14: Dog’s Spare Human Holds Phone in Cold Dark Street
Is a poodle cross a good choice for a guard dog, if your neighbourhood is embroiled in light to medium crime? Today’s story answers the hard questions. A tale of posh pets, local delinquency, and a fear of snobbery. Support the show
28 Feb 2023
13: Soul of the trail
Today’s episode is about the outdoors and space: how we seek out the outdoors as a reset for our troubles; and how we negotiate physical space with our fellow humans, harmoniously or otherwise. Features: Pride, fancy boots and mangoes – when a forest walk, far from the madding crowd’s ignoble strife, goes awryNeutrinos, a haunting road trip and getting frazzled – a foray into the science (my version) of getting overwhelmedMurmurations, swimming pools and etiquette – a look...
12 Aug 2022
12: Notes from a small house IV
Today’s episode is the fourth in the Notes from a small house series – short tales of life in and around a small house chock full of animals, people and stuff. The theme is habits – the patterns we find ourselves falling into, and the patterns we notice in others, including the good, the bad, and the strange. Features: Choosing your preferred parent – kids reveal the truthWitnessing the fitness (or lack thereof) at taekwondoPosh cats with impossible standardsThe dragon chicken – on...
14 Jun 2022
11: Notes from a small house III
Today’s episode is the third in the Notes from a small house series – chaotic, funny stories from a smallish house chock-full of people and animals. The theme is misaligned perceptions – how something perfectly reasonable to one may be anathema to another. Features: A smashed face, and what to do about those teethOld cows, barbecues and vegetarianismRabbits in the home, and everywhere, for eternityHow to be a demotivational speaker (or not to be)Kihap! like you mean it – a taekwondo tal...
13 Mar 2022
10: Notes from a small house II
Today’s episode is the second in the Notes from a small house series – chaotic, funny stories from a smallish house chock-full of people and animals. Features: Reverse sibling psychologyPhotodynamic face-melting therapyArtificial intelligence muttering to itself in the next roomThings kids say to imply they don’t like their dinner and certainly won’t be eating itSupport the show
27 Feb 2022
9: Notes from a small house I
Today’s episode is the first in a series called Notes from a small house – chaotic, funny stories from a smallish house chock-full of people and animals. Features: Inexact questionsKids being lawyersAn avalanche of artworkA forlorn-looking dog who can’t make up his mindThings kids announce just as you’re rushing out the door for school at 8:59amSupport the show
21 Nov 2021
8: Wait, what did you say? Part II
Today’s episode is the second part of a two-part series on language, looking at phrases we use all the time, but which on closer examination are a bit weird, misleading or funny. Features: Bears, hares and wondering where – notes on the hilarious linguistic laziness of Kiwi EnglishStars, lasers and taxi cabs – the glorious (and mixed) metaphors of workplace languageAn examination of idioms and phrases I never quite understood as a kid – and still don’t, reallySupport the show
31 Oct 2021
7: Wait, what did you say? Part I
Today’s episode is about language and working out what things mean – generally by saying the wrong things first, and then looking back on them to either laugh or cringe. Features: Blurts and faux pas – when you don’t know what the right thing to say is until you’ve already said the wrong oneDemonstrating how irony works to your secondary school students by living ironicallyA rendezvous with a supermarket checkout machineA starfish and a universal theory of humourQuaint things your five-y...
19 Oct 2021
6: Hitches
Today’s episode is about hitchhiking, and that choice you have to make when someone pulls over to give you a ride: Should I trust this person? Listen to four tales where this was a difficult question to answer. Note: Contains R-rated language and themes. Features: A paranoid fellow wielding a machete and asking where I liveLooking for love in the wrong places, by a driver obsessed with porn and a shade removed from realityIncredibly inappropriate humour during a high-speed dash through ...
3 Oct 2021
5: Smoko
Today’s episode is about work. It chronicles a series of jobs that I thought were terrible at the time, although perhaps I should have given them more of a chance. I was young, and didn’t yet have much of a work ethic. Features: Riding the zeitgeist and cleaning toilets – epiphanies while working the nightshiftKiwifruit, Viagra and the gift of rain – trying and failing to develop a work ethicAnimal impressions, chess addiction and meaningful work – attempting to be an upstanding museum ...
20 Sept 2021
4: Hey, teacher!
Today’s episode is about teaching, including what it’s like to be a teacher, plus the impression we might form of our own teachers. Features: A story of teaching in Japan and trying to melt the ice with difficult colleaguesThe performance of teaching gone wrong, plus trying to balance pet and family life in the backgroundBurning out and leaving the teaching profession, including the responses of colleagues, and the guiltAn almost unbelievable tale of a primary school trip to the sewage treatm...
11 Sept 2021
3: School’s out
Today’s episode is about school and a little about hard luck – negotiating the slings and arrows of a boarding school in the nineties, and finding the humour in all of it. Features: Some background notes on what school is really forThe story of a duckling, a Vauxhall Viva, and the deep irony of trying to do the right thing but making things much, much worseAn examination of a really, really big nose, and how (strangely) it was excluded from the bullying canonSupport the show
11 Sept 2021
2: What’s in a name?
Today’s episode is about names – the names we choose for ourselves, and how we might “make a name for ourselves”. Features: The story behind the name “Without a hitch”A troupe of guys all called John, how I distinguished between them, and my attempts to make a name for myself amongst “the Johns”The hilarious and odd pet names we decided against, after a democratic process to decide on a name for pet #12Support the show
29 Aug 2021
1: Holy WTF
Today’s theme is impressions. What feelings or impressions do you get when you first meet someone, or experience something for the first time? What things stay with you, and what effect do they have on you? Features a housesitter called Digby and a comprehensive list of flatting horrors. Support the show
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