Spare Room Be our guest…

Hey Spareroom readers! You may have noticed a severe lack of posts over the last few months. Apologies for the delay in letting you know, but we are having a break from the site to raise our baby Gabriel (now six months).
See you soon,
Ana Samways and Steven Shaw

I bawled while reading about Julie Baird’s unfortunate life, but I am a cryer.

Darcy Padilla photographed Julie over an 18 year period, from when she was a teen with her 8 day old infant to her death from AIDS at 36. The fly-on-the-wall photographs are not easy to look at; they are confronting, brutal and terribly sad. And they made me angry. Why would a woman like this have child after child? To think of Julie as a person and not a series of political issues is important. It reminds us of the fragility of human existence when poverty and poor mental health are factors, and the intergenerational nature of such deprivation…

“We were dressed as ‘Scrabble’ and asked to have a photo with the police,” says Nikki. “They had no idea what we spelt”…

Like a horny teenager our Prime Minister John Key said he though Liz Hurley was hot (that’s hawt as in boffable, a MILF) and then he minced down the catwalk at the launch of the Rugby World Cup volunteer uniform like John Ingman in Are You Being Served. And the news cameras were there to catch it all. Goff must be delighted…

Whether you’re missing Paul Henry or just missing hatin’ on him you might want to take a look at this NZ On Screen clip from 80s game show Every Second Counts…