Published in The Clifton Courier, February 22, 2017

I stumbled upon a sum of cash on the way home from the train station the other day and had an ethical crisis.

My first instinct was to snatch it up, with a voice in my head shouting, “woooo free money” and setting off metaphorical party poppers in my mind.

But as soon as I picked it up, I was thrown into turmoil.

Did someone see and report me to the authorities?

What if this money was left here as some kind of drug deal?

Is this a set up hidden camera thing?*

*I sound like I am being paranoid, but I live in Sydney now, which is a major city. And because it’s a major city, it’s a major hazard for this kind of shit.  The last thing I want is to accidentally end up on The Chaser’s War on Everything looking like a thieving scumbag. If I’m going to appear on he ABC I’d prefer it to be on Grand Designs because I’m building my low-impact dream home. Not because I’m a stingebot.

I generally assume someone is watching me all the time. Not in a Hilary Duff Someone’s Watchin’ Over Me kind of way, but more in a fascinated surveillance way.

Most of the time, my imagined stalker keeps me from doing gross/embarrassing/incriminating things, especially while alone. It’s what will stop me from smelling my belly button lint, for example.*

* Do you have any idea how hard it is to not smell something that you know is going to be disgusting? It’s like pressing a bruise or reading Miranda Devine – something you feel as a semi-decent human being you know is wrong but you can’t stop yourself from doing. This imagined stalker is the backbone of whatever dignity I had. It may be unhelathy, but without pretending I’m being watched by some sicko I would be a complete scrubber. And if I didn’t feed this delusion, my “behind closed doors” activity would put me at real risk of blackmail should someone stalk me for real.

But an actual hidden camera stalker would be most unhelpful. I didn’t want to be part of some social experiment that ends up on some wanker’s YouTube prank channel. So, over-exaggerating my movements for even the most distant of cameras to pick up, I looked around to try determine if a person in the vicinity dropped it.

There was no one within a 10 metre radius, and only one guy 50 metres from me.

But just because the person who lost this money wasn’t around me, doesn’t mean they didn’t exist. I didn’t earn that money. I wasn’t given it. I had no claim of ownership over it.

So the voice in my head called me a thief.

Sure, I’ll borrow a bit of oil from my housemate if I’ve run out, but I generally veer away from stealing.

The first thing I ever stole was a pack of Pocahontas stickers from the newsagency when Mr and Mrs Young ran it.* The pack was stuck to a magazine cover as a free gift. Being about four I didn’t understand the concept of money (and arguably, still haven’t fully grasped some aspects about it i.e. spending it wisely) and my moral compass wasn’t great. So I grabbed it.**

*Marion Young was fabulous. She smoked with gay abandon, always had tasteful lipstick on and had this wonderful dry wit. Some people thought she was a crankypants, but I thought she was a sassy diamond. I’m glad I went to her funeral. They played Bette Midler’s Wind Beneath My Wings.

**I have to admit, I was concerned about admiting to my past criminal behaviour in black and white print. But I have yet to be rounded up by the sheriff. And while I do still have some trepidations about detailing my past crimes online, I think. I may jsut get away with this grand heist. 

I don’t think my parents ever found out about it (sorry if you’re only just discovering now that you raised a criminal) but my older sister did. And she gave me hell for it. The fact that I can remember this suggests it was quite traumatic, which, given my sisters’ vocal abilities, I don’t doubt.

So apparently still living with the emotional scars of that experience, I tend to be to be so adverse to thievery that I can’t even steal someone’s joke. I always follow a repeated joke with a “my sister actually thought of that…”

Finding money on the ground isn’t exactly stealing, but the high-pitched voice of my conscience told me it’s basically the same thing.

But then the deadpan voice of reason kicked in and told me that returning the cash to its rightful owner would be difficult, if not impossible. And reporting it to the police also wouldn’t be realistic.

And the slimy desperate voice in my head who usually only chimes in to justify my behaviour when I’ve done something rash added a valid point. If I had have left it there, it would have gone into the gutter.

And it was due to rain. And then it would have been washed away. And because I trust Disney Pixar would never lie to me, I assumed that when Gill told Nemo, “all drains lead to the ocean” it was true. So that money would’ve ended up in the ocean and could block the airway of turtle if I hadn’t have intervened.

So there was there was nothing else for it.

I pocketed that five bucks and went on my way.

Published in The Clifton Courier February 15, 2017

I’m sad.

And that’s not just because my bread has gone mouldy or because no one seemed to care when Bernie Mac died of pneumonia like nine years ago.

It’s because this year, I’m missing out on the Clifton Show.

Thanks to a combination of fate, poor organisational skills and my tendency to spend a higher portion of my salary on impulse food purchases than I care to state the exact figure of, I’m just not going to be able to make it this year.

And while the lack of dagwood dogs and reasonably priced XXXX bitters in my system can only mean positive things for my literal heart health, my figurative heart health is taking a nose-dive.

The Clifton Show that is just good for the spirit.

As someone who can count on one hand how many times they’ve missed this fabulous occasion, I know a thing or two about how to milk the Clifton Show for every drop of fun until its udder is an empty, shrivelled udder. Here are my tips to have a rip snorter of a time:

* Wear sensible shoes. This is not the time for white sandals. They will get dusty, you will drop tomato sauce on them and you run the risk of someone breaking your toe while dancing to the inevitable rendition of Working Class Man later in the night. Closed in boots is the only way to go.

* Enter the Boiled Fruit Cake Challenge. Tomorrow night, get some mates together, grab a few bottles of wine and try to interpret the hallowed recipe as best you can. Maybe make it a team effort, pooling all your limited fruitcake knowledge into one unlucky cake tin and hope for the best. Or go up against your neighbours, siblings or spouse and see who can bake best. Loser has to buy the winner a deluxe burger from the canteen with all the trimmings, and whatever tinned delights takes their fancy at the Wattles clubhouse.

Note for the judges: Please name the wooden spoon “winner” of the competition this year. The person who manages to make the worst fruitcake deserves a serious backslap.

And while we’re at it, don’t just restrict yourself to the most intense competition this side of State of Origin.

* Enter something in a bunch of pavilion categories. Especially if you’re pretty ordinary at it. Challenge yourself to beat those Flynn fellows with their baking wizardry. Try to topple Arleen Breeze from her throne of flower arrangement glory. See if your tomatoes stack up against rest in town (just don’t go buying a bag from the roadside stall on Davenport Street on your way to the rec grounds and trying to pass them off as your own, because that goes against the spirit of competition).

You have a good two days to get something together for entry. Give it crack and see what happens.

* Go early. This is especially good when you have entered something in the pavilion section because it means you can check out who you’ve beaten, or whose rose bushes you need to sabotage next year.

* Hit up the junior judging on Friday morning. See how your judgement of cattle stacks up against school children, then marvel at their use of terminology. Slot said terminology into the rest of your conversations for the weekend. Just take care when recycling “good, even fat distribution” or “a nice, thick tail”.

* Have a yarn with a parent of one of the kids you used to go to school with, trying to limit your swear words to the more respectable kind.

* Demand they play The Horses by Darryl Braithwaite after the fireworks go off. Because the gravel dance floor will go off too.

Soak it up people, because you just can’t get an event like The Clifton Show anywhere else. 

Especially Sydney.

* Oh and take a picture with Dad, if you wouldn’t mind. I need more fodder for my #Maccadoes photo stream.

Originally published in The Clifton Courier February 8, 2016

I’ve had my first starstruck moment in Sydney.

I’ve seen people of high profile around here before. I once walked past Andrew Bolt doing a piece to camera in Pitt Street Mall. I passed a lady who used to be on All Saints at the ferry terminal. And I nearly ran into the lead singer for The Rubens (they’re a band that gets a lot of Triple J airtime, not a collective of corned meat sangas).*

*I had to explain this to local readers, because while a lot of them listen to public radio, it tends to be ABC regional. A great station, but it’s aimed a different demographic. Now I’m also concerned I had to explain the Rueben sandwich to them as trendy sauerkraut-related lunches also don’t get too much of a run out there.

I’d crossed paths with these impressive people* before, but never have I actually exchanged words with them.

* I wouldn’t consider Andrew Bolt impressive, but anyone who used to be on All Saints is always welcome at my table. I mean, they wouldn’t get the first shot at the gravy job but they’d be more than welcome to scoop up the dregs.

The last high profile person I spoke to was Andy Griffiths, who wrote the Just Stupid books,at a meet and greet. My sister and I were the oldest people there who were neither parents nor guardians, so we looked like crazy super fans.

But when we went up to take photos with him, I really made us look like creeps. I don’t remember exactly how I said “hello” to the person who encouraged both my love of the written word and graphic descriptions of bodily excrement, but it wasn’t great. I was in no way smooth, articulate or even remotely human. The whole experience was a mixture of being about to vomit and meeting the dentist about to give you several fillings.*

* I know this look, because, thanks to my brilliant childhood brainwave to not use toothpaste while brushing my teeth, I’ve had a shitload of fillings. I spent so much time in the chair when the government dental van came to school that I think it is fair to attribute the missed class time as the cause of my incompetence in fractions.

Sure, I’ve talked to famous people before. When you’re interviewing them you have a purpose to speak to them, so it isn’t that bad. Armed with a list of questions, it’s easy.

But having a chat with someone waaay out of your rank when you have no reason to be there is uncomfortable. Really uncomfortable.

That being said, let me tell you about what happened when I went to the shops just now.*

* Obviously  not “just now” as this column is a few weeks old. 

I walked past this bloke with a Sea Shepherd shirt on. Being someone who insists on shopping with reusable bags, I assume I’m going to save the world and I remember thinking I should volunteer with them to scrub oil off rocks or something.

But as I got closer, I realised I recognised old mate from somewhere.

Maybe he worked in my building, or I’d stolen a chip from in during a night out. But then it hit me.

It was Jake from Packed to the Rafters. 

Now I loved that show. I mean, it had Michael bloody from The Castle Caton in it.

I was so invested in it, I remember hoping pointless baby Ruby would die in the car crash instead of Mel. In fact, I actively campaigned for this baby’s slaughter just so my beloved characters could be happy.*

* And by “actively campaigned” I mean “vented on Facebook in lengthy and obnoxious comments. As such, I got a bit of a rep at college for wanting a baby dead. Horrible? Sure, no one wants a death on their hands and funerals are bloody pricey but that baby had no business being on the show.

But not wanting to get in the way of someone just trying to grab some milk, bread and whatever special essence of youth celebrities thrive on, I decided to take my purchases to the counter and mind my business.

But as I was waiting in line, a fellow came up behind me, accompanied by a staff member giving him special attention. We made eye contact. I was gobsmacked. I was in awe. I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to ask for a photo, but something told me not to.

I had to say something.

I’d spoken to some prestigious people before, but this guy was absolutely top shelf.

I tried to play it cool while still being funny and said “that’s a lot of avocados”. Guarded, but not altogether dismissive, old mate politely told me how many he had, as I fumbled with my debit card and awkwardly collected my purchases, blundering out of the store.

I had just arsed up a chance to be super cool.

But I didn’t care.

I’d just met a bloke who bought 80 avocados in one hit.

Don’t ask me where Packed to the Rafters guy was during this – actually, his appearance in this piece was in no way relevant to the point of the story.

I mean, a guy with a trolley FULL of avocados. No wonder I was speechless.

Published in The Clifton Courier January 25, 2017

As may become the tradition, I’m going to annotate this column with fresh, juicy updates. Think of this italic jazz as the extras on a DVD. And don’t give me that crap about not watching the extras. Have you ever watched the bonus material on Forrest Gump? It’s excellent. Shut up mate. 

Last week two good things happened. Firstly, I discovered I somehow still had Christmas chockies in my fridge*. But more importantly, the Queensland government smacked down another outlandish attempt to bring Daylight Saving time to our fair state.

* Yeah, said chockies are long bloody gone by now. But thankfully Coles still does those chai chocolate coated almonds. I’m mentioning this in the vain hope that a Coles marketing rep decides to sponsor my posts. I’m not above being paid in confectionary. 

I don’t mean to get all political but I’ve already had three cups of tea and I’m ready for a rant. As a vague incarnation of a journalist (when you mostly write about cute cat and dog videos for a living, “writer” seems like a more appropriate title) I am supposed to be unbiased. But this is an opinion piece of sorts so I’m allowed to favour a particular side. So here it is: I’m a dog person and Daylight Saving time is a terrible idea.

I know, because I’m enduring it right now.

I assume I’m preaching to the choir because I walk around with the notion that everybody thinks like I do, but apparently that’s not the kind of world we live in. If we did live in a world like that, interpretive dance would be a national sport and horsey t-shirts would be considered appropriate corporate attire.*

* Sometimes I sit back and dream about a world run be people like me, and I can honestly say that it would be a fantastic place. Im certain everyone would love it, but that’s only because everyone would only think like me.

So I’m going to try to explain my viewpoint as rationally as possible without resorting to curse words and throwing a glass at the wall.

Reasons I hate Daylight Savings. 

Number one: I can’t get any bloody sleep. I started writing this in a state Mum would call “tired and cranky” and I may well be “carrying on like a pork chop” but I don’t bloody care. It’s 8.16pm and it’s still light outside. It’s not enough to require one of those caps with the neck flaps, but it’s enough to ruin your entire existence.

Because if you’ve over done it during the week and want to have a super early night, you bloody well can’t because it’s too hot and light out. And by the time the sun does go down and things cool off, you’re too overtired to sleep and the cycle continues.

Number two: People in Sydney love it, so of course I hate it. But they don’t use that extra sunlight for anything decent like cleaning all the filth off the streets or installing XXXX Gold on tap in every licensed premise in the city. Instead they waste it by laying out in the sun to brown up for their Insty selfies or going to trendy rooftop bars to scroll through their phones after paying $23 for a cocktail.*

* That’s two boxes of goon, guys. Or at least four Bitters at the Wattles club house. 

Number three: It’s just so arrogant. You’re tinkering with the very fabric of time here. We’re not gods or angels or even Kardashians – we have no right toying with such forces that.

Number four: It assumes people want to do things after work, and that everyone works a 9-5 job. Some jobs require early starts, like farming or being fabulous full-time*, like me. Maybe some people like to get up and do things before work and prefer to secretly slink home in the darkness after clocking off.

* Being fabulous full time takes commitment. It means not smelling like a second-hand gorilla’s armpit. So when you have an early start, you have to have an even earlier one to stray the morning stank off you in the shower. You know the stank I’m referring to. It’s the smell you get after a hot night of basting in your own juices on a mattress topper you haven’t washed in seven years. 

Number five: Sundials, for crying out loud. They were rendered completely useless because some suit wants go to the beach after work. People argue that technology waged war against this quaint garden ornament, but Daylight Saving was its real killer. I would even go as far as to suggest that Daylight Saving was invented by clockmakers as a conspiracy to render the ancient time-telling artefacts obsolete to create more customers. Capitalism strikes again!

Ok, so there’s a non-exhaustive list of my cons against the idea. But in the interests of balance, I do have to present you with pros for Daylight Saving because telling the other side of the story is what good journalists do. So here it goes.

Things I like about Daylight Saving time: It gives me something to complain about.

Published in The Clifton Courier, January 18, 2016

Background: This is what I deemed appropriate for my first column in The Clifton Courier, the publication which gave me first front pager and allowed me to cover the sports. I’ll be interjecting in italic from time to time to give you a bit of context, and explain are few things to you blow ins from outta town.

Well hello there, Cliftonites.

For those of you who haven’t been nicking the free On Our Selection News papers from Foodworks, I’m the girl who makes people feel better about their lives by sharing the shame and disappointment that is my existence through weekly columns.

My quality content/mindless dribble was distributed free to mailboxes in the old Cambooya Shire, Westbrook Hodgson Vale and everywhere in between, but now I’m back on my home turf, sullying the pages of this fine, reputable newspaper with the filth that is the inner workings of my mind. And I’m a little bit nervous.

It’s my first column to appear in public in Clifton since I won a poetry competition at the chemist for Mothers’ Day*.

*Wrong, actually, I just remembered the Letter to the Editor I wrote after my going away party, which went into the paper after I’d left. I wanted to say a long, poignant goodbye and I also felt the need to apologise for saying cunt into the microphone at the karaoke night at the Bowling Club, but obviously couldn’t say “cunt” in the copy. I think I referred to it as “colourful language”. 

As I recall, the poem was laminated and displayed on the side door, right next to the town notice board* – a prime location. It doesn’t matter that there probably weren’t a lot of entrants in the competition because kids back then were too busy being outside, active and happy to sit down and write a poem; I felt like a literary god. Plus, the pamper pack prize meant I didn’t have to pay for a gift for Mum that year.

*The noticeboard down the main street gets more hits than a bikini photo on the homepage of the Courier Mail website. It doesn’t matter if the some old firewood for sale notice has been there since 2003, you still look to see what’s happening around town. You never know what kind of barg you could pick up.

That was a good 15 years ago so I can’t remember if the poem was any good, but in my mind it’s a hard act to follow. It’s kind of like when a musician has a ripper first single, raising expectations so high they have to either match that greatness or surpass it with their second single. And after years of Australian Idol and Popstars contestants smashing on to the music scene with a triumphant start only to end up as Uber drivers or being kicked out of strip clubs, I have to admit that I have been struggling with my follow up act.

Plus, when you add on the fact that I grew up annoying most of you people with my loud voice and show pony ways, it adds a bit more pressure. Like, it adds a bit of weight to your shoulders knowing that the librarian who taught me how to type or the guy who did my pap smear* could potentially be reading what I write.

*I’ve never not had a memorable pap smear at Clifton, but that’s a story for another day. I mean, most paps tend to be memorable – it’s hard to forget someone jacking you open like they’re changing a tyre, which is what I always think of. 

In fact, it’s downright scary.

Because I have to completely honest with you, as you’ll be able to smell my BS a mile away (as long as you’re not behind a cattle truck, in which case the smell is probably actual BS).

You’ll be able to see right through me, and will be able to call me out on my crap. Not that I have been completely scandal free since penning this column, with a highly controversial piece about the consumption of hot cross buns* long before Easter ruffling a few feathers out there (I don’t care for your conservative views, I’ll eat a delicious, religious bun as long as its on the market).

*Seriously, I received comments on the street about my hot cross buns views. I’m kind of like Miranda Devine or Alan Jones in that regard. I get people fired up over the big issues. And you know what? I don’t care about the haters. I had a hot cross bun on News Year’s Eve, so put that in the microwave and smear butter on it. And in case it wasn’t clear, that was a “shove that in your pipe and smoke it” adapted for bun-related purposes.

I don’t want to cheese you people off*. Clifton will always be home for me, and I love those rare weekends when I do get back to these fine acres of opportunity and rediscover what it’s like to live in a town full of aunties and loveable, but sometimes crass, uncles. Clifton is the only place I know of with three Colleens and a tree filled with cement** – it’s essentially paradise.

* “Cheesed off” is one of of Mum’s alternatives to “pissed off”. Swearing’s not really her thing. For years we would say “sugar honey ice and tea” instead of shit. One time Mum was telling us about someone going absolutely nuts and she says, in a horrified tone, “they said the K word”. It was perhaps the most endearing thing in the world. 

** I want to explain it to you now, but I feel this gem needs its own dedicated post to do it justice. 

So even though you thought you were finally rid of me when I crossed the border into cockroach territory, you haven’t escaped me yet.*

* I’m like a loveable coldsore, I just keep coming back.  

But in the interest of avoiding awkwardness in the fenced off drinking area at the showgrounds*, I’ll do my best not to annoy you too much.

* The only place to be after sundown at show time, after the Downs Polo Tournament and any Wattles home  game. Seriously. The bitters are like five bucks a tinnie and the company is always top shelf. 

Abridged version published in On Our Selection News December 17, 2016

Going from living alone to living with with the constant reminder that there are other people in the world than me is interesting.

Mostly it’s pretty good. My flatmate knows where things are, tells me when I might need to take a jacket and doesn’t judge when I eat excessively. Plus, I only had to bring my clothes and decorative ladder when I moved in.

But shared living has its downsides – namely in that it makes you aware of how mentally unstable you are -something I discovered that shortly after moving in.

My flatmate had gone shopping, put her groceries on the kitchen bench before unloading them. This is normal. No problems. Except she left a can of deodorant there on the counter.

I never thought that a deodorant can could break me mentally, but it damn near nearly did. Because it wasn’t just there for a few minutes or even an hour, it was there FOR DAYS.

At first it was understandable. I mean, that’s what people do, I told myself. I’ve read about other people and it seems not everyone has to put things in their right place immediately. I resolved to be as normal as possible and let the can be. But this good sense slowly eroded with each day, as I became more and more unhinged. And the more I thought about it, the worse it got.

Because what really niggled at me was the fact that I was annoyed that this annoyed me. A lingering can isn’t something that should bother a person. It should be completely easy to deal with. In fact, it shouldn’t even be something you have to “deal with”. It’s a deodorant can, not a smelly pile of dishes or a steaming poo on white carpet. The biggest issue in my life wasn’t a can of scented liquid, but my big issue was that it was a big issue, you know?

It began eating away at my soul. My sanity was crumbling like shortbread without enough butter.

I didn’t want to touch the can, because that would be interfering with my flatmate’s stuff but eventually I couldn’t live another day seeing that can on the kitchen counter mocking me. I tried to avoid it. But the kitchen is fairly vital to life being the place where the food is kept, and the open plan layout of the apartment melds the kitchen melds into the lounge room. So even when you’re on the couch, you can see it from the corner of your eye.

You can’t really say, “can you please move this can because it is destroying my mental wellbeing and I think it is plotting against me,” because you may just make your roommate feel unsafe with you in the house. You don’t want to draw attention to the fact that you’ve added an inanimate can of deodorant to your list of enemies  (between jerks who throw cigarette butts out of car windows and people who shout “taxi” when you drop something at a party). This isn’t normal. And you know that.

What kind of person loses it over a can? Sure, it’s terrible for the environment and was probably made using cheap labour, but other than that it’s harmless.

You’re not normally like this, you tell yourself. Back when I was living by myself I was totally calm and relaxed about this sort of thing.

Sure, I may have moved my carefully-placed swan statues back in their proper places when some unruly visitor moved it a quarter of an inch, but I was pretty chilled out most of the time. It wasn’t about being obsessive or controlling – it was about styling. I was merely following good interior design principals.

But here I was spiralling into madness. Maybe I wasn’t cut out to live with people. Maybe I need to live in a well-styled cabin in the woods. Maybe I should burn everything.

And then one day, the can was gone. And everything was fine again.

Originally published in On Our Selection News December 1, 2016

It’s the most wonderful time of the year.

December is officially here and that means the Christmas parties are coming.

Loose Christmas parties are so engrained in the westernized capitalist culture – like sausage sizzles or casual sexism.

Whether they’re work, friends or family gatherings, things tend to spiral further out of control than usual when you add “Christmas” before “party”. And shame is often attached.

Because when it’s a work party and you’re in a small team, you’re going to have to think of an actual story as to why you couldn’t find your shoes. Someone is going to notice if you’re doubling up on the potatoes. And you’re definitely not going to be able to quietly slip away for private cheeky vom – someone important is going to drive you home and they’re absolutely going to see you empty the contents of your stomach like someone’s spraying it out with Gerni pressure washer from the other end (happened to a friend of a friend of mine *coughs*).

You can’t get away with the classic Christmas party antics like you would in a larger group, because there’s no one to pass the blame on to. So you try to keep yourself in check. This however, rarely works (hence the power spew anecdote).

This year I’ve been invited to a few Christmas parties. One has just gone, another is this weekend.

The first was reasonably successful: I kept it together long enough to not ruin a group photo, snuck in a powernap and ate the weight of a female echidna in potato-based snacks (echidnas are standard units of measurement now)

But my upcoming one is a concern, because it’s going to be on a bigger scale. I’ve never been to a Christmas party with more than 20 people on the guest list and usually more than half of those people have seen my “thrust walk” dance move – so they generally know what I’m about.

But this time, I’m going in cold. I haven’t had time to gradually introduce many of these people to my horrendous character traits and I’m worried they’re all going to come out at once.

When there are deep fried balls of things in front of me, I get greedy. When Working Class Man comes on, I get shouty. When the dance floor is jumping, I get thrust-y. I’m not ready for people to see that.

Also, it’s a dress up party. And the only costume idea I have is that dead cat one of the traumatised cops keeps in her freezer in the first season of Underbelly. My friend/person in charge of minimising my self-inflicted humiliation strongly advises me against it. Which is probably good advice, considering I would need a human-sized freezer bag for the costume to be effective.

It’s a worry, because if there’s one thing I’ve learnt from televised Christmas specials and life (the ultimate sitcom) is that Christmas parties tend to bring out the real person.

Something about fake antlers and free wine cracks the carefully-construct façade.

And because the real me is what it is, embarrassing myself is inevitable.

But then, humiliation is a small price to pay for free potato-based snacks.

Published in On Our Selection News, November 24 2016 

The way to anyone’s heart is through a good schnitty.

I’ve been watching a lot of cooking shows lately, and being the egotistical manic I am, I reckon I could do it.

So here’s one of my signature dishes: chicken schnitty. It’s a step up from my usual delicacy of nugg-chos: simple, but revolutionary. It’s nachos using nuggets instead of corn chips, which translates to dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets topped with salsa, cheese and sin. You can find my recipe online at https://justathought.me/2016/07/06/nigella-and-nugg-chos Yep. I published it online. Because if I died and took that recipe with me, I shudder to think about the kind of world I would leave behind.

But today is not about prehistoric-shaped pieces of processed chicken offcuts. It’s about the good stuff: a decent schnitzel.

I picked up this recipe from my housemate after we realised my whiz-bang food processor was useful for things other than margaritas.

Here’s the secret to a good schnit: don’t use store-bought breadcrumbs. The breadcrumbs you buy from the store don’t come from bread; they’re ground from loaves of misery.

Rather than coating your chicken in distain, buy a bag of wholemeal bread rolls (because you probably could do with more fibre in your diet and I care about your colon) and make your own damn crumbs.

Leave the buns loafing around for two days or rip them open and gently toast them in the oven. You want the bread dryer than a baby’s bottom on a nappy commercial.

Now, blitz the bread up in a food processor being careful not to ovedo it. If your crumbs look like sand you’ve gone too far and should probably burn your house down and start all over again.

Grab your chicken and hack it up into worryingly large portion sizes. Make sure you flatten the chook to be of an even thickness – meat mallet is best, but a can of soup is just as satisfying.

The rest is simple.

Grab a bowl of flour (wholemeal is good because it will make you think you’re being healthy), a beaten egg, your crumbs and your chicken.

Flour up the chicken then dunk it in a bath of it’s own yolky creation.

It may seem harsh to dip dead animal in its by-product, but I have yet to come across a chicken I’ve genuinely liked. They’re terrible company and I don’t trust them. I liked Chicken Run, but that doesn’t change the fact that they have a tendency to peck each other to death. So once they’ve been ethically killed, use dried chicken feet for forks for all I care.

Chuck your chicken into the crumbs, using the heal of your palm to squish all the bread to the dead bird like it’s the flesh of your enemy (in my case, this is no act).

Then fry over low to medium heat in whatever oil you fancy (not coconut oil though because no matter how much you guzzle, you’re never going to be Miranda Kerr – especially if you’re struggling with a schnitty habit).

Once it doesn’t look like it will give you food poisoning, remove from heat and eat until you have trouble breathing.

Published in On Our Selection News November 24, 2016

My friend and I shouldn’t be allowed to make decisions.

So it’s no secret how fantastic Daryl Braithwaite’s classic track The Horses is. It’s a magical song that can bring people together: young and old, country and city, people who wear white sunglasses and people who don’t. In fact, I firmly believe it could do America a lot of good right now.

So when my friend told me she found a tour company that takes you on a horse ride along the beach where the song’s video clip was filmed, I agreed to come along. Which translates to “I was so excited that I nearly bought a selfie stick”.

Sure, it was a long drive away, but that was fine.

And yeah, it wasn’t cheap – but it would be worth it.

This was the most exciting thing to happen to us since we dressed up to see the midnight premiere screening of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince – she wore a sack and paper mache ears to look like Dobby the house elf, while I wore a mustard-coloured jumpsuit and a golden snitch helmet which had the wingspan almost the length of my body (for some reason, people don’t believe we were considered cool at our school when I tell them these stories).

I went out and bought us blue jumpers so we were dressed like Daryl, and had to restrain myself from dropping $50 on beige pants to complete the look. I walked around a discount menswear store with pictures of Daryl on my phone, glancing at it every now and again for reference just to make sure I bought the right shade of blue.

I slept on a lounge room floor so we could hit the road early the next morning.

I got up at 6am on a Saturday after a week of long hours.

I even battled Sydney traffic in a car that had the tendency to bunny hop for no reason just to get us there.

Roughly three hours later, we rolled up at the beach wearing matching blue jumpers, joggers and jeans. We looked like utter dipsticks. Appropriately-dressed local beach goers glanced at us with a mixture of confusion and pity. We thought this might have been because this sort of thing happens all the time. Because, being such an historic location, many would pilgrimage to this spot for the same purpose as ours: to recreate the famed clip for admiration on social media. “They’re probably tired of this,” I thought as I played the clip, looking for the same landmarks on the screen in my surrounds.

But something didn’t add up.

When I compared the beach on my phone to the one in front of me, there were no alignments.

We looked at the tour company’s website, scouring for the Braithwaite connection and couldn’t find it.  Apparently my friend had misinterpreted a recommendation from a travel website.

Daryl, as far as we knew, had never been there.

It was a huge blow.

We were tired, poor and dressed like absolute douchebags three hours away from home.

I’m trying to find a moral of this story, but I don’t think anyone who would find herself in such a pathetic position is capable of thinking of one.

Published in On Our Selection News, November 17, 2016

I started jogging again after about four weeks of sedentary life and it has nearly killed me.

I’m not saying I used to be a super fit person, but only a few months ago I was a very keen runner. I’ve never been able to use my abs for a cheese grater, my buns have never been compared to steel and Des (my left arm) and Troy (my right arm) have never had enough power to destroy anything other than a good parmy. But did like a good jog.

Which is weird because as a child, I hated running.

At my first school we had enough students to warrant the services of a district P.E. teacher, who insisted on us exercising.  He’s an absolutely lovely guy in real life, but was terrifying to a bookish chubster like me who used to get tired walking home from school (literally around the corner, about a 400 meter journey). His short, shrill whistle still echoes in my brain.

Thankfully, his visits weren’t that frequent and the only racing I would do was the tuckshop donut-eating race, which I recall winning often. But when I moved to my other school (around the other corner) I was in for a rude shock.

I guess our school was too small for a regular P.E. teacher at the time, so our principal would make us run a lap of the oval every morning to prevent childhood obesity and cut a few corners. Now, our “oval” was a long-grassed back paddock with a track mown into it, the length of which determined by whoever did the slashing. It was roughly 800 metres from memory, but to a short-legged, short-tempered me, it was a marathon track. I’d seen Paradise Road and likened the daily run to that scene when the women are herded together and marched through the countryside by soldiers.

One day I took to the track and was, strangely, ahead of my fitter, cuter friends. I remember running while turning to talk/pant to them. I wasn’t watching where I was going and was made abruptly aware of this fact when I felt a huge whack to my body.

I’d run into a tree and snapped it clean off at it’s stump.

The tree was only about as thick as the average adult’s neck but still. If ever you needed a symbol of my sheer size and dislike for running, this was it. I knocked over a whole tree just to get out of it.

Luckily I was in a Catholic school with a pretty hands-on stance against playground bullying, so no one made fun of me for being able to plough down a tree like an angry elephant.

Thankfully, I overcame my dislike of running in uni, when I had lots of spare time compared to my friends who did real degrees and was drinking far too much beer to look good in a cut-out dress. I started running in my first year and have enjoyed a good jog ever since. I even used to run before work during winter – crunching over the frost on the ground to keep my rig from getting too sloppy. I used to wonder why I hated running so much as kid. But I say that in past tense. Used to.

Because after just one month of doing nothing, I am that sweaty, puffed kid again, looking to run into a tree to avoid continuing. Thank goodness cut-out dresses aren’t fashionable anymore.