ebay buying wisedom so far

• Don't buy anything from anyone who puts up a hazy photo - especially if
  all their stuff is like that. They are not really bad at photography....


• A text description as well as the photo is good


• If the back of something isn't shown there could be a reason


• Ask about postage - some people will try to profit there even though it's
  not in the rules


• If the seller doesn't say they will pack well they may not pack at all


• Avoid people who don't take direct credit. Read the information - having
  to pay by money order sux cause it costs extra for the order and then postage.


• Businesses selling on Ebay are far more reliable than individuals most of
  the time, but sometimes they do bulk mailouts that take ages and they don't
  bother to tell you


• Set a 'get-out' price for every auction and don't let yourself exceed it


• Don't believe 'old' or 'vintage' - the seller could be 5 or have no idea
  about the meaning of words


• Experienced sellers will pack in recycled packing and it will cost you less

Domestic Goddess

My mother went out to work when she was 13. My father always maintains that he had to teach her to cook and that she was never as good as his mother. The only thing I ever saw Nana cook was porridge, which Dad loves….. and anyway in my opinion his taste in food is dubious. My mother cooked three different meals practically every night because I wouldn’t eat roast and Dad wouldn’t eat ‘rabbit-food’. She cooked adventurously for her age group (we had pizza before I had ever been to a takeaway); she cleaned everything all the time; she sewed expertly because she was a tailoress (I’m keeping the feminised words. Whoever heard of a Domestic God?). Whatever my father thinks, my mother was a Domestic Goddess and as such has ruined my life.

I’m a bad housekeeper. I hate cleaning bins, dusting, vacuuming…. You have to clean everything in every way all the time. I see the value in it, but I don’t like it. I put off washing up sometimes. I buy kitchen objects I like so it’s not so much of a chore to wash them, but I still think it’s a job that should be shared. I cook often and put effort in, and then end up doing the washing up too. We supposedly share the washing up. I try to not care when things pile up and it’s not my turn. I try not to care when there are specks of food on the washed up dishes. I try not to care that I have to unstack the dishes 90% of the time. I try not to care when delicate objects are scoured and roasting pans aren’t…. I know these things aren’t that important, but my mother haunts me. It’s a double-whammy - my mother’s expectations (now mine) and the expectations I have as a modern woman.

ebay song

Ebay Ebay dut-da-dut-da-da
Ebay Ebay dut-da-dut-da-da
Ebay Ebay what a lot of fun
Ebay Ebay poverty here I come....

Steve Irwin is great

I attempted to ignore Steve Irwin until I saw him in an interview on TV. He very quickly became one of my favourite people - dancing on the knife-edge of his fame; trying to be the person he is and keep up the image of his over-the-top persona; fervent in his cause, he juggles. He's interesting and he's managing to market 'saving the world'.

Layers of domesticity: Chaos in the kitchen

My memory isn’t good. No matter how bad it gets though, I never seem to forget where things go in the kitchen… My partner, on the other hand, seems to put things in a different place every time.

When I ask him about this he says he doesn’t remember the blah ever sitting on top of the other blah and that I’ve obviously only just changed it. He also implies that this is something I do to ‘get him’. (Well, we both know I have no life but really?)

Instead of screaming “Why? Why? Why?” at the top of my voice, today I say – Maybe I only think I have some way of controlling chaos and I should just embrace the entropy...

Pests with high art

Perhaps as we grow older we get too sentimental about the human race? Our striving; our endeavours; our history; our art – all blind us to the fact that we are a nasty blight on this lovely green and blue globe.

As a teenager I was very clear on the fact that there were too many humans and I thought the zero population growth, in this country, was a good idea that shouldn’t be pushed aside for economics. We’ve woken up (slightly), to human-caused climate change – perhaps we will wake up to the reality that the more of us, the more damage we do. It’s time to change the way we think about ourselves.

Speed of change is blinding….

Isn’t it rather nice that Climate Change and Greenhouse Effect are now phrases we are all familiar with? Given that I was taught about these things in the dim, dark days of way-back, at school, it’s quite remarkable that it has only taken so few decades since I first learnt about the Greenhouse Effect and the damage we are doing to our environment to finally be talking about it. What a progressive society we are…

How long have we known about this exactly?