Jeni Barnett

Way before Woolworths was founded a geezer out in India – Sage Patanjali – was credited with inventing Yoga. Trying to silence the mind and tie the body into self realised knots was the Sages’ gift to the world. Yoga, India’s greatest export apart from Patak’s Brinjal Pickle and Petroleum, is a discipline that is … Read more

It’s so quiet I can hear the ticking clock in the kitchen and Dennis’ snoring in the sitting room. The stove is lit, earlier than normal, cos it’s a frozen-to-the-marrow-kinda-day, well it is the coldest January for ten years. I’ve made a fancy coleslaw using one of those white plastic mandolines that if you’re not … Read more

We didn’t have snow, but it was cold out there, everybody wrapped up and walking in the sunshine. It got me thinking about families, and that there’s something to be said for absentee parenting. My mother was integral to my life; cooking, ironing, even writing an essay for me, that I snuck up my sleeve, … Read more

Improbable behaviour + Imperfect leadership = Imminent Impeachment. As Nobby-No-Mates, stalks the corridors of diminished power, the lacklustre Buffoon attacks his allies with petulant jibes, his auto-cued speeches delivered through a pancaked mouth, his conversational tics lulling us into a false sense of reality. Like a wet newspaper, its’ pages flapping and slapping in a … Read more

He was the handsomest boy at school, he was also the cleverest. Studying in the school library our eyes met over my broken bag of ‘Treets’, ‘milk chocolate covered peanuts with an outer shell of dark brown glazed candy,’ The sweet nuts scattered and bounced ricocheting round the parquet floor like machine gun fire. We … Read more

I know it’s early but we’ve just taken The Tree down. Oh! No! I hear you exclaim. It had to go. The dawter found it on the side of the road just before Christmas. A lovely tall tree with lots of needles that smelt divine. We have a fake tree that we’ve used for over … Read more