Easter

If you’re reading this on your break at work this Easter Monday, commiserations. If you worked over the weekend, or on Good Friday, double commiserations.

For many Australians Easter is a solemn religious occasion, for others it a chance to spend four uninterrupted days with family, or to visit relatives interstate. Like Christmas Day, it is a safety valve that reduces some of the pressures of work, and allows us to focus on the deeper values that we sometimes forget in the day to day flurry of activity.

Those of you who run our public transport, or staff our emergency rooms, or the restaurants and cafes that feed the rest of us over Easter - thanks.

Continue reading "Spare a thought for those who worked this Easter" »

A new person entering a small workplace will inevitably alter the human equilibrium. Just as chaos theory predicts the fluttering of a butterfly wing can cause a cataclysmic event, the introduction of small habits can have big consequences.

Enter Jo: a talented, hard working and very personable colleague who has wonderfully enhanced our office in every respect… bar one. Jo has brought a coffee machine. As a garnish to the coffee she has beside her desk a jar of chocolates.

In many ways my life has been characterised by a stormy relationship with chocolate. True it is that in a world of shifting sands and moving goal posts chocolate has been a constant friend delivering consistent satisfaction on demand. Yet the legacy on my waist has been a girth approaching the dimensions of the MCG.

Continue reading "My bittersweet relationship with a sweet brown mistress" »

This Easter the world seems full of believers. Religious and Royal.

Tomorrow, billions will celebrate the resurrection of their King, Jesus Christ. But this year, there’s another King-to-be who’s stealing the limelight.

Unless you’ve been hiding in a cave over the past few days (no offence, Jesus. Thank God for Mary Magdalene), you’d be well aware the wedding of the century is six sleeps away.

And with this wedding many hope there’ll be a resurrection of a different kind. The resurrection of the monarchy. There will be no heavy cross to carry. No rags. No bare feet. No beard. Quite the opposite. There will be carriages, horses with plaits, the Beckhams, trumpets and the world’s most celebrated modern couple – Prince William and Kate Middleton.

Continue reading "The King is dead. Long live the King!" »

Break out the choccie eggs and turn on the footy - we’ve got five days off!

Welcome to the loooong weekend; share anything that’s on your mind here.

It’s Maundy Thursday, the holy day that one Punch staffer thought for years was “Monday Thursday”; some weird hybrid day.

For many, Maundy (or ‘Holy’) Thursday is the start of a very sacred few days. For most, it’s the last day of work before we gorge, binge, and maybe later repent.

In the Christian tradition, today commemorates the Last Supper; so feasting – particularly if it involves bread and wine - is pretty much encouraged.

Continue reading "Carbon tax. Obesity. Libya. What Would Jesus Do?" »

He’s been billed as New Zealand’s answer to the Super Nanny and his program The Politically Incorrect Parenting Show, which advocates punishing children by padlocking them in their rooms, will be screening in Australia later this year.

Nigel Latta says that reasoning with toddlers is “like trying to explain bad behaviour to drunken rugby hoons with the language skills of a chimpanzee” and that the only way to bring the little buggers into line and save your own sanity is to lock them away for a while.

Latta, who it should be stressed doesn’t support smacking, is entitled to his view. It’s clearly a harsh view, and the theatrical addition of a padlock to the traditional time-out is obviously there to drive ratings. But there would be plenty of frazzled parents out there who would agree that from time to time the only solution to a crazed tantrum-throwing two-year-old is a dose of isolation, to let them cool down and regroup shortly after. Ideally without resorting to a padlock.

Continue reading "Say yes to Easter eggs but no to naughty corners" »