I am so exhausted that I just wagged my first film in the Melbourne Film Festival.

It was a good one, too. Iranian.

I'm going to have a bit of a nap.

Update-wise, last night I saw The Way I Spent The End of The World, which was a lovely, slow, Romanian film. I then saw Sarah Silverman: Jesus is Magic, which I almost fell asleep in, which is a documentary kind of thing about Sarah Silverman, a Jewish-American comic. I think, after the Comedy Festival, I might have reached saturation point with stand-up.

Let's see how I feel about film after the six I'm seeing in a row tomorrow.

Yikes.

How's this for robust media - it's the Prime Minister's birthday! Hurrah! The fourth estate celebrates! This article actually describes, without irony, an alleged "journalist" asking a group of rowers on the Yarra this morning to sing happy birthday to the Prime Minister, John Howard, on his fabulously athletic morning walk. Presumably the footage of the rowers singing will have the jouranlist's solicit edited out of it on the television news, although possibly not - why bother? Nobody really thinks the media has a purpose anymore other than providing a huge stack of paper to wrap around the sodoku on the weekends. (Someone I worked with once asked me: "what do journalists do these days? Isn't it all press releases?")

Indeed.

Mind you, some journos are earning their wage. I have found a cleverer headline for the "Man Wins Bet, Loses Penis" article I drew your attention to previously. Click here to read the same article, this time titled: "Bet Leaves Drunk Man Willy Nilly". As I say, I did used to work in commercial radio and headlines like that maketh the radio show.

Tonight, I'm going to the opening night of the Film Festival. Tomorrow, it begins in earnest. Stay tuned for updates, reviews, complaints about the program guide, and reports on the health and wellbeing of a person who sees five films in a row and then attempts to get up and go to work in the morning.

So it's that time of year again. I cannot imagine how I'm going to find time to celebrate my birthday (AUGUST ELEVENTH) what with one thing and seventeen billion others being crammed in between here and December.

First of all, the Melbourne International Film Festival opens on Wednesday and I'm going to the opening night film, and then, every day after that, to between two to five films, in a row, at a time, between Thursday and two days after my birthday (WHICH IS AUGUST ELEVENTH).

Just for practice, I went to the movies on Saturday night, where I found myself at the end of the longest queue I have ever seen at the Nova in Carlton, which I am happy to say was the queue for an Australian film. The film was Jindabyne , which I really enjoyed (I love the Paul Kelly song and I seem to remember studying the short story and not wanting to tear it to shreds, which is high praise of course, and there were some great performances in the film). There's an Aboriginal woman who, just near the end of the film, is quite, quite brilliant. Her use of pockets is lovely.

Er, also, without being at all unprofessional about it, my friend Simon is in this film and he's ace. And if I didn't already think he was ace, I would probably still think he was ace (he does this thing in this scene at the pub which I am going to have to buy the DVD for, just in order to press pause on the exact, teensy, tiny, little moment where he gets it right). Fascinatingly, his birthday is just after my birthday, or just before, I can't remember which, but in any case it somewhere around the vicinity of my birthday (AUGUST ELEVENTH), which of course is also an important reason to go and see Jindabyne.

Anyway, Crime and Punishment is still tormenting me but I am no further into it despite reading it for what feels like nine months. Hopefully I will be finished by my birthday which is on AUGUST ELEVENTH in case there was some lack of clarity surrounding that issue.

So Bleak House (Sunday nights, ABC, after the nature show omigod how cool are Sundays) has been the light house in the dark fog that is Crime and Punishment - goodness the Dickensian intrigue is almost too much to stand! The possibility that everyone is related to everybody else and that fortunes could change in the slip of a gene pool is just tantalising. Makes me think I should have read the book. Oh well. Who has time for that?

... Which is the logic behind the fact that I have also started listening to Mao's Last Dancer as an audio book while I attempt to tidy my bedroom/wake up in the mornings/establish some kind of existence for myself in the pre-coffee hours of the day. So far it's really great, although it's confusing when you watch Bleak House , read Crime and Punishment and listen to Mao's Last Dancer all in the same half a day on the weekend. By the end of it you feel like a Chinese woman with bound feet and a fortune that may or may not be yours who has just murdered someone. Yeesh.

So, August eleven, did we get that down? Birthday songs, poems, odes, and arias will be gratefully received between now and August 12th (although those on August 12th will be accepted with some degree of haughty disdain). iPods will also be accepted, as will apple crumble, frisbees, warm knitted gloves, or brightly coloured wigs.

Also, she doesn't read blogs, but get well Grandma.

I wonder if the people next door have some kind of surveillance system set up outside my house. It wouldn't be difficult, because the (empty) house next door towers over my living room (which is also my office) and there must be someone there with a camera, or at the very least a pair of binoculars, waiting for me to stop doing the "other" jobs on my list, pour myself a cup of tea, and settle down to write.

That must be what happens. Otherwise, how would they know the exact moment to turn on their noise making machine to the EXTREMELY LOUD setting and then shout over the top of it to each other in angry voices for hours on end about exactly what to do next?

Coldest morning since 2002 or something this morning. They reported in the paper that it was particularly chilly in a place called Coldstream. Well, honestly.

Up to part five of Crime and Punishment . Thought last night that in books such as this one there should be encouragements along the way ("nearly there!" and "the ending is worth it!" etc). Perhaps a graded system ("you are now 80% more likely to say something clever at a dinner party", or "congratulations, you are now 20 pages further into this book than most people").

I am going to be so smug when I finish this book.

Last year on all my feedback forms for the Melbourne International Film Festival, I wrote how much I adored the experience, and I also wrote, in huge block letters across the bottom of the form YOUR BOOKING PROCESS IS IMPOSSIBLE AND YOUR PROGRAM IS INFURIATING.

Having spent the last hour (my lunch hour) online, and having spent my Monday lunch hour with two copies of the MIFF guide spread out on the office lunch table, I can honestly say that this booking procedure has become an epic journey akin to the book I'm reading, the aptly titled Crime and Punishment . Many things have happened to me during my journey - I have made friends (very nice girl on the end of the MIFF phone), I've made enemies (Stewart was in the room when I was attempting to book the other day, and I'm not sure we're on speaking terms quite yet) and I've learned many things about the struggle of mankind along the way.

The main thing I've learned? If you're booking tickets for MIFF, I advise you to physically walk into the Forum office, stand in a queue and list the films you want to see, without worrying how you're holding everyone up, and make sure you look over the shoulder of the young funky kid who types them in. I learn this every year, but that doesn't stop me hoping that one day, somewhere, someone will take note of my crooked scrawl on the feedback form: BOOKING TICKETS FOR YOUR FESTIVAL FEELS LIKE PUNISHMENT AND COULD POTENTIALLY INCITE CRIME. MUCH LIKE THE NOVEL CRIME AND PUNISHMENT IN MANY WAYS, ALTHOUGH WITH TRACES OF ROGER HARGRAVES' WORK (MR GRUMPY AND LITTLE MISS FURIOUS COME TO MIND).

I remain hopeful that this feedback will one day change the world. These films had better be good.

Another story they will probably base a film on here. Actually, a film about being arrested for procrastinating is very firmly in the realm of horror for me. Or biography.

Anyway, Lord it's cold. I'm going to bed to finish this Crime and Punishment caper. Or, you know, to finish the next billion pages and still not be anywhere near the end.

I know he's a genius and all but he would never get funding in this country - I can imagine the notes. "Where's this going exactly? What's the "message"? Describe the "arc". Also, "what's the market, exactly?"

"We suggest you get an editor".

I'm thinking I should move to one of those European countries where they pay you A WAGE to write, no matter what they think of your writing. Sure, I'll have to learn another language and work out how to write eloquently in it, but surely that's the sort of thing you just pick up, right?

I was talking to Tommy today, who is booking a flight overseas.

I'm not sure if I'm imagining things or if there are an awful lot of people going overseas at the moment.

I started wondering where I could go, without destablising myself financially, that would be the perfect holiday.

I was thinking of a place that I'd read about. It was on the tip of my tongue. I knew it - I could picture it - and I knew I'd always wanted to be there. I knew it would make me feel that perfect mixture of cosy and also excited by the endless possibilities presenting themselves.

I got frustrated by not being able to bring it immediately to mind. I thought, "come ON... where am I thinking of?"

I realised as I was getting the lift up to the Victoria Law Foundation that I was in fact thinking of The Faraway Tree.

Bugger. See here for a dry description of a place I briefly suspected I might be able to book a flight to.

Instead of taking nineteen days off for the Melbourne International Film Festival, I feel I should take around thirty days off, merely in order to understand how to read their programme and book the films in the first place.

Here's what you do: the films are in sections. You read about them in their sections.

Fair enough so far.

BUT... you get to the bottom of the description of the film and you think "That sounds interesting" and you look for more details. BUT NO! The session times are elsewhere. So. You find the session times for the films. You think, "Well I'm free at seven on the Friday. I wonder what that film is about?" You look for the page number of the description of the film. It's on another page. THE PAGE NUMBER IS ON ANOTHER PAGE. In alphabetical order of the names of the films. In impossibly tiny print. It's midnight. You've been looking at this godforsaken thing for the last three hours. You wonder if maybe you shouldn't just get the box set of The West Wing and sit down with that for three weeks. Seriously, I've done law exams that were less stressful.

I've said my piece. Your programme sucks.

Having said that, I am gagging for the festival and am so far seeing the following films (click on the links for info):

Grbavica

The Hawk Is Dying

Thank You For Smoking


Summer 04

The Way I Spent The End Of The World

Taxidermia

Crimson Gold

Sarah Silverman: Jesus Is Magic

A Scanner Darkly

You're Gonna Miss Me

Em 4 Jay (this one is made in Victoria)

That covers the first three days. It took me almost two days to organise. No kidding.

Remind me to get a flu shot.

PS. Apparently it has been established that Popcorn is in fact a food group, which is excellent news and now all I have to do is figure out how to get orange juice or Earl Grey tea on a drip.

Reasons why it is okay to love Johnny Depp despite the fact that Pirates of The Carribean II stars Keira Knightley who we cannot abide, and includes a positively archaic "mad, kwazy, unkempt black people" subplot...

1. He makes the wearing of eyeliner and heavy jewellery combined with a lack of personal hygiene a not wholly unattractive thing in a man (apologies to any role-players amongst us).

2. He makes Orlando Bloom look like a chump in a silly shirt.

3. He is responsible for me leaving a film starring Keira Knightley without the temptation to actually write to her agent and complain.

4. He said the following about the making of Charlie the Chocolate Factory : "We had been shooting Charlie for about a month, and I was beginning to get nervous because there weren't any phone calls. I called my agent and asked, Has no one called from the studio to complain or say, 'Hey, what's he doing?' or 'Hey, he's freaking us out?' And when she said no, I thought, 'Christ, I'm not doing enough! Something's wrong!' Then some of the studio brass came over to the set, and they were sitting in my trailer and I was all decked out as Wonka with the little bangs. And I just had to know. So I said, 'Okay, who was the first one, when you started seeing the dailies, that got a little worried?' And there was this beautiful 30-second silence. And [Warner Bros. president] Alan Horn finally said, 'Yeah, that was me.' I felt better instantly.

5. He also said: "America is dumb. It's like a dumb puppy that has big teeth that can bite and hurt you, aggressive. My daughter is four, my boy is one. I'd like them to see America as a toy, a broken toy. Investigate it a little, check it out, get this feeling and then get out." ... And he then managed to clarify this position without unsaying any of it.

6. His "I am escaping from hoards of people who are trying to kill me" run. Hilarious. On par with scenes of Jacques Tati sprinting after his bicycle in the French countryside in every movie he ever made.

7. From my reliable source (the internet) I have gleaned the following: he wanted some of his teeth to be gold-capped for Pirates of the Caribbean but knew that the directors would never agree, so he went out and got lots more than he wanted capped. He then showed the directors, and they decided to make him give up a few, so he got some taken off.

8. He has a fan website called "deppimpact". Quality.

That will do. Lots of work to do today and that doesn't even include picking which films I'm seeing at the Film Festival. Guide to Melbourne International Film Festival out today by the way. Mind boggling.

I didn't write anything here yesterday because I was trying to capitalise on the sudden inspiration I had for writing the next Standing There Productions script.

I proved yet again for myself, in other words, that William Faulkner was right when he said, "The work never matches the dream of perfection the artist has to start with". So true, Willie, so true. See, last night, I was robbed. During the night someone broke into my house and changed yesterday's brilliant writing into turgid, repetitive, pointless tripe. It was such a mess when I got in here this morning. They totally trashed the place. I hate it when those guys break in. It's happened before. You feel so... violated.

Anyway, while I was looking up the Faulkner quote, which I had of course remembered incorrectly, I found the following quote: "I never want to see anyone, and I never want to go anywhere or do anything. I just want to write." - P. G. Wodehouse.

That depresses me, because it's kind of true. And it's kind of not. The idea of a writer as an obsessive is, I hope, an overly-romanticised "mad artist" stereotype. But there is some truth to the fact that sometimes, even if you're going to a very close friend's wedding or something... you look up at the time and you realise it's half an hour before you're supposed to be there and you're still in your pyjamas but you're seriously getting somewhere with this script - you've rediscovered what it should actually be about - and suddenly it really weighs on you that you have to go to this DUMB WEDDING of your DUMB FRIEND (who is among your favourite people in the world the rest of the time but who now symbolises a selfish and demanding distraction). You're furious. You're late. You throw down your pen and swear at the computer when it takes too long to shut down. You can't find your shoes. You wonder why shoes were even invented. What is the point of shoes? Cavemen didn't need them, and now we have footpaths and everything so why are people so silly? Why do I have to stop writing just so I can go to see a ceremony celebrating some weird social union of two people who live together anyway, with two high-heeled leather bits strapped to the soles of my feet? It's just so bizarre.

The world turns really nasty for that small interval between enjoying writing and being sociable. I always have fun when I get to these things, and more often than not I am late to or absent from things I regret not attending. But it's a battle between the part of me that wants a social life and adores the people in my life and the part of me that wants to be locked in a quiet room with an endless supply of tea and recycled paper and maybe ocassionally a newspaper.

By the way, in case you're trying to find significance that isn't there, the above is a hypothetical situation. I have been to three weddings, and none of them has engendered in me the response described above, which is why I used that example. So shut up please.

In other news, I'm up to part two of Crime and Punishment , which really is somewhat of a corker. Dostoevsky apparently wrote quickly and obsessively but perhaps not just in a fervour of creativity. He was a serious gambler, which adds another urgency when you're writing for money (I imagine).

In fact, I would like to nominate Dostoevsky as the perfect contestant to spice up a reality TV show like Big Brother. Most banal TV show in the world, present sexual assault aside, but if you put someone on it whose father was apparently killed by his own servants, whose membership of the socialist party resulted in him being sentenced to death but then they said "Ha! Tricked you!" after the "mock execution" and shipped him off to do hard labour for four years in Siberia... I bet Channel Ten would get better ratings. He had an affair with his dead friend's wife and then married her, everyone in his life died at once leaving him with their debts and he was addicted to gambling and kind of a bit loony and Russian and cold and depressed. Perfect!

Put him in the Big Brother House. Go on. Maybe him with that pope who turned out to be a woman. Oh. Just looked that up on the internet and apparently that's very possibly not true. Bummer. It worked so well in Caryl Churchill's Top Girls. And it would make for much better television than, you know, drunken fratboy sexual assault.