An urban N.Z. baby-boomer and a Jack Russell terrier
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BEAUTY IS A BEAST

26/3/2013

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Epiphanies often arrive in the most ordinary of circumstances - while you’re lolly-gagging your way along the road to Damascus for example - and this week’s epiphanies were no exception. The first arrived as I flicked through a women’s magazine at a local garage, while waiting for a friend to get a W.O.F. for her car. 
PictureKate Winslet Is That You?
The magazine’s cover story profiled three New Zealand women and how much money they spend on beauty products and services each year. None of the trio was older than forty. 

The “low spender” amongst them spends a mere $1300 per annum. The “big spender” forks out $1800 a year - on eyelash extensions alone. Well worth the expense she says because, on the weekend you can “get up and not have to bother with mascara”. This woman’s total annual bill is $17,700 which, in addition to long eyelashes included make-up, facials, nails, tanning, hairdressing, a personal trainer, dietician and a permanent hair removal process which handily reduces the number of times “you panic because you realise you haven’t had a wax”. It was a revelatory moment. 
The scales fell from my (un-mascaraed) eyes. I do not spend nearly enough money - or time - on personal grooming! Until this moment I’d believed that it was enough to wash my hair with whatever shampoo was on special at the supermarket, shave my legs - at erratic intervals - with a plastic disposable razor, and dab on a bit of cut-price lipstick from Postie Plus. Exercise was a quick canter round the block or a ramble with the dog. Dressing up was a change of lipstick and a change of T-shirt. In extremis, it might involve putting on a skirt. Preferably without removing my jeans.


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FLOWERS TO STATE CINEMA NELSON

19/3/2013

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When one dishes out brickbats - as I did earlier this month one must also be prepared to hand out bouquets. In that posting I described the State Cinema’s toilets as the worst in Nelson. This is no longer the case. 
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On a visit to the movies last week I discovered that an hourly cleaning regime has been instigated and a sign invites patrons to advise management if the toilets are less than savoury. 
So a sweet-scented bouquet and thanks to the State Cinema for being so responsive to this customer’s complaint.

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THE INCONVENIENT TRUTH ABOUT TOILETS

12/3/2013

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WARNING: Column contains references to bodily functions,. Content may offend some readers. Whatever you call it, lavatory, loo, dunny or restroom, the public toilet is essential to public health and private convenience ... Which is not to say that all toilets are convenient.
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Certain laws of nature are immutable. What goes up, must come down for example or, and this is my subject du jour, what goes in, must come out. Like all animals we excrete the waste products of our digestive systems. Unlike other species we prefer to keep the process rather private. Unavoidably however, we must occasionally perform the act in public, or at least in a public facility. Lavatory, loo, dunny or restroom the public toilet is essential to public health and private convenience. Which is not to say that all toilets are convenient. Some seem designed for maximum inconvenience. In Brunei, I saw women clad in long silky dresses and strappy sandals swan in and out of toilets looking elegant and serene. How, I wondered, did they manage this when the toilet was an excrement-splattered hole in the floor, and instead of toilet paper there was only a short plastic hose trickling cold water? 


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    THE GREY URBANIST
    Ro Cambridge, is a freelance writer, 
    arts worker & columnist Here she reports on the oddities & serendipities of  urban life.  She roams Nelson city , NZ 
    with a tan & white Jack Russell. (Her original canine side-kick, Pete, who features in many of these posts died in 2015.

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