The green eyed monster v The thin blue line

When I tell you what I do you'll probably think it's a bit odd. Masochistic even. But I reckon you might do it too. In fact, I think we all do it. Not necessarily about the same thing. But I'm sure that we all do 'it' about 'something'.

Before I tell you what I do, I have to preface it by saying that I love running. Love it. This year I'm running 5 marathons - I just did Canberra. One down, four to go. I can't wait. It's a bit silly really.

So, without further ado, here's what I do ... 

If I'm driving along, or sitting in a cafe, or standing chatting to someone, and I see someone running along the street, or along the beachfront, I get all jealous. I get running envy. I want to be doing the running instead of whoever it is that I'm seeing doing it. I wish I was running with them ... or preferably in front of them!

I suffer from the green-eyed running monster.

The odd thing is that I feel the same even if I've only just been for a run myself. Even if I've just been for my long run on a Sunday morning. Later in the day I might be sitting in a coffee shop minding my own business and a runner will potter by ... and my own personal green-eyed monster will appear. I find myself wishing I was running instead of just sitting there enjoying my coffee.  

If you think this is a bit of an odd state of affairs it might be because you don't like running. That's cool. But if you surf or ski or snowboard or read, cook or take photos, or whatever your 'thing' is, and you spot someone else doing your 'thing' when you're not, I bet you get those little pangs of envy too. (It's good envy, by the way. It's not like coveting your next door neighbour's car - or wife - or anything. It's not real jealousy).

It's just the green-eyed monster giving you a gentle nudge.

Where it all began ...

I started running a fair few years ago now. Not seriously. 

I only started running seriously after the 'Blue Line Marathon'. It wasn't really called the 'Blue Line Marathon', but everyone knows it as that. The Blue Line Marathon was the Sydney marathon that was held to test the 2000 Olympic Marathon course. It started in North Sydney and it ended on the running track, across the actual finishing line, inside Sydney Olympic Stadium. (This was back in the days when 'it' was still called the Sydney Olympic Stadium. It's called ANZ Stadium now. Finishing a Marathon in ANZ Stadium doesn't sound half as romantic). It was called the blue line marathon because it famously followed a blue line on the road all the way. That thin blue line is still on Sydney's roads even today.

I ran the Blue Line Marathon ... and I finished.

But before we get all self-congratulatory and start reaching for bottles of expensive French bubbly, let me divulge two pieces of very critical information -

1. I didn't train for the Blue Line Marathon

2. I went out the night before the Blue Line Marathon

3. All night

I know that I said that there were two pieces of critical information, and I realise that I actually gave you three. I guessed that Critical Piece of Information No.2 was useless without you knowing Critical Piece of Information No.3.

I got in just after 4am. The marathon started at 6am sharp. Whoops!

I won't talk you through the race itself. I've spent almost every minute of every day since 2000 trying to forget every metre of that run.

I will say only this; as I approached Sydney Olympic Stadium I was so relieved ... that I began to cry.
They were actual, proper tears.

I wobbled into the tunnel that led through to the running track in the stadium and I stopped to stretch my legs. I couldn't actually feel my legs. I knew they were there cos I could see them through my tears. Whilst I was leaning against the wall of the tunnel - crying - and stretching two limbs that I could no longer feel, I could hear the crowd in the stadium cheering as people crossed the finish line. I had friends waiting for me in the stadium. It was my turn. My one moment of running glory had arrived. My one lap of real honour was just ahead of me. It was right there. In the Olympic Stadium. Just through the tunnel. I had 400meters left to run. 

I let go of the wall. And attempted to run.

No. Nope. Nothing. Nada. My legs - the ones I could see but couldn't feel - flatly refused to do what they were designed to do; move. They refused point blank. Refused. They were done for the day. I had run 41.795km of the required marathon distance of 42.195km. I had 400m to go, and my legs simply said, 'No. Enough is enough'. I was finished. Literally.

& then something truly remarkable happened ... a lady came jogging up to me. 

Right here, right now, I'll be brutally honest. She was a large lady. Very large. And she was decked out in the very latest lycra running gear with pink trim and bright white runners. The running gear looked like it had been bought just for the Blue Line Marathon. It certainly didn't look like it had been used much before the Blue Line Marathon. She hadn't trained. But then she probably hadn't been out til 4am that morning either. She stopped next to me in the tunnel, put her arm around my shoulders and said, 'C'mon, 400 meters to go. That's all. You can do it, mate'.

And then she let go of me.

She had to let go of me. She had no choice. 

She had a double-stroller to push. With two kids sitting in it. Two! Twins, by the looks of it. Aged about 2. She'd pushed them 41.795km. The three of them had just 400m to go.

And then she - they - were off into the Olympic Stadium. Pushing her double pram. She wasn't really running. It was more of a walk / run / shuffle type of thing. Whatever it was, it was a good deal more than I was doing. I wasn't running anywhere, I was just standing in the tunnel crying and pulling at my lifeless legs.

That was it. It was the very first time that my green-eyed monster appeared. All I wanted to do was run. And finish. Run Tipler run. It was pre-Picky. I was still a Tipler back then. Run Tipler, you muppet.

So I did.

Well, hang on. Not really. It felt like that's what I did, but reports from friends who witnessed those final 400-meters said that I wasn't really running. It was a mixture of running and hobbling. I was robbling. But I did finish my first ever marathon. In exactly 5 hours. And just behind the large lady with the double pram and the twins. I had tried to catch her up the back straight and then again down the final straight. I wanted to say thanks. But more than that I wanted to beat her. Them. My green eyed monster was out.

But I didn't. I couldn't. She was 'walk / run /shuffling' and every first time marathon runner needs to be aware of this simple marathon running fact; walk / run / shuffling' is always a whole heap faster than 'robbling'.

Pip pip

Today's post is dedicated to Hayley (running The Gold Coast Marathon on June 30th. Her first) and all other 42.2km first-timers. Hat's off to ya. Enjoy every single step along your real, or imagined, thin blue line.

F#%k, the butcher

Clearly I had to think about the title of this blog post.

You can see why. It’s more than a little confronting; some might even say it’s a tad rude. A-ha! But it’s not you see. It’s not remotely rude. That said, I’m well aware that first impressions count on this thing they call the Worldwide Web. That’s why I used the title 'F#%k, the butcher', and not 'Fuck, the butcher'. 

I really should have said 'Fuck, the butcher', but I didn’t because I thought I might very well put people off. It shouldn’t though. It’s his name. And if his name’s Fuck I have every right to call him that in a blog without anyone being remotely offended.

I’ll come back to Fuck, the butcher in a tick.

But first, here’s today’s problem. It’s a sticky one too. 

As you know Picky is German. I mean fully German. She speaks the lingo and everything.  We’re bringing Pearl up bi-lingual. Lucky Pearl I say. I wish someone had brought me up bi-lingual. I’m rubbish at languages. I really am. I’m terrible. Believe me, I’ve tried. I’ve given it a good go I really have. But I just don’t get it. Or maybe I can’t get it. Either way, Pearl - my 22-month old kid - is better at German than me. She knows more German words than me, she understands more German than me and she can switch between understanding German and English in a flash. I can’t. I can understand a tiny bit of German but it takes a whole heap longer than a flash for me to get there.

Pearl is 22-months and I’m 42-years. Plus, I’ve done German at nightschool. Pearl hasn’t. I should know heaps more German than her. I should be able to out-German my own daughter. But I can’t.

When I say ‘I’ve done German at night-school’, that’s not strictly true. I did pay good money to do a  German course at night-school. It was whilst Picky was at Uni in Germany. (We lived apart for 3-years while she went off to Uni near Munich). In her absence I decided to get myself fully fluent in German. I planned to impress her socks off when she came back to Sydney. I thought I’d just do a quick 12-week German course and bob’s-yer-uncle - we’d be watching German movies without the subtitles and reading books by Goethe on the balcony in the evening.

I lasted two weeks. Of the 12-week course. I’d paid for the entire 12 lessons. But I only actually attended two. I couldn’t get my head round it. I was perfectly OK with the greetings. ‘Hello’ was easy. In fact, it was easier than easy. It was 'Hallo'. That’s how easy ‘Hello’ was. 

After that it was hard. 


And it just got harder and harder. By the end of lesson two, I was lost. The rest of the class were busy counting to ten and asking for directions to the railway station and other equally exotic-sounding places. I was just sitting there, saying 'Hallo' to myself in the corner. It was soul-destroying.

So I quit class. 


I decided that the very best way for me to learn German (well, to learn more German than 'Hallo') was for me to immerse myself directly in Germany. We went to stay with Picky’s folks for six-weeks over Christmas.

Staying with Picky's parents really is immersing yourself in all things German. That's because they don't speak a word of English. That's the main reason why we're bringing Pearl up bi-lingual. So she can natter to her Oma und Opa in German.

While we were over with the outlaws I tried my best. I really did. After a week I could ask for the salt. And I could ask for a beer. And, of course, I was already well capable of saying 'Hallo' to anybody on a daily basis, if not more frequently.

& then I went shopping. Alone. On my own. Without Picky. 

I only went to the supermarket round the corner. We all wanted chicken for dinner and I offered to go and get it from the butcher inside the supermarket. How hard could that be? Chicken? If I got into trouble I could bloody cluck to make myself understood. Chicken? In German? In a German supermarket? I had all my words ready. Picky had even helped me to put them into a sentence. It'd be a piece of cake. 

It wasn't a piece of cake. It was a disaster. It was a poultry-induced calamity.

I rocked up at the butcher's counter. The chicken was right there. I could see it. All I had to do was order it. Easy peasy. It was my turn next. The butcher looked like a friendly chap. Very friendly. He said 'Hallo' to me, and to the chap behind me in the queue. I could cope with that. My two night-school classes came flooding back. I remembered. I bloody well remembered. I said 'Hallo!' So did the man behind me in the queue. This was soooo easy. I was blending in just fine. German? Piece o' cake.

But the man behind me in the queue didn't just say 'Hallo'. O no. He obviously knew the butcher. By name. He said, 'Hallo Herr Fuck'. 

Herr Fuck? Mr Fuck?

I was thrown. Lost. Gone. Finished. When you're looking at a butcher and you've just found out he's called Mr Fuck you really don't need to be new to the language. You need to be confident with what you're ordering. I wasn't. I was a gibbering wreck. I was paralysed by an overwhelming desire to fall on the floor in fits of hysterical laughter. Paralysis when you're ordering poultry is painful. Especially when you don't know the lingo. So I pointed. At the chicken. And held up four fingers. Mr Fuck was great. He understood me straightaway. Pointing at chicken and holding up four fingers transcends all language barriers.


I scuttled home with the chicken. I couldn't wait to tell Picky and her folks what the butcher was called. Her folks knew. In fact they knew Herr Fuck very well. He was their local butcher. They saw Fuck regularly for their meat. 


The thing about learning a new language when you're 42 is that you read too much into it; you ask too many questions. When you're 20-months you don't. You just hear it, repeat it and learn it. At 42 you tend to ask why 'things' have specific genders, and why the local butcher is called Mr Fuck. And you realise that with languages there typically aren't any answers. To pick up a language at 42 you have to let go and stop asking questions.


Like I say, it's hard learning a new language at my age.


Hope you had a great weekend!


Pip pip

A small piece of Chapter 2 ..

a small excerpt from ch. 2 

& 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)

Tracey & Homer's big day ... 19th April 1987

The world’s wealthiest British comedian played a huge part in launching the world’s biggest TV show.

It’s a dead-set fact. 

The thing is that the world’s wealthiest British comedian isn’t even a comedian. At least not to me she’s not. And not to you either, I guess. Well, not if your formative years were the 1980’s.

No self-respecting lover of leg-warmers, fingerless gloves and the original Atari would ever say that Tracey Ullman is a comedian. 

No way. Never.

To us she is, was and always will be a singer.

She had two huge hits in the ’80’s. Massive. They were hits that we all pretend that we didn't love. But we loved them and we all secretly hovered over our tape recorders in our bedrooms with the BASF tape loaded, and the Record and Play buttons pressed down. Our index finger was pressed firmly on the Pause button whilst we waited. And waited. And waited.

We were were waiting for the perfect moment.

The perfect moment to release the Pause button so that the recording started no more than a split-second before the song started. Anything more than a split second and we had to wait til the following Sunday to do it all over again and get it right. And boy, we had to get it right. Our Top40 compilation tapes had to be perfect.

In 1983 we all had Tracey Ullman’s ''They Don’t Know' and 'Move over Darling' on our Top40 compilation tapes. They were huge hits. They Don’t Know reached the heady heights of No.2 in the UK Charts. It would have been No.1 if wasn’t for the leg-warmer and fingerless glove wearer Boy George and Culture Club. They happened to release Karma Chameleon at the same time and that pretty much did for Tracey Ullman’s shot at the top spot. Still, No.2 in 1983 wasn’t a bad effort at all.

And then Tracey disappeared. Poof. Just like that. These were the days before Cable TV. (Yep, there were days before Cable TV, y’know!)

She just disappeared. In the mid 1980’s 'Tracey Ullman the singer' left us, and impressionable schoolboys all over the UK were forced to transfer their secret love, and amateurish bedroom tape-recording skills, to Cindy Lauper, Madonna and others.

But the truth was that Tracey didn’t disappear at all. Not really. She was actually never really a singer. She was always a performer. And a bloody good one at that. She jumped the ditch, pitched up in America and the rest, as they say, is history. She scored her very own show on US TV. The Tracey Ullman Show. It was MASSIVE.

& then she discovered The Simpsons.

She sure did. Good old Tracey hey?! 

The Simpsons were first shown as a series of simple cartoon shorts on The Tracey Ullman Show on April 19th 1987. It ran in that format on her show for three whole seasons, before it was developed into its own half-hour show on Fox.

I suppose the question is, did Tracey Ullman discover The Simpsons?


She certainly thought so. In 1992 she sued Twentieth Century Fox for a 10% share of the $52million it had grossed for The Simpsons. She lost. Although before we feel too much sympathy, she had in fact already received over $3million for the original Simpsons shorts that were part of her show.

Despite the lawsuit Ullman never fell out with Matt Groening, the creator of The Simpsons, and she appeared in one episode (Bart’s Dog gets an F, 1991) as the voice of the English dog trainer.

The Simpsons.

What’s to say that’s not already been said? 


It’s been running for 23 seasons. That’s more than 500 episodes. And it’s been signed for at least two more seasons, guaranteeing 558 episodes. So it’s creeping towards being the longest running show as well as being the show with the most number of episodes ever on US TV. That record is currently held by Gunsmoke at 635 episodes.

I guess the big question is this; is it any good?

Opinions vary. You might hate it. I love it. 

I suppose the clincher for me is the fact that in 1992 George W Bush made a major speech about the all-American family. He closed his speech by saying that his real aim was to see American families become more like The Waltons and much less like The Simpsons. That was it for me. Give me the loopy, whacky, off-beat but loveable Simpsons lot over the sugar-coated, twee and really rather insipid and dull Waltons crew any day of the week. 

Plus, if Dubya hates it, it’s gotta be good.

Happy Birthday to The Simpsons and a huge debt of gratitude to Tracey Ullman.

By the way, Ullman’s worth $75million. That makes her the world’s wealthiest British comedian. That might be true, but to me she’s still an 80’s singer. And a fine one at that!

pip pip

Kia ora (part 2). The day I nearly died.

When you’re young you inevitably dream of having a job that involves international travel. I did. I wanted to jet set all over the place doing stuff. I had no idea what I wanted to do, but whatever it was I wanted to jet set all over the world doing ‘it’. It was one of the questions that I asked in interviews after Uni. 

‘Can I jet set all over the place doing stuff?’ 

I didn’t get too many job offers. 

And then one day - mid-jet set - you suddenly realise that jet-setting is rubbish. It hits you that the emphasis in ‘jet setting all over the place doing stuff’ is heavily skewed towards the ‘doing stuff’ bit, and not the jet setting bit. Traveling for work is more about the ‘work’ than the ‘travel’. 

Once you realise this you can’t go back. You start to hate travelling for work. Once you realise that travelling for work involves living in hotels, working in strange offices where you don’t know many people and the ‘big one’, the thing that no-one warns you about, that no-one tells you about when you ask if you can jet set all over the place doing stuff ... room service. 

Room service is great when you’re on holiday. Or away with a loved one. Then room service is the best thing since sliced bread. Then it’s better than sliced bread. But when you're travelling with work, room service is the pits. The absolute pits. It’s sad and lonely. And you always order the wrong thing. Always. When you’re on your own, sitting on the bed in your hotel room looking at the room service menu with CNN on mute, you always order the steak. With mushroom sauce and carrots. And you always regret it when it arrives. The carrots always look like they're made of orange plastic.

My epiphany about just how rubbish jet-setting can be came in New Zealand. 

I was in Wellington. The big epiphany had nothing to do with New Zealand, or with Wellington. I could just as well have been in Paris or Timbuktu. It had nothing to do with the hotel either. I was staying in the Intercontinental, no less. For three months. Three months in a posh hotel. It sounds incredibly jet-setty. It wasn’t. It was boring. And lonely. I lived off room service. Three months is a lot of steaks. I was moo-ing by the end of it.

Being a positive kind of chap I decided not to mope around. I'm not a moper. I resolved to pep myself up. It was time to leave the comfort of my queen-sized bed, the soothing sounds of the CNN news crew and the inevitable steak with mushroom sauce and plastic carrots. I was all alone in New Zealand and NZ’s a notoriously big place. There was exploring to be done.

So I hired a car. The North Island of NZ was at my mercy. All 268,680 square kilometres of it. I had the whole weekend ahead of me. I planned to give the place a right good nudge.

I didn’t. 

I gave another car a right good nudge.

I turned out of the car hire place, drove 100 meters up the main road and came to a crossroads. I stopped. And looked. And look some more. I was turning left. The car opposite me was turning right. Into my lane. He was turning across the traffic and into my lane. I had right of way. Obviously. I turned. He turned. We crashed. I almost died. Of shock.

I have never seen anyone quite as angry as the chap who’d turned across the junction into my lane and into me. He was livid. Absolutely livid. I wasn't livid. I was too shocked to be livid. Some idiot had just turned right across a junction when I clearly had right of way. I was speechless. He wasn’t. He was full of words. Most of them unrepeatable on a humble little blog like this.

To my relief I had a witness. The bloke behind me at the junction was already out of his car and walking towards me ... and towards Mr Livid. Ha-haaa my old mate you’d better calm down there’s two of us now. Two sane, rational people, both of whom can in fact drive and do in fact know the basic rules of the road. When you arrive at a crossroads and your turning left into the near side of the traffic you have right of way.

Not in New Zealand you don’t. 

Maybe in every other country on the planet - and on every other inhabited planet in the known Universe. And beyond. But not in New Zealand.

I’ll repeat that. Not in New Zealand. 

In New Zealand at crossroads, the car on the far side - the car turning right, the car turning across two lanes of traffic - has right of way. That car is legally allowed to ‘go’ first. You have to give way to that car. 

In NZ car 2 in the picture has right of way. Yep really!

I discovered all this from Mr Livid and the bloke from the car behind me. My Livid was screaming it at me whilst the bloke from the car behind me was attempting to calm him down, whilst calmly explaining that in New Zealand the car turning across the traffic has the right of way.

I’ll give you a moment to think about how stupid that road rule is.

(tick tock tick tock...)

Even Mr Livid admitted it was a stupid rule. He was still livid mind you. Of course, I was now just as livid. With whoever had made that rule. It was quite obviously someone who had never driven a car - or a bike - in his or her life. 

My driving days were over. At least in that car. It was going no-where, and neither was I. Not on roads with rules like that. I spent the rest of my time in New Zealand in Wellington and Wellington only. It turned out to be a great place. I heartily recommend a trip across The Tasman. Remember to pack a tie (click here to see why!) and leave everything you’ve ever learnt about who has right of way at crossroads at home. The tie will be needed. A tie is essential. Common sense at crossroads won’t and isn't.

Pip pip

Footnote - would you Adam and Eve it!? On 25th March 2012 the Kiwi's finally decided that giving way to the car that is crossing two lanes and turning into the traffic wasn't working for them. (I think they added up all the accidents that it has caused over the years). So, they scrapped it and fell in line with the rest of the world. Just like that. They changed. I imagine it caused chaos. Changing road rules across an entire nation can be a bit scary! But not quite as scary as driving in New Zealand when rules like that were in place. Thank god they saw sense!!

Hope you had a super weekend.

Healthy balls (suitable for all ages)

Right-o, so me and Picky have started a 'healthy living' phase. We've decided to give up eating crap. It's amazing what you have to give up when you decide to give up eating crap.

Here's a summary of what's been banished from our daily diet;

... sugar
... milk & dairy (technically this really isn't crap, but we just fancy a change)
... bread and other wheaty things (ditto)

Now I reckon you might well be thinking ... 3 things? You've only given up three things? That's easy peasy. Mmmm I'm not sure.

Here's the deal. I don't mind my sweets. Normally I'd crawl over broken glass for a decent bag of snakes. Not any more. Plus, I'm a self confessed coffee addict. And not just coffee. Cappuccino. With milk and that nice chocolate stuff sprinkled on top. And plenty of it, please. Not any more.

We're going to eat more 'naturally' for a while and see how we feel. To be honest we don't eat too unhealthily as it is, but we've decided to eat heaps more fruits and veggies, and more earthy stuff. Beans and pulses, that type of stuff.

Anyway, each to their own and all that. (We're off to Tahiti on a belated honeymoon in July and we've decided we want to look and feel great. Just secretly, I want to resemble a Greek Adonis. I blame sugar, milk and bread for the fact that I currently don't. I expect to transform gradually - but noticeably - into Adonis over the next few months).

The thing is, when Picky suggested all this healthy eating malarky I was more than happy to give it a go for a while. Variety is the spice of life. The main problem for me is that I really like something sweet to nibble on after dinner, or during the day. The chocolate vending machine that is frustratingly positioned 2 metres from my office door at work has been known to get a good nudge from yours truly. This typically happens at about 3pm when my work-day spirits are low and I need a little pep up. A Cherry Ripe or a pocket-sized (or bigger!) Cadbury's Dairy Milk does the trick nicely. Not any more it doesn't.

So I went searching for something to replace my mid-afternoon chocolate habit. And I found these little beauties. They are real belters. They take 5 mins to make, they last an age and boy they're good. I messed around with the ingredients a bit and I threw in a few things that I'd never tried before but I spotted at a health food shop.

Healthy balls (feel free to re-name them as you see fit)


The stuff you'll need ...

20 dates (buy them with the seed in and then remove the seed yourself, they are more moist that way)
1 jar of sesame tahini (buy the stuff that's not been hulled if you can, but hulled is fine)
(Avoid the temptation to spoon the tahini into your mouth from the jar if at all possible)
a handful of almonds, whizzed in chopper or popped in a bag and smashed with a rolling pin
a decent handful of walnuts, ditto
a decent handful of assorted seeds, whatever tickles your fancy
a decent handful of raisins or sultanas
5 or more prunes, chopped up
3 or more dried figs, chopped up
half a teacup of water
Sesame seeds or more chopped up nuts (kept aside for rolling the balls in)

What to do ...

Pit (that's a posh word for removing the stone) the dates and pop them all in a bowl in the microwave on high for 3 mins to soften 'em up
Mash the hell out of them in a bowl with a fork - about 3 mins will do just fine
Chuck everything else in - feel free to throw other healthy stuff in too if you like
Mix with the same fork
Roll the mixture into little balls in the palm of your hand (little, not golf ball sized!!)
Roll the little balls in the seeds or nuts (I've used nuts in the picture)
Keep in the fridge
Sneak to the fridge and eat regularly

Hey presto! A chocolate substitute. And boy they're great. Pearl loves the things too. They're perfect for kids and adults. We haven't forced one down an old person but I'm sure old people would enjoy them as well. Healthy balls are fun for all age-groups.

If you're wondering about my coffee situation. I've switched to soy milk, and actually I really like it in coffee. You've got to get the decent soy milk though. The cheap stuff is awful. I use Bonsoy. And you can't put chocolate on top I'm afraid. Soy cappuccino is just terrible. But soy latte with a couple of Healthy Balls on the side. Now ya talking'!

pip pip

Ps ... look out for my second little blog from across The Tasman over the weekend

Kia ora (part one). Two Tales from the far side of The Tasman.

New Zealand. It’s a funny place. 


But don’t take my word for it. 


During his latest stand-up tour (it’s hilarious by the way) John Cleese tells the story of the Python team heading to NZ in the late 1960‘s. Eric Idle ordered a three-egg omelette in the hotel for breakfast. He got exactly what he ordered. An omelette. With three fried eggs sitting on top of it. A three-egg omelette.

Like I say, New Zealand is a funny place.

I was in Wellington for work a few years back. I’d only recently arrived in Sydney from London and my company asked me to pop to NZ to work on a small project in their NZ office. 


After London I found Sydney an incredibly laid-back and relaxed place to work. London in the 90‘s was all pin-striped suits, bright pink shirts with gold cufflinks and spotty ties. It was dreadful. The Gordon Gecko wanna-be’s spent most of their weekends hunting out the most gaudy shirt-tie-sock-cufflink combo they could find, and most of their weekdays bragging about how much it had cost them. The more awful they looked, the more expensive it was. I doubt it’s changed much over there. Your average City of London worker-bee thinks that spending a few hundred quid on pink spotty socks with a French name makes him cosmopolitan.

Sydney is far more chilled out. Some people don't even wear ties at work. When I first got here I was stunned. And relieved. Ties are, by and large, the most useless piece of clothing ever invented. Of course, that’s not strictly true. When ties were invented in about 2-billion BC they were very useful. They kept the neck of the shirt closed. But since most decent shirts these days have buttons that do that job perfectly adequately, ties are just there for show. Or to show off. Essentially they are completely pointless. They serve no purpose at all. None. God knows why people bother with them. It baffles me. Ties are a complete waste of money ... and of silk, cotton or - heaven forbid - leather.

I rocked up in Wellington under the assumption that New Zealand - being even further away from stuffy and snooty London than Sydney - would be even more laid back. I had no idea how it was remotely possible to be 'more laid back than Sydney', but I just naturally assumed that the Kiwis had managed it. I assumed that they’d created a blissful faraway land where stress was non-existent and convention and etiquette had been thrown overboard halfway across The Tasman Sea.

Never mind ties, I half-expected the locals to be wandering around the office in their dressing gowns and slippers. I hadn’t packed a single tie. Not one. Or cufflinks. Stuff that. I’d chucked a few t-shirts in my suitcase just in case the natives raised an eyebrow at me wandering around the office in my boardshorts with no shirt on. But I doubted they would care. It was New Zealand. I was a million miles from London. I was free. I could hang loose and chill. Even at work. Right?

Wrong.  

New Zealand is one of the most formal places on Earth. At work I mean. They go nuts in the evenings. In the evenings they let their hair right down those Kiwis. But in the office it’s totally different. In that office they all had ties on. Even the women. Some of the men were in dinner suits. It was that formal. 


When the boss saw me rock up in my open neck shirt, with no tie and with a few buttons undone, he went white. Whiter than white. He went whatever colour is found to the left of white on the pantone colour chart. I thought he was going to pass out. He couldn’t cope. I don’t think he’d ever seen a real life human-being without a tie before. Maybe he’d seen one in a book. But not in the flesh. Not showing flesh. My neck was open to the elements. My Adam’s apple was out. It was borderline pornographic. 

I was rather relieved that I wasn’t in my slippers. He’d have spontaneously combusted. 

The poor chap was flummoxed. Stumped. He ushered me into a meeting room for ‘a chat’, out of sight of the other workers. Although I noticed that they were peeking over the partitions to get a look at me and my lack of tie. It was clear that they thought I’d wandered in off the street. Looking for food probably. I wasn’t in a tie. I couldn’t afford one. I probably couldn’t afford food either. The mood in the office had transformed in an instant from ‘efficient formailty’ to ‘overwhelming pity’. And I could senses that it was well on its way to ‘unbridled anger’ if I didn’t cover up quick. And put a tie on.

In the meeting room with Mr On-the-verge-of-a-meltdown it was suggested that I pop back to my hotel so that I could dress more appropriately. A tie, it turned out, was essential for an average Wellington work-day. Essential. I would quite simply not be able to push the requisite amount of paper around my desk for the requisite amount of time if I wasn’t wearing a tie. Tie-less I would be rendered completely useless.

I told him that I didn’t have a tie with me. He clearly thought I said that I’d just eaten 3 small babies for breakfast. He had that I’m-sitting-opposite-someone-who-eats-small-babies-for-breakfast look.  

You know a place is a bit odd when you're sitting in a temporary office tapping away on a computer and you catch your reflection in the screen of the computer. And you're wearing someone else's tie. 

He’d asked around the office. He had to. The choice was simple, and stark; let someone work alone in a temporary office for a day without a tie ... or ... email the entire office and ask if anyone has a spare tie with them that they could lend to the bloke from across The Tasman who’d rocked up virtually naked. 


I waited in the meeting room as the email was sent and as donors arrived. With ties. In the end I had plenty of ties to choose from. Most people had a spare one with them. Or a spare two. Just in case they lost theirs at lunchtime I suppose. I suspect that losing a tie at lunchtime is classed as a complete catastrophe in Wellington. 


In New Zealand losing a tie is more serious than losing your virginity. Or your marbles.


The relief was palpable. You could sense it, touch it, taste it. Equilibrium was restored to the office as soon as I tied my tie with a double sheep shank knot, or whatever. Only when it was tied and my top button was done-up was I allowed out of the meeting room.


That was just my first day on the far side of The Tasman. 


On my second day I almost died. Almost. 


But that's for next week.


Hope you have a great Easter long-weekend.

Pip pip