Posts by Jolisa
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Party like it's 1999 Jolisa!
I did my best! And how clever of you to work out that I was indeed a sixth-former as recently as <cough>1999 <splutter>. Yes indeed. Before these children came along and artificially aged me.
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Amy, just spotted your post. You forgot horse-horse-sheep-waterfall- GEYSER!!!
Thanks for the additional info, Brent. Watch this space - the tickets have been booked. It is my solemn mission to track down and record every playground within Reykjavik city limits, before we head out for the boondocks...
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Stephen, I hear you on the dangers of understatement in a culture that values the opposite, and vice versa. I am constantly overcorrecting myself here (everything is brilliant, fantastic, amazing; all is possible, the sky's the limit; it's almost a crime to express doubt about anything).
Then once back in NZ, you have to overcompensate in the other direction (things are pretty good, not perfect, we wouldn't want to get ahead of ourselves or anything). It's a bit exhausting. And when I say a bit, I suppose I mean quite a lot.
One thing I think o'seas NZers really excel at, and that works in their favour in the big self-promoting cities of the world -- and of course my last post was a perfect example of it -- is the art of name-dropping, semi-innocent or fully conscious. "Oh yeah, I know him/went to school with her/was in a band with them" -- never fails to get a "wow" or a "yeah right" from non-NZers...
...at least until they figure out there's really only a few hundred of us, all related to each other, and operating under several thousand aliases each.
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Sally, thanks for the link to that other great list - this is all making me think we should go all out and rent a car and a farmhouse for a week after the conference is over... hmmm! Watch this space!
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That's a fantastic list, Brent. We should be so lucky as to find a farmer with a wee plane heading for the volcanic islands.
Mostly we'll be in Rekjavik with a couple of excursions to the exciting hinterland. I'm fascinated to see what it feels like to be in a country smaller than NZ, after being so long in a country so big it doesn't know where it is half the time. Expect lots of reports on playgrounds and cunning menu options!
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I'm sure there's a word for a zinging comeback to a ridiculous comment that you only remember later.
Esprit d'escalier...
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OK, so if this Iceland thing comes off, it's a suitcase full of instant noodles and microwave mac-n-cheese. And as much duty free as we can manage. Excellent advice.
I am quailing a bit, though - someone told me that pizza was the cheapest thing on the menu.
It sounds like a very kid-friendly place, and I am looking forward to bumping into Bjork and her baby in a cafe (I will be the one forcing Busyboy to eat the free packets of sugar in lieu of lunch).
Am wondering what the midnight sun will do to Busybaby - it'll probably blow his mind up, to use the phrase his big brother coined.
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Haha, David, hibernation, that's a good one. [Wipes tear from eye]
The day I can crawl into a cave and sleep for three months will be ... let me think, about 16.75 years away.
Which is sooner than for you, daddio ;-) [Sits back to watch DH's blog-rate plummet after initial months of adrenaline wear off]
You're right about the problems of bringing Pride and Prejudice to life; the worst of all has to be the Olivier vehicle, in which all the women flounce about in crinolines with puffed sleeves, like an 80s wedding. Appalling. But even the more right-on BBC versions are just never quite grubby enough. Even if the girls get their hems muddy, their eyebrows are always plucked just so, and the windows are shiny clean, and the shoes are new. (Y'know? Like how Harry Potter in the first film had a tidy haircut, after living in the cupboard under the stairs for years. I don't think so).
I did like the singing Irish maid, though - a nice glimpse of yet another layer of social life. Agreed on the excellent depiction of varying degrees of wealth. Pemberleigh seemed a bit of a chilly museum, really, after the cosy-to-overflowing Bennet household with that nice flock of chickens out the front.
And Muriel, true, Colin Firth was an excellent and not un-hot Darcy -- but I find it so hard to see him now except through the lens of Bridget Jones's bit of trouser, and the slight variation on the same character he played in Love, Actually. Too much accrued irony, alas.
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As for mangos... I have noticed that the mango splitter works less well on *very* ripe specimens. The traditional way to eat them when they're that ripe is to squeeze them vigorously all over, then cut a hole in one end and suck out the pulp.
That Kensington Pride is impressive! But looks pretty close to the Caribbean mangoes we get over here, which are no trouble for the splitter. You cut them lengthwise, so it's the width that really matters, and by my scientific measurements, the gizmo can accommodate anything up to 9.5 cm wide across the pip, and 11.5 cm in line with the pip, if that makes sense. Length is no object.
Ooer, sounds a bit rude.
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Ooh Malory Towers. Not a place for sissies or anybody feeble.
And yes yes yes to Just William. There is something exhilarating about how free children are in older books. Likewise the piratical works of Margaret Mahy (and I like that the adults in her books have complicated inner lives as well).
I have been meaning to check out the Nicholas books by Rene Goscinny (better known as one half of the Asterix team), with pictures by the brilliant cartoonist Sempé.
We've also been enjoying Esther Averill's books about Jenny Linsky, a very sweet cat who lives with a sea captain in Greenwich Village. They are just lovely, very low-key but vividly told and full of real characters, like Pickles the Fire Cat. Again, I think a huge part of the appeal is the fact that the cats wander at will through the city, and get into mild mischief but always make it home safely.