Hi everyone,

This is my last post for the year. Standing There Productions has had a fantastic 2007 - and 2008 is looking to be even more action-packed. The kids' TV show development, our comedy festival show, Greatness Thrust Upon Them, and our artists' residency in August at Bundanon... not to mention the things we haven't come across yet, the coffees we haven't drunk, and the people I haven't told off yet in the State Library.

Since we won't be back until January, here's something to be going on with. It's a rare treat - a bit of a role change - it's video we shot earlier in the year that's written and performed by Rita Walsh. Shot by Stewart Thorn and directed by me (pick who got the easy job) it's based on the early careers of Rita and myself. It's called The Receptionist.

Enjoy. Have a great break and see you in the new year. Thanks for playing!

Have you ever noticed that when you're wearing headphones or listening to music in the car, not only do you walk/jiggle/tap to the beat of the music you're listening to, but so does everyone else?

I swear there were two people arguing in a traffic jam today with hand gestures choreographed to very spooky effect to accompany Bright Eyes' Christmas album. It was like watching my own short film on punt road. Performance art has its place.

In other news I have finished watching degrassi and press gang and now i'm reading young adult fiction. It's bloody great. I don't know why I ever moved on.

I'm currently reading Doug McLeod's very, very funny books that make me laugh out loud (and wonder how on earth we got him to agree to work with us), but prior to that I was reading Sonia Hartnett, Meg Rossof, and a book of short stories that came pretty close to giving me nightmares. Kids' books are awesome and I doubt I will ever go back.

Meanwhile, wouldn't a quiet break over Christmas be lovely?

Yeah, right.

I know I've been absent from these pages for a couple of days but this has just inspired me to make myself known: CHECK IT OUT.

I've finally figured out what I've been doing wrong. Today, having virtually exterminated two chattering year twelve students (honestly, four hours and they didn't do five minutes work - the woman next to me said "hear, hear" and someone else's head popped over the partition and said "I agree!")... I don't feel good about being the person who tells people off in the library, I really don't. Although, if those girls are reading this, your response to "Why don't you girls just go to a cafe?" could have been better thought out than "Why don't YOU go to a cafe", a random selection of answers to which could include:

1) Because you're a poo poo head
2) Because I'll get boy germs
3) Ner ner nee ner ner, I'm telling Mum
or
4) Shut your face, stink-breath.

So I figured it out. On my way up to the gorgeous reading room with the partitions and the talking, I peered into the newspaper room and the genealogy room. Finally: grey haired silence broken only by people asking how to turn on the computers.

Of course, I have to be using the newspaper collection or the genealogy collection in order to be here, which is excellent because I usually refer to the newspaper anyway, but if I make even the slightest noise, I face the considerable wrath of those in the over sixty bracket, whose requirements for large print does not exclude an unshakable moral conviction, at the core of which is BE QUIET IN THE LIBRARY.

I think I just moved up a demographic. Or three.

Standing There Productions has had some frustrating times over the four years we've existed.

We've had people saying to us, "If you put someone famous in it, we might consider it". We've had long responses and brief, sharp: "Not interested, thanks". Rita and Stewart and I can pick out the word "Unfortunately" on a page from a standing start.

So it's pretty exciting on those occasions when something good happens.

We've been pretty thrilled this year when good things have happened to us (the development funding from the Australian Children's Television Foundation and the award nomination for our festival show for starters) and to other people (Robin Geradts-Gill winning his script award, Rachel, Rita and Nick's film being funded)... but I have to admit, there is something pretty special about seeing Rita Walsh personally being recognised for her hard work and talent.

Rita was funded by Film Victoria today to do what is called an "attachment" with producer Jan Chapman (who works with Jane Campion, at the moment on a film called Bright Star). An attachment is kind of like an apprenticeship. It's a fly on the wall kind of thing. Rita, as we all know, does not sleep. She has worked on all sorts of projects, from Kath and Kim to our short film, but this is an opportunity to get right into the industry at the top level and to learn a lot. It's a new step for Rits, and although IT IS IN SYDNEY AND THIS MEANS TWO OF MY CLOSEST FRIENDS HAVE DESERTED ME FOR A CITY WITH POKIES, I couldn't be more pleased that she has an adventure ahead of her, and that people other than me think she's capable of making the most of an exciting opportunity.

Although she does laugh like a guinea pig.

It being Itnernational Talk Like A Pirate Day, this site here has translated one of yesterday's "Standin Thar Productions" diary posts into a more appropriate mode of expression (scroll down for original diary entry):

Th' Sprin' Has Sprung.

Be 't sprin'?

Feels like 't’s sprin'.

Sprin' be an inspirational time fer me. Fer some reason, th' air makes me bounce. Swabbies stroll through parks an' eat lunch in th' sun, dogs swivel midair towards frisbees, coffees avast remindin' me o' cigarettes an' phlegm an' start smellin' clist an' sharp wi' th' promise o' summer…

An' then I get homeport an' reckon that borin' things happen e'en when ye feel like ye ortin' ta be able t' follow th' creative whim o' a sprin' tide.

1. Me laptop has sustained considerable damage thanks t' me nay bein' able t' invent a time machine an' go aft t' jus' before th' moment I dropped 't.

2. Bills. Always bills.

3. Real estate bilge water. What do ye MEAN I signed me name incorrectly on yer lily livered bond claim form? I be havin' signed th' EXACT SAME SIGNATURE ON ERE ELSE FER ME ENTIRE LIFE AN' NOBODY HAS EVER QUESTIONED 'T, INCLUDING TH' POLICE/ VISA SWABBIES/ US SECURITY ETC.

4. Th' thin' I can’t find be definitely here somewhere.

5. Ortin' ta probably do somethin' about that mess.

So look, sprin' be lovely an' all that, but could me creative inspiration PLEASE slot itself into th' relevant sections o' me life (such as when I be starin' at a blank page, desperately searchin' fer an idee).

PS If 'tis nay sprin', please disregard this post.

My favourite bits: reference to "real estate bilge water", use of the expression "swabbies", and "smellin' clist an' sharp".

Why was this way of speaking ever discarded?

Yesterday I donated blood.

Not having a regular income, I have decided that donating something I DO HAVE is probably as good an idea as any, and so with the blood.

Do you know what they say to you when you donate blood? They say, "Thank you for saving three lives".

Then they give you a milkshake and a party pie.

How good is that?

I get to feel a sense of achievement while lying back in my lunch break reading Paris Hilton's jail diaries from a dreadful magazine I would normally scorn. I wonder if reading Paris Hilton's jail diaries actually effects the blood I'm donating. Whoopsie. Next time I will take a book.

Donate blood - I tell you, it's the lazy person's way of saving the world: go here if you've never done it.