This column first appeared in the Sunday Times (here) on Sunday 21st May 2023. PULLING THE PLUG – By Paige Nick I’m in a hotel. Not the kind you’re probably picturing on hearing that. I don’t want to mislead you. There are different kinds of hotels. This one is a cheap airport hotel, in a…
Co-cogitating: the perils and pluses
This column first appeared in The Sunday Times, here on 16th April 2023. Are you married? Cohabitating? Procrea-habitating, bickerating or just having a roomiemance? Call it whatever you want, when Gwyneth and Chris Paltrow consciously uncoupled, they changed relationship dialect forever. And if you’re single, you’re probably on your way out the door, but stick…
Fun-knee
This column first appeared in The Sunday Times on 28 March 2021. I used to believe that there was something funny to be found in any situation. Which is a useful view to hold when you’re a humour writer. But now I’m not so sure. A few weeks ago, I had surgery on my knee,…
Truth is stranger than fiction, not sexier
This column first appeared here in The Sunday Times on 13th December, 2020. THE BOYFRIEND STACK – By Paige Nick There’s a wall in our family home, filled by my father edge-to-edge with photos of us. My siblings, their spouses and children; playing sport, celebrating milestones, catching fish, growing up too fast. Since I choose…
How to NOT write a book in 30 days.
This column first appeared here in the Sunday Times on Sunday 23rd November, 2020. How to NOT write a book in 30 days – By Paige Nick There’s a lot of writing advice out there. I just rewrote that first line seven times based on two tips I came across earlier: ‘Keep your opening line…
Activism in black and white
This column first appeared here in the Sunday Times on Woman’s Day, 9th August 2020. ACTIVISM IN BLACK AND WHITE – By Paige Nick “Post your top ten this-thats or your favourite what-nots, or eleventy album covers, no explanation, no captions.” Surely this blurb, which gets copied and pasted onto all of these posts, is…
Personally, I don’t give a FAQ
This column first appeared in Sunday Times on 12th July 2020. https://www.timeslive.co.za/sunday-times/lifestyle/2020-07-12-the-questions-we-really-should-be-asking-on-job-interviews-but-dont/ ‘Frequently Asked Questions’, or because I’m a little rude, as I like to call them, ‘FAQs’, is a relatively new acronym, coined by NASA at the start of internet times. But we were actually asking the original Frequently Asked Questions way before the…
Bone of Contention
This column first appeared here, in the Sunday Times on 21st June 2020. A while ago, I found a lump under my right breast. Wait, don’t go, I swear you’re safe, this column isn’t going where you think it’s going. I was living in a foreign country at the time. The kind of foreign where…
URANUS IS IN RETROGRADE
This column first appeared here in the Sunday Times on 14th June 2020. URANUS IS IN RETROGRADE – By Paige Nick Astrology is beneath me. I mean that literally, not figuratively. See, it’s right there, beneath this column. Every Sunday, my guy and I perform the exact same one-act play. I even know the script…
Storytelling. The end.
This column first appeared here in The Sunday Times on 7th June 2020.