Happy Monday, everyone!

I logged on to our website this morning and found one of our new photographs was on rotation as the homepage photograph - an extreme close-up of two enormous iced vo vos. Most alarming. Paul the Website Superman must have deemed them (sensibly) to be worthy of placement as a central motif for Standing There Productions - the end result of course being that I'm kind of hankering for an iced vo vo with my morning cup of tea.

Yesterday I went to a play reading at The Fairfax Theatre in Melbourne. The reading was of a play called Asylum, by Kit Lazaroo, which won the Wal Cherry Play of the Year. Two Standing There Productions Peeps were taking part in the reading: Tim Stitz (who has been in everything we've ever done) and Carly Shrever (who was in People Watching). Both Carly and Tim were (guess what) excellent, as usual. I then went to ACMI to watch a whole heap of AFTRS short films, including The Birthday Boy, which I had never seen before. I went alone. This detail is important because had I not been alone, silent, with headphones on, in a booth tucked away in a corner, maybe they wouldn't have locked me in by accident when they closed for the evening.

I had to rush up to the guy just as he was pulling this enormous wall closed over the section I had been sitting in. Adds a whole new level of fear to moviegoing, let me tell you.

Then last night I attempted to go to a show called Vaudeville X, which I had called up about earlier in the day and they had assured me I would get a seat. Due to the fact that "someone" had told me the wrong thing on the phone, they didn't have a seat for me. I walked there in the freezing cold, hung around waiting for thirty minutes, and then was offered a "standing-room" ticket for TEN DOLLARS. What a sweet deal! Or, to put it another way, what a great excuse to go home and watch The Society Murders on TV.

Anyway, so my attempt to have a culturally interesting day was thwarted by people attempting to lock me in buildings and other people trying to charge me to stand up for an hour to watch musical theatre. Next weekend I think I'll go to the footy.

In other news, Penny Tangey's show Kathy Smith Goes to Maths Camp, which was on in the Melbourne International Comedy Festival and which was directed by someone who almost spent the night at ACMI last night, has entered the Australian vernacular. Go here to see how Penny's show is a measure of the zeitgeist, in that nerds being hip, cool and happening is the simple, undeniable truth. This was reiterated last week when I received a flurry of phone calls from people telling me to watch Catylist, because there's a young girl on it who is partaking in a maths quest and who declares with heartbreaking honesty that she finds maths tables more interesting for the walls of her bedroom than posters of hot guys. In other words, Kathy Smith lives.

Very busy today and so let me just use this space to tell everyone about the new photos on our site.

Paul, the Website Superman, has posted a few more shots on the homepage (namely one of me and Rita) as well as a bigger range of photos rotating at the top of the page.

If none of those look familiar, that's because quite frankly you haven't been paying attention. If the photo looks like someone slightly nerdy doing what appears to be a maths olympiad on stage, that's a photo from Kathy Smith Goes to Maths Camp, which is the show by Penny Tangey (directed by me) from the Melbourne International Comedy Festival.

If the photo looks like it's other people on stage, particularly if those people are wearing Green T Shirts with "People Watching" on them, that's because those photos were taken (now this is fairly complicated) on the set of our play, People Watching.

If the photos are black & white, they are OLD, which means they were taken on the set of the Really Useless Theatre Company show, The Dinner Party.

For BRAND NEW EXCITING photographs of the recent cast and crew screening of our film, I Could Be Anybody, go to the "Current Production" menu, and then select "Screening and Success"

Any questions, see me after class.

Today I got into the writing thing a bit more. So much more in fact that I missed my tram to meet my friend for lunch and ended up being fifteen minutes late, which would have been surprising for said friend, who does not know me as intimately as most of my friends do, especially Standing There Producer Rita Walsh, who I have noticed has started leaving the house at about the time our meetings are due to start. This is, I assure myself, on account of my reliability. I am reliably around fifteen minutes late, counter-balanced by another, rather more useful characteristic, which is the number of pens I tend to carry on or about my person, in a range of colours and with a range of nibs. Everyone needs pens, people. Eventually, all of you smug bastards who arrive to things on time... Eventually you'll need to borrow one of my pens. Then let's see who wishes they'd stayed home maintaining their pen supply for that extra five minutes before they looked for their house keys for another ten minutes and then left the house, huh! Who's laughing NOW.

Rita, I realise this is a complete misrepresentation quite possibly besmirching your good name but you are more likely to forgive me than anyone else is, and I am taking advantage of that fact. On the internet. Oh yes I am.

So on the topic of me being a rewarding friend, my friend Michael sent me some excellent things in an email. Now, if I ever send excellent things to people in emails, I expect equally witty and well-considered replies, more or less immediately. Michael, on the other hand, received nothing.

Which was no surprise to Michael, who has known me for a much longer time than my lunch-time friend has. However, contrary to my declaration yesterday that everyone was fired, I have now re-hired Michael, who I credit now with thanks for providing the following excellent links:

For those of you who would like the inside story (as they say in the trash mags) on the Sydney Writers' Festival (which does not get enough coverage in the trash mags in my view)... then go here, and scroll down to the Writers' Festival posts, because Arnon Grunberg (who I've mentioned in posts on the Writers' Festival before) has certainly got a way with writing snipey things about people who make money writing books about time travel. And about people who think they're funny. And just about people generally.

And Oh. My. Lordy! For all you West Wing fans, go here. Michael, I know I just hired you, but you're re-hired. Absolutely cannot wait to see a full episode of this.

Also, and nobody sent this to me, I read it unaided in The New Yorker ... Check out this review of The Da Vinci Code, which I haven't seen but Anthony Lane is my favourite film reviewer and this is one of the rare reviews of his which is entirely, whole-heartedly, grumpy. Excellent.

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.

Driving down Smith Street today to get to the post office, I saw a monk getting a parking ticket.

Smith Street is quite a "colourful" street in Melbourne. In fact, I once had to go to the magistrates court and make a statement in relation to some of the more colourful behaviour going on there in the early hours of a Sunday morning (a bloke was trying to glass another bloke because he'd found him in his house, removing certain items and placing them in a large rubbish bag, presumably without prior permission). Smith Street has a Cash Converters, a money-loaning shop, a TAB, and eight billion cafes, many of them vegetarian and quite a few of them requiring you to ask for a key to use the toilets.

Anyway. So I'm in Smith Street and I see this monk. It's not terribly surprising to see a Franciscan monk in Smith Street because they live around there somewhere (in a converted warehouse loft? In a terrace house with peace flags out the front? Who's to know?). Still, it's never exactly par for the course to run into a monk, is it. So I do notice him, solitary, walking away from the post office, in long, brown robes and sandals. And he goes to a little red Holden and he unlocks the driver's door.

You know that moment when you're half in and half out of your car and you see a parking ticket under the wiper and you just freeze?

Monks do that too!

I could see him spot it - a bastard parking ticket from the bastard council on the windscreen of his car - and he sat with the door half open just staring at it for about five seconds.

Then he calmly reached around and removed it, placed it on the seat next to him, and resumed whatever it is monks do on a Tuesday afternoon.

I was very impressed. No rage. No horror. No walking around the car and checking for chalk marks. No inspecting the ticket machine and gestering furiously in case the inspector could still see him and realise the error of his ways. Nothing!

I bet the monks pay for it, though. I bet it doesn't come out of his monk wage.

PS Melbourne had the spookiest weather today. Yesterday was the coldest day since August tenth last year, and the planes were grounded and the air was like pea soup. Today, it was that but with the added weirdness of some really spooky light and a huge orange sunset, like in a breakfast cereal advertisement. Thought everyone else should know - if anyone wants to shoot a horror film in the next four days, I'd get yourselves down here.

Since we shot our film late last year, two of the people involved have become married and are now pregnant (details sketchy as to whether this happened on set), three people have left or are leaving to go overseas, almost everyone has changed jobs, and one of the crew members has been recruited into the German army.

Just thought we should have a bit of a look at ourselves.

On the weekend, I was an extra in Robin's film, which was filming at Bar Open in Fitzroy. It was a lovely set, and making stuff is so much fun - all these people doing all these little things which end up making a movie. Pretty cool. On the way there, I was walking down Brunswick Street when I saw someone ahead of me, walking along, bent over a walking frame on wheels.

I thought, wow, he's kind of young to be on a walking frame.

Then I realised he was carrying beers. Down Brunswick Street. Carefully. On a Saturday. Lots of beers.

I told my grandma, who has a fame of her own, and she smiled. "Good on him", she said, "they're very handy, these things".

Now I wonder what my grandma gets up to when I'm not visiting her on the weekends.

In other news, I looked through the photos from the screening the other night, and they certainly are interesting. Lots of empty wine glasses, and a rather interesting shot of me and Rita which, given it happened on tour, shall stay on tour forever more.

They'll be up soon. We're getting there.