting and pushing through against all the odds. Stuff that. My view on quitting is simple; if you're going to quit do it properly. I'm not a half-hearted quitter. When I quit, I really quit. I called The Haweli, my local Indian eatery, and booked a table. For 6pm. The Haweli only opened at 6pm. I was waiting outside. I had chicken jalfrazi, pilau rice, a garlic nan bread and a stack of poppadums. And I rounded it off with a bowl of kulfi, the lovely indian-style ice cream. The waiter asked if I wanted pineapple fritters with my kulfi. I did not. I haven't eaten pineapple since.

Fad diets can suck you in. They can also chew you up and spit you out. They're not sustainable. Sometimes they're not sustainable for a weekend.

The SLIMpasta? It was a bit disappointing really. It tasted just like pasta but without that nice 'carby' taste that pasta is famous for.

To compensate we smothered it in a creamy sauce with mushrooms and bacon. That helped on the taste front. But not, I suspect, on the SLIMfront. Kinda sums the whole subject up if you ask me.

Pip pip

friday, I'm in love ... green sludge

i don't care if monday's blue 

tuesday's grey and wednesday too

thursday i don't care about you

it's friday, i'm in love

It had to happen at some point. In fact, I’m a little surprised that it took this long. I’ve run slap-bang into a topic that’s too big for a single blog post. 


The attention span of an average blog reader is said to be around 120 seconds - that’s 2 minutes in old money. When anything is quoted in seconds you know it’s a very short time indeed. They pop it into seconds to make it sound impressive; to make it sound longer than it actually is. If they said 2 minutes it’d throw bloggers the world over into a panicked frenzy. I suspect there’s nothing worse than a blogger in a panicked frenzy.

My very first 'two-blog topic' is a good one. It’s guaranteed to get the juices flowing. Literally. Fad Diets & Superfoods.

But today is Friday ... and Friday I’m in love. So we’ll dip into diets from a healthy vantage point. Green sludge. It's the stuff that me & Picky have for breakfast most mornings. 


Pearl doesn’t. Pearl refuses to have anything to do with green sludge. Even when we tell her it’s breakfast and it’s healthy and despite the fact we say ‘num-num’ twenty or thirty times. We can tell that she’s not convinced. 


Well, to be fair to Pearl, she is convinced. She’s convinced it’s green sludge and as such she's convinced it's inedible.  

The green sludge is green because of kale. When Picky first announced that she was making a smoothie for breakfast with kale, I told her it’d be far too salty. She looked baffled. Salty? Yes, salty. She disagreed. I stuck to my guns. 


I thought that kale was seaweed. I still do. Even though I now know it’s not. Even though I’ve bought it myself in the supermarket, chopped it up, blended it and guzzled the damn stuff in a smoothie. I still think it’s seaweed. It’s in my head as seaweed. It’s like I still think that Bonn is the capital of Germany. It's not. Berlin is. Berlin replaced Bonn a while back. Poor old Bonn, I say.

Kale isn’t seaweed. Kelp is. There's the confusion. Kale is a vegetable that’s found in the supermarket amongst all the other vegetables. I’ve no idea where kelp is found in the supermarket.  

Kale is the new wonder-food. It’s one of those new-fangled 'superfoods' that everyone is raving on about. 


Superfoods are good for everything; brain function, bowel movement, blood flow and anything else your body is supposed to do that begins with a ‘b’. Kale is a bloody belter. 

When Picky first had it for breakfast I wasn’t convinced. I still thought it was seaweed. I also didn’t think it was a 'proper' breakfast. To me it looked like green sludge, and I didn’t think green sludge would fill me up. I love a good brekky, and ‘that’ didn’t look much like one. 


Picky did the usual thing. She made a few 'mmm's' and 'ah's' - enjoyment noises - ... and I immediately needed to have a taste. It was great. Better than great. It was awesome. And it wasn’t salty. Even though it was full of seaweed. 

Look, I don’t know about all these superfood thingies. They're probably just the latest food fads. Things have a habit of being a superfood one minute and then, a few years later, some bright spark in a white coat tells you it causes a wide variety of very nasty diseases. 


Back in the old days my gran used to say that butter and cream would ‘put hairs on me chest’. Now we're told the same stuff will put fat on our thighs. Who knows! 


Pomegranates, blueberries, goji berries, quinoa, chia seeds, acai powder. They're all supposed to be foods that'll have you hunting for the nearest phonebox and stripping into your Superman gear. 

All I know is this; the green sludge that I have for breakfast each morning tastes great. It’s not remotely salty. Even Pearl has started to appreciate it. Some mornings she'll come running up saying ‘num-num’ and demanding a few gulps herself. 


Green sludge fills me up a treat and I always feel great after I’ve had one, or even two, in the morning. Here’s the recipe. Grab yourself some kale and give it a whirl sometime to see for yourself;

Green Sludge

A good fistful of kale 
or feel free to use silverbeet or even spinach (don't use kelp, that’s seaweed)

Half a mango

1 peach

1 banana

Half a cup of water (or coconut water - another alleged superfood)

A little bit of fresh ginger (for added zing)
A squeeze of a fresh lime
A few ice cubes
Optional - add half a cup of oats to bulk it up a bit

What to do ... 

Chuck the lot in a blender and press the ON button. 
Pour into a glass. 
Drink. 
Feel great.

Have a great Friday and a super weekend

pip pip

Ps ... On sunday i’ll be dipping my toe further into the world of fad foods and fad diets. I’ve done a few in my time and one in particular stands out from the crowd. It didn't end well. Do Fad Diets ever end well?