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Short stories, satires, thinking-out-loud stuff and nonsense for your enjoyment, amusement . . . or otherwise. Just utterly Elsewhere.
Who do you think you are?: In search of my name in Scotland
When I was in primary school, I’d be teased about my name at least once every year. Not the unexceptional one on this article, but my full name, which some sneaky kid would discover by going through the teacher’s roll. For a couple of days, there would be finger-pointing kids in the playground, and me running red-faced behind the bike-shed at Normal Primary. Even my older sister... more >>
Added: 2 Aug 10
Scratching the surface: In praise of old time music
I confess to being a hoarder. Nothing embarrassing like bottles, matchboxes, or beer cans. I collect art objects. Well, records actually. Over the decades I've scrounged through junk shops and school fairs looking for that first Sadistic Mika Band album, things by Sam the Sham and Pharaohs, Japanese psychedelic rock from the early 70s, spoken word albums from the 40s, Gracie Fields' singles... more >>
Added: 7 Jul 10
Trade . . .Me? A story of failed entrepreneurialism
The new poster boy for entrepreneurs is 26-year old Canadian Kyle MacDonald: he’s the guy who traded a red paperclip for a fish-shaped pen, then traded that for a doorknob, that for a barbeque and so on. He’s still trading up and some weeks ago looked set to get a house out of his on-line trading skills. My negotiating abilities are such that the other day I was prepared... more >>
Added: 5 Jul 10 
1 Comment
The Power of Speech: a short story
I recently spent a rather distressing luncheon engagement with a moderately well-known author. Aside from hearing much invaluable gossip about better known writers than my friend, I was also treated to a complex deconstruction of language and literary theories that I did not think interesting or even appropriate over a long lunch. For our first cocktails my friend was diverted into a... more >>
Added: 14 Jun 10
And The Horse You Rode Into Town On
It has been some time since I had hate mail, and while I can't say I miss it I always used to read the letters with interest and thought about what the people had to say. Then I chucked them away. Hate mail wasn't that common when I was at the Herald, but every now and again someone would fire something off, usually intemperate and you felt you could smell the wine on their hot breath as... more >>
Added: 8 Jun 10 1 Comment
The musician, a fairly true story
The young man settled himself into the chair and placed his new guitar case on the floor beside him. His face raised into a natural if boyish smile, the outline of his cheeks rimmed by a flat, soft beard of the kind that many young men grow briefly and self-consciously in their eighteenth year. His hands clasped his knees in a juvenile gesture of delight. The man he was sitting beside... more >>
Added: 18 Apr 10
The Nightmare from Down Under: Paying the price for gluttony
The small city of Melaka two hours south of Kuala Lumpur is considered the cuisine capital of Malaysia, and my happy task there for a few days was to sample then write about the various foods -- notably the highly-spiced Baba-Nyonya style for which Melaka (aka Malacca and other variants) is renown. But with so many styles still to be sampled I decided to stay on longer and, to save money,... more >>
Added: 5 May 09
Out of a Clear Blue Sky
Kevin Saatchi, CEO of the New York-based advertising and media company RobertsAndRoberts, said yesterday he was excited about his company being offered the contract to re-brand New Zealand for the 21st century. The five-year contract for RobertsAndRoberts to rename and re-brand the country came at the invitation of the government which has expressed increasing frustration with issues over... more >>
Added: 27 Apr 09 2 Comments
Looking at Ourselves: the film New Zealand, in cinemas now
I honestly thought that the new Keanu film The Day The Earth Stood Still was the worst movie I had seen in decades, then last night we saw Australia. Far be it from me to be a spoiler -- and please go see it, if you must -- but we thought it the most trite, sentimental, predictable, cornball, overblown epic ever. And I've seen some clunkers from the Fifties -- which stand up better... more >>
Added: 23 Dec 08 2 Comments
Life in a leaky building: a survivor's tale
Just before Christmas 2005, we fell victim to the pandemic sweeping across Auckland. You know how it is: you always think it’ll affect someone else and you’ll be okay. So we were ill-prepared. We had just carried on as if nothing would ever happen to us. And anyway, we are people who like to think of ourselves as survivors. We have lived through the Y2K scare, SARS... more >>
Added: 26 Oct 08 1 Comment
Come, feel the noize: A true story from the suburbs
A question: is female orgasm the satisfied whimper at the end, or the 40 minutes of moaning and groaning which my neighbour does loudly at 2am? Or at 6am. Living in a block of townhouses brings with it a certain unwanted knowledge of your neighbour's intimacies, although I am a little unsure as to whether they are unhappy about us knowing. She once said, "you've probably heard... more >>
Added: 23 Oct 08 2 Comments
Decently and in Order: Necessary surveillance of civilians
A bill in the government's programme of proposed legislation has already won widespread public support despite drawing fire from civil liberties groups. The Urban Protocols (And Safety Standards) Bill is intended to make for better living environments and a more polite populace say Labour MPs. The bill's principal sponsor Phil Ryan (List, Westharbour) says the bill will "make for... more >>
Added: 1 Oct 08 1 Comment
More to life than cars and girls?
A couple of weeks ago a strange sound came from our modest Mazda Demio so I confidently popped the bonnet. As I stood looking at the unfamiliar coils of metal and rubber it occurred to me it had been over a year since I had needed to peer into that mysterious engine -- and probably four decades since I knew what I was looking for in there. When I was at school -- approximately the time... more >>
Added: 29 Sep 08 1 Comment
In and Out of Fashion: The Style Council Deliberates
When Auckland model Renata and actress Alicia-Anne Crawford stepped out last week at Une Enveloppe to announce the opening of "Fashion Month'' -- Blair Trader's new eatery on Auckland's fashionable Sandringham Road -- there were audible whispers and faux-gasps in the room. Both were wearing outfits -- "consembles'' as Auckland couturier Stef Britta wittily observed -- in the style... more >>
Added: 17 Sep 08
Stayin' Alive: The fitness phase (2005)
When you are over 50, becoming fanatical about exercise won't undo years of happy hedonism. For a year I have occasionally waddled to the nearby Health and Fitness Centre (their description, not mine) and – alongside lithe young bodies, walking-wounded Blues players and sometimes monstermen like the Tuaman – I have worked out. More correctly, I have ridden a bicycle to nowhere... more >>
Added: 26 May 08
The Day The Sky Fell In
The day that the Sky digital network crashed and deprived 550,000 subscribers -- us included -- of programmes two curiously ironic things occurred for me: that very morning I tried to buy a transistor radio, and in the afternoon I looked out my wind-up gramophone. It was coincidence, but it was also as if I had known that hi-tech would fail me sooner or later so I was into forward thinking... more >>
Added: 10 Aug 07
Auckland City, Where The Past is Present
I just caught a glance at him out of the corner of my eye when I heard him shout “Why don’t you keep quiet”. Or words to that effect, with unprintable expletives included. He was dressed in a lawyer’s suit, had close-cropped hair, had those mad staring eyes like Chris Dixon, and was wound tight as a drum. His fist were tight balls and for the life of me I thought... more >>
Added: 10 Aug 07
Shadow in the Glass: A short story
Campbellhad a directness that Dennis had once mistaken for the dourness of the Scots. “You’ll be wanting home, then?” “Yes, just for a fortnight . . . perhaps three weeks . . . I can pass on the Peebles brochure to Meg and the old Strathaven history could go on hold until I get back . . . Iain has still got something else to add anyway so there’s not much... more >>
Added: 13 Jul 07
A Small Fire: a short story
The coincidences that brought Frank and I together again were like something out of a bad 19th century novel, and perhaps that’s why I have thought about it so often since. Maybe it was what went down between us all those months ago too. Either way, I’ve been thinking a lot about just how our lives can go. Lani had gone away up north that morning to stay with Janet, and the... more >>
Added: 8 Jul 07
Snapshots of strangeness: a collection of odd anecdotes
Walt Disney Regrets Last week I spent a morning in the company of a woman who has a curious obsession: she collects soundtracks to those Walt Disney nature programmes which occasionally still appear on television. Or more correctly, she collects correspondence about those soundtracks. I shall call her Sybil because that is what she calls herself. Her story goes... more >>
Added: 7 Jul 07
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