Marvellous Miracles - Coconut Oil and White Vinegar

(Forgive my minor absence - I do try to blog once a week, but liquors frequently drunken me and it's very hard to write with a hangover. Plus with Easter and all, I've had a lot of important eating to do.)

Today I am wearing my helpful hat and come to your screens bearing a couple of my so-called miracle products for your delectation. Yes! Roll up, roll up, little children, and gaze upon my carnival cart of wonders! (it’s a piece of lino pulled by a pig).

I call these miracle products not because they heal the sick or turn water into nachos, but because once you discover their effectiveness, you will wonder how you ever did without them. And given their wide availability and low price, you’ll also curse the literally millions of pounds you've no doubt spent on more expensive, inferior products.

Today's products: coconut oil and white vinegar.

A Few Wise Words

It isn’t often I spend a weekend listening to beat poets, seeing tales of the Stour River acted out in a 13th century Franciscan chapel, wondering about who I am in a yurt, searching an island of lost souls, or debating the extent of Al-Qaeda’s control in the Middle East.

This is probably because I spend most weekends seeking out the legendary Emerald Gin that is fabled to flow behind the bins at M&S if you are pure of heart and strong of stomach.

But even when I take a break from such frivolity, the A Few Wise Words Festival isn't on in Canterbury every weekend. If it was….it wouldn’t really be a festival. More of a thing that happens. But I digress!

For those not yet in the know, A Few Wise Words is the spring-time sibling of the larger annual Wise Words Festival (which debuted in Canterbury last September). I was invited to attend its first outing, which ran from Friday 4^th April to Sunday 6^th April in Canterbury’s beautiful Greyfriars Gardens, and around the city streets.

The Wise Words concept was born in 2010, when arts organisation Workers of Art decided to create an event that brought the streets of Canterbury alive through poetry and literature-inspired activities, using the city as its canvas and the people as its inspiration.

When A No Make-Up Selfie Goes Wrong

I knew my kind would not be welcome in the no make-up parade.

You know what I’m talking about. Oh you know. Don’t pretend you don’t know, because you KNOW.

I speak of course of the #nomakeupselfie. Not one of you can have escaped the frenzy, whether you took part or were subjected to the many pictures on you Facebook and Twitter feeds. We were all so selfless in our embracement (it’s a word) of the campaign, and a good job too – more than £8million raised for Cancer Research is a spankingly lovely result.


But now the dust has settled, I shall share the REAL story behind my #nomakeupselfie. When I have finished I hope you will share your stories too.