Why am I telling you, poor students, this? Well, for the future lawyers, doctors and ballers out there, it’s the perfect wine they say—100/100 points. Which is all well and good, except it’s not going to be ready to drink for probably another 20 years, in which time it will probably be about $3000 if not more, so actually not a bad investment. And given that in 20 years it will be just about the time y’all will be makin’ it rain, just remember who sparked your love of all things vino and invite me around for a glass.

But if you’ve already blown your course-related costs on something other than the Penfolds Grange 2008, you’re probably looking a little lower on the shelf when it comes to shopping for wine. With that in mind I thought I would see how a cask of wine would go over the week, two glasses a night while cooking dinner…

Even though it’s the only one I tasted, I could tell straight away that the Yalumba 2012 Shiraz ($19.99 for 2 L) was going to be vastly superior to its contemporaries on the shelves of New World Chaffers. It bears the name of a real and reputable producer, and has an alcohol level about two per cent higher than the rest—not only does this get you where you want to be when you’re drinking cask wine (i.e. drunk), but the extra alcohol also adds structure and body to the wine itself.

Day 1: Okay, so this stuff was surprisingly good; red cherries, vanilla and some soft tannins made it extremely quaffable. At a comparable price of $7.68 for 750 mL it would be worth a look against some of the $8.99 New Zealand cabernet/merlot blends on offer in the bottle.

Day 5: I think by this point it had lost the freshness that the back of the box promised, but up until Day 3 it had been going down really well. I’ve also found myself getting slightly bored of the same tipple every night, but for a flat of three or four, have this with a pizza night and you’re good to go!

I’ve said an awful lot of rude things about classic English desserts. About the fact that no matter how many you put in, raisins and sultanas just aren’t that exciting. About the fact that no dish should ever be called ‘rock cake’ or ‘spotted dick’. Or contain suet. However, I’ve had to gradually abandon my prejudices. And although I’m still not at the stage where I’d call jam a bold culinary addition, I’ve got to the point where I think it’s just, well, nice.

One of these developments is that I really really like rice puddings. Some people write odes to Grecian urns, but I’d write one to rice pudding – hot, sticky, creamy and sweet. The rice pudding has somehow gained a pretty dire reputation, largely through an unfortunate combination of school dinners and canned creamed rice. When a rice pudding is made properly, it is quite astoundingly lovely. After more than an hour of cooking on low heat, the milk becomes very sticky and rich, taking on a faintly caramelised flavour. It is hot, cosy and simple, a perfect comfort food. It is also extremely easy, with only five minutes preparation and just three ingredients. All you need is a little advance preparation, because of the long cooking time. It isn’t something you can whip up quickly, but is totally worth the wait.

Rice Pudding (serves four):

50 g white rice
600 mL milk
2.5 tablespoons white sugar
Jam (optional, for serving)

Preheat the oven to 150°C. Combine all ingredients (except jam) in an oven-proof dish. Bake for an hour and a half, until there is a thick brown skin over the top and the rice has completely absorbed the milk. Remove from the oven, sit for a minute, then serve hot or cold. This is also great with a spoonful of jam on top.

I have been told that this is stupid and self-obsessive. People tell me that if I would only just cheer up, I could do anything. My opportunities are endless. The world is my oyster. Impossible is nothing.

Please, allow me to bluster on through this desert of self-flagellation and justify my wallowing to you, undeserving reader. What goes unacknowledged, by those who tell me that “I am my own harshest critic”, is that impossible is something.

There are seven billion people on this planet. A lot of them are geniuses with insightful and powerful brains which see the world in ways that I cannot imagine. There are those who have bodies that allow them to win medals of gold, silver and mahogany, and carry moderate-to-large-sized boxes, and run when the rapture comes. I am not one of these people, and that’s not self-wallowing: it’s an undeniable fact. Even thinking about these marvels of the mind and body is enough to make me recline and stare into middle distance, angsting about my future as someone who is no-one.

Robbie Williams said, in the tragically underappreciated ‘Something Beautiful’, that “You can’t manufacture a miracle”. It’s the truth. I have used up most of my luck on the accident of birth, so all I can really hope for is to work hard enough to acquire a car that tells me where to go without looking, and a house that has built-in vacuum cleaners beneath the sink unit and is large enough that when I speak to myself in between meals I can hear my own voice echo back to me off the shiny, shiny marble.

The point is, I’m not special, and even if I was, after a little Malthusian maths I would see that special is not particularly special. (Did you know that we all die and are all forgotten about in the (theoretically) never-ending depths of time and space (and that there are more stars and galaxies and reasons to be scared than there are grains of sand in the Sahara?)).

So there, look; my indulgent wallowing and privileged anguish is totally justified. I just proved it. But before you all expire from nausea, give me a chance to redeem myself. I too agree that self-wallowers like me are as stupid as sheeps—but for a different reason.

I’m not stupid because I’m wrong. I’m stupid because I’m misguided.

The reason that I aspire as I do is because I want to succeed, and living in a society with a population of +1, success means what everyone else says it does. But when I actually bother to stop and ask myself why I want to succeed, the moment I manage to push through the success-is-good-because-good-is-success dogma, I get to a series of reasons which all mean pretty much the same thing. I want to feel valued. I want to have purpose. I want my life to mean something.

The fact is—and I don’t know why I’m saying this because we all know it—‘success’ and living a meaningful life are different. My life—and your life, for that matter—is not made worthwhile or meaningful or valuable because of anyone else. It’s valuable because it’s mine, and I’m the one living it, and it’s the only thing I’ve got.

When people get old (as they have a tendency to do), it’s never all like, “things turned out different than I thought, so fuck, I’ve failed.” Sure they suffer from bad knees, hypertension, dementia, incontinence, Alzheimer’s, osteoporosis, children, glaucoma, racial intolerance, thin-to-transparent skin, vulnerability to get-rich-quick finance schemes, impotence and perpetual dehydration (not to mention Country Road Home’s infamous product recall of its winter 2003 Merino colostomy bags), but they’re okay. Maybe it seems like an anticlimax, but when you’re old, it’s not about climaxing. The things that matter change as you do. One day I’ll probably find that having some pals down at the bowls club and a daughter that talks to me on Christmas will make me happy in a way that I can’t really understand right now. So there’s no point me worrying about whether I’ll ‘make it’, because when I’m 70 ‘it’ will be quite different.

Maybe. I don’t know.

If you’re reading this, and thinking “this is a braindump about being mediocre and it is laughably mediocre”, then—well—you walked right into that one, didn’t you? I know that this is clichéd and you’ve heard it all before. In trying to write it down, I quickly became overly sentimental, so you’d be forgiven for inferring these ‘dreams’ I speak of as being a job at Hallmark, and thinking “no no, it’s in the bag.” The biggest cliché of all, though, is the one where I, like everyone else, am determined to eschew clichés just because they’re clichés, and in doing so, stay miserable. If I just took a step back and gave looking on the bright side of these smelly roses 110 per cent, these clichés would do me a world of lemonade. After all, you only live a molehill.

Once more, for good measure: self-wallowing is stupid.

In case you weren’t aware, LAWS121 assignments were due recently. Although I got hard-done-by in the test, the assignment should be easy. I know I’ve got lovely prose—my POLS tutor said so. I’m also a Politics student, so anything to do with the legislative process is right up my alley. I might send the essay to some of the big commercial firms like Chen Palmer, actually. I’m sure they would love to have me on board. Anyway, I want to tell you about an experience I had when I went to hand in my assignment.

Approximately 22 minutes before the deadline, I thundered downstairs at Weir, armed with all-important USB drive. To my horror, the computer room was packed with Science students on Facebook, and a long line of other disorganised Law students waiting to print their assignments. Some twat with the organisational skills of a marshmallow was prodding the paper-feed button, while the fucked printer spat out pages of Wingdings like there was no tomorrow. Some other imbecilic no-hoper (I think he does Commerce or something) was milling around cutting up flashcards—what a waste of space. I wish people would realise that Commerce degrees are a waste of time since all the good jobs are in the civil service, where compassion and social justice are more important than just adding up numbers.

This was hopeless. I gave up and sprinted down to Pip—the Law School must surely have had a printer. On the way, I met a couple of really friendly men on Lambton Quay who distracted me for a while. One was juggling tennis balls, and his friend was playing a violin-thing. Apparently they haven’t got much money, which is probably because postgraduate student allowances have been cut lately. We engaged in a bit of friendly banter, before I realised I better hurry up or I’d miss my deadline.

Arriving at Law School, I shot in the front door and went straight for the stairs. Soon I was lost in a maze of strange staircases. Ever tried finding your way into the library in that bloody building? Impossible. Luckily for me I bumped into Grant Morris, who I know pretty well because I’m in the front row of his lectures. He pointed me in the direction of the computers. Once I’d got that fiasco sussed, I printed the thing and jumped in the queue. I nearly shat myself worrying about whether the queue was moving fast enough, but luckily I made it to the counter with five seconds to go. Even better, the bastard in the queue behind me missed it. Serves him right for being so disorganised.

Moral of the story—the Law Library could do with way more signage. Probably should be in the Government’s budget, but I bet it won’t be because the Government hates students and stuff. Even Rory said so.

Find me on Twitter – @GMo4Lyf

The truth is that nowadays, in the really competitive sports at least, if you’re going to make it at all, you will be on track by age 18. There are exceptions, but chances are, we aren’t them. And so I find myself relegated to the bar leaner, telling my mates over a jug of Export that I could have been a footy great. Just kidding; I have a little more perspective than that.

That said, it’s not uncommon for me to be settled in watching domestic sport when all of a sudden a name will pop up that I recognise. Someone I played with at school, or faced in age-grade representative stuff. It’s usually the big-name players who dominated from under-12s to under-18s, but often it’s not. Either way, it’s kind of weird to see somebody cleaning out Jesse Ryder’s stumps when only five years ago we were sitting in French class together.

Thanks to New Zealand’s tiny population and high rate of sporting participation, most of us sporting folk have either played with or against somebody who has gone on to higher honours. At least we might know someone who knows someone who faced Tim Southee once. That provides us with ample opportunity when watching Super Rugby to explain to our University friends that we once scored a Lomu-like try, running over the now replacement utility back for the Highlanders. I also have a pet theory about cricket, which holds that you can trace any New Zealand cricketer of any level to Chris Harris in six steps or less.

While it’s a shame that we use this statistical quirk for such selfish purposes as bragging to our friends, it’s also a testament to how tight the top band of success in sport can be. Yes, there are always those freaks who were streets ahead of everyone else from the very beginning, but it’s also comforting to know that yes, at one stage, we could have been sporting superstars if we’d really wanted to. We just valued boozing a lot more than that.

For those keeping score, my Harris number is 2, there exists footage of me cleaning out Steven Luatua of the Blues, and I taught up-and-coming fast bowler Matthew Quinn everything he knows—about French.

*manic sigh*,

Everyone.

Janet:

Oh, mates,

I know how you feel: I have a column due today that I haven’t started, either. Let’s crack on. I hate to make it all about methodology, but this one’s for all the Tipping J* fans out there.

ONE. Consider handing it in late: this works if the extra quality would outweigh any grade deductions. Then again, perhaps you don’t feel like that is an option. Maybe it is better to stay up late writing something average and miss enough class the next day to ensure that you’re behind in everything else too.

TWO. Vow to be better next time. This is an important step before starting any assignment. It sets the tone as one of a broken spirit (which you have) and confirms a resigned attitude of your own mediocrity (which abounds).

THREE. Go on Facebook to see what everyone else is doing. Start a conversation with a friend that you haven’t talked to in a few months. Comment on some threads expressing your disgust at the National Government or at someone’s mother’s Consumer Guarantees Act issue. Find and destroy Kony (or at least, someone with Kony as their Bejewelled Blitz username).

FOUR. Offer to cook dinner for your flatmates. Insist upon it. Really wring that tea towel of procrastination. Tell them about your essay. They’ll sympathise by saying things like “I study stuff that I love, but it’s great that you’ll have a job after uni.” Narrow your eyes.

FIVE. While writing, cast your mind elsewhere. Feel a stirring of passion for a social-justice issue that you feel the National Government is ignoring. Tweet disparagingly at firms that try to flout consumer-protection legislation. Wonder if you could have done more (or indeed, anything) to catch Kony.

SIX. Watch three episodes of Parks and Rec when unable to sleep at 3 am. Decide that you want to work in local government one day and that Hillary Clinton really is all that.

SEVEN. Get up early the next morning to edit what you’ve written. Discover that it’s complete shit and that you’re capable of something much better. Rue your footnoting the night before, which has a series of ibids below something that disappointingly reads “find someone arguing this”. Traipse to uni, with your bag riding up your skirt to display the pair of togs you are wearing as underwear. Hand it in.

EIGHT. Repeat with whatever else is due the next day.

Truly, madly, deeply,
Janet.

* The Kanye West of New Zealand case law. (Ima need to see your fucking Hansen at the concert.)

I really enjoy being this niche.

Hector:

Buenos días,

Look, you’re probably just trapped in that endless cycle of procrastination and repression that haunts us all. You’ve been there before and you’ll be there again. Let that thought comfort you as you realise: you will get there. Keep on keepin’ on, ya feel?

I, for one, love to procrastinate, and I know that Janet is the same. And then, the later things get, the lower your acceptable standard becomes. Why else do you think the questions we’re answering have been getting shorter and more general as time goes by? We just lack the personal drive to make the effort required to give good, specific advice.

Anyone can just throw out platitudes, you see. It’s a snap of the fingers to say stuff like ‘communicate more’ and ‘just get over yourself’. Hell, I might as well be writing horoscopes here. In 2010, that happened. Uther Dean wrote a horoscopes column in this very magazine. Eventually even he succumbed to the trials of long service and procrastination, and it descended into farce, routinely thrown together at the last minute in whatever way his mind saw fit. That said, I had no insight into his creative process and that last bit was pure speculation. Moving on.

Have I descended into farce? Is this nothing more than dull navel-gazing? What about the fact that roughly 90 per cent of these columns begin with “Look,”? I don’t know what I’m doing here. That’s why I’m playing Temple Run right now, with one hand on my forehead and the other hand wiping pizza crumbs from the corner of my mouth.

If in any way the above process is typical of yours, then congratulations. You’re a student. Essays are stupid things that don’t mean anything outside of the academic world, or maybe the New Yorker—which is pretty much the academic world anyway. Take it easy, you’ll do great, kid. Get a B. Repeat these words to yourself as you rock back and forth on the end of your bed, weeping only for show as you contemplate the deeper and sadder reality that you wish your degree was a Doctorate of floristry.

Stay cool shawtay,
Hector.

First off, I’d suggest sitting down and having a conversation with your boy. Why does he want to use toys? Perhaps there’s something specific he wants to try out, or maybe he wants you to have the best time possible. Or perhaps he’s just curious and wants to explore! Communication is essential when trying new sexual things, and being on the same page beforehand will make things a lot easier when you’re actually doing it.

One thing I can promise though – sex toys are not a way of cheating to get the sexual high score. Toys are a way to expand on the chemistry the two of you already have, and can open doors you never even knew existed. Positions on the Orgasmic High-Score Board are up for grabs, and there are no rules about how you get there.

To start with, try using a toy of your own by yourself. There are lots of options! A masturbation sleeve like a fleshlight (if you have a dick), a dildo or a vibrator (vaginally or anally), a butt plug, a prostate massager, or a vibrating wand (everyone seems to recommend the Hitachi one) are the main ones. You can always get more exotic later – my collection is ever-expanding.

If you have a clitoris, you might want to investigate rabbit vibrators. Different people prefer different things, but intense, direct clitoral stimulation can be pretty phenomenal.

If you have a prostate, then butt toys are a fun thing to try (protip: straight boys can enjoy their prostates too). Prostate stimulators come in a variety of forms: some vibrate, some don’t, some are angled to hit just the right spot, and some are meant to be guided more manually.

But where will you get toys from? I highly recommend the internet. You’ll find toys cheapest online with a bigger selection, as well as reviews. Plus, every online sex-toy shop I’ve ever encountered will ship the goods in plain packages, though shipping to New Zealand can occasionally be a pain. Online shopping is also good if you’re not comfortable walking into D.VICE in broad daylight.

The key points for any toys you’re putting inside yourself are to use plenty of lube and to go slowly. It’s a different, new thing, and especially if you’re using them anally it’s important to play it safe and go slow.

You can use all of these with someone else too of course, and it’s up to both of you to experiment and find new ways to use them! There are toys meant to be used as a couple, like double-ended dildos, strap-ons, and feeldoes (strapless strap-ons), and these are hopefully pretty self-explanatory. Maybe you’d like to try pegging, where you fuck a dude with a strap-on! I know a few straight boys who are super into it, and it’s becoming more common. There’s also bondage toys, if you feel like experimenting further, but there’s enough material there for several more columns!

It’s also important to think about the materials your toys are made of. Different people will have preferences, and I like metal or glass ones, because they’re easy to sterilise, will last forever, and you can do interesting things with changing their temperature. Don’t freak out about the glass breaking or anything – it’s similar to Pyrex, which is virtually indestructible. Some cheaper toys will be made of lower-quality material, so always try to find reviews and see what other people thought of them.

Water-based lube, which you can get at the supermarket, will be safe with all your toys, as well as condoms, though it will eventually dry out. It washes out of sheets too, which is practical. Silicone lube is slipperier, and lasts for much longer, so if you were planning on doing something interesting like having a butt plug in while you go about your day, or just banging your toys for ages, it can be a good option. Please please please never use silicone lube with silicone toys! It will ruin them. Likewise, if you have more than one silicone toy, store them separately as the material can interact weirdly.

If you’re using toys with more than one person, use a condom on them, unless it’s a glass or metal toy that you can sterilise. Other materials may be slightly porous and it’s not worth the risk. You should always wash your toys before and after use too; soap and warm water is fine. Infections are gross, and easy to avoid with good toy hygiene!

Best of luck with your explorations! I hope things go well for you.

x Seymour

Lux Lisbon has a new sidekick! Salient proudly presents Seymour Butts, our new resident sex columnist for 2013. Ask anonymously about bumps, sex and relationships at ask.fm/LuxAndSeymour.

So any big changes for students? Not really. If you are over 40, you are now limited to a maximum of 120 weeks (about four years of full-time study) of Student Allowance. Those over 65 will no longer receive Student Allowance at all. Labour in the few hours after the Budget has already starting spinning this as an attack on retraining. If someone starts studying for a BA at age 65, 68 when they finish, 69 if they do Honours, how likely are they to re-enter the workforce? I will let you answer that one. You may think I am a heartless bastard who doesn’t want your gran studying Classics as their retirement time-filler, but somebody has to be.

Bill English delivered the Budget in a sober, understated way. In what was a fairly forgettable budget, there were a few highlights (read, new spending), that the Government wants you to notice. There is a package to makes houses more affordable, action on child poverty (though never enough for the Greens), and rule changes for banks. Not exactly super-exciting stuff. The IRD will also be clamping down on dodgy property practices. The major bribe is that ACC levies will be reduced by 40 per cent, reducing costs for small- to medium-sized enterprises. Anything that reduces costs on business is an excellent measure. For me, it is the actual highlight of the budget.

David Shearer then got up in the house, and proceeded to make a whole bunch of terrible casino- and gambling-related jokes. The Prime Minister then wiped the floor with him, as expected. Russel Norman then made some good points about government debt. Then Winston Peters got up and began to play with a toy mouse in a small miniature treadmill. I am not joking.* I turned off the TV at this point.

Sometimes Parliament can lapse into farce. Budget day was one of those days.

——

*http://inthehouse.co.nz/node/18628

President Pete Hodkinson first won the candidacy of NZUSA in 2012, taking the reigns of it in the first year of Voluntary Student Membership. He was the first President from the polytech sector in a long time, with the role usually being tossed between ex-VUWSA and University of Auckland student presidents. NZUSA was restructured in 2011 to help cope with the reduced revenue that students’ associations were able to contribute without compulsory membership. This saw polytech students’ associations having more power, despite contributing significantly less financially than their university counterparts.

In the post-VSM environment, NZUSA performed… Well, how do you really judge the value or success of their performance in 2012? If you’re reading this and don’t know anything about them, probably pretty badly? And if you don’t know who the President is? Well, that’s probably forgivable. But what if at the end of your term as the main student advocate in New Zealand, the Minister of Tertiary Education didn’t know who you were when they met you at the Press-Gallery Christmas party? :/

When it came time to elect the President for 2013, it transpired to be not only a job that no one else wanted—but also a President no one wanted. In the first round of voting, Hodkinson lost to no-confidence. Following a tearful plea, and no doubt a ‘we can’t just not have a President’ discussion among the students’ associations, Hodkinson won the second round.

In an attempt to rectify NZUSA’s presence among students and the media, and mobilise its ‘student membership’, a central campaign committee was set up. VUWSA sits on this alongside AUSA and OUSA, and has budgeted to contribute $5000 on top of its annual $45,000 fee for NZUSA membership.

VUWSA President Rory McCourt frankly said the committee had achieved “to date, not a lot.” When asked whether students deserved better than that, he said “yes”.

Under the National Government’s watch there have been, and will continue to be, a number of drastic budget changes that affect students in a big way. If students want this situation to change, they need to let the Government know, but without a united and strong voice to stand behind, they’ll be drowned out by Joyce’s savvy press team.

Bill believes that overseas investment, a growing economy and healthy competition will allow economic goodness to trickle down over all of us (and I apologise for mentioning Bill and trickling in the same sentence). Not only is he wrong, but he’s missing the point of being in government.

Since Bill and John took over in 2008, the things that are likely to have affected you have been the rise in GST, the cuts to postgrad student allowances, the freezing of the Student Allowance threshold, and the re-implementation of youth rates. They are all examples of a Government using its power to create change, but it isn’t change for the better. People are still leaving to Australia in droves, and we still have tens of thousands of children living in poverty. In real terms, we aren’t getting better.

Bill and John can talk about improving business confidence all they please, they can say that selling our assets reduces gross national debt, but that doesn’t help you. It doesn’t help me. Government is about helping the people of our country. How has this Government helped you?

Left-wing rhetoric in New Zealand is increasingly becoming focussed on the idea of ‘hands-on government’, about using the power of government to help you, in real terms, get ahead. The NZ Power announcement is a good example. So is KiwiBuild. So is the Greens’ rent-to-buy policy. While the Government continues to talk in abstract terms about reaching the promised “brighter future” through growth and investment, the opposition are proposing policies that don’t rely on any invisible hand; they just get in there and do the work.

There is potential for the next government to break the prevailing neoliberal dialogue that has dominated economic management in New Zealand, Australia and the UK for generations. To step away from third-way politics, to escape the invisible hand, and to implement policies that make a real difference.

So, as Bill vigorously uses an invisible hand to create his own trickle-down over this Budget, the opposition is hard at work devising hands-on policy that will make things better. Come 2014, prepare for Budgets that put you back at the heart of Government policy.