Today I went to my day job and tonight I'm working with Christina, whose show "Semi Rural" is on at the Comedy Festival at the exact same time as ours. I'm helping her out in the next few weeks at the same time as directing "For We Are Young And Free" for Standing There Productions and organising the brilliantly-timed Law Week for Victoria Law Foundation, where I work.

Sometimes I wonder whether I'd be able to survive without nineteen concurrent deadlines. That's a theory I doubt I'm going to test any time soon.

Meanwhile, trips on public transport become the only moments I get to myself.

Melbourne has one of those daily rags that you can get at train stations for free. Ours is called MX. When I worked in commercial radio, I used to read MX from cover to cover with the frenzied excitement of an addict, searching desperately for some material.

And doesn't it deliver?

Today, it actually uses the phrase "paleolithic hottie" to describe the reconstructed face of a 14,000 year old skull.

Other highlights include:

The story of a zoo worker who dressed in an unconvincing orangutan costume in order to stage a fake escape scenario. Needless to say that when he was shot by another zoo keeper with a fake gun, the kiddies were horrified and fled from the scene.

The description of Richard Griffiths attempting to escape the Harry Potter crowds through a tiny box office window is pretty hilarious if you know how big Richard Griffiths is.

And finally, I enjoyed the following passage:

Children on a youth club trip in Northern Ireland ignored repeated warnings to behave as bedtime approached last Wednesday. So their leaders decided to teach them a lesson. they packed the youngsters into a minibus, drove them into the middle of nowhere and told them to find their own way back to base. The punishment backfired badly when the youngsters, aged 12 to 14, became hopelessly lost and the leaders were unable to go back to find them because the minbus broke down.

(Description of furious parents follows). Got to love MX.