Tony Love: A portrait in shopping lists

My favourite colleague, subeditor Tony, who is perhaps the fastest and most accurate subeditor on the planet, turns 50 today.

I have decided to commemorate this milestone with a portrait in shopping lists.

Yes, shopping lists, for Tony Love's shopping lists fascinate me. I have collected some of the ones he has finished with. Not by stalking him and rummaging in the skip outside his apartment, mind; no no.

No. For like so much else this generous man gives, subeditor Tony gives freely of his old shopping lists on tatty company newsprint.

What I like about them is they speak so loudly of my friend (himself known for speaking loudly), and in so few words. As simple as haiku, they yet have something of the limerick about them. There once was a journo named Tony, who could not abide macaroni...

It's true, he does not like pasta. You will see he has not strayed far from the New Zealand diet of the 1960s, of meat and veges, on which he grew up.

Which is not to say subeditor Tony is unwilling to try new things. Mandarins appear for the first time in list #10, because he only recently discovered them. Also, he has taken to going to the Otago Farmers Market on Saturday mornings, where he regularly buys Mrs Harris' manoosh, a Lebanese flatbread with herbs.

Such things notwithstanding, his shopping lists speak of a traditional bachelor's life that involves simple, carnal needs and wants. They are alien to my own long and detailed lists concerned with ethics and nutrition; perhaps another reason his fascinate me so.

Twelve shopping lists follow, but first, a few notes on abbreviations and the like.

M/R means mush/rooms, R/B means rubbish/bags, TP means toilet paper, an exclamation mark means "I'm desperate; I'm really badly out," rolls means bread rolls, and papers, lamentably, means cigarette papers.

CJ means cranberry juice. It first appears in list #9, which is after Tony's doctor insisted he cut back on the booze. None of the earlier lists even mention beer because, a younger and more reckless Tony told me, "That's a given."

This, incidentally, is why list #9 is so compelling: it features beer, Sprite and cranberry juice, hinting at the author's great personal struggle to adapt to a healthier regime. To think such drama, such pathos could be found in a shopping list.

Here's to your health, birthday boy.

1. Corn chips, butter, oranges.

2. Savouries, bacon.

3. Chips, washing powder, meat.

4. Milk, coffee.

5. Corn chips, rubbish bags, beef olives, crackers, rolls, Quick-eze, oranges.

6. Milk! Rubbish bags! Meat.

7. Toms, crackers, Sprite.

8. Onions, wine, papers.

9. Beer, Sprite, papers, CJ, M/R.

10. Frozen beans, CJ, mandarins, carrots, onions.

11. TP, butter, wine, CJ.

12. Crackers, R/B, carrots, CJ.