I saw Life last night with Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence. Even with shades of Shawshank redemption, it’s a gem of a little movie. And even with Murphy doing his old fast-talking-bad-mouthing schtick that’s getting pretty old, I really enjoyed it. But I couldn’t help wondering why I’d never heard of it. Was it because […]

Okay, I sent off the first instalment of the BIG project and I’ve got time now to catch my breath. Not much time, mind you, but a little bit of time in order to catch up on emails, bake some pineapple tarts, clean the house, get it ready for my niece who’s planning to come […]

Sometimes I would wonder why I was ‘friends’ with a pig farmer. Actually the bottom fell out of the hog market a while back and Brent Olson a down-to-earth-no-nonsense-farmer-turned-writer from Minnesota turned instead to crop farming. I’ve never had the pleasure of actually meeting him, but then these days that doesn’t seem to be a […]

I started watching “Lost in Translation” with Bill Murray only because it had oscar buzz a few years ago. I think I remember hearing someone say that he’d really pushed the envelope, blah, blah, blah. Blah, blah, blah is right. I mean this is what’s getting up for oscars? Am I disconnected or something? I […]

There was a famous commercial of a woman all made up, dancing to this music and a woman’s voice singing: I can bring home the bacon Fry it up in a pan And never ever let you forget you’re a ma-a-a-n… And at first glance it seems very empowering, to see this woman who can […]

On Saturday I was down at the Lattitudes Festival in Kitchener, Waterloo. They invite me practically every year since they started and the crowd that comes to gather and hear stories is definitely getting bigger! It was raining hard on Saturday. When I got to the little island in the middle of Victoria park, I […]

I know it’s not spelled ‘immigrunt’ but today I felt like a real ‘immigrunt’, not an immigrant. I just had one of those days when everything stupid you could possibly do, gets done. It started with Friday, when I went to a school to drop off eleven books some kids had bought. The librarian had […]

I started some of my Eid shopping early. Went to one of those big warehouses that have discount toys and books. The toys don’t interest me much, but the books… I picked up a classic Pride & Prejudice for that niece of mine who was struggling through Wuthering Heights. And I picked up some books […]

I feel like a bit of a fraud when it comes to taking credit for Big Red Lollipop. I was just reviewed by Betsy Bird, one of the top bloggers in the blogosphere and she said such lovely things about Big Red Lollipop, and yet it’s left me squirming. For the longest while I used […]

There are a lot of Chinese malls around here, and my daughters, who all wear niqab, have often gone into them to go shopping. Surprisingly they said that the feeling they get walking around in Chinese malls is nothing like what they get in ordinary shopping centres. The Chinese people completely, hmm, I don’t know […]