kaaronwarren

We went to a secret place of Suva yesterday. One of the venues you only discover when you are invited there.

The Suva Motor Inn is at the top of a street which is blocked in the centre, so you can only drive to it from one direction. You could park at the top of the blockage and walk down some very old, ivy covered steps if you were really keen.

We took our seven year old to a kid's party there. The kids were in heaven. A water slide of absolute terror made their day. This thing is extremely steep, with two sharp curves, so by the time they reach the bottom they are being thrown about like a balloon being kept up by a circle of children. Bump, spin, twirl. Then flying off the end with stunned looks on their faces. Terrifying to watch, but no injuries!

There is a bar and restaurant attached. The bar takes you back to the 70s, with its humourous posters, its dark wood panelling and its 'happy hour - local beer only' sign. They have a large selection of beers from around the world and, I'm guessing, an engraving machine. Because there were plaques everywhere. All over the place. The ones at the bar all commemorated men who'd drunk an awful lot. "This seat now belongs to George Fredness, who took 8 World Beer Tours in One Visit". That kind of thing.

On the walls, hundreds, literally hundreds, of faded polaroid pictures, all of men holding big beer glasses. No women. No wine glasses. The signs described them as the 'Wall of Shame'. There were little plaques attached to these photos: "Our Jim. Good Man. Big Fella. Well Done." Every photo had a caption: "Captian March Hare.
Confabulations. What a Winner. Here's to Port Stephens." Weird little comments/descriptions.

What a funny place. We'll go back with some friends, watch the kids defy death down the slide, drink some 'world beers' and read more of the Wall of Shame.

In the midst of what seems to be a terrible news week, something which made me chuckle. A sign on a back street saying, "Slow Old People's Home".

I did have to slow down because a very elderly man, shuffling barefoot in the puddles, was wandering along the street. He seemed very peaceful and not far from home (I assumed) so I didn't stop to help.

Just to let people know, there was a threat made to our High Commissioner. It was not at a personal level for other Australians, though the security has been upped and we are all being careful. The message received was disturbing, but the police are investigating and there appears to be no popular support for it.

Ugh. Not so much paradise today.

Going to the movies in Suva is very easy. A three dollar taxi ride into the city, five dollars to get in (yes, that's for adults! It's $4.50 for kids) and, so long as you remember to take a wrap of some kind, the air conditioning is refreshingly chilly.

I didn't think through our plan to see Iron Man on Saturday, though. Opening day (or close to) and all. Saturday and that. So it was crazy packed. People aren't really into queues here, so when a mass started to merge on the door, we kinda got ourselves caught in the middle of it. The two boys clutched their own tickets and were told to stick together. Another good thing about the Suva cinema; I feel like the kids are very, very safe here.

We all made it in, had to sit three rows from the front because we hadn't pushed like maniacs to get in early, but bloody hell, what a good movie. I just loved it. I love staying to the end of a movie, and especially this one, cos I got to headbang to the song.

Weird thing is this, and tell me if this happens in other cinemas in the world; at the very moment the movie ended, people got up to leave. Now I can understand this on a plane, when you're bored out of your brain, maybe need to catch another plane, maybe have someone you love picking you up. But at the pictures? When there's still music to listen to, words to read and perhaps a surprise at the end? They don't even wait for the first name to come up; they're out of there. And you get harrassed by the cleaning staff. One actually said to me, "The movie's over." I'm like, yeah, except for reading about the bloody people who made the bloody thing! I didn't say that. Not with the kids around.

I have no adventures to report. I've been working too hard on the novel. I can almost type "The End" except I need to cut, paste and twist the last chapter so it all makes sense.

Am I the only one to feel a sense of fear at this stage? Well, a mixture of fear and excitement. I won't really know if it works until I sit down with a manuscript I don't think needs a lot of work and read it.

The other element is the fact this story has been part of my life for over three years, and it's about to be done. I've got plenty of other stories to write, but this one will leave a gap. It will feel strange.


In other news, the children had their first guitar lesson last night and loved it so much they set up a music rehearsal room for themselves. These small things make a mother very happy.

Mark Deniz, the publisher-editor with bizarre and wonderful ideas for anthologies, has interviewed me in his own special way. You can read all about what my favourite colour is at:
http://markdeniz.livejournal.com/279159.html

You know how they say 'that building is so bodgy it looks like it was put up overnight?"

Well, last night a building was put up overnight across the road. They started at 6pm and went on till past 3am. I finally fell asleep then, so I don't know how much longer they built for! I'm talking trucks forward and backwards, clanging metal, shouting builders, the works.

Now, there was nothing here in the afternoon. Only grass. In the morning, this:




In contrast, here is the magnificent outdoor entertaining area my dear friend in Sydney built with her own two hands over (I think) six months:




We were wonderfully entertained here.

I should add that the overnight building is next to a church where the congregation always spills outside. It's two storeys high. I do hope it's safe.

The boys headed off for school camp today. J looked very nervous. He's down to supervise 'cubby making' and 'sandcastle making' and he doesn't know what that entails!

They were both laden down with bedding (including pillows) chocolate slice aka cupboard slice (made by me at midnight when I suddenly remembered we had to give an icecream container full of homecooked food), torches, changes of clothing...the bus passed our house and I waved from the top of the driveway. I could hear squeals of excitement as they travelled down the hill. I don't think it was because I waved. Oh, the thrill of school camp!

I spent the morning helping cook the camp dinner. Huge pots of meat and veg, spluttering away on a massive stove. Honestly, the brownie points we earned, and no one will even know it was us who cooked it!

So N and I are having a girl's night in. This means, for N, that she gets my full attention. I'm only sending this because she is distracted listening to her ipod for a few minutes. She doesn't like TV much and she doesn't want to read, she wants to be with me cos we're having a girl's night. Nice, really, but I must admit, thank goodness for the ipod.

For dinner I'm making Zucchini Pasta. Zuccinis are down to $12 a kilo and are hardly bruised at all. I still can't find parmesan anywhere, though. I heard a rumour there was some in a city supermarket but I didn't make it in there today.

I slice the zucchini thinly and cook it slowly for up to an hour, till it's all nice and crispy and caramelized. Meanwhile, I cook the spaghetti. When all is ready, I whisk together melted butter, grated parmesan (will have to use edam today...) and a ladle of the pasta water. This stirred through the pasta, then the zucchini stirred through, then pepper on top.

Better go check the zucchini.

One of the things we get great pleasure doing in Australia is buying lots of books. Without the library (and oh, how wonderful it was to walk into our local library in Canberra! The clean, new books! Many I hadn't read! Mountains of kids books and we could borrow thirty if we liked! Thirty on each card! That's ninety books for the kids and me!) we buy more books than we ever would have.

I bought an absolute treasure at my Mum's local op shop. It's called "Ivor Brown's Book of Words", first published in 1942. Mr Brown has gathered all the words he finds interesting, and words which have changed meaning, and he writes about them in a whimsical, wonderful way. It's giving me story ideas galore.

Here's a few examples of his whimsy:

"ALLAY:
Allay is a verb of richest variety. I have found it as one of a covey of Elizabethan verbs proper to the serving and carving of meats."

and he goes on to list these:

"Lift that Swan; Rear that Goose; Dismember that Hern; Unbrace that Mallard; Unlace that Coney; Allay that Pheasant; Unlatch that Curlew"

Wonderful stuff! And this, for Blimpish:

"Will blimp and blimpish survive? W may draw on the notable walrus for our symbol of rubicund pomp and large, preposterous folly".

Interesting that the word blimp has survived, but, to me, means very large. It has lost its sense of folly, I reckon. Probably because the blimp itself is barely in living memory, and most people would not have been part of the mockery, the conversations, the watercooler talk about the blimp. It's those details of history which make it real, I think.

Last one, unless anyone wants more. This word would be perfect for a horror story, if I wrote this kind of horror:

"Energumen: To my astonishment I came across energumen in my daily paper....It is a person ferociously worked upon, chiefly by a devil or a frenzy. So an energumen is a demoniac enthusiast and a raving devotee.....the odious creature whom it depicts has become appallingly common in twentieth century Europe."

Check out this fantastic trailer for 'Paper Cities", an anthology launching today! I've had my sneak copy for a while now and it's very good.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlbWmMzyYfA

My daughter is having what she calls her 'fake birthday' (I guess she learned something at our island adventure) because we are having the Sydney part of her birthday today. There will also be a Canberra version and a Suva version, so she's doing very well.

I'm not sure I've stopped eating since I got here. People warned me this would happen, but I thought I'd have more self-control. At least yesterday, in preparation for a Lebanese meal, I stopped eating at around 2pm so had quite an appetite by 8.

There was a shop front in Cleveland Street which fascinated us. It was called "Jimmy Fong's Recording Studio" or something, but inside there were two giant chickens stuck to the walls and two giant hands pointing at them. The chickens looked a bit like pinatas, only much, much bigger.

God, I hate pinatas. I really do. They bring out the worst in adults and children, someone always gets hurt and it's boring, anyway, when it's not your turn. The best pinata I saw was when they didn't smash the Thomas the Tank Engine pinata cos the kid would cry, and just handed out the lollies. That made sense.

We went to see Robyn Nevin in "The Year of Magical Thinking" on Tuesday. I read and loved the book and was interested to see how it would go. It's a very intensive, personal read, with a lot of detail, a lot of small facts, a lot of digression, all to the purpose of drawing you into the vortex the writer, Joan Didion, was sucked into when she lost her husband and her daughter in a single year.

Nevin was remarkable. Dressed perfectly, she spoke without cue for 90 minutes, capturing the NY accent, the soft voice, of Didion, and showing us moments of weakness in her 'cool customer' persona.

It asked a lot of the audience. The set was very basic and there was no relief from the text. It worked though. We needed to suffer a little, to feel it.

I don't understand how she could remember so many words, though. How on earth do actors do it? She had no cues, no real breaks, no changes of scenery. Nothing but herself and her memory. I wonder if there are tricks actors have?

I'm in Sydney for a few days, then down to Canberra for ten days or so.

It's strange being home. Things are so familiar, yet different to my current 'normality'. It's wonderful to catch up with friends and family, hear the news, make the old jokes.

I went to the supermarket on Saturday. I must have looked odd; everybody else is rushing around, stressed and cross at having to be shopping. I wandered around in a state of bliss. Fruit! Vegetables! Bread! Cheese! Ham which wasn't grey and dry on the edges! Milk and cream which wasn't off! Oh, I wanted to buy everything I could lay my hands on. I restrained myself a bit; you can only eat so much in a few days.

I did make my wonderful mushroom soup on Easter Sunday, though. I miss mushrooms so much, and I can't understand why they don't grow in Fiji. They would grow, I think, but someone needs to start them off. Maybe I can import one of those mushroom boxes you can get at Woollies??

I'm going to post the recipe cos my Dad wants it and he can print it off from here!

30 g butter
4 bacon rashers, chopped
4 tablespoons plain flour
2 cups chicken stock
2 cups milk
Lots of chopped mushrooms. At least 500g, but probably more. I always peel my mushrooms, but I guess you don't have to.
2 cloves crushed garlic
1/2 cup chopped parsley
juice of one lemon
1/3 cup cream, or more if your hand accidentally tips more in
Paprika. My fave is smoked paprika, but any kind will do



Melt butter, fry bacon until it's all crispy and the bottom of the pan is nice and brown with all the good stuff.
Stir in the flour to make a paste, then slowly add the chicken stock and the milk. I actually use twice as much because I love this soup so much, so double everything if you think you can eat a lot of it.
Once all the liquid is added, tip in the mushrooms, garlic, parsley and lemon. Cook for about five minutes.
Add the cream and stir. If it seems too thick, add a bit of water.
Serve into enormous bowls and sprinkle with paprika.


Yum! It's so good, Dad didn't want to go out for fish and chips last night because he wanted to eat the left over soup.

We ate it with bread. J and I went to the bread shop and it was so overwhelming we could barely order. J wanted to order bag after bag, but we decided we could spread out the bread intake a bit. Oh, that pane di casa!

Here's a photo of the white cat which lives on Leleuvia. His name is Whitey. The kids thought this a rather unimaginative name, so called him "Snowy". I didn't have the heart to tell them of the many, many, many millions of white cats called Snowy.

He was a very friendly cat, perfectly happy on the sand. He sniffed around at low tide, looking for crabs, and sniffed around at dinner time for scraps of food. I hope he keeps in the shade more than I did. My nose is peeling and looking most unattractive after the sunburn I got after being stuck on that island.

There was also a dog on the island called Boy. Ha!

This is the kind of scene which inspired my story "In the Drawback", which is in "The Glass Woman". I love that long drawing back of the water at low tide. The things revealed. How different the sea bed looks when exposed to the air.







This is part of an incredible tree on the island. The first time I walked around (this takes about 20 minutes) it was raining, and this small wooden bowl was full of water. Truly wonderful.




I wish I had a photo of the car we were stuck behind on the way home. We've never seen a bigger pile of junk. It was so disastrous, we all got the giggles. I think they built it out of spare parts found on the side of the road. The doors didn't fit even a bit, but stuck out a couple of centimetres. They looked like they came off racing cars, and this was not a racing car. The petrol cap was missing; replacing it was an old rag. Black smoke poured out the back of it, so thick we could barely see the road. It reminded me a bit of a puppy dog. You know how they get so excited, they lose control of their back legs when they run, so their back half sways from side to side? This is what this car did. The front bit stayed straight, but the back bit was crooked.

We spent the long weekend on an island called Leleuvia and what a wonderful experience it was. It's about as close to camping as I'm willing to go. They have electricity but only until ten, and they often turn it off so the showers don't work and the toilets don't flush. The kids kept getting electric shocks from the taps and the beds were bloody awful, but apart from that...

Plus I got left on a deserted island for 45 minutes, but apart from that...

Plus we witnessed how a small and harmless lie can balloon, but apart from that...

Truly it was a remarkable experience. The boat trip out takes about an hour, and you can feel the air change as you travel.

On arrival, we leapt straight into the water. Not fully clothed this time; we did get changed. The coral and fish right near the shore are beautiful. The world underwater is so different. All you can hear is your own steady breathing, and you watch a universe which has no concept of you at all.

I went out on a boat with nine others the next day to Honeymoon Island. I didn't get a picture of Honeymoon Island, and I can't seem to upload pics at the moment anyway. It was an island maybe ten metres in diametre, covered with rotten coconuts, rubbish, birds, bird shit, drift wood. There were two metal poles and four chunks of concrete and we wondered if once there was a shelter there where Honeymooners went.

The boat travelled past into open water. Very, very deep. This is where we stopped and were supposed to jump over the side! I had a moment of fear, think about how deep it was, and what might be down there, but I knew I had to go over.

Under the sea it was dark, green and quiet. I swam closer to the island, and there were giant clumps of coral, larger than me. Lots of small fish, some big bright electric fish. No lobsters and no sharks, luckily.

I began to tire and the goggles felt like they were sucking my eyeballs out so I swam for the boat. No ladder to climb up; I had to clamber up onto the motor, then the big strong Fijian boat driver pulled me in! I have bruises on my knees and one on my ribs, but it was worth it.

Once everyone gathered back into the boat, we headed to Honeymoon Island. The boat driver stopped here but didn't say anything, so we assumed we were to have a look, and out we hopped.

Somehow, though, most people got some message to get straight back on the boat but four of us didn't. We were only a step or two away, but the boat started to sail away. (Sail? Is that how you describe the action of a motor boat?) They waved and smiled at us, the rest of them, and we heard, "Five Minutes."

Hmmm. I had my hat and sunnies, at least. But not my water. The other three had no hats. We walked the island, which took 45 seconds. We took a closer look at the environment and had fun figuring out if we could survive on rotten coconuts and tiny crabs. We had a go building a fire. I knew from visiting Questacon in Canberra that you need two like pieces of wood to make a fire, so my friend J (not husband J) rubbed two bits of bamboo together. Some friction and heat were created, and I reckon we could have done it.

The boat was nowhere to be seen. All joking aside, we knew that we had family back on the main island, who knew where we were. But still, it was a little worrying!

The boat appeared in the distance, but did a great circle around us, not coming anywhere near. We started looking at the shelter and thinking we could build something to keep the rain off, at least.

Finally the boat came back for us. We discovered that someone had seen a fish and wanted to try to catch it. Yay for the fisherman! Wasn't that nice of him to leave us on a deserted island without water so he could catch a fish! Plus he didn't catch it.

Back on Leleuvia we had lots of fun telling about the island and the danger we (hadn't) been in.

Next; the little white lie.

We took some wine with us, but someone (strangely, the partner of the fisherman) told us we weren't supposed to bring our own wine. But the bar was never attended, and we didn't feel like buying their wine when we had our own, and we knew they really wouldn't mind what we did. Still, J, the friend, felt he had to say, "It's my birthday", when he went to ask for his champagne out of the fridge. He didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings, or get into trouble. All that stuff.

Problem was; as we sat down for dinner, we heard guitar playing in the back room. It sounded awfully like they were practising "Happy Birthday."

Sure enough, as dinner finished, the entire staff came out with balloons, and chocolate cake and guitars to sing for J.

We all had to play along. The kids, too. J feels so awful, but, of course, no one was hurt in anyway. In fact, everyone got cake when they wouldn't have otherwise. But he really feels awful, and has asked that no one ever mentions it again, but that will not happen. Here I am blogging about it, and every year on that day we will have a fake birthday party for him, just to remind him.

More on the island soon. I might be able to post some pics tomorrow.

"2012" is an anthology of near-future SF edited by Alisa Krasnostein and Ben Payne. It's an interesting concept, near-future SF, because you seek inspiration from the world around you, as it is.

As I've said many times, I'm often driven to write a story based on what I read in the Guardian newspaper. It's not a happy paper. I read it with my notebook and pen by my side because there is always something to feel angry about, something to be outraged by, something to feel helpless about.

"Ghost Jail" was inspired partly by the setting in Fiji, and partly what I read in the newspapers. You can read the first bit of it over here:


http://girliejones.livejournal.com/

It gets nasty from there! The opening was inspired by the graveyard in Suva. Here are a couple of pictures, though it's hard to capture the colour, the decay and the small signs of care.

I know I go on and on about Suva Public Library, but every time I go there I make a new discovery.

On Thursday, I packed up my notebooks, tested my pens and headed off to write the first draft of a story I've been cooking for a while. I wanted to sit upstairs at the huge oak table, surrounded by old books and silence, and get a few thousand words down without a computer, a phone, or anything else nearby.

Of course, it was shut for renovations. Just the upstairs bit. I asked, "Is it a big renovation?"
"Oh, yes. They are painting all the walls."
That didn't sound huge, but the librarian said it would be two months at least. Sigh. Another lost place to write.

She then told me that they were going to update the library. Put everything on the computer. I looked at the drawers full of soft-edged cards, and thought of all those date stamps I so love in the books.

"That's a shame," I said. She looked at me as if I was crazy, and perhaps I am. But I don't think they realise how long it will take to do this. And that they'll need electricity to run it, and often they don't have electricity.

She also said they'd be sorting out the books, and that worries me. It's so amazing to enter a library where no book has been 'sorted' for decades. The books I borrowed all had half a centimetre of thick, black dust.

"Freak Show", an anthology edited by Peter Haining (an old fave of mine) is what it is. Someone's written notes in the margins of some stories. I love this stuff; I love notes from strangers in books I'm reading. One says, "I would recommend 'Freaks' by A. Hitchcock. Contains one similar story but instead of the actual person, my story is based on the Town of Hamelin." The initials A.S. follow.

The story was "The Gay Deciever" by Mildred Clingerman and reminded me a little of Margo Lanagan's "Wee Willie Winkie". Very creepy, very, very nasty.

I looked for old books, odd books. Books I'll never see anywhere else. That's why I picked up "School for Eternity" by Harry Hervey. Apparently his books were the inspiration for the "Road" movies. This one is first edition and signed. I pointed this out to the librarian, saying, "You might actually be able to sell this," but again she looked at me as if I was crazy.

A quick look on the internet showed me similar books for sale at a couple of hundred dollars, so I'm going to try to speak to the head of the library. I hate to think of books like this being tossed out when they're doing their sort out.

It's a good read so far, though I'm only 30 pages in. An earthquake hits a small island town and an observer learns all there is to know about the inhabitants. Written in 1941, the language is fresh and sharp, reminding me a bit of Grahame Greene.

I happened to catch the last four episodes of "The Lost Room" the other night. What a lovely thing!

I was completely uncritical about this mini-series for a few reasons; I'd never heard of it before so it was all new, it was on Star Movies which usually plays "Daddy Day Care" and "Big Mama's House" and stuff like that, plus; it was all about found objects.

I love found objects. I love finding them, I love reading about them, I love watching movies about them. One of my favourite books is "A Case of Curiosities" by Allen Kurzweil, which tells the story of objects in a box. The history, how the things were lost and found, and how they ended up in the possession of the collector.

One recurring dream I have is that I walk into a bookshop and I find all the books I've loved and lost. Around the edges are all the small things I've loved and lost too. A favourite pair of earrings, a set of miniature items, all sorts of real things I miss. I wonder if that's why I love found items.

When I went on an excursion to the mangroves last year with my son's class, we were all shocked by the amount of rubbish there by the sea.

Here's a picture;



At the same time, the kids thought they'd found a treasure chest, because there were bits of lego, small dolls, all sorts of things there amongst the tree roots. One day I might write a story about this place. Where these things began, how they were lost or discarded.

Prince Charles was wearing a spring onion pinned to his jacket on the news last night. I guessed it was supposed to be a leek, because of the whole Welsh thing. When I googled the phrase "Why was Prince Charles wearing a spring onion?", 22,000 pages came up in response!

It was supposed to be a leek in honour of St David's Day. Gosh, he looked funny, though. And it must have smelt pretty potent. Spring onions have that ability to fill the car with their scent on the way home from shopping, don't they?

Back from a thoroughly irritating excursion. It didn't bode well; 2 and 1/2 hour journey each way to look at some birds in an 'eco park'. In what was described as 'a good bus'.

This is the wall of the bus at my seat:





The windshield had a huge crack and the first aid comparment was as big as the circle you make when you put your two index fingers and your two thumbs together. Glass-fronted. I want to know what is inside but the glass is far too dirty.

The trip took three hours, of course. When we got to the park, the guy on the front desk demanded all the parents pay. This never happens, right? We're there to help, and if we weren't there, the guy on the front desk would have chaos on his hands. But we had to pay $16 each, and he wouldn't take the payments one by one. "You are getting a discount," he said, "so you have to pay in one lump sum."

Already hugely irritated by a very dull, noisy bus trip, I stomped outside to spread the word. I didn't plan this next bit, but it worked out well. Nobody had change, of course, so instead of me going inside and getting a pile of change, I sent each parent in to get their own! This worked out well because the mean guy on the front desk gave in and let everyone pay. I guess he figured if the register was open...

So, a small victory for common sense. However, Mean Guy next insisted that all the children hold their own ticket to get inside. Thirty kids plus thirty tickets equals four lost tickets at least. He relented as the kids piled in regardless, and counted them as loudly as he could, to make a point.

Then the "guide" asks the children to move outside. I use the quotation marks appropriately; the woman knew nothing. NOTHING. She showed the kids an iguana, two parrots, a snake and some turtles and this is what she told them. "This is an iguana. These are parrots. That is a snake, and those are turtles." She couldn't answer any questions, merely saying, "Read the guide book," which was inside and cost money. Unbelievable! They didn't know what any of their plants were. The girls picked up one they were curious about, and the woman had no idea what it was. The mean guy told her, "It's rabbit food." That's all the info we could get out of them.

The birds, bats and iguanas were kept in concrete cells with some dead vegetation shoved in as an afterthought. That made us pretty sad, and we'll be writing a letter about the conditions.

Oh my god, was I irritated! As you can imagine, I filled out their 'comments plis' sheet with great delight. Another mother thought I was too polite, and she cut loose in the most delightful way!

They wouldn't let us eat lunch anywhere but the steps out the front, in full sun, so we piled hungry kids back in the charming bus and drove 45 minutes the sole public space along Queen's Road in this part of Viti Levu. A beach. Half the kids ran straight in, got completely wet, then came out and rolled in the grey sand for a while like dogs. One teacher said, "The bus driver won't let you on the bus like that," but we all looked at each other and laughed. Of course he would.

So, to recap: six hours on a filthy bus, learnt nothing, ate sandy food standing up, had a daughter cross at me because I wouldn't let her get up to her neck in sea water and hadn't brought a change of clothes.

Great day. I think it's Bloody Mary time.

During an emergency trip to the one supermarket which carries dry cat food (cats are rare pets here, and they don't get fed shop-bought food. Much better for the cats!) I couldn't resist buying this:




Yes, they are called Haw Flakes. Perhaps someone can translate for me?

Here is one of the packets:




And this is a Haw Flake. My son likes them. They taste a bit like a cardboard version of a blackcurrant roll up. I have no idea what's in them and am trying to stop my son eating a whole packet, given that he came home sick with a sore stomach today.




I should add that these were in the lolly section. Not the cat food section. Even though there is a weird cat on the packet.

The BBC reporter, American, did a report, I thought, on loons. Big loons, faulty loons, defective loons, American loons, British loons.

It was only when he said 'sub-prime loons' that it clicked; loans. He was talking about loans.

The loon story was far more interesting.

I'm curious; is that a Boston accent which pronounces loans as loons??