Why would anyone want to preserve the mistakes of the past? Why would a person with even a shred of sense and at the least one or two brain enzymes firing declare in their last will and testament that they wanted their tattoos kept from cremation, removed and preserved for posterity?

+10

Another year over and a new one begun, it's time to jack the plunger back, suck up a hypodermic full of truth serum and plunge that baby into a vein. 2009's blogs attracted posts from the great, the good and the downright woeful. This may sting a little.

-1

Out on the field, vast hairy-backed men are heaving the Big Top's tent pegs out, packing up, elephants and all and trundling out of town - leaving naught but depressions in the grass, healing over time to faint discolorations and eventually, not so much as a blot on the landscape.

+12

Antipodes: The Ingenious and Exhilarating Expedition of El Lider and La Campana. By Mark Price. Longacre Press.  RRP $34.99. 

+2

100 Essential New Zealand Films, By Hamish McDouall, AWA Press, RRP $40.

Alright, let's get the obvious out of the way. 'Are there really 100 NZ films?' Yes. Yes, there are. Happy?

-4

I am writing a book. God, who isn't? My bus driver is writing a book, a romance he says and given the surly way he sneers at the flamenco schemes of my wardrobe, it's not a colourful one.

+4

Ever wonder what happened to Fleance at the end of Macbeth? No, neither did I. 

-19

The Iron-Bound Coast: Karekare in the Early Years.  By Wallace Badham. Edited by Bob Harvey.

-32

In A Word: The Essential Tool for Finding the Perfect Word. By Mark Broatch. New Holland. RRP $34.99.

-11

Coming up like a blister in the sun, there has been an outbreak of syphilis in Dunedin, but not where you think. Much has been said about the skank queen promiscuity of Otago’s student population, after all the term Walk of Shame was coined here.

-6