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BooksJanuary 21, 2019

Papercuts: The bumper summer reads pod!

papercuts

Welcome back to Papercuts, our monthly books podcast hosted by Louisa Kasza, Jenna Todd and Kiran Dass.

It’s 2019 and we’ve been reading like mad over the summer break. In this episode we talk about reading resolutions, predict the Ockhams longlist, go through our summer reading piles, talk Marie Kondo’s approach to hoarding books, and much more!

You can email us at papercutspod@gmail.com, follow us on Twitter @papercutspod and we are now on Instagram @PapercutsPod!

Thanks to The Spinoff for having us and to the Matatuhi Foundation for their support.

To listen use the player below or download this episode (right click and save). Feel free to subscribe via iTunes, RSS or via your favourite podcast client. Follow our twitter @papercutspod.

DISCUSSED IN THIS PODCAST:

Book news

Matatuhi Foundation Funding

Costa Book Prize Winners

Novel –
Normal People by Sally Rooney

First Book –
The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton

Biography –
The Cut Out Girl by Bart Van Es

Poety –
Assurances by Jo Morgan

Kids’ book –
The Skylark’s War by Hilary Mckay

Ockhams NZ Book Awards

Longlist announced 31st January

Unity Book of the Month:

In the City of Love’s Sleep by Lavinia Greenlaw

Book reviews/Summer reads

Louisa:

Less by Andrew Sean Greer

Cassandra at the Wedding by Dorothy Baker

Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov

A Ladder to the Sky by John Boyne

Never Anyone but You by Rupert Thompson

The Pisces by Melissa Broder

An Evening in Paradise by Lucia Berlin

Jenna:

Milkman by Anna Burns

Less by Andrew Sean Greer

The Vegetarian by Han Kang

Fear of Flying by Erica Jong

Kiran:

Paradise Rot by Jenny Hval

For the Good Times by David Keenan

England’s Hidden Reverse by David Keenan

The Importance of Music to Girls by Lavinia Greenlaw
 

Who the fuck is…

Marie Kondo

Not Books

Schitt’s Creek

Derry Girls

Bros: After the Screaming Stops

Keep going!
Image: Pixabay
Image: Pixabay

BooksJanuary 21, 2019

Flies! Ugh. The plague of summer. Here’s how to kill them without toxins

Image: Pixabay
Image: Pixabay

Wendyl Nissen, in an extract from her new book of household tips, advises natural ways to kill the worst thing about summer – flies.

Flies drive me absolutely nuts and, unfortunately, with hens come flies. Up north the flies are especially bad in the heat of March and I must confess that after putting out bowls of lavender oil and slathering myself in it, they still come back for more and I end up, shamefully, spraying the little buggers with fly spray. But I only do it twice a day: once first thing in the morning and then at night when they have all retired to the ceiling. I know how not-nana that is. I also use a really cool chain fly curtain on my front door, which really helps keep them out of the house.

I do know that certain essential oils repel flies – citronella is one, as are lavender and eucalyptus. But you have to put a lot of it out and get it into the air somehow. Oil burners are one way, spraying it around is another or you could leave it in lots of little bowls around the house. You can wipe it on surfaces, or light incense. In my experience it takes a hell of a lot of essential oils to make a fly think twice. I know this because one hot summer’s afternoon the kitchen was full of flies and Paul and I were making a huge batch of my lavender laundry liquid. When we do this the whole house takes on the odour of lavender oil and it’s actually very soothing.

“Look, no flies,” I said to Paul after about 10 minutes.

They had all disappeared. But we had also gone through about 100 ml lavender oil while making our laundry liquid.

I’ve had marginal success with soaking ribbons in lavender or citronella oil and then hanging them up from lampshades and in open doorways, but they last for about half an hour and then the flies come back.

A fly. Image: Pixabay

I do have a recipe for an outdoor fly trap (see below) that seems to keep them away, and there’s good old fly-paper like Nana used to make. When I tried it the flies got caught alright but I found myself just a little bit too much of a modern miss to enjoy seeing bits of sticky paper stuck with dead flies hanging in my kitchen. You can buy rolls of fly paper at the hardware store and they do work a treat, but it’s up to you whether you can bear the sight of dead flies hanging about in your kitchen.

My mother tells me that when she was a child they had a gecko that lived in their kitchen on a string suspended across the ceiling. His job was to catch flies and that’s what he did. My house is mad enough already with chickens, cats and dogs running about, I just don’t need a pet lizard – especially one that might climb down and into my bed.

Nana also would have used a fly swat. I can remember as a child watching adults who were rather adept with the old swat and then feeling vaguely ill as they hung it back up on the wall, still smeared with the remains of dead flies.

I’ve also bought one of those electric tennis racket fly swats that zaps the fly when you hit it, but who has the time to run around swatting flies? I had hoped the kids might like it, but after one day of fly killing it was discarded into the cupboard.

In recent years, pyrethrum sprays have come on the market and these do work. They are aerosol cans that you set and they spurt out a spray of supposedly natural fly deterrent every few minutes. I used one for a while until I realised that while pyrethrum is natural, it’s still a toxin – and it’s toxic to flies but also bees, fish, pets and us. Then I looked at the chemicals they add to the pyrethrum to get it to spray and suspend in the air. I came home from that research trip, walked into the house, picked up the can and threw it in the bin, much to Paul’s annoyance.

Wendyl’s safe fly spray

8 ml citronella oil

2 tsp washing-up liquid

1 tbsp methylated spirits

2 tbsp white vinegar

150 ml strong tea

850 ml water

Mix together the citronella oil, washing-up liquid, methylated spirits, vinegar and tea, then add the water. Pour into a spray bottle and set the nozzle to release a reasonably concentrated spray. You can also spray this on your skin as an insect repellent.

Fly paper

¼ cup golden syrup

½ cup sugar

Combine the ingredients in a bowl and then paint or spread the mixture on long strips of brown paper. Leave to dry on a tray and then hang where flies are a problem.

Outdoor fly trap

Mix some blood and bone with water and put in the bottom of a plastic bag. Seal the top and then poke a few holes in it, just large enough for a fly to get in. Hang from a tree and wait for the blood and bone to go off. Make sure it is hanging a long way from the house!

The Natural Home: Tips, ideas and recipes for a sustainable life by Wendyl Nissen (Allen & Unwin, $39.99) is available from Unity Books.

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