I have to confess that I haven't exactly followed the AWB story, except that it has apparently cost tens of millions of dollars and it sounds mega boring (I mean, "wheat" and "Iraq" are not the most entertaining words to google, are they?).

But a couple of emails were read out in court today discussing how AWB money was being spent. One of the emails detailed how trenches were being built in order to "bury the Kurds under the cement". Oddly, nobody can remember ever seeing such an email (I know I'd probably forget that kind of thing). Despite the fact that one bloke burst into tears and had to be comforted by his wife, pretty much everyone else appears to be attending court in a fog of amnesia.

It will be interesting to see if the AWB folk suddenly start remembering things when they're threatened with charges of terrorism. If you search "terror" and "wheat" and "Iraq" and "links to Government" on google, it gets a bit more interesting, is all I'm saying.

Also announced today (and also something that would usually bore the pants right off me) is the fact that Australians owe a trillion dollars in personal debts (credit cards and houses and stuff). Being a bit mathematically retarded, I kind of don't really know if a trillion is a lot. I mean I know it's a lot for, you know, an icecream. Or rollerskates. But is it a lot for household debt?

Well apparently it is. Apparently it's our GDP. Apparently we OWE our own GDP.

Good on us.

Anyhoo, that's my attempt to comprehend two of the more dense stories in the news today. I'll leave you to struggle on without me on matters such as what Kylie's "vowing" to wear in her upcoming concert, or how "worrying" it might be that sport is being played in one State rather than in the other.

I do, however, feel compelled (against my better judgement and might I say everything I stand for) to whoop enthusiastically along the following lines: "Go Swans!"

(It's not me. It's Rita. It was that, or change the colours on the entire website to red and white. I've done what I can and I will struggle to regain my dignity in the coming weeks).

Have a good weekend, Rits.

Hello weirdly warm day.

Hello draft two of script.

Hello procrastination.

Check out this, ladies. You can sign up for free emails telling you how to "be your best with men". Check out the testimonial on the top. After making herself "less available" to her boyfriend, one woman's boyfriend responded by proposing!

How wonderful!

Aren't grown-ups sophisticated?

In other news, I officially dislike Anais Ninn, for reasons not unrelated to my disdain for the above link. Somewhere in Brunswick there is some heartfelt grafitti that declares something along the lines of "I want to love like Anais Ninn - passionately but on the surface of things", which of course means nothing, but which helps to clarify my position in relation to flowery, over-written sentences about women not quite understanding their own sexuality. I've decided to read back-issues of The New Yorker for a while.

That's my fairly grumpy update. I've been going to gym classes and my bones hurt. Most interesting to me that human beings pay money to be shouted at by other (considerably fitter) human beings until they can barely breathe and are desperate for a donught.

Speaking of which... I think a morning coffee is in order.

This is my second (or third) sporting update in as many days. Unusual.

If this one makes no sense, however, it is because I am concussed.

This afternoon, turning my head back over my shoulder to discover that the tram I was about to catch was rapidly approaching the stop, I accelerated (with great force) into a telephone pole, face first.

It was ludicrously painful. For a while, I held my soaking face (tears were pouring down my face, blood was flooding from my nose) and tried to regain my composure. As far as sporting injuries go, sprinting into a pole in front of a park full of picnicking Young People (Edinburgh Gardens) is really not the most heroic way to bruise.

After my embarassment died down, my fear set in. I've looked up "concussion" on the web, and it says that if one pupil is bigger than the other and you have a headache and feel dizzy and your eyes hurt... you're concussed. Anyway so I looked in the mirror and I have one TEENSY pupil and one MASSIVE pupil that has staged a coup over the rest of my eye.

I'm convinced I'm in extreme danger of expiring overnight from a sporting injury caused by my being late. What a fitting way to go.

Anyone who knew me three years ago will surely not forget the "mysterious illness" I contracted when I was directing rehearsals of the Standing There Productions stage show, People Watching.

If you remember that, then you will also remember the relentless hilarity that ensued when the mysterious illness was given a name.

Now, it isn't often that my ears prick up during the sport (frisbee not being a televised event). It is, however, with enormous sympathy that I note the slap face epidemic in the Crows AFL team.

Slap face. Slapped cheek. Red face. The baby disease. I TOLD YOU I WASN'T MAKING IT UP!

(By the way, slap face really does suck. Not only are you hot and itchy and tired and sick, but everyone thinks you've been punched in the face. Slightly more acceptable if you're a footballer, I imagine, than an aspiring writer/director who looks pasty at the best of times).

May I take this opportunity to welcome...

FRISBEE SEASON!

You little bloody ripper.

Anyone looking for me, I'll be somewhere green.

For reasons too humourous to mention, it was a public holiday yesterday. Which makes this last weekend a long weekend, which makes this week four days long.

So I took today off.

I've finished reading Tourism, which I had to finish on account of I started it.

Favourite bit: the bit where he tried scones, because it made me hungry...?

Then I read a book I thought I had already read, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, which it turns out I hadn't read and which made me cry. See here for a review and description.

Favourite bit: the bit where he pretends he's in space and "All I could see would be stars. And stars are the places where the molecules that life is made of were constructed billions of years ago. For example, all the iron in your blood which stops you being anaemic was made in a star".

... I love that bit because it describes so many different things and alludes to so many others and also it's about something really simple. Imagine getting the infinite universe, molecules, time, space, and the inside machinations of the human being all into the one paragraph.

Smart arse.

On Friday night, I went to see the new Pixar film, Cars, which (even though traditionally I'm a Pixar fan) I was sure I was not going to enjoy. Not only is it a movie about cars, called "Cars", starring a racing car and not starring a socially responsible environmental message or a commentary on how stupid racing car driving is (!), but even worse, it's animated cars! So, you know, little cars with huge eyes and expressive windscreen wipers and stuff. BORING! Also, clearly this is a targeted grab for merchandising bucks from small children annoying their exhausted parents.

Anyway, needless to say I laughed until I was snorting like a piglet.

Favourite bit: a hardened old four-wheel-drive teaches a bunch of SUVs from the city how to drive off-road. Also, I find it genuinely hilarious when bits fall off people's faces when they're shocked. It's an old Pixar trick, but my Lordy does it make me laugh.

But the highlight of my weekend was definitely the Belle and Sebastian gig on Saturday night. It was unspeakably good. Anyone who can get the expression "you couldn't act your way out of a wet paper bag" into a song is a friend of mine. Also, by God they're good musicians. For real fans (ie massive nerds) go here for hours of procrastinatorial fun.

Favourite bit: whole thing just brilliant. Cannot possibly pick one song because would be unfair to other songs. Who have feelings.

Lastly, I watched the soccer/football/frenzy of excitement last night as well.

Favourite bit: the bit where I found out that one of the Aussie blokes, Scott Chipperfield, used to be a bus driver who played soccer for "The Wollongong Wolves". Now he's running around on a soccer field in Germany, jumping onto piles of other blokes in celebration whenever someone gets a goal. The best part is, fans in the know have apparently been chanting "Hail to the Bus Driver" from the sidelines. Excellent work.

As a result of the above, I now want to be: a child again, a member of Belle and Sebastian, a soccer player, a voice in a Pixar film, possibly a bus driver, and a scientist (I've also been reading Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman).

You'll notice "writer" is not in there. It's a tad slow, the writing. Just a little bit slow.

There'll be a breaktrhough any moment, I'm sure.

Here's some genuinely rather impressive news from our Sydney office (represented as it is by Standing There Captain of Industry Melanie Howlett).

Mel, production manager and now lawyer, decided some time ago that she'd like to run a marathon.

I decided, at about the same time, that I would never be late for anything again. I also decided that I was going to start a soccer team.

As you know, the Standing There Soccer team is in its third season, preparing for the finals next Saturday, and my GOD we've done well for a team that came out of nowhere.

Or, to put it another way, there is no soccer team.

I wish the central theme of this diary was not the massive chasm between my expectations and the reality of my every day existence, but at least Mel can lend us all some inspiration.

Mel finished her marathon yesterday. Not only did she arrive on time (it was at seven in the morning, which is apparently a time of day) but she beat her expected time by what's known in the running business as "a country mile".

She's a legend of the sport already, finishing with a time of 4:07:52 (which is not a time of day, and it denotes hours, not days or weeks). That's what's known in the biz as "pissing it in".

Anyway, in her absence, by way of revenge, we have held a meeting wherein it was decided that if she keeps this up, she's fired. A motion was passed that Standing There Productions be renamed Sitting There Productions and that any breach of this would be seriously debated in a restaurant, bar, or loungeroom. No running shoes allowed.

Congratulations Melanie Howlett you're a big ole champion, just quetly. But that's enough. Everybody just pipe down please.