My godson gave me the best movie review burn on Saturday night. After forcing me to sit through Shark Tale (literally holding my face turned toward the TV for a while when I tried to read a book without him noticing me) it fiiiinally finished, and I said "did you like it?" and he said "Well, it was a movie".

I am surprised to report that I did not murder him.

I tutored high school English while at uni, gave up when I got an irate phone call from an English teacher demanding to know why one of my students had answered the exam question "How does Shakespeare explore the theme of 'love' in Romeo and Juliet?" (or similar) with a three page essay about why people are such h8rs about Twilight.

I also think it's a subtle way of reinforcing stigma... you see the same picture alongside general "how to beat depression" articles as "don't let the mentally ill buy guns because death" articles as those enragng "madman stabs wife why don't we lock them all up?" articles, and readers start grouping things together, and it creates (or maybe a better word is reinforces) this picture of untrustworthy crazies who endanger the public.

I am profoundly grateful that you wrote this, I have sent it to everyone I know.

Re the stock phoots, they are just terrible, but you have to seek special permission from models (and pay for the privilege of asking) to use photos alongside "sensitive" content that people (ie the models) might not want to be associated with. You know, topics like murder, child sex abuse, domestic violence, and... mental health. One of these things is not like the other. Many news agencies just get lazy and reuse, over and over, the same picture of sad man/woman with head in hands, because it's a real nuisance and expense to do otherwise. It's a blanket moratorium too - if you were writing a piece about someone who is really mentally healthy, because the word "mental" MIGHT be in there, or is in the name or the organisation using it, or really, because people are indiscriminately discriminating assholes, you still have to ask permission.

When I dream of my mother, she always smells like sunscreen. She plays with my hair in exactly the right way. Sometimes she pats my leg and walks away from me, and sometimes she picks me up and takes me with her. She never has any tubes, and she never smells like medicine, and she never says anything. Sometimes she has that crazy, pain-fucked stare that begs me not to leave her alone, but her hands are cool and dry in mine. I wake up and wish I'd checked what colour her eyes were, or if she really had the same freckle constellation on her shoulder as I have on my neck, or told her I loved her, or made her say something, literally anything,... and actually, I think dreams are shitty little things.

While I love this and am supremely jealous of your attendance at any conference where people unironically wear bonnets, I do sometimes wonder if, when we're comparing characters like this, we somewhat collapse time a bit, and just think "oh yes, they lived in the olden days, when women wore corsets." Because (as you said) the characters were written a hundred years apart, their authors lived in completely different countries. Society changed rapidly between the early 19th and 20th centuries. Is comparing Elizabeth Bennet and Lily Bart is a little bit like comparing Lily Bart to Bridget Jones? Am I just very sleep-deprived? Who knows.

This here is my go-to "What shall I make with chicken tonight?" recipe. I make this with chicken thighs, with chicken breasts, skin on, bone in or out, it is literally the most versatile recipe in my repertoire. I cook it exactly the same (temperature and time-wise) whether I have just a few chicken thighs (usually) or a whole chicken* (rarely).

It is NEVER dry (the word-tangles I get myself in avoiding the word 'moist' are frankly beneath me), and ALWAYS delicious and fragrant, and the caramelised shallots are a dream. I also sometimes toss in leeks, or red onions. I always double the sauce. I have never added the parsley, because garnishes. Bah. This works well with a green salad. Or potatoes. Or bread. Or some lightly steam vegetables with a lemon-dijon dressing. Whatever. Eat it all the time. http://www.davidlebovitz.com/2010/03/roast-chicke...

*Edited to add obviously if I'm cooking a whole chicken it is a whole chicken cut into pieces. Don't put a whole chicken in the oven for 40 minutes and expect anything more gratifying than debilitating salmonella.

Oh I know, and I'm sorry, I kind of just conflated you with the media there. Their narrative is NOBODY IS DOING ANYTHING ABOUT SUICIDE without any analysis or insight into what is actually being done. I would absolutely agree that universal healthcare is not the panacea we'd like it to be, and there is VAST room for improvement in the area of mental health in terms of what the gov't could be doing. But I'd like to see ordinary people doing things too, instead of shaking their heads when the annual figures are released and then just moving on with their lives.

I'm terribly sorry to hear you've been affected by suicide. The loss of three friends to suicide is what inspired me to go into mental health, and I can't imagine how awful it would be to lose a family member. I hope your family got the support they needed - sometimes it can be hard to know what help is out there.

Need to have a tiny rant. I work in mental health and while it is somewhat underfunded, there are literally thousands of people working their arses off to reduce our suicide rates and improve life for those with experience of mental illness. The Like Minds programme is a world leader in destigmatisation. John Kirwan has done more for male mental health than anyone else in our nation's history. Neither of these initiatives would be there without significant funding. And it's not actually about funding services. No two people will take their lives for the same reasons, and most people who take their lives do so for an overwhelming number of reasons.

Maori are more at risk of suicide because (pick any) of cultural alienation, poverty, lack of education, lack of leadership, family violence, drug use, social isolation, inequality, higher involvement in crime, reduced likelihood to cope with relationship breakdowns, traditional understandings of mental health don't jell with modern understandings, traditional understandings inhibit accessing help, on and on, ad infinitum. Adding more beds to a psych ward actually would do jack shit about this. These are all massive, horrible problems, and throwing money at them without any deeper consideration will not be effective.

Basically, my point is, funding mental healthcare is just one thing we need to do as a country to reduce suicide rates. Because while we have a government that wants shiny results for minumum expenditure, every NZer could take some personal responsibility for making life better for each other, for actually listening to what is causing people distress, and doing what we can to help. Facilitating help seeking, destigmatising mental illness, encouraging employers to get on board with positive mental health programmes, teaching kids when they're little about mental health and wellbeing, staying in touch with friends who may be struggling, and not just burying our heads in the sand and saying "oh, it just needs more FUNDING'" would go a long way toward reducing our suicide rates.

I mean, our footpaths are just as gross as yours. I would say, literally no one does it in the office? Where was your husband working? Hamilton? I guess it depends on the ferry. If it's just a little ferry that lasts five minutes and takes you from one beach to the next, shoes aren't mandatory. If you're in a little town you could get away with no shoes in the supermarket if it's mid-summer... We're more relaxed in January, but the undies/togs rule is a very important one, and if you come back you should memorise it, or someone will spit in your flat white.