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Recently, I have been rewatching Curb Your Enthusiasm , a show I adore. Larry David, like me, prides himself on his spiteful nature – so much so that in one episode he opens a “spite store” called Latte Larry’s, after he is banned from Mocha Joe’s coffee shop. However, I’m questioning my willingness to hold grudges.

According to my father, I was born “with spite running through my blood”. My Nonno – another Robert – is legendary in my family for having always found motivation by his desire to prove people wrong. After moving to Adelaide from Italy when he was very young, he worked for years in construction before quitting and starting his own company, which is still running.



Before he passed away, he told us how he had disagreed with how previous employers paid him and the other workers and lied about being “Australian made,” despite importing products from China. He merrily acknowledged that he started the company “out of spite”. Spite has long motivated Larry David’s character on Curb Your Enthusiasm, but it’s not a healthy way to view the world.

Credit: AP In my late teens, I started writing articles for a movie website based in Los Angeles. I would write during class time, and sometimes over recess or lunch. The website didn’t pay me, but I wanted to impress the editor, as he also worked for The Hollywood Reporter .

After a while, I pitched him the idea of presenting news stories as bite-sized videos to appeal to Twitter and Instagram use.

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