No offense to anyone living south of Mexico, but here it is: To me, Christmas = Winter. Christmas is at best, snow, and at the very worst, ugly brown grey slush and frost. Christmas is cold. Christmas is NOT flippin’ rhododendrons blooming and frangipanis flowering and fresh cranberries with the turkey.
It would be better, thought, if Hong Kong and New Zealand (where I spent the last two Christmases) could claim their own kind of Christmas, but they have transplanted the Winter Christmas to a summer climate. And it’s jarring to see shop fronts decorated with snow tinsel, and windows floating with snowflakes, and icicle lights hanging from roofs. It doesn’t work here; no wonder they don’t buy into it. (more…)
I remember when I 
Emma is my least favourite of the Jane Austen novels because I have very little sympathy for the eponymous heroine. That’s why I only ever watch the Gwyneth Paltrow (and Jeremy Northam) version – she doesn’t make Emma seem quite so spoiled or mean or egotistical. Last time I’d seen the Kate Beckinsale one, I hated it. But that was five years ago. So when I saw the talk on the message boards about 
The NYT used to be my go-to site for movie reviews, but of late I find myself bored with their determined cynicism. However, I do have to agree with Manohla Dargis’s summary of Pixar’s latest creation: Though the initial images of flight are wonderfully rendered…the movie remains bound by convention….This has become the Pixar way. Passages of glorious imagination are invariably matched by stock characters and banal story choices, as each new movie becomes another manifestation of the movie-industry divide between art and the bottom line. Well, I’m not sure I’d totally agree with the last assertion, but I do know that the movie left me flat after a glorious beginning. 
Coming to New Zealand has been a wonderful culinary experience, amongst other things. Meat pies! Kumara! Pickle! Steak and egg burgers! (Only one of the above exclamation marks is sarcastic.) Most of these so-called discoveries are common to Commonwealth countries, I presume, but living in Canada many of the British influences have been submerged by our southern neighbour. So no flaky pastry meat pies. No pickle. No egg burgers.
When I have nothing to talk about, I can always rely on Lush.
