All I want for Christmas is a keg of beer (or thirteen)

Do not get me wrong here – I like Christmas. I like spending time with my family, I like eating too much, and I like giving and getting presents. What usually “grinds my gears” this time of year is the excessive promotion of forced Christmas cheer in stores, bars and workplaces – particularly if it all starts way too early.

Epic 11th Birthday: “My secret dream is to write an epic poem. That's probably the most pretentious thing I've said.”

This blog has for many years been built on three literary devices – tangents, disclaimers and footnotes. For once, it is time to move straight to the disclaimer before one and a half pages of finely written tangential prose about cricket (not so good right now), Star Wars (looking kind of marvellous right now) and soon to be former Prime Minister John Key. [1]

Over the years there have been many songs written about rainbows.

To err is human, to arrrrgh is stone cold pirate... for life

There have been many famous pirates throughout the ages including Dionysius the Phocaean, Kim Dotcom, Black Bart, Captain Jack Sparrow, Blackbeard, Paul Burchill and Lucy Lawless. [1] They were buccaneers, freelancers, privateers, outlaws, heroes and villains.

In the previous blog, I described last week as “an inauspicious week for humanity.” Subsequent events were to demonstrate this was a gargantuan understatement –

At the risk of near fatal understatement, this is an inauspicious week for humanity.