For two weeks I’ve been testing the MacBook Air. I’m looking for the electronic equivalent of a pencil and notepad: a robust computer with a full-size keyboard that’s portable enough for days when all I want is word processing and internet access—the kind of tool that means I can work on my novel without lugging around the sumo wrestler that is my Toshiba P20 laptop. The MacBook Air has a lot going for it. I tested the 1.8GHz model with 2GB of memory and a 64GB solid-state drive. Like all Apple products, even the packaging is worthy of a Japanese wedding gift, and the Air feels built to last (although, of course, Apple has been taking flak lately, with consumer groups complaining about design flaws in many products—a disadvantage of outsourcing your manufacturing). Pros: The backlit keyboard’s ambient light sensor adjusts automatically, making the Air perfect for use on a long flight. Battery life is excellent; I worked on it for four- and five-hour stretches and the charge never dropped much below 50%. The keyboard is responsive and solid and, although the Air is extraordinarily light (1.36kg), this notebook can stand some knocks. With the entire case acting as a heat-sink, Apple seems to have cooling sorted; a major bugbear on the Tosh. Although there’s no DVD drive, link wirelessly to the drive of your Mac or Windows PC and you can synch files and install software. Cons: The all-metal case and trackpad remain cold to the touch, so starting work on cold winter mornings is disagreeable. The single USB slot is undercover in the base and the hinge doesn’t open wide enough to plug in many designs of key drive. The keyboard lacks Home, PgUp, PgDn and End keys, so if you’re familiar with PCs and can’t be bothered learning a bunch of new shortcuts, navigating around documents will be slow. Apparently even a solid state hard drive can only take a limited number of read-write cycles before it expires. And, oh yeah, I don’t have NZ$5139.

I've just done my weekly shopping and, yes, everything is more expensive. A half a kilo of tasty cheddar for $10? Unbelievable really. Rice is up, flour is up, my Dad even balked at the price of potatoes.

But there is one way to keep your grocery bill down ... cleanskins! $7.99 at Foodtown for a perfectly serviceable Hawke's Bay Chardonnay? Stick your cheese.

I also got a tyre changed while I was out. According to the guy in the tyre bay: China is collapsing but nobody wants to talk about it ahead of the Olympics; Labour will be a minor party after the election; Michael Cullen should have just let Toll's NZ railway business go broke and bought the assets for a song - like any good capitalist; the country's in deep shit; and much more.

What the well-dressed head of state is wearing this season: this is Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany, at the inauguration of Oslo’s new opera house earlier this month. “It’s a highlight in the history of European architecture,” she told reporters.

If you're envious of what other people own in Second Life, is that avatarice?

This will be good – Poneke has announced that he will post the text of his talk to the Skeptics conference four years ago on how the media treats medical issues, ie whether science-based medicine is treated the same way as alternative medicine. Guess what? It isn’t.

The post is solid at 2500 words and will come on Sunday. I regard Poneke as the finest journalist of his (my) generation, so this really is something to look forward to. Watch that space.

There was a great item last night on Concert FM’s Sound Lounge about Morton Feldman, my new favourite uneasy listening composer. He was active from the 50s to the 80s, and was friends with key New York painters such as Franz Kline, Philip Guston and Jackson Pollock: one of his best-known pieces is called The Rothko Chapel. He told a great story – it was wonderful to hear his voice, and John Cage’s and all the others’ – about his teacher, Stefan Wolpe, a Marxist, telling him that his music was too esoteric. They were talking about this in Wolpe’s studio on Fourteenth Street, then a working-class area. “What about the man on the street?” demanded Wolpe. As they looked out the window they saw Jackson Pollock crossing the street.

If you have any interest in contemporary music, don’t miss the second instalment next Tuesday.

There’s a thorough 2006 overview of Feldman by the estimable Alex Ross here, and follow-ups here and here. Feldman’s music is surprisingly easy to check out online and download: many pieces are on iTunes, eMusic and even Amazon. The Rothko Chapel is probably a good place to start – Ross calls it “one of the masterpieces of the twentieth century”.

And he looks a bit like Jermaine Clements.

This set of cartograms maps the world as seen through the eyes of print and online editors. The Economist and Slate come out of it best.

Tim Blair is having a laugh with this story from the Herald about an alleged assault with a deadly hedgehog: Psycho Quiller.

In the comments:

I will admit that as a weapon, the aerodynamic hedgehog has its advantages over the overly clingy echidna, but in my experience, you only have to show the average NZer the poisonous spurs of the platypus, and they will put down their Erinaceinae and leave you in peace.