It's OK to be mediocre. In fact, it's good to suck at something

IF YOU'RE going to write a book about sucking, you need to be qualified. A unique area of speciality, but Karen Rinaldi - by all accounts a successful writer and publisher - is well-suited.

She's a passionate surfer whose skills, which are not expected to improve significantly, might generously be called "mediocre".

"I'm not in that honeymoon period of surfing when I'm trying it out, seeing if I'll get the hang of it, romancing it," she writes in her new book, (It's Great To) Suck At Something. "By any objective measure, it's a big part of my life, and has been for a while. ... And - I still suck at surfing. But I love it. I think, in its way, it loves me back."

That total, nonsensical dedication is key to Ms Rinaldi's campaign to get us to try something new - something that won't make us more productive, pull in the big bucks or prompt …