Articles

Genealogy:

• Hunting the ancestors >
  Been thinking about dead people lately. I know, you're thinking, 'eeuw'. But I've become a bit besotted - in a good way.  Ancestors, after all, mean a lot. - Next magazine

Speculation:

• FAR OUT - is there anybody there? >
  Altitude: 36,405 feet. Location:  Overhead Ukraine. Speed: 594 miles per hour. According to the in-flight data on the screen at my seat, I am aloft between Kiev and Odessa, about to overfly a spot on the map called Rostov-na-Dom. I've climbed away from France, bound for home in Auckland, via Singapore. - Finalist, Royal Society of New Zealand Manhire Prize for Creative Science Writing, 2009

Business:

• PLEASE BE KIND TO THE SPEAKER >
  "Sure," I said. "I'll be pleased to come speak to your group. I'll bring my laptop but do you have a data projector for my PowerPoint?" - Meeting News

Travel:

• THE CRUISING BUG >
  The news slipped under the door after Skagway. Unlike the usual colourful drift of shopping flyers, cocktail party invitations and come-ons for art auctions, bingo, massage therapy and shore excursions, this was a plain message in black and white. - Listener magazine

Life Issues:

• WHAT HAPPENED TO HOME SWEET HOME? >
  A perky young presenter beamed at me from TV the other day and said, "Of course, we all want to make money from our houses, don't we? - Experience magazine

Trends

• SEEING RED >
  When Wendy Petrie leaned into the camera and "warned" TV1 viewers that they were about to see a real, beating human heart, I laughed. - New Zealand Herald

Nostalgia

• THE GREEN HILLS OF HOME >
  Auckland is the skinniest part of a country that is itself just a thin crust poking up from the giant, wet, blue pie of the Pacific. - Citymix magazine

Marketing

• WHAT WOMEN REALLY WANT >
  Nice men have always tried to get to grips with what women want. You can imagine, in ancient times, your caring cave man squatting over a beast he's just speared and wondering anxiously if his missus wants the kidneys as well as the chops because he really, really wants to please her. - Style magazine