Sadhbh Warren

Dancing in the Pairc : My week as a Bruce Springsteen "Spring-nut"

2026-06-18T04:28:25.878+10:00

In May 2024, Bruce Springsteen played Cork - and I had a front row view.
Because I infiltrated the Spring-nuts.

Seeing Bruce Springsteen and the E Street band has been on my wish list for decades. When a friend told me about the fan-administered queueing system developed by the Spring-nuts I knew I had to see it in action.

The venue, Pairc Ui Chaoimh, is five minutes walk from my house so this information turned what should have been a 4 hour gig, with 3 hours of music, into a multiday epic with 10 hours standing on the day.

I regret nothing. This was my week running with the Spring-Nuts.

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band are playing in Cork

I am on the rail, front and centre at the Cork's Burce Springsteen show, and everyone around me is completely losing their minds.

There is a woman behind me hysterically screaming "Bruce, Bruce Bruce" like she's having the best time of her life with three guys called Bruce.

Nearby a woman waves a life-size cardboard cut-out of Bruce's head, which was separated from his cardboard body by the rain a while back. The body is in a Cork jersey and being shaken madly a few feet away, like we have sacrificed a Bruce to summon one.

Beside me is Mike from North Carolina, who has been following Springsteen to gigs for over 40 years, and a lovely woman from Wexford who was showing me dog photos in the 4 hours we stood in the pit together.

Behind me is a man in his '80s who has managed to smuggle in a tiny camping chair on the not unreasonable grounds that he absolutely won't be able to stand for 6 hours.

All around me, everyone is chanting "BRUUUUUUCE" and cheering.

And in front of us, playing a guitar so worn the paint has come off where he strums, is the man himself. Bruce Springsteen and the infamous, amazing E Street Band.

This is what it feels like to run with the Spring-nuts.

That's self-named moniker for Bruce's most devoted fans.

Three times a day for the last 3 days I have turned up to Páirc Uí Chaoimh, standing in line to keep my spot at 124. At 2pm on Thursday I take my spot for the final time and wait. Why would you do this?

There is liking Bruce, there is loving Bruce and then there is the Spring-nuts, whose devotion has spawned its own fan-administered admission system that the venues go along with. It's called roll call and if you miss one, you're out and at the back of the line. Stay in and you're going to get the view of your life.

It's a bit of a cult but a very nice one. I feel like a donkey who has been put in with a field of racehorses as we chat. They're all lovely but they're not quite sure what to do with me. I'm clearly obsessively enthusiastic about music, but not specifically Bruce. Why would someone do this, if not for the love of Bruce?

At 3, we see a cavalcade of black people carriers roll past. A window rolls down. It's Bruce and the band. They wave to us and the line goes absolutely bananas.

And then it's our turn to enter the stadium. Spots are claimed, snacks are passed, people are making sure everyone's okay. Everyone's telling their Bruce stories and then looking anxiously at the stage like he's there and they've missed a moment.

It's 4pm. We have at least 3 hours to wait. And then it starts to rain.

4 hours later, we're all soaked and more rain is coming. No one cares because Bruce and the band are currently belting out a fan request - Santa Claus is coming to town. It's joyous and ridiculous and it's 222 days until Christmas but Bruce has persuaded us that we need to roar at the top of our lungs.

It's an amazing gig by a band who pull out all the stops and perform with passion in the torrential downpour. We're dancing in the rain and we're dancing in the dark and he sings Rainy Night in Soho and then it's all over.

We're hugging goodbye, but for most of them it's more of an "I'll see you in 3 days". Not me, sadly. My numbered hand is no longer a passport to run wild with the Spring-nuts. They will follow him to Dublin and I need to get back to my life, job and kids in Cork.

So why would someone do this? For the love of seeing Bruce and E Street Band live and close-up, for sure, but also for the love of the fans themselves, as warm and welcoming and often hilarious as Bruce's performance.

I'm probably never going to be a fully fledged Spring-nut but I miss them when they're gone. My day feels oddly empty and I'm relu

ctant to scrub my number off. Just in case. Who knows? Here's hoping I see them again some day.

The Best of Foo (from the Goat Island show, Wasting Light tour, 2011)

2026-06-02T14:12:00.000+10:00

This piece is from 2011. My partner is over it (mostly)

How I won tickets to Foo Fighters' Goat Island show in 2011

Last night I was on Goat Island watching the Foo Fighters play their new album. And all I had to do was betray my fiancé two days before our engagement party.

I won by entering a competition on V Music. They wanted vids from fans on why they should go. I figured they'd get a billion, "OMG I luv the FOos!!1!" type entries, so I took a different tack.

Send me for science.

The exact science was that, with our engagement party in two days, I needed to check my bloke, P, was in fact hotter than Dave Grohl (who I believed to be the hottest man alive before meeting P).

Need to check. Before the wedding, donchaknow. For science.

P has forgiven me. Probably. I discovered something useful for our relationship at the gig - curling my hand into the RAWK horns symbol stops my engagement/wedding rings from flying off while moshing. This is a useful thing to know.

Anyway, it was an awesome gig. 38 songs, plenty of pricking about. They exhausted us. I noticed they played a lot from the earlier albums and their latest album is really stripped down, both in the production and the videos. Don't believe me? Check out White Limo, a Motorhead-esque song with a handcam shot feel, starring none other than Lemmy. And Rope, the next song, only took a day to shoot.

What was really noticeable was just how much fun they were having. How much they were chatting to each other, the audience. The sheer joy in the music. They closed with "This is a Call", their first ever hit.

They've already scheduled two extra gigs - one last week to benefit Christchurch, one on Sunday for the QLD floods. At 11am, they announced they were doing another gig tonight. In the Manning Bar, on Sydney campus. I can see roadies and rigs out my window. The 900 tickets went on sale, one per person only, from a few small independant record stores - Red Eye and Hum. Sold out fast. Apparently the Hum queue was far longer than the Apple one accross the road.

They're still doing stadiums, and selling tickets on site before shows to try and deter scalpers. But from this close - and it is close, their roadies are outside my window - it looks like the Foos are trying their best to play their music for the fans and for the music. Supporting little record shops. Playing for charity.

I'm not sure what the hell is going on. But I approve.

From the MX archive: Running from Madonna

2026-05-14T14:22:00.000+10:00

When it comes to diet and fitness, it seems that people don’t think the oldies are the goodies.

It’s weird. If I announce I am following the latest celebrity diet, everyone is interested. After all, how what can go wrong when you follow the advice of people who believe in size zero and Scientology?

But when I mention I’ve taken up running people respond with horror. It won’t work, they tell me. Jogging is too hard. It’s bad for my joints, they wail.

I’m doing the Couch to 5k, a beginner-friendly plan designed to get you to running 5 kilometers without tears, injuries or requiring illegal steroid injections twice a week from someone called Big Boxing Bob.

I can see the results and I’m enjoying it. But people insist on worrying about my knees. Won’t someone please think of my knees?

From the stories I have heard, a small but significant proportion of the population has explosives in their patella. Much like the bus in Speed, they’re fine at a walk. But if they ever try to go faster, disaster! Their kneecap detonates, shattering a nearby bus, Sandra Bullock’s career and any idea they might have had that Keanu Reeves can act.

Running is prehistoric; a sure fire way to exploding knees and injuries, people tell me. Have I considered the more suitable modern alternatives?

I’ve tried yoga. In the slow version I fell asleep, in the fast one I got my bits stuck in my other bits and needed to be unknotted.

Pilates is great but doesn’t burn off many calories. Rock-climbing is fun but I spend less time climbing lithely like a snow leopard and more time swinging from the harness like a cat being rescued from a tree.

I need to do something cheap and cheerful that burns off the calories. So, why can’t I just jog to get my aerobics the old fashioned way and run?

But no, people tell me I need to go more high-tech. Jogging? Outdoors? With just trainers? Where is the modernity, where is the equipment? Where is the studio with integrated FitBeat™ music blaring and a Madonna-skinny instructor shouting abuse?

People always recommend some sort of class. They’re usually called Bootcamp or DethSpin or GroinPump or something equally macho.

These classes consist of tasks like cycling insanely fast until you want to throw up or dancing insanely fast until you want to throw up (just like most Friday nights, then).

Or you can pirouette insanely around with weights such as kettlebells (which looks neither like a kettle or a bell, but does look like some the Spanish Inquisition would use) while a terrifyingly fit woman in her 50’s screams insults at you – again, until you want to throw up.

For bonus points, you can use a heavier set of weights and do more reps. For extra bonus points, you can attach the kettleball to your genitals and set yourself on fire. Or something.

Look, if I wanted to be verbally abused about my weight and fitness, I could just visit my mother. At least she doesn’t wear crotch-exposing clothing, (is it just me, or does Madonna’s bits in a leotard look like an uncooked chicken?) and she also does a nice dinner.

She’ll cook the dinner, I’ll eat the dinner and then – when she starts on my weight, waistline and how I could be such a pretty girl if I’d just look after myself – I’ll stick on my trainers and jog gently into the distance.

A healthy meal, a catch-up with family and some motivation to run, all for less than the price of a gym class.

Old fashioned? Perhaps. But it works.

Sadhbh Warren is an MX reader who would prefer Madonna if she put some pants on.

This was published in 2012 or so! mX was a free metro newspaper in Australia. They did not pay, but they let me write pretty much whatever I wanted. The last edition of mX was on 12 June 2015.

I told 5 million Australians how I got stuck in a vending machine.

2026-03-12T11:54:00.000+11:00

This was published in MX, Australia's free daily newspaper, and yes, it did actually happen. Not in my current job, thankfully, but back when I was back-packing: working by day, drinking like a fish by night...

Stick Your Job

I’m tired and cranky and falling over when I try to put on my trousers. Not really an ideal state to go to work in.

Drinking with friends until 4am always seems like a great idea at the time. Not so much the next day, and even less when you have to work. So, what’s good for exhaustion and hangovers? Caffeine’s always good - for everything. But unfortunately the killer hangover means coffee is not an option. The mere thought of it makes me feel sick.

So, I decide I can probably handle a cup of tea. Tea has anti-toxidants or anti-oxidents or something. I'm unsure which, but I am figuring that it will either kill the toxic stuff (good) or the oxygen in my system (bad, but at least I'll be too dead to be hungover).

Picking up my MP3 player, I head to the kitchen to make myself a nice cuppa. Humming along happily, I realize that my player has hit the South Park bit, and Chef is starting his thing.

Oh, I love Chocolate Salty Balls. I start singing along with music on my headphones.

One cup of tea is made, and due to my total lack of depth perception (always tricky when you are hungover) I fill it far too full. I’m feeling peckish and decide to head over to the snack machine to get a nice bag of cheese and onion crisps.

Darn, I have nowhere to put my tea down. It keeps spilling burning liquid over my hand and soaking my trousers. Well, the quicker I get the crisps...

I put the cash in the machine and hit buttons and the spin-y thing spins and ... oh dear. It hasn’t gone quite far enough. The bloody crisps are teetering indecisively there on the edge like acrophobic on a bungee platform.

I prod the machine. Nothing. I rattle the machine. My tea spills. I’m getting annoyed now, and interspersing my humming along with my player with threats.

“Gimme the crisps… Chocolate Salty Balls… Gimme them!”

No joy. I look at the machine. I figure, if I stick my hand into the slot, I might be able to wiggle...

Ow! It bites me. The drawer falls forward and nips my skin, giving me a long thin bruise. It looks like a lovebite from a tape-worm. This is so not worth it. But it is. I need those crisps.

“Crisps. Criiiiiiiiiisps. Crispy crispy. Come to me...”

I figure, if I tilt the machine back a little, it should hold the door open so I don’t get injured again. If I can just get my hand into the slot...

Oh nuts. My sleeve is caught. Now I can’t get in or out without ripping my top. This is ridiculous.

Not actually the image I wanted at work.

“…suck on my… GIMME THE CRISPS… salty balls let my sleeve go and suck ‘em…”

Okay. If I kneel, and keep my hand level so the tea doesn’t spill, I can push the base of the machine to a tilt angle. Then I can move my shoulder right, which means the top should slide OFF the hook and then if I move left I should be able to get the crisps down. Then if I just give the machine a little push and a jerk, I should be able...

So, to summate, I am crouching underneath a teetering snack machine, with an overflowing cup of tea in one hand and the other firmly stuck in the machine itself, looking like I have a bathroom accident as I alternate between cursing, cajoling and singing about my chocolate salty balls...

...and that's when I realise that my boss is standing behind me.

Never. Drinking. Again.

And this time, I mean it.

No, the other type of wet willy.

2026-02-09T15:11:00.000+11:00

This was published in MX, Australia's free public transport daily, on 1 September.

The most amusing bit, for me, is that in Ireland the term "wet willy" means when someone dampens a finger and sticks it in your ear and wiggles it, to squick you out. Over here in Australia, it just means damp penis.

So. I have told MX's readership (three quarters of a million and counting) that a hairdresser stuck his penis in my ear. No, wait - BOTH ears.

Sadhbh Warren on haircuts

I’m beginning to regret deciding to save cash by getting a haircut at a hairdressing college. I’m the only person there, and all the other students are merrily chopping away on mannequins.

A trainee starts swearing and frantically rubbing her doll’s head with a cloth – she has mixed up something wrong and it’s a good thing she’s not using a real person (things you never want to hear your hairdresser say: ‘‘Oh my God, her ears! They’re melting!’’).

So far, I’m not too worried. They tell me that they make sure the students are capable before they let them near real people. But the trick is to get the student with lots of training, and I don’t.

I get the middle-aged guy called Ray who has cut hair for 10 years untrained and has decided to formalise his qualifications. His enthusiasm is only spoiled by his inability to hold scissors steady. Ray takes a deep breath, and wanders around my head looking confused. My hair is lifted and combed and dropped and combed and squinted at.

Eventually he asks ‘‘What is your hairstyle?’’

I explain that I don’t have a hairstyle. I have hair and lots of it. A huge, flaming-red mane capable of swallowing whole paddle brushes for breakfast. I’m too lazy to straighten it, so it does what it likes, occasionally attacking people who get too close on trains.

I am steered to a basin and Ray gives me the head scrub of a lifetime. I am stunned by the various blows to the head and the fact Ray’s technique includes a double wet willy at the end to ensure he has got all the shampoo out of my ears.

Once my hair has been washed, it needs to be towel dried. Ray approaches this task with enthusiasm. Perhaps he likes drying hair. Perhaps he hates me. By the time he is finished, I amamazed to see any strands left on my head.

So is Ray. He begins to cut, and cut and cut some more. It’s all going fine until the head teacher walks by. He leans in to look and Ray jerks the scissors in surprise, taking off far more than he planned to. Then he has to trim, bringing it all to the same length.

It’s almost done and SNIP! the teacher wanders by again. Ray sighs and starts to trim further.

Eventually he puts down the scissors and picks up the hair dryer. I can see by the way he is blow-drying that he is trying to give me volume. I don’t need volume. If my mane grows any larger, it’ll be capable of eating Tokyo. I tell him this. He sighs and puts away the roller brush.

Just a little? Please? He waggles a paddle brush at me.

And, semi-concussed and frightened that if I refuse I’ll get another wet willy, I give in. The mannequins reflected in the mirror watch, their mouths all open in silent screams. As I stumble out the door with what seems to be a beehive on my head, I think I know how they feel.

The girl at the desk asks if I’d like to try any other treatments from the students. They’re doing free waxing...
I didn’t know that I could move that fast – it must be my new aero-dynamic hairstyle.

Sadhbh Warren is an mX reader who is no longer dangerous to sit next to.

Red Rock Writing and me

2026-01-02T07:44:00.000+11:00

I write for businesses so you don’t have to. Whether that’s websites, funding applications, blogs, case studies, reports or tenders – if you need it written, I can probably help.

Don’t know what you need to get the results you want? That's where project managing comes in. I can help you work out that out, and then plan it with you and provide you an ongoing writing service to support your business needs. I offer writing services on a project basis as well as longer strategic solutions, including fractional copywriting.

How fast will I do it?

Every project is different but if you know your scope, tone, length and keyword/s, you can expect a turn-around of 3 - 5 working days. I can take on rush work, subject to a fee and availability.

Need some guidance on what will make your idea shine? I can also work with you to tease out your business needs; it will take a little longer, but it will be worth it!

Want to see my business?

Head to Red Rock Writing where I work with SMEs who need writing that works. I combine project management with writing expertise for effective fuss-free results.

I started this business when I moved back from Sydney to Cork in 2019. Most days you’ll find me strategising with clients, polishing plans and writing long form content including reports, e-books and case studies.

Want to know a little more about me?

I am a business writer and events manager, based in Cork city in Ireland. I have contributed content and features to various publications including the Irish Examiner, Sydney Morning Herald, Beer and Brewer magazine and Virgin Australia's in-flight magazine.

Ready to get started? Contact me today at sadhbh@redrock.ie

In MX today - Jingle Hell

2025-12-11T01:31:00.000+11:00

Despite the tinsel and sparkly lights and fat bearded men in bright red suits, I find Christmas a sneaky season. One again, December has rolled round and I haven’t even bought my Mum a pressie yet.

Every year, all the magazines advise shopping early and taking advantage of the January sales. I read them, think “what a good idea, I’ll do that” and then forget.

So, instead of basking smugly with a glass of wine, I’m gearing up to battle maddened parents and frazzled assistants who have been tasked with finding an intimate present for their bosses partner - or partners.

But you start optimistic and energized - ready to shop and roll, baby. You start thinking big. Wouldn’t it be great if you got everything in one shop? You’d be finished! The Queen of Christmas shopping. Then you can ditch the bags and the mad shoppers and go straight to the pub!

This all seems like a really good idea, but leads to situations like you trying to persuade yourself that your sister would like a socket wrench, or that your Dad would like a sparkly hair band, or that everyone you know would like Liquorland vouchers. Including your eight year old cousin. Maybe not.

You need to look in a few more shops. Initially, all you can find are inappropriate gifts. Yes, they’d love it, but you can’t buy it due to cost, size or piddling little legal issues.

You find yourself looking at designer bags, plasma TVs and licensed weaponry. You have to remind yourself that no one will thank you if you decide to get your ten year old cousin a longbow and real arrows, not even them after they end up hospitalised. The shops are noisy and crowded and full of despairing souls, like hell with Jingle Bells playing in the background. You’ve already wasted a few hours…

Demoralised, you decide to get a few old faithfuls like clothes. You find affordable items that would be perfect if you knew size they take. Is she a twelve or one of those girls who gets insulted when you get past a size ten? The only thing worse than watching your mate trying to squeeze into something two sizes too small is your mate realising that you think she’s a size bigger than what she like to wear.

The next thing you know, you have a size eight in your arms, and you’re looking for the six. You’re having difficulty finding something for your friend, but you have found some adorable things for you. It’s Christmas, after all, and you deserve something nice!

You leave the shop on a high, having spent fifty bucks on another cute black top. Then you realise you still don’t have any presents. Your feet hurt. It’s crowded. They’ve got the flaming Mariah Carey Christmas CD on in every shop in town. All she wants for Christmas is you, but all you want is a nice cool drink.

Determined to speed things up, you start really looking. You find the completely appropriate gifts, if you never want anyone to speak to you again. T-shirts that say “I’m with Stupid”. Packs of bath salts and deodorant. A Gutbuster machine. Books called “He’s Just Not That Into You”. Undoubtedly useful and accurate, but you’d like to still be speaking to people on the 26th.

Running out of ideas and time, you end up looking at the huge shiny gift boxes containing such delights as potpourri, candles that smell like a three month old fruit bowl, and fake perfume. If they don’t like the smell, it’s nearly pure alcohol so they can just drink it.

Mmm. Alcohol. You could do with a drink. So could everyone. Might as well just get them a Liquorland voucher, they’ll probably appreciate it.

And if they don’t, you can always drink it for them.

Fail to Kale

2025-03-12T13:28:00.000+11:00

I am the youngest child in my family. By the time I was old enough to cook my Mum was past the “let us bake together, angel children, never mind the mess” stage and into “get out, get out, are you trying to get burnt”. So I haven't really been taught to cook food basics. This can be an issue when I am faced with standard foods that I don’t care about enough to learn how to cook. I do a mean butter chicken, for example, because butter chicken is delicious but fail every time at making vegetable soup because, ugh, vegetable soup tastes like used socks.

These days I have family of my own to feed - four people and a dog! - so obviously there's only one solution; exploring the wonderful worlds of malnutrition and massive credit card debt simultaneously by ordering takeaway all the time! Hah, but seriously no (as my partner says to me ALL THE DAMN TIME). Most nights I try to put together a home-cooked meal to give the impression that we are a functional family unit and not a near-riot of hangry rodeo clowns held together by a shared mortgage and the promise of yogurt for dessert.

I am super impatient and also have limited time between daycare pick-up and total toddler meltdown so speed and ease are of the essence. I have been looking up a lot of "fast" recipes on the Internet which is always a quick way to cook up a boiling rage. You click on something like "simple fast curry" whatever – expecting, you know, simplicity and speed – and after a carpal-tunnel-inducing level of scrolling past prose and photos you eventually find the actual recipe right at the bloody end. It’s after 5,000 words of (completely unrelated) anecdotes and by the time you find it, it is too late to cook anything and your children have gone to the pub for dinner without you.

Adding to the carpal-twinge factor is the sheer amount of photos involved. Why do three ingredient recipes need 20 pictures? Who takes that many photos while cooking? My gastronomic adventures involve staggering around the kitchen with a screaming toddler on one leg, the dog underneath the other, and demands for attention from the five year old who will set the house on fire if I take my eyes off her for too long. The only reason for twenty photos in my kitchen will be in the insurance claim as evidence it was the childzillas, and not my cooking, that burned the place down.

But anyway, food. One of the reasons I’ve been looking up a lot of recipes is that my fruit and veg co-op box (which I ordered in a fit of optimism, thinking we could be the sort of family actually used a veg box and not our local kebab shop on a daily basis) has delivered what I can only describe as small forest to me.

It turned out that forest was made of kale. It is embarrassing that after ten years of living in Sydney’s most leftie latte-sipping suburbs, I still had to google it. Twice. The first search being “what does kale look like” and the second “how do you do you even eat it, ugh”.

This is definitely the sort of thing you don’t share around my part of Sydney. People would spit their biodynamic eco-friendly hand-reared grass-fed coffee right out at you. I live in suburbs where they not only embrace the eating of “superfoods” like kale and quinoa, but also the naming of their children after them: Saffron, Sage, Kale, Quinoa and Gluten-Free.

On a sidenote, we all know that "superfood" is generally marketing-speak for "lesser known foreign fruit and vegetables that don't always taste great but we can put a huge price mark-up on, because we're not paying the people who grow them a living wage", right? Just checking.

Anyway, kale as a food. Sorry, just trying to get into the waffling spirit of cooking blogs here. Having googled, my number one tip for eating kale is - don't. It’s not worth it. Kale is 80% inedible stalks and 20% disgusting malodorous crimped leaves. It is the man-spreading of vegetables; it arrives, unwanted, to take too much space and fills the air with an unpleasantly organic smell. Unlike man-spreaders, you can at least put kale in your refrigerator but then it is taking up all the space for actual edible food. When you finally do get around to cooking it the first thing you have to do is remove most of it to get at the bits that are marginally more edible.

Seriously, fuck kale. Chuck the whole lot in the green bin and you'll be saving yourself an awful lot of effort. Go buy some broccoli or cabbage or bok choy or any actual edible green instead.

But suppose you have decided not to throw all the kale in the bin. I don't know why you would do this when supermarkets are full of actual bloody food. Maybe, like me, you've been trapped into purchasing it and your Irish famine mentality is preventing you throwing it in the fire or the sea or Mount Doom or wherever is handiest. I'm not judging you; I'm just reminding you that ordering pizza or walking out the door and never coming back is an option. You could also just let the kids set the place on fire. Dinners out, guilt-free, for MONTHS that way.

Maybe you feel you should try it or you really shouldn't waste food. In that case, there's a recipe for kale that I strongly recommend. Hahahahahah nope, just kidding, I would never recommend a recipe with kale as a star ingredient. But in the name of using it up, here is one that will do so and also eliminate any sweet potato hanging around your cupboards taking up the space for perfectly good regular potatoes or better yet, vodka, which is basically fermented potato salad and therefore doubly good for you. Mmm. Probiotic salad in a glass. With a bag of cheese and onion crisps.

I feel I have managed to waffle enough so here is the recipe for a kale and sweet potato curry. Finally. Basically everything in this can be substituted apart from the sweet potato because that is all you can actually taste. A core component of most of the recipes I saw for kale had sweet potato in them, probably because they are one of the only things that can drown out the taste of kale.

Ugh, fuck kale curry

Some oil, coconut if you have it
An onion
Some grated ginger
Minced garlic
Curry paste (red would be best, or you could make a chicken curry and eat that instead, just saying)
A sweet potato
Can of coconut milk or cream
Some turmeric, cumin and any other spice you like the sound of. Go mad. It's not like you can make kale taste worse.
Ugh-loads of chopped fucking kale
Some protein-y pulse-y thing; I used red lentils (soak first). Chickpeas, beans or cashew nuts would probably also be nice.
Lemon juice

Instructions

Heat the oil. Add the onion, ginger, garlic, and pepper. Let the onions get a bit translucent.
Add the curry paste, give it a minute to heat up and get fragrant.
Add the sweet potato, stir in well, and cook for a bit minutes more.
Add the coconut milk, turmeric, and a pinch of salt and stir. Add water to just about cover the sweet potato and bring to a simmer.
Once simmering, add the protein-y thing.
Cook for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, to soften the potato.
Once the potatoes are softened, add the kale and lemon juice, and cover. Cook for at least 5 mins, or you can sod off and leave alone in a slow-cooker if you like. I went off for a few hours. The sweet potato etc will break down to mush but the kale DOES NOT GO AWAY because it can't take a bloody hint already.

Serve, salted, with rice/quinoa and the hope that the health and smugness benefits of actually using up your kale will make the dish taste better.

To really get into the whole cooking-bloggery thing, I did intend to take some photos. Unfortunately I only rememberred at the end when the resulting curry was complete and looked like it had been ingested, digested and then barfed back up into the pot. It tasted pretty reasonable, in the end, for all that it looked pre-eaten. You can't really mess up a red curry too much. Not even with kale.

So, eat and enjoy! Or just set the kale on fire and go to the pub. I know what I will be doing.

Published in Voyeur, the Virgin Blue inflight magazine.

2020-12-02T09:58:00.001+11:00

Very happy with this piece. Not only was it a great trip but the magazine worked with me on how to lay out the content and I think it looks amazing.

Bring on the Sunshine - Sunshine Coast business destinations, for Executive PA Magazine Feb 2011

2020-11-11T10:39:00.000+11:00

Here is a prime example of being careful what you cover when you can't travel. Writing this was an exercise in torture - all those descriptions of stunning beaches, tropical balmy days and great food. I'm well overdue for another holiday there!

It’s known for the 300 days of sun it gets each year, with over 30 high-quality venues and endless exceptional activities, it’s as a business event destination that the Sunshine Coast really shines.

(This is a clipping only, for more please contact me.)

Have a howl this Halloween (and not a COVID scare) - event planning for a COVID Halloween

2020-10-31T06:50:00.031+11:00

This piece was picked up by the Echo Live, my event manager's guide to organizing a spooky but safe Halloween. I'm pleased to report this was a huge success at my home with my own little monsters too!

We tried to teach. We got homeschooled.

2020-07-15T01:16:00.004+10:00

I shared my tale of homeschooling woe - reproduced below - with the Irish Examiner and on Medium.

School’s finally out for summer so let’s review what our family have learned over the last four torturous millennia, I mean months, of homeschooling.

Many facts were learned. Not by my kids, of course. They’re off the garden somewhere eating mud or setting fires or something. They learned nothing but Mum and Dad’s favorite spots to hide the TV remote, the fancy biscuits, and occasionally ourselves.

But the grown-ups feel a great deal more educated. When the primary schools and daycares here in Ireland announced they were closing but would be sending out work each day, we stayed hopeful. After all, many people around choose to homeschool their kids. How bad can it be?

It’s bad. It’s terrible and we’re terrible at it. Do you know the cunning required to make a 6-year-old willingly open a workbook? The tenacity needed to get them to sit down and finish a page of writing? The mess a 3-year-old can create while you’re doing maths problems?

Homeschoolers are clearly in a class of their own. Before I tried it, I thought that people who homeschooled were a bit intense. Now I am petrified of them. Let’s be grateful they’re tied up educating their kids. If they had time to use their hard-won skills on the rest of humanity, we’d be subjugated to their will in a week.

My time as a reluctant homeschooler taught me you need to plan carefully.

My top tip for planning for surviving a prolonged schools’ closure it this; don’t have small children.

Child-free, I could have been watching my artisanal sourdough rise from the smugward Labradoodle position on my luxury yoga mat. Instead I am forever doing laundry, while preparing the kids’ five millionth snack of the day, and repeating “just one more page” like a mantra as I google “can you evict a toddler”. (You can’t. Sorry.)

Not that parenting has stopped some self-improvers from topping the class. Social media is full of serene Insta-mums rhapsodising about connecting with their children through yogilates. When we tried family yoga, the only thing that connected was the kids’ flailing feet with our ears.

This whole Coronavirus thing has just shown up our complete lack of preparation to be teachers and maybe even parents. Why don’t we have a printer? Why do we have two children under 7 and an aging dog, and not two dogs under 7 and an adult child qualified as a vet?

What were we thinking, 8 years ago, when we said “let’s have kids — who likes having spending money anyway”? We could have spent lockdown holidaying childless in Dalkey, drinking cans from a Supervalu bag with a socially distant Matt Damon, instead of ugly-sobbing into our children’s workbooks.

I know, I know, we should count our blessings. Friends and family, isolating solo, said they’d “love” to have children about for company, but no one took me up on my offer to drop one off for a week.

People ask me “What has homeschooling taught you?” Actually, they don’t. Either they don’t talk to me at all or they say something like “is that your child running naked down the street again”.

But if anyone could manage a conversation over the screaming (both from my children and in my head) they might ask that. I mean, it beats “what’s in that paper bag you’re drinking from”.

It isn’t just our teaching skills getting an F, we lacked equipment too. Our school sent a million printouts, but we don’t have a printer. Online STEM experiments would say they needed “simple items from around the house”, and would then demand glass flasks, a pipette, a used merkin, some liquid nitrogen and a unicorn horn.

So we often skipped official homework but managed some real studying. My kids engaged with the literary themes of Lord of the Flies and The Hunger Games, both thrilling tales of conflict in a disintegrating society. I didn’t read the books to them or anything, but every time I left them unsupervised for 5 minutes I’d come back to find them staging a live-action version.

We’ve also worked on our reasoning. If one child is crying, how long before the other does? Is that chocolate or poo on their hands? If there’s no summer camps for under 5’s, where do workplaces think all the magical summer childcare is coming from?

And there’s always PE. There was a lot of chasing and Hide and Seek — ready or not, here they come! Generally when the grown-ups weren’t playing but were in an office Zoom meeting, or the bathroom, or just trying to sneak in a fancy biscuit.

Nature walks to see the swan cygnets (and maybe get a sneaky ice-cream) were popular.

For all the tears and tribulation, it hasn’t all been bad. There has been a lot of play. A lot of cuddles. Lots of days out the back garden studying bugs and making terrible art. And, through homeschooling, we’ve discovered a lot about the kids’ learning styles. We’ll be better at supporting their teachers and definitely appreciate their capability more.

I mean, just look at a class photo. Look at the children, in school, reading things and not biting their siblings or the dog. Look at that teacher, all stress-smiling from getting all thirty of their charges to stand still for two minutes. We used to have a teacher like that. Saw them 5 days a week. But did we appreciate them? No. We barely thought about them, before dropping off the children each morning with a cheery smile.

I’m thinking about them now. Thinking what will happen if teachers don’t come back. I’ll definitely get them a decent gift this Christmas. Some of us have learned a lot.

Not my kids, of course. They’re off the garden digging pits or reenacting Battle Royale or something. And, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to use the brief peace to sneak in a fancy biscuit.

Creature comforts at work

2020-05-08T17:41:00.000+10:00

Would you like your office to go to the dogs? My piece on pet-friendly workplaces for Executive PA magazine makes no bones about the many benefits of bringing man's best friend to the workplace.

We're not barking up the wrong tree - dog friendly offices have higher employee satisfaction and an edge in recruiting staff, according to a surveys, and studies have found that working teams who had a dog had ranked higher on qualities of trust, team cohesion, and intimacy than dog-less teams.

Dogged persistence may be needed to persuade the doubters but the offices I interviewed felt their pet-friendly policy made them top dogs when it came to workplace enjoyment. Maybe more companies should paws for thought and let every dog have its (work) day.

I will stop with the terrible dog puns now, I promise. Here's an excerpt, for more see the magazine on the website (pages 64/65) or drop me an email.

Who let the dogs in?


Office dog Bronte hard at work

Why should your business allow pets at work? David Lawrence, Managing Director of The Web Showroom and owner of office dog Bronte (pictured), suggests some ways to appeal to your boss from a business perspective.

It engages people - from contractors blogging about Bronte to ice-breaking conversations with new clients, an office dog always gets people talking.
A recruiting edge - potential staff almost all say they’d love to work for a company with an office dog when they see Bronte at the interview.
Dog owners are happier at work and spend less time worrying about what is going on at home, particularly if they need to work late.
Forget smoke breaks - having an office dog allows people to take mini breaks to pat the dog, and most people get a feeling of wellbeing out of interacting with the dog. And the dog loves it too!

Would you like to take your dog to work? Would your workplace ever allow it? Let the magazine know by emailing editor@executivepa.com.au with “Office Dog” in the subject line.

This office is going to the dogs

2020-05-04T11:32:00.001+10:00

Working from home today I caught the watchful eye of my supervisor, the dog, I was reminded of a piece I wrote on dogs on the office.

Work harder or walk me,
suggests my supervisor dog.

Some Australian offices are going to the dogs to keep their workers happy and pet-friendly workplaces are becoming common. My current employers aren't onboard but some of the world’s largest are; including Apple, Amazon and Google. Over 20% of work places in America are dog friendly, but the world leader is Taiwan where over half of all work places welcome man’s best friend with open arms.

While there’s no doubt many dog-owners will see advantages to taking Rover to work, what’s in it for the business? Employee satisfaction and an edge in recruiting staff, according to a survey carried out by Dogster.com and Simply Hired, who found two-thirds of dog owners would work longer hours and a third would take a pay cut if they could bring their dog to the office. A study by Central Michigan University found that working teams who had a dog with them had ranked higher on qualities of trust, team cohesion, and intimacy than dog-less teams.

And it’s not just dogs; New York’s Algonquin Hotel most famous employee was a ragdoll cat named Matilda III, who appeared on CBS in her capacity as “Directfurr of Guest Relations”, with her staff Alice de Almeida, who described herself as executive assistant, ghostwriter and “opposable thumb”.

Why should your business allow pets at work? David Lawrence, Managing Director of The Web Showroom and owner of office dog Bronte, suggests ways to appeal to your boss from a business perspective.

It gets people interested - from contractors blogging to ice-breaking conversations with new clients, an office dog always gets people talking.
A recruiting edge - potential staff almost all say they’d love to work for a company with an office dog when they see them at the interview.
Dog owners are happier at work and spend less time worrying about what is going on at home, particularly if they need to work late.
Forget smoke breaks - having an office dog allows people to take mini breaks to pat the dog, and most people get a feeling of wellbeing out of interacting with the dog. And the dog loves it too!

Would you like to take your dog to work? Would your workplace ever allow it? Let me know in the comments.

My piece, Who’s letting the dogs in, was published by Executive PA Australia in their July 2012 issue (this magazine is now called Chief of Staff). You can view the full article here.

Published in MX : Jingle Balls - how not to do your Christmas shopping

2019-12-06T16:20:00.000+11:00

This piece ran in MX, a daily Australian transport newspaper. Wishing you all a pleasant holiday season and see you in 2015!

You need to look in a few more shops. Initially, all you can find are inappropriate gifts. You find yourself looking at designer bags, plasma TVs and licensed weaponry. Yes, they’d love it, but you can’t buy it due to cost, size or piddling little legal issues. You have to remind yourself that no one will thank you if you decide to get your ten year old cousin a longbow and real arrows, not even them after they end up hospitalised. The shops are noisy and crowded and full of despairing souls, like hell with Jingle Bells playing in the background. You’ve already wasted a few hours…

Demoralised, you decide to get a few old faithfuls like clothes. You find affordable items that would be perfect if you knew size they take. Is she a twelve or one of those girls who gets insulted when you get past a size ten? The only thing worse than watching your mate trying to squeeze into something two sizes too small is your mate realising that you think she’s a size bigger than what she like to wear.

The next thing you know, you have a size eight in your arms, and you’re looking for the six. You’re having difficulty finding something for your friend, but you have found some adorable things for you. It’s Christmas, after all, and you deserve something nice!

You leave the shop on a high, having spent fifty bucks on another cute top. Then you realise you still don’t have any presents. Your feet hurt. It’s crowded. They’ve got the flaming Mariah Carey Christmas CD on in every shop in town. All she wants for Christmas is you, but all you want is a nice cool drink.

Determined to speed things up, you start really looking. You find the completely appropriate gifts, if you never want anyone to speak to you again. T-shirts that say “I’m with Stupid”. Packs of bath salts and deodorant. A Gutbuster machine. Books called “He’s Just Not That Into You”. Undoubtedly useful and accurate, but you’d like to still be speaking to people on the 26th.

Running out of ideas and time, you end up looking at the huge shiny gift boxes containing such delights as potpourri, candles that smell like a three month old fruit bowl, and fake perfume. If they don’t like the smell, it’s nearly pure alcohol so they can just drink it.

Mmm. Alcohol. You could do with a drink. So could everyone. Might as well just get them a Liquorland voucher, they’ll probably appreciate it.

And if they don’t, you can always drink it for them.

NON-WRITERS’ BLOCK

2019-11-28T03:19:00.000+11:00

“If you wrote something for which someone sent you a check, if you cashed the check and it didn't bounce, and if you then paid the light bill with the money, I consider you talented.” Stephen King, On Writing

Stephen King wrote that.

On my good days, I remember that Stephen King - Stephen mofo-ing King, a man with both an amazing body of work and an absurdly cute dog - apparently considers me talented. I’m not going to be using my income from writing to buy a solid gold pony, or even a solid gold hamster, but I have made it into five figures. That was over three years, mind; not exactly a lucrative career but enough to keep me in beer and boots.

On my bad days, I remind myself that those three years were over six years ago and that my cumulative work since having children are four dull and forgettable pieces for business publications and a few blog posts where the amount of swearing considerably outweighs any interesting content.

I have written many other things. Birthday cards. Endless childcare forms. Snippy work emails. Impassioned diatribes to government representatives on refuges, childcare and the environment, and less worthy but no less impassioned comments on Facebook on how Tropic Thunder is a great Christmas movie. But having failed miserably to write anything of substance in the last, oh, four years, it has come to the point at which I have to face the fact it may not be writers’ block. Maybe I am just not a writer. Maybe I am just a non-writer with notions.

Let me tell you of the many joyous stages of my recent non-writer’s block, now with additional swearing and maybe some CAPS.

PRE-READING
The astute amongst you (okay, actually just those of you still reading this self-indulgent hot mess, YOU GO GUYS) will notice I opened this with a quote from a book. Reading books about writing is a great way to be a writer but not write anything. It is super-meta and I can’t recommend it enough. You can sit in coffee shops or on buses or work meetings (phone under table, of course) basking in the warm glow of being a writer without actually producing a single word of original text.

GOOGLING
Bonus; I didn’t even read a book on writing! I vaguely remembered the quote from back when I used to read books about writing and put an absurd sentence into Google (stephen king pay my gas bill) and it did the rest! Google can do basically anything. Go on Google, take the wheel and write this bitch! Autocomplete my fucking manuscript! Take my first word, fill in the second, third and fourth words, and ad infinitum!
...please also give me the first word.

RESEARCH
I would like to be writing, I really really would, but I need to research for world-building. Did you know there is a page devoted to autocomplete games? Shussssssh, I have a high score to beat.

EDITING!
Don’t want to write anything new? Have you considered the endless joys of editing? You look over some stuff you wrote a while back and actually it's not too terrible. So you add in a bit, and spruce up a bit, correct some errors, change a few outdated references... and you’ve been working for 3 hours without actually having written anything new. It’s the literary equivalent of reheating mystery frozen foods from back of the freezer to find out what they are or attempting to serve up regurgitated 2am curry chips as a balanced meal.

EDIT IT ALL
Cut the word count. Cut it. Keep cutting. More. Even more. ALL OF IT. Remove all the extraneous words. Kill your darlings. Trim the fat! Throw out your notebooks. Destroy your pens. Give your clothing to charity! Fuck it, donate a damned kidney, you’re not using it right now. EDIT YOUR LIFE. The fun thing about editing is the more you do it, the further you can get from writing.

EDIT SOME MORE
Keep trimming and strimming and editing until eventually you have just one sentence left, which you present with twitchy-eyed pride to an unwilling reader declaring it a heartbreaking work of staggering genius. You are a prodigal sculptor releasing a tiny but perfect figure from a mountain of marble, or a brilliant archaeologist brushing fields of dirt away to find one arrowhead or - lets be more realistic here – a deluded fanatic painstakingly polishing your turd for years to reveal a tiny perfect lump of curiously preserved sweetcorn at the core. Such a fine line between wordsmith and turdsmith, don’t you think?

YOU NEED A PLAYLIST
You really really do.

EAT SOMETHING
Maybe you aren't crap. Maybe it's just low blood sugar. Eat something. Eat everything! Fall down the rabbit holes that is cookery videos on YouTube and embrace a new career as a pastry chef! You can justify it by saying you will write about it some day. Or you can write 5,000 work blog posts on how to make toast for recipe sites.
"To understand what makes this toast so good, I need to tell you a long-winded personal anecdote about Russia in 1986, which I will begin by quoting War and Peace in its entirety..."

DENIAL!
Fuck you. I don’t have Writer’s Block, I have Non-Writer’s Commitment. I am so good at not writing I haven't done it in years. Don't want a thing written about? You should call me. I will absolutely never write a tell-all book about your deepest darkest secrets because I have no muse left, bastarding Google won’t give me a first bloody word, and I am still editing down my 1,200 page Livejournal into a line of useable text. (The sentence is currently, “Wow, I was so drunk guys, sorry!”.)

CAAAAAAAAPS
OH GOD JUST FUCK OFF I AM TRYING MY HARDEST OR AT LEAST A TEENY BIT WHILE CURATING MY SPOTIFY PLAYLIST AND LOOKING UP RECIPES FOR ROAST PORK AND ALSO DISTRACTING MYSELF WITH MEMES HAHAHA I FOUND A FUNNY MEME

REPEAT FOREVER
For those of you hoping for a point to all this, or some useful advice, in case it’s not obvious you will need to go elsewhere. May I suggest the rather excellent On Writing by Stephen King?

Perfectly suited - making "casual" office work

2019-09-04T13:43:00.000+10:00

Ripped jeans, micro-minis, offensive t-shirt slogans and far too much cleavage on display (from either gender) - researching my recent piece for Executive PA magazine brought me plenty of information on how office casual dress-codes can work, and how they can go horribly, horribly wrong...

Mark Zuckerberg wears a hoody, Tim Cook continues Steve Jobs's casually dressed CEO tradition, and Sir Richard Branson is rarely out of denim. While the office maxim is "copy the boss", what if they start dressing down?

Are CEOs really ditching the suit and, if so, should you? What with company leaders in jeans, increasing informality in many industries and the omnipresent casual Friday, it looks like business wear is going out of fashion.

But how casual is too casual? One office found itself writing endless guides to clarify what business casual code means. "We had juniors in mini-skirts and new hires in ripped jeans and thongs," says their MD's PA. "We ended up with a three-page guide - with pictures - before we decided to just stop casual Fridays."

Another PA rapidly tired of seeing too much cleavage - from a male manager,
who usually left his shirt open to the third button...

See the whole piece at in the issue at Executive PA online, page 60.

I had a blast researching this one, even if it did uncover a few memories of office-workers and my own outfits best left forgotten. What's your ultimate "oh no, they didn't" office-wear story?

Bitten by the Rottnest Bug

2014-11-03T12:30:00.000+11:00

"Turn around really slowly and carefully," my biking partner says as I stoop to put down my helmet. "And look at what's behind you."

As an Irishwoman in Australia, it's got to be the phrase I least wanted to hear. There are others, including “is that log a crocodile" and “I’ll just put on my budgie smugglers” but in terms of I'm-in-the-place-with-the-most-poisonous-animals-in-the-world-and-they-all-hate-me, this one's got to win. That's it. My number is up.

And I haven't even seen a quokka yet.

I’m blaming the travel tips I have got from every Perthite and tourist who has ever been to WA. As one, they all said I needed to see Rottnest Island. Nicknamed Rotto, the island is just an hour from Fremantle; a stunning environmental refuge with white sand beaches, no cars and the infamous Rottnest quokka. And, because there’re no motor vehicles allowed on the island, it’s pedalling all the way.

We hire bikes to get around the twenty-four kilometre circuit of the island. It's a decade since I've been on one but I am sure it will come back to me like – well, like riding a bike. We pick them up at the jetty. I remember bikes, although this one looks like a re-welded coat hanger.

Brakes. I remember BRAKES. Why aren't there any brakes on this bloody thing? Why do only discover this after I decide to go for a brisk pedal on a pier? Why am I whizzing along about a foot off the ground on a bike apparently designed for a midget that is scared of heights? The bike appears to be a re-welded coat hanger, my seat is so low that my legs are sticking out to the side at chin level, the chain is making a horrible crunching sound and I'm heading for the end of the jetty and I can't bloody STOP.

One bike swap later, we are on our way. Rotto is stunningly gorgeous but not urban. The sun beams down on narrow roads, unused to heavier traffic than people on bikes. The island is known for its beaches and beauty, and there are signs everywhere about the unique flora and fauna.

Quokkas. Entirely made of SQUEEEEE!

I want to see the animal synonymous with the island, the quokka. Quokkas look like they were designed by a Creator who was worried that koalas and wallabies weren’t cute enough. “Let’s make ‘em tiny. Really small, with fat furry cuddly bodies and little paws that they use to gesture cutely.” Under a foot tall and blessed with tufted ears and cute snuffly little noses, the resident marsupials of the island are meant to be so tame that they’ll graze around your ankles.

But I need to concentrate on the road. Cycling after a ten year absence turns out to be fun. My balance comes back, and I stop being a danger to stationary objects. One hour later, I am a confident cyclist again.

Two hours later, I am in agony. Ouch, my bum. Standing aches, sitting hurts and I’d rather sit on a cactus than on that saddle again. We stop to rest and that’s when it happens. I’m going to die by spider bite or snake venom or platypus poisoning and I haven't seen a quokka yet. I mean, how much does this suck?

Incidentally, if you do get bitten, sucking is pointless. What you should actually do is bind the whole limb as tightly as you can, starting at the bite point, and stay calm as you are whisked to hospital with your Aussie friends cheerfully reminding you that “you didn’t want to get bitten by one of those, mate, they’re really poisonous”.

Communing with the locals.

Of course, Rotto being a rural paradise where conservation is the word of the day, there’s no hospital. There’s a twenty four hour ranger service to help the animals, bless their poisonous little faces, should they break their huge venomous fangs. Humans, however, are on their own. The nearest hospital is in Fremantle, twenty kilometres away by sea. And now I have a snake or possibly spider ready to bite my poor unfortunate bum, adding unsightly swelling, puncture marks and death to the various other complaints I currently have about it.

Bugger. This time I actually am going to die. I start to turn while stepping back really slowly and carefully, aware that no matter what I do, my bulk moving about is probably going to frighten the animal into thinking I’m attacking.

And I haven’t even seen a …

Yep. It’s a quokka.

The bunnies are restless: business names and 5Bunny

2013-12-04T16:17:00.000+11:00

Some of you may have noticed rustling in the bushes and strange noises on Twitter. Don't be alarmed. That's just my new business name, getting ready to emerge.

While as a freelancer I'm lucky in having a distinctive and unusual name, being called Sadhbh comes with one big disadvantage.

No one can say it*. A small sample of the recent guesses made by people trying to work it out include Saba, Sadvie, Sadhabah, and, of course, “Yo, Irish”. Some resorted to changing my surname as firstname and calling me Warren. Others just stand there, twitching and wide-eyed like rabbit in the headlights, until I put them out of their misery and explain how to pronounce it.

It's a very traditional Irish female name and actually pretty easy to say - like the number five, but with an "s" instead of an "f". It might look like the victim of a tragic consonants shortage, but it trips off the tongue quite easily. Sive.

But for those that don't know this, it's intimidating to call or email, and some clients have told me they were initially put off contacting me. So I've been tossing around the idea of a new business name for my writing work, and have settled on 5Bunny Productions.

Five like Sadhbh, and bunny rabbits live in warrens. Put them together and you have the easy way some people use to remember how to say my name. There will be five bunnies, all writing about different things. I hope – much in the manner of bunnies – to get down to populating the website and bringing in lots of new arrivals in the next few months.

Thanks to Linette and Peter for helping me think through the process, and the many others who offering input and advice, even if that was only checking I didn’t plan to dress as a Playboy Bunny while writing. Work is underway on a website, and a logo, and business cards and all the other things that are so much fun about building a brand (no, really, I mean it) but in the meantime you can still catch me here or tweeting over at @5thBunny.

I, for one, would like to welcome our new leporine overlords. Especially if they'll get on with getting their act together and getting some content up.

* Unless they've met me, are Irish, or preferably both.

Destination wedding: do or don't? Here's how to tell.

2013-02-14T22:30:00.003+11:00

Get married in Mauritius. Tie the knot in Tahiti. Have your special day in Fiji, Bali or even the North Pole. There's lots of information on where to have a destination wedding, but remarkably little on who should have one.

Like a groom in a top hat or arriving at the church in a horse-drawn carriage, a destination wedding can be fun but it's not for everyone. So, should you consider one for your own nuptials? I've come up with a remarkably easy way to tell.

Destination weddings have unusual drawbacks.

(First off, a clarification. When I say destination wedding, I mean somewhere that you and most guests will need to fly to, or spend at least a day traveling - if you can get there and back in a few hours, while it may be a bit time-consuming, there's nothing to stop you popping out several times to check details and your guests from heading home to sleep in their own bed if they really want to.)

Sit down with your partner and decide who are the "key people" you feel absolutely have to be there for it to be the day you want. Ask yourself if these people could, assuming all does well, realistically afford both the cash and the time off. If not, the idea is dead in the water before it starts.
Still interested? Once you both have these guests squared out, ask yourselves one simple question to find out if tying the knot in a far-away paradise is your perfect day or an accident waiting to happen.
Here goes: do you or your partner believe that "if our friends and family really love us, they'll make it there anyway somehow"?

If you answer is "yes", stop considering a destination wedding right now.

I can't put this strongly enough; if you can't give your family and friends the complete and ungrudging freedom to say no, or to say yes and then have to change their mind due to money/illness/unavoidable issues, then you shouldn't have a destination wedding. Unless you can take a big deep breath and say, "I would be disappointed, but would get over it, and would still feel the same way about them after", don't even consider it.

Real life happens. People get ill. Employers refuse leave. Finances fail. With all the good will in the world, making it to your wedding simply may not be possible for some people no matter how much they want to. And if you can't smile, and tell them you understand and really mean it, you are setting your wedding and your relationships up to fail.

It's not fair on your friends and family, and you stand a high chance of being made miserable on the day looking at gaps where there should be people you love. Don't do it to yourself, your partner, and your loved ones.

Practically perfect in every way -
our wedding in Fiji.

Full disclosure: we got married in 2012 in Fiji. I am Irish, my partner is Australian, and our wedding location was inconvenient for everyone. We were delighted with the day, and with the place we picked (which we'd previously visited), but it was a long and rocky road to get from start to finish and the hardest obstacle to deal with was guests who couldn't be there.

Out of 50 or so invitees, 10 said they couldn't make it immediately (no dramas, as many of them were in Ireland and I had guessed the trip would be too far and too expensive). Another 6 or so wanted to come but cancelled in the months leading up to the event, and 3 cancelled in the last three months, one after we had lost the deposit on their accommodation. 4 nearly couldn't come due to last minute dramas, and one key family member who had agreed to come was taking about backing out until a few months in advance. One was horribly ill on the day and another nearly got concussed by a falling coconut.

We invited 50 people. 27 made it. And you know what? Each and every one of them could make it there was a wonderful gift from them to us, and each and every one that didn't are still as firmly our friends. Except perhaps the one who nearly got brained by a falling coconut.

Still considering a destination wedding and have a question for someone who's been there, done that, and forgot to pack the t-shirt? Over the next few weeks I'll be sharing a series of blog posts on destination weddings so feel free to leave a comment and let me know what you want to know.

Showing Off WA's Little Creatures

2012-10-03T21:35:00.000+10:00

This beer piece was written for Perth tourist guide, PerthWalkabout, when I was still living in Perth and could pop to the Little Creatures brewery whenever I wanted. I miss those days sometimes...

Little Creatures has been in the news recently as it has been taken over by Lion, who brew and distribute other Australian beers including Tooheys, XXXX, Hahn and James Boag. Will the Little Creatures thrive in Lions stable? Only time, and lots of taste-testing, will tell.

If you’ve ever taken time out on holidays to send a postcard home just to make people jealous, you’ll understand the appeal of the Little Creatures Brewery.

Just 30 minutes drive from Perth, the Little Creatures Brewery in Fremantle is one of those places that you take out of state visitors to just so you can show off how wonderful life is in WA. You lead them into the brewery, and gesture at the beer hall and the sun-drenched decking with its glorious ocean backdrop in a dismissive way as their jaw drops.

Image courtesy of Little Creatures Brewing.

“What, this little old place?” you say nonchalantly as the visitors turn first green from envy and then slightly pink from sitting out at the benches in the warm afternoon sun. And that’s before they’ve even had a beer.

The name "Little Creatures" does not refer to some gang of wonderful beer-brewing elves who make magical beer, no matter what Perthites might tell you after your fourth glass. It was inspired by a song lyric from the Talking Heads album called Little Creatures and refers to the live yeast cells that turn the sugars in malt wort into alcohol. The brewery is right on the water, built on the shell of an old boat yard in Fremantle (which had also been as a crocodile farm) and was opened in the summer of 2000/2001.

It became an instant favourite and has turned a lot of heads since then. They have won a number of Australian International Beer Awards, including Champion International Brewery and Champion Australasian Brewery in 2002, and the American style Pale Ale has picked up several accolades of its own, including Champion Ale (2002, 2007) and Champion Bottled Ale (2001). If you’re looking to make your visitors even more jealous, let them try a glass of this crisp citrus-y and slightly bitter beer. It’s preservative and additive free, so you can drink deep of this lager without worrying (too much) about a sore head in the morning.

For those of you who aren’t lager fans my Perth friend insists that their amber ale, Rogers, is the only way to go. Being called Roger, I think he may be just a little biased but there is no doubt that it’s a darn fine tipple whatever you call it. Light with a citrus hint at first, it changes mid-taste to a deliciously nutty brew with a hint of caramel that is still clean and easy to drink. Perhaps a little too easy to drink. It’s not named after my mate Roger but two other local brewers - Roger Bailey and Roger Bussell - and it’s an excellent tribute tastefully done.

Of course, it’s not just about the beer. (It’s not?) The brewery also does some truly excellent food, including some really excellent pizzas that set off the beers (back to the beers again, sorry) wonderfully. Their food is delicious – they’ve also opened a dining hall in Melbourne so you can sample a taste of it there, and are also building another brewery in Geelong, and their beer is available all over the country.

But only WA is lucky enough to have the full brewery experience available right on their doorstep, so we can go there whenever we want. Don’t forget to remind visitors about that. Not that you're trying to rub it in or anything.

Feral-ly Delicious - The Best Breweries in WA

2012-09-21T17:54:00.002+10:00

At one Australian company I worked for, we needed to buy the perfect gift for a big client. The Managing Director had a great idea - we would buy them a six-pack of Swan lager, which the client loved. The only issues were:

we were in Sydney;
the beer was in Perth, 4000 miles away (same distance as London to Tehran for the sake of comparison); and
the visitor was German, and now safely at home with his bratwurst and weißbier.

Feral Sunset, from Flickr/Anthony Georgeff

We couldn't find a drop of Swan in Sydney and due to various licensing laws you can't just post alcohol from WA to New South Wales. We had to bribe a member of our staff who was in Perth - on holidays - to take a cab from Perth airport and buy some, and bring it in their clicking hand-luggage on the plane.

So, between the cost of the beer (plus another six pack for the Director, who was using this as an excuse to get some himself), the taxi fares, a small bribe for the buyer (which was also a six-pack of Swan lager), and the secure wrapping and courier to Europe, I reckon those bottles came in at around $25 a pop each. Expensive, but - given the delighted reaction from the German when he received them - worth it.

This round-about story is my way of sharing with you a simple truth – everyone knows that Western Australia does some of the planet's best beers. The Germans are no slouches in this area themselves, and they recognise a great brew when they drink it (or indeed, wrapped in approximately 40 square kilometres of bubble wrap). If you make it to WA, you have access to the fruits of some of Australia’s best breweries. It would be a crime not to partake in a tipple or two.

Well, that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.

Everyone knows about the big guns, such as Little Creatures and the Old Brewery, but also deserving of a mention – and multiple visits - is Feral Brewing in the Swan Valley, which brings both dry Aussie wit (its slogan is “undomesticated but sophisticated”) and a wide variety of excellent beers to the market.

My favourites are the Hop Hog, an American-style IPA with strong and sharp beer with a dry finish, or the Belgian style Feral White, which comes laced with coriander and orange peel. Fantapants is another winner, and not just because I'm a wannabe redhead, but because the contrast between the initial sweetness and lingering sharpness has you going back asking, “Did I really taste that?” right until the bottom of the glass.

Drivers can enjoy a glass of the Mild Child, which weighing at just 3.5% alcohol by volume, and would be well advised to steer clear of the English-style barleywine Razorback and the jet black Russian Imperial Stout called Boris, which at 10.0% and 11.5% respectively will have you barred from your car.

You don’t have to drive to the brewery, of course, as you can catch the ferals at many pubs and bottle shops in both Perth and further afield, including in NSW. But really, why pass up a perfectly good excuse to go there?

This was originally written for WA site, Perthwalkabout, but I worried you people might not be drinking enough beer so here you go. :D

Get Out of F*cking Bed - cross-posted from my Boomerang Blog

2012-08-29T11:01:00.000+10:00

I posted last year about the expletive-laden bedtime book that leaked as a pirated PDF and sold more than 100,000 copies in pre-orders, “Go the F**k to Sleep“.

The brainchild of novelist and toddler parent, Adam Mansbach, this book contrasts sweet nursery rhymes about animals and heart-warming illustrations by Ricardo Cortes with the exhausted profanity of a parent who is clearly hitting the end of their tether trying to establish a sleeping routine.

One mate said she found the book very funny but she’d like to see a version for the parents of teenage kids who, far from sleeping too little, can’t be hauled out of bed in the mornings without the aid of a forklift and twenty bottles of Coke. “Parents of teenagers who are still up and wandering around the kitchen at 1am, and then like dead logs when you attempt to drag them out of bed for school in the morning, would certainly love to see this book redone for teenagers.”

So I took a shot at it. For those of you who want to read such things (and don't read beyond this point if you would rather not see a LOT of swearing) I give you “Get Out of F***ing Bed”.

This is what I came up with, but I’m sure there are plenty of talented poets out there who can add their own experiences and stick them in a nifty rhyme. Feel free to compose your own verses, and leave them in the comments for people giggle at. Lots of strong language lies ahead, if that’s not your thing, please don’t read on past this point!

Get Out of F**king Bed

Your breakfast is on the table
And there’s fresh tea in your cup.
We’re leaving in 10 minutes
Why aren’t you fucking up?

The morning has dawned bright and new
And the sun shines in blue skies.
Your alarm went off, I heard it blare
Don’t tell me fucking lies.

The rain has washed the night away and
The breeze is fresh and cool.
If you were making toast at 1am
You can get your ass to school.

A brand new day is waiting.
It’s time to raise your head.
No, you haven’t got a temperature;
Get out of fucking bed.

The postman smiles as he does his rounds
And the joggers are getting fit.
No, your teacher won’t be late today.
Get up, stop talking shit.

Birds sing joyfully in the trees
And we need to be afar.
We have to work to buy your food.
Get into the fucking car.

For teenagers are bloody expensive
And their mums and dads need their pay
Don’t look so surprised that we have to leave the house
When it happens every fucking day.

This is an entry from my Boomerang Books blog, you can find this post (and lots of other ones with a bit far swearing) at their website. It's updated about twice weekly, and I don't generally cross-post to here.

Sticking your nose in - when it's a good thing

2012-08-25T14:17:00.000+10:00

Darling Harbour - nice, but not for swimming. (WikiCommons:Adam.J.W.C)

So, today's adventure involved P (aka He Who Married Me Last Month) and I pulling some poor (probably) drunk and very distressed girl out of Darling Harbour's waters about 30m away from 2 buses full of people who sat and watched.

We were at Star City Wharf sitting on a tour bus, one of two packed with people, and saw a girl walk across the road and jump neatly into the water. We couldn't see into the water but we could see all the surrounding wharves. Some nearby people (friends?) came over and pointed and laughed, and a jogger stopped, said something and ran on. No one threw in the nearby life buoy. We figured she was okay and doing something stupid and would be out soon. Her friends(?) stayed there, pointing and giggling, but it became apparent they were really, really out of it - falling down drunk, probably.

A couple of minutes later she hadn't emerged and we decided to take a look and just at this point the buses decided they were revving up to go. P went over and looked down into the water and found her severely distressed and crying and clinging to a grip at the edge. The gap between the water level and the wharves was about 3-4 feet - too far for someone to get out on their own steam, and there were no steps.

P had to guide her to swim around to a lower spot where we - and a nearby security guard who had come out of Star City to look at what was happening - managed to haul her the few feet from the water and on to dry land. She was cold to touch, and throwing up a little water (the water there is pretty filthy from boats) and when we got her out she just collasped and wheezed on the wharf, too incoherent to answer questions. Another guard came over to help and we left her there with them, after calling the police (our tour bus driver was getting pretty angst-y at this point - I'm not sure he spotted her jumping in and as far as he was concerned we were holding up things).

Afterwards a few people on the bus asked us what had happened and it now sounds like she may have been trying to get away from the two people following her. She had no hand bag, no jewelery; it was 8am and she was still in nice night out clothes.

I'm aware that tweeting it after may have made it sound more heroic than it was (sorry lads!). All we did was help lift a girl from the water and make sure that she was in safe hands after. The police haven't called back so as far as we know, she is fine. I am also aware that I should have probably specified that everything was okay after as you lot are all nice people who worry about stuff like this, going on the responses I got.

Which is a bit different to the responses that she got today. Whether she jumped in for fun, for a bet, as something worse, whatever; it may have started harmless but within a few minutes she was clearly in trouble and two buses nearly drove off and left her. The Bystander effect - or Genovese syndrome - suggests that as the numbers of bystanders increase in an emergency, the less likely it is that someone will offer help. "This happens because as the number of bystanders increases, any given bystander is less likely to notice the incident, less likely to interpret the incident as a problem,and less likely to assume responsibility for taking action."

I am convinced the bystander effect should be taught in schools (along with Milgram's electric shock experiment, but that's a story for another day). I figure most of you know this already but please remember, if a situation is going bad and there are lot of people looking at it, that doesn't mean anyone is actually doing anything to make it better. Be that squeaky, meddling, nosey wheel. Sometimes you'll feel like a complete tool but when it's needed, it's really needed.

And, on a side note, P's weight lifting skillz are seriously good. :D

2012-08-13T14:22:00.001+10:00

For those of you here via my Fat Chick's Guide to the Couch to 5k here's a bit of an update on my running - the program did get me there without exploding my prostate or patella, and I can particularly recommend making sure you have good shoes and cooling clothes to back you up if you decide to go for it. I'm normally doing 5kms jogs/runs these days.

Weddings! Now being blamed for my lack of fitness!

Well, I say normally but what with Sydney's inclement winter (yes, 10C or 50F can feel cold, stop laughing) and my recent wedding I haven't been hitting the road as often or as hard as normal. The spirit is willing but the flesh, frankly, has got used to drinking hot chocolate on the couch when the rain starts. Which means I have picked a pretty bad time to be emboldened by the lack of exploding body parts and to enter the 9km Sydney Running Festival Bridge Run in mid September.

This will be a bit of a challenge. I have never broken the 7km mark and that was on a treadmill. I'm not a fan of hill-running, and the course has several steepish ones. I am, at best, a plodder and Sydney's runners are notoriously fast and impatient. And it's at 9am in the morning when I am normally doing my much celebrated stoned-tree-sloth impersonation and the only running involved normally is that of a nice hot shower before coffee. In short, this is not in my comfort zone by several kilometres or hours.

So I am viewing this race as a wonderful way to focus the mind on getting fit, in much the same way suddenly needing to escape charging bull is an excellent opportunity to work on my sprinting speed and hurdling.

Watch this space. :D