Year: 2011

what are sponsored reviews?

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Yesterday we ran a “sponsored review”. You see more of these around the web now, called sponsored posts or paid posts. I thought I’d be totally transparent about what these are about for me, here.

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In a shell of a nut, they’re posts that are supported in some way – in $ or in kind – by a brand or service. The concept is derived from what’s known in magazines as “integrated advertising” (you see pages that look like editorial, but are actually an ad and usually have a banner at the top saying ‘advertisement’ or ‘promotion’). In newspapers and on TV, travel features and car reviews are mostly paid for by clients (an airline, a hotel, a tourist bureau). A line generally runs at the end: Sarah Wilson traveled with XYZ Llama Treks (or whatever). Since I’ve worked across all media, I know this dance intimately and I know how to tread the line…I’ve also seen how it is often crossed very tackily and dishonestly, especially online.

Why am I doing sponsored reviews on this blog? Two reasons

1. I’ve been writing posts six days a week now for almost two years. My blog costs money to run. A little bit of revenue will help me out. I don’t write for the money. It’s not why I started this blog. But I have rent to pay!

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In which we try out a handsome Cooper bike

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The other week I was lent a new Cooper bike (the same folk who make the Mini Cooper). I got my right-hand woman Jo to test-ride the three-speed Zandvoort for this sponsored review. To my mind it’s a great bike for kids out there who love the single-speed aesthetic and snappy swoopiness…but with a few gears to help you out. Over to you Jo…

IMG_3432(Bikes at Byron Beach – my Zandvoort with Sarah’s single- speed)

It seems a lot of people these days are keen to hook into the single speed vibe. They’re so pretty. So light. Only thing is, if you haven’t ridden a lot, or at least not for a little while (like me) then a single-speed can be hard, and a little dangerous, especially if you’re living in a hilly town.

A bike that looks like a single-speed, and is only a few kilos heavier, is the happiest of compromises. A geared bike, dressed in single-speed clothing!!

The T100 Zandvoort (which is what I rode) has a three gear twist-grip, just enough to cope with those hills, but it isn’t too heavy. It still has the agility of a single speed.

Sarah was keen for me to test the bike, because it’s the perfect solution for people like me. I trialled it in Byron Bay when I visited her. And I loved it.

I had forgotten how much I absolutely love to ride. It’s total freedom. The wind in your hair, feet up on the handlebars – the whole deal. (Ok, so I didn’t get to put my feet on the handlebars, but I remember doing that as a kid, and I’m so bringing that back!)

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create and silence your doubt…a life tip from Vincent Van Gogh

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VVG does great things for me.  I love that he once painted a chair. Just a chair. A worthless chair. But he captured the “isness” of it so gloriously that it became a work of art worth an incomprehensible fortune.

This quote, though, takes things up a notch:

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“If you hear a voice within you say “you cannot paint,” then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.” – Vincent van Gogh

Now, how grand is that!? Doubts emerge about things we care about. This is a good thing to recognise. We don’t doubt whether we can tie a shoelace. We doubt big, important, visceral things that are integral to our being and our uniqueness.

My doubts overwhelm me. Boy! I’m stalled almost hourly by them. You would’ve gathered that by now. But I’m learning that when I doubt something in me, it means it matters. And that my doubt – that voice within – is really just calling out so I listen to what matters…that I attend to it.

That’s point one.

Point two: we rise beyond the doubt by meeting it with it’s counterpoint. My fear that my writing is shit (which pipes up EVERY SINGLE DAY)  is only overcome by engaging in the writing…toiling and tinkering and improving. I’m only JUST learning this. I’m learning to recognise the struggle that goes on. That it’s not a struggle that’s trying to break me. It’s one to rise up to. We run our best when there’s someone to race against. I make my most coherent points at a dinner party attended by big minds.

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the resurrection and why we don’t have easter cards… a *great* read

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I went to church at Easter. It was a perplexing, emotional experience. My relationship with the Catholic church is a fraught one. But one thing I got out of the service was how the story of the Resurrection is one that can resonate no matter whether you believe a bloke called Jesus died at some point in history and then miraculously rose again. I also loved that someone played the cello. Beats an organ. Pretty much anything does.

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The priest at the church I visited – St Kevin’s in Bangalow – trod the line so well in his telling of the Easter story. He allowed it to also be interpreted as one of metaphorical death and rebirth (he didn’t invite it, but cleverly used the homily to show how it can be received in the everyday). Even if you believe in the literal version of things (Jesus did actually come back to life after bleeding to death on a cross), what I imagine you – we all – get out of it is a broad message that everything dies and everything comes back, albeit as another form, and that there are lessons to be taken from this process. We acknowledge the sins that Christ died for. So that we can continue our earthly experience with some goodness going on.

I came across this BRILLIANT read about why Easter resists commercialism on Slate yesterday. It addresses the Resurrection. It’s worth reading. James Martin writes:

Well, for one thing, it’s hard to make a palatable consumerist holiday out of Easter when its back story is, at least in part, so gruesome. Christmas is cuddly. Easter, despite the bunnies, is not.

Indeed, Jesus is betrayed by his best mate, killed brutally, then rises from the dead. Also, the Resurrection is hard to come to terms with.

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the philosophical joys of a slow cooker

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This week I buy a crock pot

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I’ve just finished reading Carl Honore’s cult read In Praise of Slow. It’s been out a while – the best seller (it’s also one of Arianna Huffington’s favourite reads) that was largely responsible for bringing the fashionable Slow Food movement to the time-poor masses, was published in 2004. But that’s OK. As Slow proponents say, everything in the fullness of time.

Slow Food, which began in Italy in 1986, is an aesthetic exercise in taking your languid time to truly indulge in the mastication process. It’s about long lunches in Tuscan courtyards with an old guy at the head of the table wearing a Dolmio-ish grin, eating truffles that were foraged that morning and rabbit stews that’ve bubbled on the stove for days, and imbibing wine that’s been foot-crushed by the neighbour’s elfin children. It’s quaint and rich and mindful and everything eating should be about.

I have to admit, I had this picture in mind when I found myself picking up a crock pot, or slow cooker, at Kmart recently for $35. I’m generally highly skeptical of kitchen appliances that cost $35 at Kmart. They wind up in corner cupboards, impossible to get at, never to be used again. But I’ve been surprised.

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how to make a comfrey poultice

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Two weeks I ago I sprained and hairline-fractured my ankle…and tore my tendon. I was running barefoot on ocean rocks in the rain because I was listless. “I know, I’ll do something slightly off-kilter, so I can feel a bit more alive.” In addition to demolishing my ankle I also ran into three nude men. Another story.

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Jo. Me. Bung ankle.

So. I can’t walk for 6 weeks, run for 3 months. It’s a sentence. It’s a sign.

But this has helped. A comfrey poultice. I researched online the various benefits. Much has been said about it’s ability to heal sprains and even fractures. I looked at the different techniques and decided to get witchy with it myself.

Frankly, I’ve come up with the Creme de la Creme of Healing, Soothing Poulticessssss.

Check this shit out…

IMG 0446 how to make a comfrey poulticeIMG_04461. Cut up comfrey leaves – about six – and stick-blend in a plastic container(which means you don’t get your blender machine dirty) with some water…enough to make it soupy.

IMG_04482. clever trick #1: Most recipes say to add a good handful of flour to get it paste-like. Good. But I used chia bran and psyllium husk because it got it SUPER pasty. Like a rubber. You need this so you can use the poultice like a goob and it won’t run everwhere.

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Do your work, step back

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This is a nice bit of Tao reflection… especially for those of us who are very good at doing, but not at stopping. Fill your bowl to the brim and it will spill. Keep sharpening your knife and it will blunt. Chase after money and security and your heart will never unclench. Care about people’s … Read more

Tuesday eats: more gluten-free recipes!

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My mate Dee Coleman has launched a great recipe share site which has some good gluten-free ideas. You should check it out. (Also check out the link below to gluten-free breakfast joints…and add some of your own in the comments. We’ll get a guide going….)

Two things I like about Cook My Way

1.the recipes only call for a couple of ingredients and are listed loosely (in handfuls, splashes)

2.the culture of the site is very cute – Dee invites a few people over to her house every Monday and cooks up a big meal which they eat while brainstorming ideas for the site.

Dee’s website is for everyone to post and share their recipes. Here’s some gluten free ones.

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Gluten-free seeded bread

3 cups of gluten-free flour
1 tspn bicarb soda
1 tspn salt
1 cup sunflower seeds
1 cup sesame seeds
1/2 cup poppy seeds
600 mls butter milk
3 tspns honey

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Steve Jobs on how to trust life will turn out fine

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Chances are you’ve seen this Stanford address by Steve Jobs. It’s attracted over 3 million views. I was just alerted to a bit in it where he talks about a philosophy he has for life turning out. For how his life turned out.

photo: Nike
Photo via Nike

Jobs dropped out of uni after six months, but hung around campus, bummed about, ate Hare Krishna food. But he’d listen in on a calligraphy class…because it looked beautiful and interesting. Which, I think, is classic scanner (as per yesterday’s post) behaviour. He learned about the different fonts – serif and san serif (as per yesterday’s post, I, too, am obsessed by typography, among other things).

And so,

“If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, “ Jobs explained, “the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionately spaced ones. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it’s likely that no personal computer would have them.”

And this is his philosophy,

“Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later. Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something—your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”

Which could be seen as cheap spiritual-speak. But it’s not. It’s how it works. I often get asked how I got to be editor of Cosmo or host of MasterChef of whatever. I can trace back and connect dots. But at the time, I didn’t see the dots.

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