Posts by Susan Snowdon
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Alternatively: how about spending ten dollars in sweets and five seconds each with your kids' neighbours per year, you tight-arse philistines?
Every year I buy lollies. Every year I put a broom or witch or candles at the door or some hastily got together signs of Halloween-ness. And every year I eat most of it myself. But this year I got two lots of visitors! Cool! I think it's a great way to meet the locals. There are not so many kids around here, and even if they are out-of-zoners I don't care, I think it's a good way for us adults to show we like and welcome kids. And as Jackie did, show some respect and get to know one another, be a community.When I lived in Greenhithe the local dairy guys gave away lollies to all the kids - a great way to cement your customer base.
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Just watched Obama on the DS. Christ he's aged! He looks ten years older than the last time he was on.
He must be pretty tired. Did you hear him say he was off to an 11 pm rally? Long days...
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It's frustrating that there is so much focus on this when there is so much other stuff, like y'know policy, that could be on the front page this morning
Brian Fallow has nearly half a page on B2 of today's Herald commenting on National's as yet scantily described 'unemployment benefit/lets pay your mortgage for you as well scheme'.
'If Labour had proposed such a scheme, great monsoon-bucketsful of scorn would have been heaped on them.' ... 'And from the business lobby groups all we hear is an embarrassed silence'.
I'm wondering if I should rush out now and buy some houses.
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Didn't much enjoy 'English' at school but read anything and everything, then went on to science/other stuff, so never got trapped with set texts/literary worthiness. Now, forty years later, this year's project is reading my way through Dickens. Can't believe how funny he is. I just ignore the bits that get in the way.
And worst movies - Castaway, The Notebook, The Shrimp and the Whale (or something like that), Kill Bill, Beauty and the Beast (Disney version), and, and, lots of other shite I had to sit through with growing up daughters.
But every year or so we get together to watch P and P TV version in one go. Takes a day or two, it's almost a family tradition.
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procatalepsis
Sounds like something I suffered from after my third pregnancy.
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Local water as a key ingredient - I've just bought a ginger beer plant from the US, and the instructions on that say not to use chlorinated tap water as it interferes with the yeast growth. It's not something I've ever considered in making either bread or ginger beer, but it seems logical given chlorine's effect on other organisms.
I make ginger beer from dried yeast and dried ginger from the supermarket, white sugar, lemon zest and juice, and ordinary Auckland tap water. I make it in 1.5 l plastic bottles and it's ready to drink in less than 24 hours. Nothing purist about it, but it's really easy, tastes fine, and doesn't burst like glass bottles used to. The chlorine seems to have no ill effects, and your fancy imported bug is just ordinary old yeast. The dry stuff is fine as long as it's not too old.
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(Yorkshire, Earl Grey, Irish or English breakfast, caravan, gunpowder, green - we offer the lot) ...
Leopold (or any other tea afficiondo): I haven't been able to get Twinings Darjeeling tea for ages. It used to be available intermittently from local supermarkets. Any idea where I might find it these days? It really is the 'champagne of teas'.
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Sorry, I was in fact making a bad joke. We don't have civil unions in Italy
I'm stupid!
But it was a good joke, I liked it.
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In Italy they enjoy exactly the same recognition as Italian civil unions. Which is to say, none at all.
But is an Italian civil union the same as a NZ one? (Say for a heterosexual couple.) Can you get married in Italy without having any religious ceremony? If you have a religious ceremony do you still have to sign something official (from the state)?
If NZ civil unions aren't recognised in other countries, what's the status of a person currently in a legal NZ civil union who then enters into a marriage in another country? (i.e. if civil unions aren't legal there then I assume there is no reason why a 'marriage' can't take place.) Is that marriage recognised within NZ if the couple returns here without the prior civil union being dissolved? Can a person legally simultaneously enter into a civil union with one person and marriage with another in NZ? How do bigamy laws work with regard to c.u.s and marriages? OMG, what is marriage anyway???
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Robyn (or anyone else who knows), how exactly is a civil union different to marriage, other than the latter being only for heterosexual couples? Are the circumstances for dissolution the same? Are there countries that do not recognise NZ civil unions as being the same as marriage? e.g. for bureaucratic reasons or whatever. Does 'marriage' in NZ really only cover the sensibilities of people with a religious outlook? Why can't the 'civil' (state) part of a couple's union be one thing, and any other religious/spiritual/personal vows/promises/fancy dress party be another? Isn't it like that in some countries, where people have a church ceremony but still have to do something at the Town Hall?
If I wasn't divorced I think I would have preferred a civil union once upon a time. (Although 3 people at the Registry of B D and M seemed ok. For some reason the Registrar (female) felt it necessary to hug me.That was nice.)