I didn’t get in trouble much as a small child (call it a bit of relief for my parents preceding the upcoming tumultuous teen years) but I do recall getting in trouble for a couple of things. My mother used to get her hair permed every few months or so and my sister and I would be reluctantly dragged along to the hairdressers with her. We hated it as we loathed the “rotten egg” smell of the perming solution so we would inevitably wander off outside curious to find other things to discover.
Next door to the hairdressers was a key cutting shop and inside the windows of an otherwise empty shop we saw a large dog. We had never had a dog before in our lives and we were utterly curious. For starters it was about the same size as us which made it thrilling and slightly dangerous at the same time. The dog looked at us his mouth hanging open and we took that as an invitation. We sprung into action jumping up and down and pulling faces. Making noise we danced and made general fools of ourselves for a good minute with the dog so excited that a door opened quickly and a large shadow emerged. Petrified we ran as quickly as our little legs could carry us to the salon and closed to door firmly behind us.
A few moments later the door flew open and a large man with wild hair, beard untrimmed wearing a dirty cardigan and corduroy pants pointed at us hiding behind my mother’s chair hoping that the cape around her would camouflage us. No such luck.
“Your bloody kids have been agitating my dog!!!” he bellowed.
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| August 10th, 2011 by Not Quite Nigella
While I was at university and studying psychopathology (a subject I found most useful in corporate/advertising life 
) I used to have a slightly odd obsession with real crime and serial killers. I would scare myself senseless while reading about them and then have to do all sorts of strange things to make up for this heightened sense of internal panic. Every night I would make someone check the walk in cupboards in my room just in case a maniac was ensconced within my clothes and shoes and I would sleep with a pair of scissors by the bed (if I lived in America it would have perhaps escalated to a gun) and I would lock the bedroom door and then place something in front of it. Just in case…
Logic dictates that I should have just stopped reading about them but as I did have to read about some of them for university work it became somewhat of an anxious never ending pattern of scaring my pants off in the name of study. My parents, exasperated at having to check the cupboards one night told me that there weren’t many serial killers in Australia.
“Also you would have heard about it by now if there was one”
“Yes but what if you’re the first person that they kill? You would get no warning at all!”
They looked at me, the usual way that you do an alien child and shook their head and walked back to their room tired at being woken to check a room for the umpteenth time.
“See! You just don’t know if you’re the first!” I said to their retreating backs.
“Go to sleep” they said.
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| July 11th, 2011 by Not Quite Nigella
There’s a well known saying from Coco Chanel that in regards to accessorising, before you leave the house you should take the last thing that you put on off. Coco Chanel was of course known for her understated elegance and much imitated distinctive style. It’s great advice but as for me, you won’t find me on my way out of the house taking something off. I’m more likely to be piling more on. Another bracelet, necklace or a giant hat? How about all three! And that’s not even counting the fact that I wear enough makeup to power a drag queen to the moon and back. I’m more of the more is more variety than the less is more I suppose. Try as I might to be the latter.
I apply the same principle to food. I love icing because it’s like an extra layer of makeup. That’s why muffins rarely turn up here but cupcakes with their strange and fanciful decorations are a frequent guest. I really just can’t leave well enough alone and if there is a chance to put something more on, I do. I don’t know if it’s wise to go so overboard but I will say that it is fun and Chanel also said that it was better to be overdressed than under dressed which I wholly subscribe to.
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| May 16th, 2011 by Not Quite Nigella
Hello fellow ghouls! Guess what special day is tomorrow? That’s right, it’s Friday the 13th! Never mind that nothing bad had ever really happens to people on that date. I take note of the date because it gives me an excuse to make something deliciously ghoulish. I mean Hallowe’en is soooo many months away!
This year’s Friday the 13th eyeball cupcakes are for Mr NQN’s colleagues at work. They have all learned the hard way that he is nothing but the naughtiest trickster who delights in playing tricks on them. He will literally turn anything into a chance to play a prank on some unsuspecting soul. A few weeks ago, one of his colleagues was walking down a street in the city when he found a memory card on the ground. Curious, he took it back to work and put it in his computer. In it he saw that there were surveillance files from a government agency.
Nervous, he told a few of his colleagues about it including Mr NQN (big mistake-huge! I hear you say and you’d be right). Mr NQN’s ears grew pointy and his nose long and a cheeky grin spread across his face. He quietly slipped his mobile phone out of his pocket and switched it on silent. Around the corner he texted his colleague with the message.
“We know what you have…”
His colleague was nervy and decided to go for a walk with another workmate, a tall man. Mr NQN saw this and then texted him
“Don’t be alone with tall agents.”
Then unable to resist with more cryptic texts “I know what you did last Summer.”
By now his colleague was on the verge of wetting his pants, seeing possible snipers on every rooftop. That’s when Mr NQN pounced with his last message.
“Orders are to take you out”
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| May 12th, 2011 by Not Quite Nigella
There weren’t many heroines around for me when I was little. I should explain that statement. There weren’t many dark haired heroines on television and there was certainly no-one that really looked like me. Dark tresses was usually the territory of the anti heroine or the evil twin. I had the following to choose from:
1. Wonder Woman
2. Morticia Addams
3. Veronica from the Archies
Is it any wonder that I love all three?
Many years ago a friend and colleague revealed his tattoo to me. It was of Veronica from the Archies with an outraged look on her perfect but pouty face. I thought it was utterly fabulous until I realised all of that black hair would mean a world of pain. Shortly after I met him I moved to Japan where tattoos are more the territory of yakuza rather than ordinary folk and that plan was put the rest. I’m quite glad that it did as I never did find an appropriate place to put poor Veronica.
When I was visiting Busselton Jetty in Perth I came across an anchor cookie cutter. I had never seen one of these before so I immediately bought it. I was also given a box of Coco’s Tattoo chocolates from my friend Myriam only weeks before and I already had its destiny in mind. Not cookies but tattoo cupcake toppers!
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| March 21st, 2011 by Not Quite Nigella
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