When it comes to things which are fashionable and/or cool, it is fair to say that I generally discover them very late in the piece, if I hear about them at all.

Undoubtedly the dominant story in Wellington this last week has been the so-called “swarm” of earthquakes hitting the Capital. By far the biggest and most dramatic quake (so far – fingers crossed) was the 6.5 magnitude jolt which hit at 5:09pm on Sunday.[1]

To suggest that the 6th Annual Malthouse West Coast IPA Challenge was “popular” is akin to describing Sharknado as “silly” – both are accurate as far as they go but each hardly reflects the magnitude of events.

I’m as anxious as a kid on Christmas Eve, as excited as Tom Cruise on Oprah’s couch and as nervous as a New Zealand cricket fan watching Chris Martin walk out to bat.

In the course of an average working day, I read and write a tremendous variety of material, both on screen and in print. Today, just for example, I was reading about tertiary education policies, by-election results, women’s voting patterns, retail grocery trends in Europe, beer, professional wrestling and the breakdown of the ANZUS alliance under the Fourth Labour Government.  All those topics, apart from the wrestling and diplomatic wrangling, were paid work. [1] Or so I thought.

When I was seventeen years old I was fired for the first and hopefully last time. In my defence, it was not actually my fault.