That was my lot last week trying to explain boarding school to my 7-year-old grandson.
I am not sure what led to our discussion, but he certainly found the concept of people sending their children to live away from home and only returning for holidays hard to grasp.
Our talk included uniforms and the special one we wore for travelling home for holidays and to church.
Maybe that was prompted by the razzamatazz around the carefully tailored launch of the snazzy new Air New Zealand uniforms.
It was a triumph for the airline’s public relations machine.
None of the coverage I saw outlined where garments would be made.
Predominantly in China, the airline told me, "for scale and expertise, but some items, like the hat and tie" will be made here.
Wool to be used in some garments will not be from New Zealand. Since the government, which has a majority share in this airline, was professing its support for our wool industry around the time of the launch, this is not a great look.
(Incidentally, nobody would have thought of plonking me on a tussocky hilltop for 360-degree publicity shots of my bulky kilt, blazer and bowtie travel combo. My bursting-at-the-seams- dandruff-strewn-unmade-bed style of uniform wearing was never a good advertisement for Nelson College for Girls.)
I am still not sure how much my grandson understands about boarding school. His reading material, unlike mine, has not bombarded him with fanciful English stories about jolly japes in the dorm, midnight feasts, and girls being sent to Coventry over some misunderstanding we might now recognise as bullying.
It doesn’t much matter he has already made up his mind on boarding school on the basis of our brief chat.
There are, however, issues which should be given more careful thought before we make pronouncements on them, particularly in public.
Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters recently referred to what he called the "hyperactive social media age we live in" which he said could generate an urge to react too quickly and too stridently.
He talked about the tendency to hype up a debate into a black-and-white, polarising issue which could be unfortunate and misguided.
Sometimes language used could come across as hysterical and short-sighted.
Of course, he was talking about the need for calm over the United States tariffs’ saga and having a dig at the Prime Minister in the process, but it is a pity he does not apply this thinking to many of his own outbursts.
He is the master of reacting too quickly and stridently on almost anything, the latest being the issue of Green MP Benjamin Doyle’s posts on a private social media account which included photos of Doyle and their child.
Mr Peters, possibly because his traditional blue-rinse supporters are slowly dying out, seems keen to leap on any "anti" bandwagon he thinks might drag in a few more votes. It is desperate stuff. It is also potentially dangerous, given, as he has told us, the hyperactive social media age we live in.
Doyle has said they were politically naive about not taking down the account, as suggested by the party when they were a candidate because it was thought it could expose Doyle to homophobia. As was pointed out, who could have anticipated controversy over this would have led to multiple death threats?
Doyle has explained the use of the term "Bussy Galore" was a nickname and a pun on Pussy Galore, the character from the James Bond movie Goldfinger.
Whatever anyone might think about the use of the word bussy, a slang term used by some in the queer community, is it ever easy to understand someone else’s nicknames or group/family in-jokes?
One of my own children has been saddled with a nickname which some may have assumed has something to do with a slang term for urinating. In fact, it was an abbreviation of my silly baby talk to him which went "wizzy-da-gizzy-da-gizzy-da-guy".
Nobody’s threatened to kill me over that. Yet.
Doyle has been careful not to rail against Mr Peters, offering to meet him.
But Mr Peters would have none of that, saying Doyle could speak "directly to the police and all those international bodies that are concerned at these sort of posts".
There has been no comment from police about whether they are investigating anything.
When there is increasing concern about the dangers from the vitriol faced by people in all walks of public life, it is time all our politicians, including Mr Peters, set a good example by avoiding ramping up the heat with headline-seeking, hysterical and deliberately polarising utterances.
• Elspeth McLean is a Dunedin writer.
