Shebangabang's Next Top Model #6
Huh.I’ve never noticed how polite New Zealanders are before.If I tried to count how many times anybody said “please” or “thank you” in this week’s episode of New Zealand’s Next Top Model, I’d barely have time to grimace through my fingers at Colin Mathura-Jeffree’s next outfit or fantasise about Chris Sisarich’s pelvis being close to mine. And seriously. I spend a lot of time doing that.So I’m going to give it a try with some highly-evolved, socially-acceptable niceties of my own, like:Please, Sara Tetro, dress your age.And:Thank you, Colin Sisarich, for being all alive and olivey and close-cropped an

The Punchy Punchy Chronicles: Volume 3
I’m learning so much about boxing watching The Contender.The most important rule I’ve learned this week is that, when you’re training to be a fighter, it’s absolutely essential to choose the right headgear.

Sit On Myspace And Tell Me That You Love Me #3
(In case you need them, parts one and two of The Most Romantic Story Ever are here).It’s happened. My appeal to internet suitors has now crossed the Sapphic line in the sand, and I’ve received my very first online lesbian come-on. I’m sure there’s a badge or a trophy or something like that available for this sort of thing. I might say no to the secret handshake, though – you never know where it’s been.The moist manuscript below was digitally delivered to my inbox (*cough*) yesterday.Greeting my dear,my name is hellen iam a young beautiful girl with full of l

Shebangabang's Next Top Model #5
Playing dress-ups is ace. When I was a little girl, my brother and sister and I could make costumes out of pretty much anything – garbage bags, sticky tape, aluminium foil, things we found on the neighbours’ clothesline, bits of old wire, and voila! A Dalek, a fairy princess, and a working diorama of the dance-off scene from Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.It seems that the producers of New Zealand’s Next Top Model have picked exactly the same materials from the activity box, but perhaps without the sticky tape, and with far fewer Space Food Stick breaks. Someone had better remember Space Food Sticks, or that’s the lamest introduction ever. Or both. Oh, whatever. Move

The Punchy Punchy Chronicles, Volumes 1 & 2
Okay, so if you’d asked me three weeks ago if I’d be interested in a show about boxing, I might have rolled my eyes, scoffed in a condescending manner, and turned back to my book about the origins of postmodernism and my lime-packed, gin-based cocktail.*But if you’d asked me if I was interested in watching a show about inarticulate sweaty men without shirts, co-hosted by Uber-Scrag Charlotte Dawson and featuring a man in a leopard-skin suit who considers his own penis as the single love of his life, I would have signed on the dotted line with ink distilled from my own tears of joy.Hence, here are my thoughts regarding the pugilistic juggernaut that is The C