Nipperkin.

endangered english

words that are fun to say

As we have already discussed, I have a collection of fabulous but obscure words to share with you. Today's batch, as you will discover, are incredibly fun to say. I consider them worthy of using and remembering, because they are expressive and colourful, and because they make a sentence worth relishing.
These ones are at the top of my list of endangered words that must be protected and promoted. A bit like when humanity decides that earth needs more of the cute animals.

paraffle. noun.

An ostentatious display.

dap. verb.

To dip lightly, skip or skim over water.

nipperkin. noun.

A little cup.

fubsy. adjective.

Rather fat and squat.

curple. noun.

A horse's bum; or

Your bum.

darg. noun.

A day's work.

wamble. verb.

To feel nausea; or

To rumble (of a stomach); or

To move unsteadily or with a weaving or rolling motion.

witter. verb.

To speak at length on trivial matters.

quakebuttock. noun.

Coward.

quiddle. verb.

To waste time focusing on little things; or

To work on pointless or unimportant tasks.

quonk. verb.

Noise that disrupts a recording (say of film or radio) because it is made too close to the microphones; or

Noise from the audience that disturbs a performance (say of an athlete or singer).

whiffle. verb.

To blow gustily, with irregular force (like wind through trees).

antigodlin. adjective or adverb.

Lopsided, diagonal, askew.

“It hurtled antigodlin across the room.”

“The earthquake turned everything antigodlin.”

anonymuncule. noun.

An insignificant, unknown writer.

haggersnash. noun.

A spiteful, sniping type.

carriwitchet. noun.

A hoaxing or riddling question; a pun, a quibble.

fustilugs. noun.

Fat and lazy person.

frippery. noun.

Pretentious, showy finery; or

Pretentious elegance, ostentation; or

Something trivial or nonessential.

macaronic. adjective.

Being a mixture of two languages – like an Italian immigrant who has never learned fluent English.

ragabash. noun.

A lazy, scruffy person.

grimalkin. noun.

An ill-tempered old woman or cat.

Awaken.

First, there is the faint, almost imaginary bip of the alarm as it begins to go off.
Your eyes swim in your head. The lids remain sealed, but you know you're just clinging to vain hope.
It has begun.

The alarm starts to play.
Bibibibbip - bibibibbip - bibibibbip - bibibibbip -
I don't know about your alarm, but mine grows louder as it continues to play and you do not turn it off.
Bibibibbip - bibibibbip - bibibibbip - bibibibbip -
I dislike it.

You can already feel the cold fingers of winter trying to penetrate the fortress of your doona. You huddle around yourself under the covers - "It's not morning, it's not morning. 'Tis the nightingale, and not the lark."

The shrieks of the alarm are hyenaical now, clawing at your eardrums no matter how you angle your pillow-shield. You give yourself one last hug, and prepare to face the beast.

Quick as a flash, you spring from the covers and pounce upon the unsuspecting alarm.

SNOOZE, MOTHERFUCKER.

Broadcast.

Now I remember why I swore off production work.

I've agreed to be the script editor for a season of Studio A, which, as previously discussed, is a Channel 31 comedy hour. My job in 140 characters or less:

wait for comedians to write amusing skits. staple the bits together. format nicely. rehearse, review, redraft. print eight bazillion copies.

It goes live to air on Monday nights, so as you can imagine, I do all of this on Sunday (except for the bits I do on Monday morning). The script part I'm fine with. I love scripting. I enjoy document formatting. I mean really enjoy it. To a level that you may consider disburbing. And once I've actually got permission to communicate with the comedians (no joke, currently they are sending all their material to the producer and then she sends it to me - argh), I think I'll be in my element.

The part that I'm not so jolly about is the actual on-set thing. I've never liked being on film sets, and though I'd never been on a TV set 'til today, I've already decided I don't like those either. The problem is, I'm not operating machinery and I'm not barking orders, so I'm pretty much a useless little space cadet. I don't know where to stand, and assistant directors glare at me as though I'm in the way of something... or everything.

Nobody explained what I would actually need to do on set. I was told I needed to be there for rehearsal, which I was, but nobody seemed to need me, so after forty minutes of sitting silently watching the actors, I wandered out to the green room to eat candy.

And maybe ten minutes later, someone ran up to me and said, "The producer wants to see you."
When I went back, I learned that I'd been terribly naughty and that in my absence, somebody had had to do my job for me. Which was what, sorry? Oh, I was supposed to be noting any changes to the dialogue and running them up to the autocue. Oh. Whoops. When was I told this? I was not.

Okay, here's the thing. The producer is actually a very cool person. She's genial and enthusiastic and really dedicated, but when producers are producing, they need to grow about fourteen extra heads. They're dealing with the camera crew, the lighting crew, the questions of every person on set, the cast and makeup people and the director and guest talent and there are cables all over the place and they're wearing a headset to speak to people who aren't even there. It's kinda nuts.

As a result, trying to address a producer on set can be a little bit like this.

And unfortunately, I really could have used the extra communication, since I was called in at the last minute and I had never done live studio work of any kind.

Ah well. At least now I know what's going on - because I've still got ten more episodes to do! It'll be great next week. You folks will all be really cross that I didn't tell you to watch it already (especially you, my dear Emma): guess who the headline guest was this week?

Yeah, that guy. Sorry!

Which just goes to show, you'd better tune in next week or you might miss something else crucial!

When I say "tune in", I really mean it. Channel 31 has digital broadcast now, so it finally looks like quality television. (The material could have been A-grade but you'd never know it 'cause there was too much snow in the way.) So you just need to find Channel 44 on your set top box.

Yeah, yeah, this is a plug.
Show's 8:30 Monday nights on Channel 31.
Hosted by the rather smashing Tommy Little.
Not sure you're ready to invest a whole hour? Try a sampler.



UPDATE 25 June: I've added the Josh Thomas interview above, for the benefit of Emma and Asher!

Archaic.

Kay. So I read Reading the OED.

(For those new to the game, this is a book written by Ammon Shea, a man who set himself the challenge of reading all twenty volumes of the Oxford English Dictionary. The book is a treasury of all the most interesting words he found.)

Bit disappointed, to be honest. I disagreed with the author's idea of "interesting words". It's all very well when a word means "goat urine used for medicinal purposes", but if it's got eighteen syllables and is unpronounceable, who cares?

The trouble with the book is that it cares more about funny definitions than it does about ones you'd be able to use. Like those endless lists of phobias, the words are unpronounceable and totally without context.

YOU: So how did you like the new Jim Carrey movie?

ME: I did not like it. I have superfluophobia.

YOU: That means nothing to me.

ME: Well, I thought the film was a blatant case of quomodocuquization.

YOU: Fine, I'll bite. What the hell do you mean?

ME: I mean, it was an attempt to make money in any way possible.

YOU: You should just leave.

I know what you're thinking. You don't know what any of the words mean. If I used any of them in a sentence you'd react the same way: "Huh? Oh, wait, I don't care." But I don't think you would. The words I'm thinking of are almost self-evident in meaning. When I use them in context, you will intuitively understand what I mean.

There were a handful of words in Reading the OED that do illustrate what I mean. Here are the ones I feel are worth mentioning. (Skip down past the purple part if you don't care.)

philodox. noun.
A person who loves their own opinions.
"Bloody philodox. He just loves the sound of his own voice".
Also philodoxy, philodoxical.

sarcast. noun.
A person who uses liberal amounts of sarcasm. Not that there are many of those around.
Apparently, the word sarcasm is derived from the Greek sarkazien, which translates to "to tear flesh like dogs". Pretty nasty.

quag. verb.

To shake (when referring to something soft or flabby).
"His jowls were quagging with indignation."

ruff. verb.

To stomp in applause.
"He took a deep bow, and his audience ruffed and cheered."

trumpery. noun.

Something that is worth less than it seems.
"She was constantly wasting her money on this or that piece of trumpery."

jentacular. adjective.

Of or pertaining to breakfast.
"Ah, the jentacular joys of the pancake!"

gymnologize. verb.

To argue or debate while naked.
The official definition adds, "in the tradition of an Indian philosopher", but whatever. Let's be honest. Most naked arguments have very little philosophical content.

Otherwise, I'd be perfectly happy never to read the words obdormition,* peristeronic,** tacturiency*** and tricoteuse**** ever again. I don't care how awesome or useful their definitions are.
I might want to mention the concepts, but I wouldn't choose those words.

* obdormition. noun.

When your foot falls asleep.

** peristeronic. adjective.

Suggestive of pigeons.

*** tacturiency. noun.

The desire to touch.

**** tricoteuse. noun.

A person who knits while attending beheadings.

Is anyone interested in more posts about crazy old words? I've got a bunch more (of the good kind) that I'd love to share... but only if you care.

Macchiato.

I have been making espresso coffee since I was sixteen years old. At my first job, at a fast food counter, I was given coffee-making instruction by a kid who pretty much did not know how to make coffee. The only part I remember is, when he was showing me how to froth milk, he was like, "You sort of just bring the jug up and down, up and down..." and he pumped it up and down and it made me giggle and he was like, "Grow up."

Anyway, I made heinous takeaway coffees there for two years. The only kinds I knew were cappuccino (with chocolate sprinkles) and latte (without chocolate sprinkles). Thankfully people didn't order it very often.

One day this guy came in and ordered a long black.
I didn't know what the hell he meant.
"Just... a black coffee," he said. "Water - espresso - no milk."
So I pressed the button to pour some espresso. When it was done, I pressed it again - running more hot water through the same soggy coffee grind. When it had finished, I pressed it a third time. The guy realised what I was doing and said, "No! Stop! It'll taste horrible like that!"
I looked at him, bewildered. What? I was making a black coffee, wasn't I? He sighed, threw up his hands and left the store.
Fair enough, really.

When I quit that job, I put "coffee skillz" on my resume - total lie - and made my merry way over to Cinema Europa where the main thing they serve is coffee. Like, for serious, in cups and glasses. Luckily, the company sent all its staff to get proper coffee training and I emerged with a fabulous new talent/obsession. I told Christine all about the different types of coffee you can make. (She did not care. She only drinks mocha). I explained about the different kinds of bean, and the delicate flavour that grows stale just minutes after the beans are ground. (She did not care. She only drinks instant.) Then I went to work and made eight million of the best darn coffees I could - darn it!

I know that coffee culture seems like a wank to a lot of people. Italian words, boatloads of froth, teeny tiny little cups. And it is, to a large extent. But there's a point to knowing the difference between a ristretto and an affogato.

My father doesn't know the difference. He's just an old farm boy, what would he need to know about cafe couture? He doesn't need any of that foam on top; he doesn't need so much milk in his drink. All he wants is a decent black coffee with a dash of milk in it.
"Well," I informed him, "you could always just order a long macchiato."
I know it sounds like the most pretentious beverage in existence. But. A macchiato, my dear, is a shot of coffee and a shloop of milk (sometimes hot, sometimes cold). The "long" part just means there's water in it to fill out the cup (as opposed to being just a shot of coffee). The milk is usually frothed so that when you pour it in on top, it leaves a little bloop of foam on the surface of the liquid. It looks really wanky, but the point isn't "oh, look, decorative froth-blob". It's simply a mark to let you know: "here be milk".

Basically, it's exactly what my dad wants.

So next time he went to lunch with his lady friend, Ms Canada, he tried ordering a long mac.
And they gave him a short mac. A shot of coffee with a white blob on top.
He was too unsure of himself to complain, so Ms Canada just poured a little milk in his cup and they made do.

Very disappointing.

There are far too many places in Melbourne that offer espresso coffee. It'd be fine if they knew what they were doing, but they don't. You know, "macchiato" has the same number of syllables as "cappuccino". It's easier to make than a cappucino - it's mostly just water, and you don't even have to get out the chocolate powder. And it's better for you than a cappuccino - less milk, less weighty, less gross than soy milk (lactose intolerants take note)! Why is it so difficult to learn?

For your amusement and education, I leave you now with a short handy fact sheet to educate you about the different breeds of coffee.

(click to enlarge)

Pleased.

Today was a wonderful day.

I flopped around at home doing nothing at all.
I love those days.

A number of events transpired to make this a really tremendous and frabjous day. Let me tell you some of them. (Or if you'd rather I didn't... then you could just go read about narwhals again.)

Good Thing 1: Yesterday, my dear friend Wadey told me lots of exciting things about giraffes and pythons and YouTube, so I went on YouTube and watched some very entertaining videos about giraffes and pythons. And also watched the latest chapter of Stephanie Meyer's Twilight as read by Alex Day (link is to first chapter - you wouldn't wanna miss a thing!) Out of curiosity, I surfed over to the channel of Day's friend and sometime collaborator, Charlie McDonnell. There I found this adorable song.



I am awfully jealous because this guy is nineteen years old, nineteen, and he possesses a level of wisdom I wasn't even close to having at that age. Plus, what a sweet little video.

Good Thing 2: My parcel came! Hurrah! About a week ago while writing the Essay of Death, I discovered that the Brotherhood of St Laurence has started up an online second-hand bookstore. Helpless to resist the tide of procrastinatory material, I pottered around in their listings and ordered four books. And luckily for me, they could deliver by snail mail (rather than courier) so the books didn't get here til after the essay was done. i.e. today! Yay!

There's Reading the OED, by Ammon Shea. This guy read the entire Oxford English Dictionary (all 21,000 pages of it) and picked out all the coolest parts. I'm going through a bit of a "words are so exciting!" phase, so it should be great fun.*

There's My Forbidden Face, the story of an Afghan girl who was sixteen when the Taliban came to power. Her life was suddenly, drastically changed: she was forced to wear a burqa, her mother (a doctor) was forbidden from working, and her goal of becoming a journalist was smashed to oblivion. She writes under a psuedonym - Latifa - because identifying herself would put her at terrible risk.

There's Ego and Soul, by John Carroll. It's a philosophical and social analysis of our culture, asking questions about the meanings we attach to our lives.

And finally, there's blank, by blank. This blank is a blank of blankety blanks that I bought for Wadey, because she loves blank and blank. (Don't want to ruin the surprise! I'll fill in the blanks after I give it to her.) It was very cheap and the listing said it was in poor condition, but it looks terrific to me. It's even in hardcover!

Good Thing 3: Guess who got offered a script editing gig today? I did, I did! It's for Studio A, a comedy/variety show that will be entering its fourth season on Channel 31 this year. Unpaid with RMITV, but hey, I'm on the lookout for projects now that I've got a few months of creative liberty.
Weeee!

_______________________________

* Here are some words I recently discovered (not in the book, as I have not read it yet). They are brilliant and I am including them, along with their definitions, so that when I use them in future you will know what I mean by them.

slubberdegullion
noun. a most repulsive individual

Reminds me of my favourite word, "tatterdemalion", which refers to a person in raggedy clothing.

pandiculate
verb. to yawn and stretch

bumf
noun. pointless paperwork

Originally from "bum fodder", meaning toilet paper. Love it.

brontide
noun. a sound like distant thunder

borborgymus
noun. a sound like thunder in the belly

velleity
noun. a wish, unaccompanied by any kind of attempt to make it happen for real

A shamefully common experience to us all.

bletcherous
adjective. revoltingly designed

As in bletcherous Oscars dress, and so forth...

onomatomania
noun. frustration due to inability to think of the right word
No longer must you suffer from this painful circumstance. If ever you are struggling, just call upon Miriam the Vocabularious!

Legion.

US Action/Horror
MA15+ | 100 mins

This is my dream movie.

Eight people are stranded in a truck stop diner out in the middle of Anywhere's Guess. Car's in for repairs; TV, radio and phones are down; and something is coming.
A sweet, oblivious old lady stops in for a steak, and chats to the heavily pregnant waitress, Charlie, about her impending motherhood. The father ain't around no more, Charlie explains.

"I don't need a man tellin' me what to do."

"But," says Granny, "your baby's gonna burn."

The old lady's eyes blacken and her teeth turn sharp as knives. She lunges to attack, and the onlookers in the diner leap into action. The snarling thing is no longer human, and it manages to take a savage bite out of one man's neck before the others overpower and destroy it.

The terrified group are soon joined by another stranger: his name is Michael, and he knows what's coming. Michael (played by a dark and striking Paul Bettany) is a fallen angel who says that God has lost faith in humanity. The plague is coming, he warns - and the only hope for humankind is the unborn child growing inside Charlie.

This is a film for those who take religion with a grain of salt. The premise may upset some people's ideas about God (and the biblical symbolism is piled on thick), but essentially, this is a story about humanity. What struck me was the vastness of the themes, in contrast to the locality of the action. The entire film is set in and around the truck stop, and between gunfire, battle and special effects, each character is revealed in greater complexity. I loved the dialogue, which was fast, smooth and fun, with a comedic touch here and there.

Bob who runs the diner is thumping the TV set, trying to bring the picture back.
"One day that thing gonna hit you back," says Percy the fry cook.
"We've got a relationship," Bob says.
"There a word for that kinda relationship."

Sometimes the people are slightly caricatured (like the prim society wife who mops at a beer can before taking a sip), but their values ring true.

Most compelling is the extremely non-virginal Charlie, who speaks about almost choosing to abort her unplanned child. Her attitude to motherhood is a mix of dread, deep responsibility, and serene acceptance. The film as a whole can be viewed as an allegory for motherhood. All biblical references aside, this world is a dangerous place in which to raise a child.

Value.

Okay. It's 4 o'clock on the morning after the due date of my 5000-word essay. This is the introduction, which I wrote last of all. Tell me this makes you want to read the other sixteen pages of the bloody thing...

or I will find you and hurt you
__________________________________

When we buy a book, what are we paying for? A collection of knowledge? A personal experience? A creative work? A manufactured product? Books are all of these things. Their value is extremely difficult to quantify. But it is essential that publishers understand where that value lies, so as to make decisions resulting in books which readers not only want, but are willing to pay for. The various book formats – hardback, paperback, audio book, e-book – are perceived differently in terms of value, and readers have different priorities when it comes to books. In recent years, one of the most pressing concerns of the publishing industry has been the emergence of the e-book, and the problem of setting a price for it.
This essay examines public perceptions of the value of books, with particular emphasis on e-books and the issues which surround charging for digital content. As part of my research, I conducted a survey of 205 book consumers living in Australia. I looked at readers’ preferences for the different book formats; their personal approaches to buying and reading books; and their views regarding prices and what they are willing to pay. The questions I raise are these: what will the e-book be worth to consumers – and what then will happen to the value of the print book?

__________________________________

And once again, thank you so much to all who took the time to fill in a boring boring survey to help me put this together. Love, kisses, inappropriate physical contact to all!

Telegram.

Dear Everyone,
Please excuse me. I have some personal communication to get out of the way, and I thought, how better than by broadcasting it on the internet?

Grandma.
What are you waiting for? I know what I'm waiting for. You to start blogging! C'mon, it'll be fun. You can't just blithely tell me you're thinking about starting up a blog, and then not do it! I'm impatient!

Mum.
Okay, so those Roald Dahl audio books are le bomb. I enjoyed Stephen Fry reading The Enormous Crocodile, mainly because I just love hearing Stephen Fry say "enormous". But so far, my absolute favourite has to be Miriam Margolyes reading Matilda. And it's not just because Matilda was always my favourite one. (Because I too was a girl genius with crooked telly-watching bozos for parents. What a coincidence!) Can you imagine Miriam Margolyes doing the Trunchbull? She's incredible.

And WHY, may I ask,
is there a baked BEAN
on the front of your shirt?

Johnlet.
Do the bloody dishes, mister. I don't care if you've got an exam tomorrow morning. They've been piled up in the sink for three days so you can't even run the hot tap without knocking everything over. LEARN TO STACK, PLEASE? But also do the dishes.

Ferrets.
I love you guys.

Nickname.

Oh, all my dear friends, I need your urgent assistance!

The problem?
My name. There are no good nicknames for Miriam! I'm doomed to be addressed in long form for the rest of my life. Three syllables is so many syllables, it's a wonder anyone bothers to talk to me at all. You guys, you have to help. I've been Miriam for twenty-two years already and these are the best nicknames anyone's come up with:

Miz or Mizza
Sounds like someone who would be a judge in contests at pubs.

Mim
Your boisterous bran-loving aunt who lives interstate and never married... and never, ever will.

Miri
That woman with the strangely-coiffed hair who made a porno with Zack.

Mir
Ex-Soviet space station...

...or, apparently, Russian publishing house that used to produce communist propaganda material and science fiction novels.

Okay, that one is pretty cool.

But it doesn't really roll off the tongue so easy. Oh, dearest friends, help me. I can't go my entire youth without a nickname! I need your ideas. I need pizzazz. Irony. Cutesiness. Playful teasing. Cruel bullying. Sexual suggestiveness. So...

Call me. Call me names.

Frog.

I know many of you have seen the recent reports about me, and I would just like to set the record straight. I am not a frog. I have never been a frog. I never even experimented with amphibianity. I am shocked at the allegations and I'm taking steps to find out the identity of the person who initiated this slanderous lie. I have nothing against frogs personally, but this rumour was started by someone trying to hurt me and my family, and people do deserve the truth.
I know that in this time of difficulty, you guys will stick by me and support me. I love you!

Fear.

Throughout my childhood, I was always fascinated by tales of horror. Dahl's gruesome witches; Pike's teens who flirted with death; King's victim/killer Carrie; even RL Stine's legion of cursed children, each one doing valiant battle against a monstrous foe, only to be defeated by The Cliffhanger At The End Of The Book.

I'm still obsessed. I love horror movies and horror stories, but more than that - I think that we need them. Horror stories frighten us. They linger in our minds long after the credits have rolled - late at night, when we are alone, when the house is quiet and we can hear the sounds that are usually smothered by the bustle of day.

But the truth is, our fears are not just echoes of a movie we've watched. They were always there inside us: the movie has simply stirred them to the surface.

Horror is our way of trying to give names and shapes to our fears. When we try to ignore and deny the dark parts of our minds, they become more dangerous by far. They are primitive, savage; they make us think we are mad or wicked. We feel ashamed of our monstrous fantasies, our irrational terrors, and our traitorous desire.

But if we turn our fears into monsters with teeth and hair and physical form, then we limit them. And then we can overcome them.

Horror is home to a world of trash. I admit that freely. Horror has always had links to the erotic, and yes, to the pornographic. But it can't be helped - we're all just bloody terrified of sex. We're afraid of the opposite sex. We're afraid of the same sex. We're afraid of our own bodies, because we can't seem to control them - not their physical changes; not their urges and cravings; not their inevitable decay.

Sex and death and madness: all sensational, all smutty, all secret.

Consider the classic monsters. They all inhabit the physical world; they all have a human form; but they are all essentially symbols for human fears and feared desires.

Vampires are ludicrously sexual. They are an embodiment of raw, volatile, unbridled lust. They romance their victims, they crave the body and its fluids, they are decadent and promiscuous. Back when people weren't allowed to write about sex, vampires offered them a way of depicting the passionate physical encounter after which everything changes.

Vampire stories have long been a hiding place for homosexual themes. Never mind Anne Rice's gayboy vampires. Carmilla - about a girl who is plagued by desire for a young woman later revealed to be a vampire - was written in 1871. That's more than thirty years before Dracula. Yes, vampires are the symbol for everything that is deviant and corrupt about sex.

The werewolf is most often a symbol for male violence. We have a societal terror of men losing control and giving in to their savage instincts. The urge to fight, the urge to hurt, sometimes feel too powerful to resist. But giving in would mean becoming an animal.
I saw a really awesome Canadian werewolf movie, called Ginger Snaps, in which the werewolf transformation is a metaphor for puberty. The central character is a girl who begins to grow strange hair, to bleed unnaturally, to experience sexual and predatory interests. As she slowly transforms into a wolflike monster, she becomes self-assured where once she was awkward - and she rejects everything she used to be.

Zombies have really come into their own since Romero's magnificent trilogy of the Dead. They didn't always have such epic potential. Previously, zombies were just enslaved drones working for their zombie masters. But Romero's zombies are a plague. They are under no control at all; their only feeling is hunger, their only purpose, to spread the irreversible disease. The zombies are a nightmare vision of the globalised world. They spread like a virus. They are slow, shambling and dysfunctional, but impossible to stop. And they all want the same thing, without knowing or caring why.

Zombies are the monster embodiment of "stupid people in large groups". Powerful, dangerous, world-changing.

I know far too many people who reject horror because it is repulsive, because it is "too much". True horror isn't repulsive - it's magnetic. It speaks to us because it knows what we fear deep inside. It knows what we are afraid to believe, and it will show us that thing.

Films like the Saw franchise, like Hostel and Final Destination and Wolf Creek and that recent piece of pointless refuse, The Human Centipede, are not actually horror films. They are gore films. Gore is not what horror is about. Gore is just corn syrup, red food dye, and lots of futureless female actresses screaming and sobbing. It's not scary. It's just stomach-churning.

True horror isn't arbitrary torture porn. True horror is the embodiment of our secret, formless fears. That's why great stories are retold, why great monsters are reincarnated over and over in our books and films. They're not just spooky fun and funky costumes. They're us.

Eat.

Six Things You Can Do To Fight Depression: eat

Okay, so you feel like crap. You've had One Of Those Days™. You finally manage to navigate your way back home - it's already 8pm - you just need a meal - there's nothing in your goddamn house. Maybe a freezer pie. Or the last two slices of bread. Oh, fine, there's a bunch of broccoli in the fridge but you can't wait fifteen minutes to boil that green bastard when you know it's not even gonna taste any good. You need food that wants to be in your belly.

So, you get back in the car and you come out the other end of a drive-thru with a bacon cheeseburger meal and a sundae.

Or, you're rushing from one stressful part of your day to the next, you just started your period, and you stop in at the store to grab some ladies' products, and at the counter, all the chocolate is just sitting out there looking at you like it loves you. How can you let that go? At this point, you're pretty sure nobody else loves you, and you deserve to be loved, just a little bit, just this once today, right?

Or maybe you don't even have time to stop. You didn't pack lunch, you don't have any cash out, you're late to whatever. Fine, that's fine, isn't it? One meal's no big deal. Anyway, maybe it'll do your body good, not to be weighed down by yet another shipment of carbohydrates.

You know you're fooling yourself, but you're stuck in the loop.

Healthy eating is a habit, just like monster-bingeing is a habit. It's not about being on a diet; it's not about weighing and measuring each object you pass through your lips. The way to make it work is to make it something you don't obsess about - don't even think about. Make it automatic.

Snack? = Apple.

I'm not so good at it. I'm hooked on sugar. But I figure that it's more important to get the nutrients you need than to focus on avoiding everything else. So instead of feeling guilty about eating a cupcake, I'll feel good that I had a carrot as well. (This is hypothetical. So far, I totally fail at harnessing the portability power of carrots.)

There are two things you need to consider when you're planning to adjust your diet: one, what you eat; and two, how you eat.

WHAT

The Obvious: make sure you're getting the nutrients your body needs in general. If your overall health is poor, your emotions will be less stable; and when you're deficient in certain nutrients, you can actually be at risk of depressive disorders.

• Carbs from wholegrains and fruit - rather than refined sugar and processed grain.
• Protein from vegetables, nuts, beans, seeds - not just animal proteins from meat and cheese.
• Iron from green vegetables, beans and red meat.
• Vitamins from fruit and vegetables - not just from pill supplements, because they aren't absorbed well by the body and you mostly just pee them back out again.
• Good fats from fish, nuts, seeds and so forth.
• Water - you know - two litres a day, not in cola form.

Mood Food: stuff that specifically helps with the whole depression thing!

• Certain fruits are shown to help raise serotonin levels. Cherries, bananas, oranges, mangoes, dried dates and papaya, for instance.
• Omega-3 is apparently really good. Some people even think it has an antidepressant effect, but don't just go self-medicating now, will you? The pills can have side effects - keep a doctor informed if you start taking them. Or, just eat more tuna.
• B vitamins are important - they include those weird-sounding nutrients like folic acid, thiamin, riboflavin, niacin and B6. They sound so frightening and complicated, most people just give up and take a supplement - but actually, these vitamins are in loads of natural foods: liver, tuna and turkey, chilli, lentils and bananas. Or you could just eat Vegemite, which has masses of B vitamins in it!

HOW

It's important to eat healthy things healthily. This means making the right foods available at the right times and taking advantage of the glorious experience of eating.

• Eat breakfast. And eat breakfast foods for breakfast. You need the long-lasting energy that comes from grainy carbohydrates, not the brief moment of tastebud-joy you get from eating leftover pizza.
• Have shared meals. If you live alone, try to plan dinner with a guest every now and then. Otherwise, just try to maintain a mealtime routine in your home, so that everyone comes to the table at the same time. It helps to have someone see you eating - you won't be as likely to pick the lazy, naughty option - but it also makes meals into a comfortable, low-stress social interaction.
• Don't skip meals. Just don't do it. It's not innocent forgetting, and it's not a ninja way to lose weight. When you miss a meal, your blood sugar drops, you have less energy, you're more likely to get irritated by things, and you start silently pleading for the day to end. Eat regularly. Snack if you need to. You need food to, like, live.
• Snack wisely. You know the drill here. Chow down on fruit and wholegrain crackers, yoghurt, nuts and carrot sticks! Museli bars, as you know, are a big con. Yes, they've got oats in them, but they are drowned in sugar, corn syrup and chocolate chunks. If you can spare the cash, try snacking on fresh blueberries. They are unbelievably delicious and addictive, but eight thousand times better than compulsively grazing on chips.
• Eat pretty food. You might get all seduced by the red and yellow of fast food imagery, but good food can be stunningly sexy too. In nature, the pretty colours mean "mmmm, we are sweet juicy berries" and "ohhh, yummy scrummy zebra flesh". So present natural food to yourself so it looks pretty. You'll be bliss-drooling in no time.

Snack.

I have a 5000-word essay to write, so I thought it would be a good idea to share five of my favourite snacks with you.

1. Scrambled eggs with grated cheddar.

I can't believe I spent twenty-one years of my life assuming I didn't like scrambled eggs. Why didn't someone sit me down and explain how amazing they are? They take about twelve seconds to cook, and then you just put salt and pepper and grated cheese on them, and then you can have multiple eggasms.

2. Peanut butter and honey on bread.

Crunchy or smooth are both fine. This is an appallingly unhealthy snack, so forget about the wholemeal bread and go with white. I've recently discovered you can substitute maple syrup for the honey, and I hear it tastes amazing with banana slices on top. Also, this blogger suggests mixing in cocoa as well, but that's if you're making some kind of epic batch of sandwiches to take on your mountain-climbing expedition...

3. Pizza jaffles.

Personally, I think you need a jaffle iron to make this properly. Jaffles are far superior to toasted sandwiches flattened in a sandwich press. All the wonderful cheese is trapped like a genie inside a hot golden toasty prison. Whereas what can you make with a sandwich press? A flat sandwich.
Now you'll want to know how to make the pizza jaffle. Spread your bread with tomato paste or pizza sauce. Sprinkle with oregano. Top with cheese slices (mozzarella will make it stringy like real pizza, but cheddar has a better bite). Then close the sandwiches, coat the outsides with a little butter or margarine, and iron away!
On special occasions*, you could also add shredded salami or capsicum or olives or chopped pixies.

*When you feel like it

4. Tomato and cucumber crackers.

This is more of a summery snack, but it is so excellent. I like Ritz-style crackers best: soft, finely-seasoned, and they just sort of dissolve in your mouth. A perfect salty crunch to balance the gentle flavour of the cucumber and the juicyness of the tomatoes.
If you're all like, "noooo, carbs are evil", you could use really big cucumber wheels for the cracker base, and put little slices of sundried tomato on top. But that would be all expensive and stuff.

5. Pretty much anything with maple [flavoured] syrup.

Honey is really pricey (by my standards, where more than $10 a kilo is too much for anything), so I recently started buying imitation maple syrup instead. I know it's totally fake and nothing like real maple syrup, but it's a really scrumptious sweetener with a distinctive flavour and it makes me happy.
It goes with: pancakes - English muffins - porridge - buttered toast - bacon - bananas - crumpets - vanilla icecream - mandarin pieces - french fries
You can actually make a rough approximation of it yourself, by combining brown sugar, boiling water and vanilla essence. But that's such an effort.

Swirl.

I am just a leetle bit obsessed with espresso coffee. I have my own machine at home which I love deeply. My job does involve coffee-making, but sadly, these coffees always go straight into a takeaway cup with a lid; no point in prettifying them with swirls and decorative ornamentation. No time either. Which is such a shame.

Latte-pouring is an art unto itself. You have only seconds to blend the freshly-steamed milk with the shot of coffee, or the froth will settle stiffly together and refuse to blend with anything.

The two most common latte designs are the heart and the rosetta.

To make a heart, pour your milk slowly into the centre of the cup. At first, just the liquid will flow in; then the silky foam will begin to form a white blob in the centre. When the cup is just about full, flick the tip of the jug straight down, creating the point of the heart.


To make a rosetta, start pouring from the side of the cup that's furthest from you. Move the jug's tip from side to side as you pour, creating a zigzag that starts wide and grows narrower as it goes along. When the cup is about full, flick the jug's tip back up through the zigzag to create the stem of the rosetta.

It takes practice.

Once you've got those techniques down pat, you can start having real fun with your coffee decorations. Some people get downright elaborate, using skewer tips for detail and piped chocolate syrup for strong outlines. You can create anything on the surface of a coffee - from a hedgehog to John Lennon.

There should be a word for the feeling one gets from consuming food art. It's a bittersweet feeling of guilty bliss: you revel in its deliciosity, just as you destroy its beauty.

Anguilicious. Drinking sumptuous swirly curly coffees: it is anguilicious.

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NOTE: Clicking on each image will take you to its original source (or at least where I found it on the web).