I was having a meeting with Stewart in a cafe the other day when a waiter accidentally spilled a litre and a half of water over the two of us. We weren't even being offensive.

Were meetings invented in the eighties? They feel like they were. Well, maybe not the sort of meetings we have. The sorts of meetings we have feel like they were invented by us. They're in a different gene pool from the kind of meetings you can charge to your company account and complain about to your therapist.

Standing There Productions meetings are usually too long. They can be called with little or no notice, they are quite frequently on weekends, and they often involve lengthy and complicated tangents relating to the role of women in traditional cinematic narrative, or discussions regarding what's worse: forgetting your wallet, or running really late (in other words, Rita versus Lorin).

Rita and I met with some excellent people at a DVD place called Eskimo the other day. That was a couch meeting, in an old garage, with beers. That's a good meeting in anyone's book. Then we met with a colourist who was supposed to be at a karaoke night. He didn't even look like he was going to sing, so that was disappointing. And then there was the under-water meeting between Stewart and myself. A litre and a half of water over our heads and all we got was a free drink each. Had we been charging our meeting to a multi billion dollar account, that would have been an outrageous exchange.

"Only a free drink each? After being drenched by a waiter? I say, do you know who I am? Let me introduce you to my lawyer..."

Not for us, though. We felt like royalty. A free drink and a free shower. That's the low-budget filmmakers' equivalent of a corporate credit card.

Now all I need to do is get someone to accidentally attack me with scissors and I'll get that haircut I so desperately need.