Adventures in TV-Land

An analogy too far

2012-02-13T09:42:00.001+11:00

Sky turkey

The further answering of survey questions

What about the tigers?
My mother
Umm…what about the tigers? Tigers are not as good as leopards.

Do I get 150 points if I grab your snitch?
A random Russian who likes murderers
According to the rules of Muggle Quidditch you only get 30 points if you catch the snitch. So no, you don’t get 150 points. In order to achieve victory, your chasers would have to do the initial groundwork to ensure the other team aren’t more than three goals up when the snitch is caught.
*END CONVOLUTED ANALOGY*

How are you supposed to go about getting people to participate in brilliant television? A friend of mine absolutely refuses to watch Sherlock. It's the sort of thing she would probably like, but she won't go near it. Any advice?
Lauretta
This is a hard question. I will admit that there was a time in my life when I refused to participated in things my friends liked out of a kind of spite. But then I became less of a douche, realised we were friends for a reason and I’d probably like the same things they liked.

But to answer your question, I’d recommend borrowing a hard drive and scrumptiously returning it with a few extra files. If your friend has access to Sherlock and can watch it without you saying “WAIT FOR THIS BIT! WAIT FOR IT! LOOK! HOW GOOD WAS THAT BIT! THERE’S ANOTHER GOOD BIT IN A SEC! LOOK AT IT! HAHAHAHA! HOW. GOOD. IS. THIS. SHOW.” We all do that. Its very difficult not to but also extremely off putting for others. If your friend is able to watch Sherlock in secret, they might be more willing to. Alternatively- force.

Do you ever think far into your own future? What do you see? In 5 years, 10 years, 20 years?
Natalie
Thinking about this question bought me to the rather terrifying realisation that my concrete life-plan runs out at the end of next year when I finish my arts degree. Beyond that I really have no idea. So basically, no. I have absolutely no idea where I’ll be in the future. I could tell you where I’d LIKE to be but I’m pretty happy to see where life takes me. Except that in 20 years I’ll be Liz Lemon. That much is given.

Why don't you have a YouTube channel?
Rosie
YouTube for me is kind of like the final frontier.
In this particular analogy I am not someone who has just scaled a mountain and is poised heroically surveying the summit. I am someone who thought the mountain looked rather pretty from the bottom and has accidentally found themselves three quarters of the way up without really understanding how they got here. I have no real desire to go any higher because this altitude is quiet terrifying enough thank you.
Those of you who did the survey will have seen the only thing currently on my YouTube channel. If haven’t seen it and you ask me really nicely on Twitter, I might send you that link.

Alex, why is this post so pointless?
paper_bag_girl on Twitter
I’ve been playing Quidditch all weekend and can barely walk. You expect me to be able to construct meaningful sentences too?

Telling the sad stories

2012-02-05T13:08:00.002+11:00

“You make a choice in this world, I believe, about how you tell sad stories,
and we made the funny choice.”

A while ago I wrote a post about ethics in comedy vs. ethics in journalism. I wholeheartily enjoyed the discussion which ensued but I never really found an answer to my question- why do I think comedy should be allowed to cross the line but journalism must stay firmly behind it?

The above quote is from John Green’s new book, The Fault in Our Stars. In half a sentence John Green accidentally answered my question-
its about how we tell the sad stories.

It is an undeniable fact that the world is full of sad things. We’re painfully aware of these things in our own lives but its important, to some degree, that we are aware of the awful things which are happening outside of ourselves.
That’s what good journalism does. Good journalism says-
“Look at that. That sucks. And the people who are experiencing it know that it sucks. It is our responsibility to tell other people about how much that thing sucks.”

Bad journalism says-
“Look at that. That is crappy. Let us go and take pictures of it.”
They do this even when the people involved are quite clearly asking them to go away because this really awful thing just happened to them and they would find it a lot easier to cope if people didn’t keep taking pictures of them while they were trying to collect the mail.

Comedy is different. Comedy doesn’t say-
“Look at that person over there! Isn’t that shit! Let’s point at them and laugh!”
Comedy is about people saying-
“This really shitty thing happened to me. I am going to tell you about it and we can laugh together.”

This at the fundamental heart of what makes comedy so important and powerful. And why, if we were to limit what could be said, we would stand the chance of loosing that power.
Comedy makes the sad things less sad.

This difference is a big part of why I think comedy should have unlimited access and journalism should not. The first things to go, if comedy had limits, would be the sad things. Topics which are controversial tend to be so because, to someone, that topic is the source of pain. This is where comedy can go wrong, if it treads the line of bad journalism and starts trying to point and laugh without making a valid point, the jokes loose legitimacy. Comedy tries to be voluntary activity. People will not laugh at how much your life sucks unless you stand up and ask them to. Journalism isn’t always that kind.

Comedy is the knowledge that life and happiness and good things can still exist in the face of really, really awful things. Journalism very rarely makes sad things less sad. And that’s ok, because that isn’t what journalism is for. Journalism is for telling us that sad things exist. Knowing they exist might be the first step to them not existing as much in the future.

Comedy is about now. Comedy is gap-filler for the soul.

So that’s my answer, but I don’t think it’s a definitive one. The comments are open for discussion.

Never try and construct a metaphor around an arachnid

2012-01-29T13:07:00.000+11:00

It seems to me that the less logical the fear is, the harder it is to overcome.

Jumping out of a plane, for example, is a perfectly logical fear. You could die. And yet people jump out of planes all the time.
I’ve never jumped out of a plane, but I did once climb 30 metres up the mast of a ship. That too was a fear rooted in fundamental fact. All that was standing between me and death was forgetting to connect my safety line properly (easy). Yet I did it anyway. It wasn’t even that hard.

Everyday we do things that are really properly scary. Driving a car is scary. The ways in which you could prematurely meet your maker during a quick trip to the beach are numerous and terrifying. Which is why, quite understandably, we ignore them and continue driving with that particular reckless abandon that has allowed humans to progress as a species.

So why is it we have such a huge problem with spiders?
Spiders are weird and scary looking, nobody’s denying that. But the number of spiders that can actually kill you are not in the majority. Besides which, your chances of actually dying when bitten by a spider, in this day and age, are negligible. Being afraid of spiders makes no sense. Yet most of us, when faced with a spider crawling up our leg, would immediately pitch a spaz. Even if we were driving a car down a highway at the time. Crashing a car is a hell of a lot more likely to kill you than a spider. But somehow the spider is the fear our brains have most difficulty coming to terms with.

Last year while I was staring at a blocked vent in the ceiling letting someone shove a tiny drill into the back of my front teeth, I had this revelation. If my hypothetical future children told me they wanted to become hit men I would be less upset than if they told me they wanted to be dentists.
Maybe you know someone who’s a dentist. Maybe they’re a really lovely person.
But that doesn’t change the fact that their surgeries smell of disinfectant and fear.
I can think of very few things which make me want to burst into hysterical sobs and hide behind my mother. Dentists being one of the exceptions.

That makes absolutely no sense at all. Dentists spend years at university learning how to correctly poke around in your mouth with small pointy things. It is their job. Going to the dentist is ultimately going to benefit both you and your long term heath and attractiveness. Going to the dentist is not scary.

Tomorrow I am going to get up at 6:30am with the express intention of eating a piece of toast. At 11:30 I will go to the hospital and sit around patiently while I wait for someone to stick a needle (another thing I'm not good at being brave about) in my hand. I will then remain happily unconscious while someone fishes around in my mouth with a pair of pliers.
Please do not be fooled by the cavalier phrasing of that paragraph. Just writing it makes my heart start whispering to my lungs that now would be a pretty good time to start panicking.

Tomorrow I’m getting my wisdom teeth out. I have been told that the absolute worst case scenario is that I will permanently loose all feeling in my bottom lip. But the way I’ve been carrying on for the last few weeks would lead you to believe it was much worse than that. I’ve developed the annoying habit of interrupting the flow of conversation to talk about my teeth. I have mentioned my teeth on social networking approximately 150% more than is advisable

I know this fear is irrational. I know I do more dangerous things all the time without blinking an eyelid.
But sometimes you just can’t ignore the spider that’s crawling up your leg.

The title of this post comes from a Tim Minchin talky bit called "Fear". I cannot find it online but it is very good and also relevant.

This question is mandatory

2012-01-21T15:34:00.000+11:00

In which Alex answers questions what people asked.

This is a clue.

If you had to bake a cake to get out a life or death situation would you
a) make something average you were totally confident with and knew you wouldn't stuff up, or
b) attempt a creation worthy of Zumbo that there is only a 1% chance you will succeed in pulling off in an edible fashion? (But if you manage it, you will have your greatest life wish granted.)
Noni
I think you are seriously underestimating my ability to make cake. Like I am pretty good at making cake. I think, if my life was on the line, I’d make something I was familiar with. If I made an average cake I might get off with being sold into slavery or something. Whereas if I made something which wasn't even recognisable as cake, I'd definitely die. If I was going to take the risk and attempt something impressive, I’d make something out of a Nigella book. I would trust Nigella with my life*. Because Nigella has only ever failed me once and that was in regard to macaroons. And no one knows how to make macaroons.
*In cake based life-or-death situations.

How do you write a blog every week?!
Lizzy
I spend a slightly terrifying amount of time and brain space on it. I’m always planning blogs. There’s some little thing at the back of my brain ticking away almost 100% of the time. And sure, sometimes it is hard. I think I am heard uttering the words “Shit! Its Sunday tomorrow!” at least 90% more often than the average person. Something that really helps is, when I have a surplus of time (like during the summer holidays), I START a lot of blogs. I get all the half formed ideas that have been sloshed around my head, put them in a word document and save it. That way I have a sort of rainy day file.

Making myself post once a week eliminates the “but I can’t put this online because this is a fetid heap of dingos kidneys” self-doubt complex we all have. I know a lot of bloggers and vloggers say they can’t post regularly because if they’re uninspired they’d make crap. But a lot of the blogs that people have told me they really loved are the ones I really, really didn’t want to post. Because I thought they were crap. Having a deadline makes you bite the bullet and stop questioning yourself.

The following four questions are curtsey of “I'm sure you can work out [my identity]. Just ask me if you're stuck.”
How do you feel about preserved meats?
I like preserved meats. My dad bought this super amazing ham for Christmas and damn it was good. Also bacon is technically a preserved meat. And bacon is in the top 50 Greatest Things Ever of All Time.

What is your greatest life achievement to date?
That's hard. But I’ve narrowed it down to two things.
The first is writing 50,000 words. Sure, they’re still a jumble of unfinished plot that need a damn good copy edit but…for a long time I thought that maybe that was something I’d never do. And it might become something which could vie for uncontested rights to being my greatest achievement.
The second thing is this blog. Shut up. I love this blog.

What is the answer to a question you would really like to be asked?
Oh god yes.

What is the aforementioned question?
Would you like to spend several weeks analysing minor events in the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy with particular reference to minor characters, fleeting puns and the ways in which the various versions differ from each other but are all still really excellent?

Favorite family holiday destination and why?
Courtney
My family has a beach house at a tiny coastal town near Grafton. We’ve been going there all my life. When I was little we’d drive all the way across from Dubbo to stay for two week in July. The place is practically deserted for most of the year. I think it might be my favourite place in the world*. It is, in the very truest sense of the word, idyllic.

I’d tell you where it is but then you might come and visit and find out how awesome it is and then come back and bring all your friends. And there’s nothing I hate more than people coming to our beach. Here are some hints. You can work it out yourself using Google maps.
- It is less than an hour’s drive from Grafton
- The water supply comes from two huge fresh water lakes
-I have given you a picture
- There is only one shop and it doesn't even show up on Google maps
-The town is almost completely surrounded by national parks. There’s even marine park out to sea.
- If you are the person who asked this question you have been there a heap of times.
*Of all the places I have been.

Um, um, this is difficult. WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE MUSICAL?
Alex "from Hobart"; but if you end up wanting to sell identities to the Russians, I can be Andrew Beel "from Hobart, Indiana, USA"
If Muppet Treasure Island counts as a musical then my favourite musical is Muppet Treasure Island. And I’m officially saying that it counts because they sing a lot. The songs are really great. In fact the whole movie is THE GREATEST because it is MUPPETS in TREASURE ISLAND and they are two of my favourite things.
*pause for people who know me IRL to sigh because she’s talking about Muppet Treasure Island again*

Why did you make this question mandatory?
Britt
Because you know when writing blogs is the hardest? During Christmas holidays. And do you know what’s a lot less hard than writing a blog? Answering a lot of random questions.

The Second Annual Adventures in TV-Land Readers Survey is still open (but only for a limited time)! Complete it here.

Damsels in distress

2012-01-16T13:16:00.000+11:00

Previously on Dungeons and Dragons…our intrepid adventures set fire to some goat people, Tom got laid by a nymph and much shrubbery was fought by all.

In the morning the party enter a corridor. The hedge closes off and separates them. Rachel and beccamarsh are in one room...
R- Do you want to come in with me. We should probably hold hands.
...Tom and Charlie in another. The party separates IRL. I find Tom and Charlie rolling D20s.
A- What are you rolling for?
C- Omens. Mine did not bode well.
The pair find themselves in a round room. In the centre is a chest. Above them is a key. They throw stuff at the key until it falls down. There are no obvious hinges or keyholes on the chest.
C- So I suppose hitting the chest with my hammer would be a bad idea?
A- You can hit it with your hammer if you want.
C- I hit it with my hammer.
A- It says ouch.
Charlie and Tom are now convinced that Rachel and beccamarsh are in the chest.
The nymph appears and offers them a (magic) envelope. Charlie gets very excited. He had a vision about this.
C- We put the key in the envelope.
A- It disappears.
T- Shit.
I got into the other room to tell Fin that a key has just appeared in the envelope Rachel and beccamarsh have. Given that Tom and Charlie actually need this key, Fin and I find this situation quite funny. (A note for DMing- the funnier you find something, the more disconcerted your players will be.)
T- Can we lift up the chest?
A- You can. You notice a small door on the bottom. There’s a keyhole.
C- We put a note in the envelope. It says ‘Give us the key back mother fuckers.’
I relay this message.
B- We put some pond scum in the envelope.
It takes some time to negotiate the return of the key. Charlie and Tom end up with both their key and one which beccamarsh and Rachel acquired. They open the chest, release a trapped pixie, find a rod with notches on it and escape from their room.
They discover a door. It has two holes for rods with notches in them.

Charlie and Tom send a series of passive aggressive messages to the others via the magic envelope demanding their rod. The idea of waiting for their companions and going through the door together is apparently absurd. So much for loyalty.
Eventually Rachel and beccamarsh emerge. The door is opened. They go through.
C- Let me guess- it swings shut behind us?
A- No. It stays open.
C- I think the door’s defective. Its not closing eerily behind us.
This causes an irrational amount of panic. Eventually they remove the rods from the door.
A- The door swings shut.
C- Thank god. This seems much less like a trap.

The group find themselves in a clearing with a sphinx. Behind it is a door.
R- How much space is there between the sphinx and the door?
A- You can’t just walk past it.
In a show of admirable optimism, they try and convince the sphinx to let them pass. It refuses.
C- So what will make you let us past?
A- (as sphinx) I suppose if you were to beat me, I would have to let you continue.
General groaning. Riddles ensure.
A- The answer to the first riddle is not, surprisingly, penis.
C- Is it a politician?
T- Or really shit poetry.
beccamarsh attacks the sphinx with glitter. She rolls a 20. It is so completely encrusted in glitter that it can’t see.
They be-head the sphinx.
T- Can I brain it and bring the skull with us?
He is allowed to. Through no one really knows why he wants to.

The next clearing contains a large tower of the sort used to trap princesses. There is much rejoicing.
They climb the tower and discover an empty room, strewn with books. They can hear frantic talking below them. They go downstairs and find a door.
C- I’m hitting the door with my hammer.
R- Is locked?
A- No.
R- …we open the door.
Inside is the princess, two maids and a baby. They tie the maids up, for no readily apparent reason. The princess explains that she is being held captive by an evil wizard.
A- He comes at midnight bringing fresh supplies and…terror.
The party begin devising a dastardly surprise attack.
C- We could set some booby traps.
B- You’ve still got some Molotov’s.
A- You can’t just put Molotov’s on the ground and hope someone steps on it.
R- Is there a stove with gas?
Everyone- No.

While they wait for midnight Rachel decides to question the maid.
R- Not so much I’m gonna kill you if you displease me as I probably won’t kill you if you displease me.
This does not go well.
Meanwhile Tom continues his unlikely career as a lady’s man and tries to comfort the princess. She is (delusionally) glad to have them protecting her.
F- (as princess) You’re seasoned fighters.
T- But he’s a seasoned evil wizard.

Its approximately at this point that shit starts to go down. Beetles crawl out from the books in the centre of the room. One of the maids is transformed into a beetle demon. Charlie hoists the princess over his shoulder and runs for cover. Beetles flow down his arms.
Suddenly the princess crumbles. A mass of black beetles is left swarming around a bare skeleton.
They were not expecting this. There is some freaking out.
Rachel runs downstairs to interrogate the remaining maid. She discovers that she is just a maid and she’s terrified.
R- I want to attack her.
A- WHAT? She’s just a maid!
R- I roll a 24.
F- That’s going to hit.
A- BUT WHY ARE YOU ATTACKING THE MAID?
R- She didn’t tell us the princess was made of beetles.
F- You disembowel the maid. Her guts spill onto the floor.
A- *face palm*
The others are engaged in an epic battle with several swarms of angry beetles.
C- But WHY is the princess made of beetles?
A- I don’t know. Rachel just disembowelled your explanation.
In an epic final battle the demons are defeated.

They go downstairs to discover that the baby is lying in a pile of guts bawling.
F- If someone crits the heal check you could save her.
They all roll. Tom rolls a 20. We all cheer.
It transpired that the princess, pregnant to a stableboy and already reluctant to rule, fled the castle following the incident which killed her parents. She had planned to lie low and return later but shortly after giving birth she was devoured by swarm of malicious shape-changing beetles (who inhabit the bodies of powerful fey creatures). The creature decided to allow the maid to live so it could raise the child. When it was old enough the creature had planned to devour it too, creating a second evil bug demon.

The party return to the kingdom bearing the child aloft. They are lorded as heroes. They rule as advisors until she is old enough to rule herself. The hedge maze is levelled. All shrubbery is banned from the kingdom.

End

Vicious shrubbery

2012-01-09T13:48:00.000+11:00

The following is a recount of a Dungeons and Dragons campaign. If you’re unfamiliar with DnD, you can still read this as an epic narrative. You might want to have this open in anther tab.

The once mighty Empire of Glock (who’s main export is tea) has been thrown into chaos and civil war since The Incident which killed the King and Queen and marked the disappearance of the Princess. In a desperate attempt to regain their honour and restore balance to the empire, four members of the palace elite set out on a quest.

Fin and I are joint Dungeon Master for said quest. That means (for the uninitiated) that we’ve created the whole story and will be narrating it. Our heroes are beccamarsh, Rachel, Tom and Charlie.

They make their way to the maze, along with Fizzgig the gnome who they’ve hired as a guide. They have an argument about whether or not they should trust Fizzgig. Due to a number of very bad rolls they are now convinced that he’s legit. Fizzgig is not legit. He leads them into a dead end. Which attacks them.
A- The vine gets to go first.
C- IT’S A VINE!
A- It rolled really well.
Tom and Charlie have an argument about who is higher ranked. The vine continues to attack them.
Charlie tried to attack the vine with his mystical powers of religion. He rolls a 1.
C- How much Will can a vine have?!
F- The vine resists your divine will.
C- IT’S A VINE!
A- You prayed to the wrong God. The Gods smite you. Your head catches on fire.

Finally, and against the odds, they manage to kill the vine. They take a short rest to heal themselves.
C- If you let me hit you with my hammer, I can heal.
T- *snorts*
C- I can only heal if I hit things with my hammer!
Something of a feud is developing between Tom and Charlie.

Rachel takes this opportunity to question Fizzgig. This does not go well for Fizzgig. Having finally worked out the gnome is suss, they argue at length about whether they should throw him over the hedge.
R- Tell us what you know!
T- Or you’ll get gnome tossed.
F- You grab the gnome by scruff of the neck. It disappears.
T- FUCKING GNOMES!
Without Fizzgig, the party proceed to fail the skill challenge required to navigate the maze. With gusto. They stumble into another dead end. It attacks them.
R- What would I roll for a seduction check…
A- You can’t seduce the vine!
T- Wait til they come near then catch them by surprise.
C- They’ll never see it coming!
B- Scorching burst.
T- We’re trying to be diplomatic!
R- They might just be misunderstood!
The vine, despite their attempts to reason with it, continues to gouge Charlie’s eyes out.
F- You clearly have some kind of attraction for vines.
T- Animal magnetism!
F- Horticultural magnetism…
Charlie actually manages to shake it off.
F- You finally make a hit!
A- The vine is surprised.

They kill the vine but remain in the clearing, convinced that a ditch on the field contains some kind of unseen evil. It is actually a ditch.
C- I take a short rest.
T- A short breast?
C- I’ll take a short breast if you’re offering.
T- Can we do an arcane check to see if there’s anything in the ditch?
B- I roll a 27?
C- Let me guess- it’s a ditch?
A- It is a ditch. There’s definitely nothing in the ditch. It is dirt. A couple of rocks. Nothing magic.

In a show of pity Fin and Alex ignore the fact that the party fail another skill challenge and let them stumble into a clearing. There is an inn.
After some discussion the party enters the inn. Except for Rachel who uses her ninja skills to look through a window without being seen. Inside are three satyrs. They offer the party free drinks and hit on them a lot. There is much discussion about the various aspects of seducing the goat people.
T- How many goats have you had sex with?
A- They’re all one family. And they don’t see a lot of travellers come this way.
T- They’re into interracial relations but not incest.
C-There’s a line!
The female satyr sidles up to Tom and starts hitting on him. Charlie walks up and whispers in his ear-
C- Satyrs seduce people by laying eggs in their brain.
F- Charlie roll bluff against Tom’s wisdom.
C- 27.
T- 14.
General hysterics.
Tom now believes exactly what Charlie said. He freaks out and runs away from the woman. She follows him outside, whereupon Tom tries to attack her with his war axe. Rachel has to break cover in order to save her. The woman is now hitting on Rachel.
A- Are you going to the back room with the goat woman?
C- Sounds bad when you put it like that!
R- Can I roll perception to see if she has any STDs?
Tom is slightly disgruntled about being tied in a corner and not getting to hang out with the hot goat woman. Charlie drinks too much and passes out. beccamarsh goes off with the other two goats.
F- One of you is tied up in the corner, one is passed out under the table and the other two are off having sex with the goat people.

They wake in the morning the discover all their possessions have been stolen. Outside they find the satyrs and a giant living tree.
C- More menacing shrubbery!
F- The satyr pulls out his pipes and plays a jolly tune.
T- A jolly tune! Not a jolly tune!
Charlie is convinced the vision he had during the night refers to this encounter. This is probably due to it being accidentally worded it in such a way that…it sounds like the vision refers to this encounter. It doesn’t.
Using a fairly extensive amount of fuckery Rachel managed to hit the tree despite rolling a 3.
They fell the tree and restrain the satyrs.
R- We should probably tie them up and interrogate them!
C- That’s your solution to everything.
They throw two of the satyrs into the burning inn and listen to them burn alive. They argue about what to do with the female one. It is generally agreed they shouldn’t kill her.
F- You attacked her!
T- I thought she was going to lay eggs in my brain!
F- Not in a malicious way!
They knock her out and decide carry her. beccamarsh is still carrying a fish bowl she found in the inn.
A- To recap you’re carrying an unconscious goat woman and a fish bowl.
R- We can eat it later!
B- You’re not eating my fish!
C- If you let me hit you with my hammer, I can heal your fish.

They continue on to find a corridor containing much shrubbery and a few giant mushrooms. They throw the Molotov cocktails from the inn at the mushrooms.
L- The mushroom explodes in a cloud of poisonous spoors which then ignite into a cloud of fire.
T- Is it a mushroom cloud?
F&L- *simultaneously mime punch line cymbals*
Having defeated all our dastardly traps by simply setting the whole corridor on fire, they move into a small topiary garden. In the centre, atop a fountain, is a topiary of a solider. There is also the topiary of a rabbit, a boar, a wolf and a tiger. They are untreatably suspicious.
C- 100% of the plant life in this maze has tried to attack us!
No surprisingly the topiary come to life and attack the party.
T- Oh no! It’s a zombie topiary!
C- The worst sort of topiary!
The party begin hacking away at the hedge monster with varying degrees of success.
R- Are we getting hungry? Can we eat the fish?
B- You’re not eating my fish!
C- We’re not having this discussion now! We’re fighting the hedge!
The boar charges beccamarsh.
A- That’s the pig. Actually it’s a hog. A topiary hog…made of hedge. Hedge…hog…
*general appreciation of lol-tastic awesome-ness*
The rabbit and Charlie seem to have developed a minor feud. It sucks him inside it.
A- You’re ok with being inside a giant topiary rabbit? You were the one who just said this was Freudian.
They pull a lever on a statue shaped like a woodcutter.
F- A cloud of pixies with tiny sheers emerges…
B- But I pulled the wood cutter lever, not the pixie lever!
A- And pixies came out of it!
T- Mind blown!
Charlie is still inside a giant rabbit.
F- Oberon (Charlie’s character) can do something.
C- Oberon wants to explode out of the rabbit in a shower of gore and by gore I mean branches!
There is some suspicion due to the tiger topiary not having attacked them yet.
C- Let it be! Let’s not provoke any more shrubbery! Its notoriously easy to anger.
Charlie goes back to fighting the rabbit.
A- Really? You want to pull a giant rabbit topiary inside you?
C- When you put it like THAT.
F- The rabbit is going to attack Tom.
C- TRAITOROUS BITCH!
T- *leisurely makes his figure jump across the board* That was a charge by the way.
They defeat the hedge monster, discover that the tiger was actually just a hedge and move into a small clearing where they decide to sleep for the night.

Tom and Charlie fight for control over the satyr woman who’ve they’ve revived.
C- Yeah, preach to her for a while, bed down, leave her tied up.
A mystic floating ball of light appears during the night. Everyone except Tom follows it. They attempt to reason with it.
B- The last time we were nice to something it stole all our things.
R- I say hello.
A- It doesn’t respond.
T- No one ever responds to hello.
A- It giggles slightly. In elvan.
Tom’s character walks into the clearing. Charlie want to tackle him.
F- You’re going to crash tackle Eric?
C- Hell yes. I don’t need provocation to crash tackle Eric.
A nymph appears in the glade and demands that they impress her. Tom is very keen to do so despite his near zero charisma.
T- I can’t do anything! I could hold my breath with endurance!
Tom rolls a natural 20 on his history check. He is now quoting natural history at the nymph while holding his breath in a pond.
Tried to throw Rachel in the air so she can do summersaults in a shower of lightening and glitter. Tom crit fails. Tom throws Rachel into Charlie’s face, she leaps backwards off him, Charlie’s lightening attack hits Tom in the face. It rains glitter.
Rachel tries to do some impressive summersaults and then chat up the nymph. She successes her acrobatics check but crit fails the charisma check. She does some semi-impressive acrobatics and then gibbers like an idiot.
It is party due to this failure that Tom succeeds in seducing the nymph.
R- So the whole point of that was that Tom got laid?

To be continued...

You can't lament these fickle days...

2012-01-02T17:03:00.003+11:00

Barcelona (the city not the planet)

2008
It was the first year I stayed up until midnight. We didn’t eat dinner that night, eating single sausages and undressed salad with our fingers, a bit at a time. We watched HELP! because it was on TV and because it was good. Playing Doubles1 we went through litres of red soft drink and then coke and, eventually, milk. Sugar, lateness and excitement riled us into a giddy kind of joy. We ran at the sound of fireworks, laughing and sprinting until we could barely breathe and hardly caring that we missed them anyway. Walking from one house to another, people yelled New Year’s greeting at us from verandas as we passed and we realised we’d missed the countdown. We had our own, not really minding that it was at least a minute late. I fell into bed smiling forty minutes into the new year.

2009
I stayed awake stoically. Mostly because I thought I should. Nothing much happened that year. My mother cooked dinner and we walked in the dark, through quiet streets listening to the sounds of the ocean and other people’s celebration. At midnight we watched the fireworks on TV and my family begged to be allowed to go to bed. It was a New Year overshadowed by the one that had come before and, in some little way, by the ones that would follow.

2010
David Tennant was regenerating on the other side of the channel and I was in Barcelona (the city) with new wisdom teeth sprouting painfully in my guns. We ate the kind of gazpacho you can only get in Spain, all the more delicious because it actually came out of a carton. I read The Radio Times (acquired a week before in England) because it was in English and waited for it to be late enough to go exploring. We walked down to the docks. There were children and families, gathered in anticipation of the clock chiming. When it did, the loud bongs came from a nearby ship. Fireworks cascaded off the bridge and into the water. Champagne corks popped and the amber liquid fizzed into the air. In the distance huge fireworks leapt and bounced off skyscrapers, the sparks reflected in the glass. In Spain its good luck to eat twelve grapes between the first and last stroke of midnight. The grapes had seeds in them so I didn’t quite manage. I ate them as fast as I could and figured that was good enough. The loudest rave in Barcelona happened in the apartment above ours, finishing at dawn and filling my restless dreams with the thud of bass.

2011
We made more cocktails than we drank. Assuming, of course, that cocktail is the right word for really alcoholic custard. We played Tim Minchin loudly and yelled our way through the lyrics with gusto. We offered to pay Jack a dollar fifty if he spoke in a Scottish accent for 24 hours. He only lasted about 3 hours and mostly we just pointed at boats and yelled “BOOT!”2 beccamarsh and I lay on the grass and laughed at the stars because they were there. The neon hum of glow sticks spun through the air as my tiny cousins threw them at each other. The fireworks were let off far closer than was probably safe. They soared above our heads and showered ash into my hair. At midnight we brushed our teeth, still singing, conducted by Jack and a toothbrush.

2012
We went to the beach and failed to make a bonfire, soon realising that not enough of us cared enough to make it happen. We watched fireworks from the headland. The far-away florets, barely the size of thumbnails. Distant and unreal the faint bangs occasionally drifted to us on the buffeting wind. There were new people and chat but somehow I didn’t feel like being the kind of person who throws herself into meeting people. We watched the countdown on television and in an anticlimactic kind of way we were happy.

I couldn’t help thinking that its odd to celebrate another year being gone. It’s a tangible moment where you can feel time slipping away as much as it is hope for the future. I feel asleep long before dawn.

1- Doubles is a dice game my cousins, brother and I invented. Its complicated, largely pointless and is, in fact, basically a drinking game. I have never played it with alcohol.
2- For anyone who has ever heard me yell the word “BOOT!” while randomly pointing out the sea- this is why.

The Second Annual Adventures in TV-Land Readers Survey

2011-12-18T21:41:00.000+11:00

Its that time of year again! When instead of writing a blog I compose an overly elaborate Google form to gauge your opinions of my humble blog.

This really is invaluable. With any luck it will help me make the blog better, or at least fill it with more of what you actually want to read. This isn't a fruitless exercise! At the end you shall be rewarded for your pains!
This year's reward took the better part of a day, a crew of five and a super-human bout of insanity to create. Here's a teaser- sky turkey.

All you have to do to gain access to this awesome-ness is answer a few simple questions. A heap of them are multiple choice.

So without further adieu, here's the survey. Thanks you in advance.*

SURVEY!

PS- Next Sunday is Christmas Day. Christmas is the one week a year I have off so I'll see you all in a fortnight. Merry Smithmas and a Happy New Sherlock.

*Thank you redeemable once survey has been completed.

Home

2011-12-11T13:30:00.000+11:00

Home.

Its such a simple word. And one that, for a long time, I used without any hesitation.

Home was easy. We all know what home is. There were places I felt at home. Like my god parents place. Or the GNW offices. Or, strangely enough, Sienna. But that’s something else entirely. Feeling as though you somehow belong in a place is different.
The Australian Oxford Dictionary definition of “home” is a whole column long. I think my favourite is meaning 6a- “a place where one is free from attack”. But that’s in the context of games. Like ‘home base’ in tips.

Last year in my gap year travels around the country I would regularly refer to wherever I was staying as ‘home’. This was usually in the context of ‘I have arrived home without being stabbed. Hurrah!’ I didn’t really think much of it at the time. For a week, at least, this hostel in Melbourne was my home. All my stuff was there. I went back there at night to sleep. This seemed like a reasonable enough definition given the circumstances.

Things got a little more complicated when I moved out of home. There it is again. That word. The place I grew up is obviously home. My family are here. I know almost every inch of this house having lived in it, ate dinners in it, run around it and played Hide and Seek in it. When I come back I have a tendency to occupy as much of it as possible. Not on purpose. It just kind of happens.

The place I moved to wasn’t home. Sure I called it home. I lived there. But, like the tiny hostel room, it never really felt that way. I was living in a tiny brick box in on-campus accommodation. I plastered the walls with pictures and posters. I filled the tiny bookshelf. I littered the desk with work and plans and letters. But despite my best efforts I never really liked living there. There were good bits, like the TV and the internet, but I only called in home by default.

Then I moved again. This time I moved into a house. I’d committed to living there before I’d even seen the place. I understand that, theoretically speaking, that could have gone wrong. But it didn’t. To give you an idea of what this house is like- the most common reaction when people see it for the first time is to mutter something about being jealous. It is wonderful. More importantly, it feels like home. The kitchen, with its big island benches and my string of paper fish hung in the rafters, has become one of my favourite places. I’ve planted potatoes in the vegetable garden, eaten cake on the veranda and read books lying on the wooden floors. Its much more than just somewhere that I live.

But so is home. The hardest part about this dilemma is when I am driving from Newcastle back to Grafton or visa versa.
“Yeah I’m driving…home on Tuesday…from…home.”

I have long been of the opinion that the English language is drastically lacking in some areas. My main grudges until this point have been “friend” and “relationship”.
I’m adding “home” to that list. I can’t help but feeling we need more than one word for such a complicated thing.

Living alone

2011-12-04T16:09:00.001+11:00

Dinner with Tim

At the beginning of this year I moved out of home. I packed up a whole bunch of my worldly possessions and took them six hours away from my family. After living in close proximity to other people for over 19 years, I suddenly found myself alone.

Living alone is a strange thing. Sometimes its wonderful. Others times it sucks.

Pro: You don’t have to wear pants.
Con: Everything has to be outsourced.
Pro: When it is really hot, you can watch TV and eat spaghetti in your underwear.
Con: Sometimes you've got a stupid problem and just need to talk things through.
Pro: On a lovely day when you have a lot of reading to do, you do it sitting in the sun…in your underwear.
Con: You have to deal with all invading creepy crawlies yourself.
Pro: There’s a lot more pros that involve doing various things while being semi-clothed. They have no downside.
Con: Lifting things is pretty hard to do alone.
Pro: You can get unnecessarily emotional about television in peace.
Con: Immediately following significant television moments, there’s no one to flail excitedly at.
Pro: You don’t need to check with anyone before randomly inviting a bunch of people to your house for tea and cake.
Con: There’s no one to help you clean up after impromptu tea and cake parties.
Con: There’s no one to be impressed by the super impressive cake you just made.
Pro: You get to eat all of said cake.
Pro: You know those times when you just want to break down and cry about the state of humanity in general and your life in particular? Living alone you can. Without judgement.
Con: There’s no one to notice when you’re sad.
Con: Hugs on demand. There are none.
Con: There is no one to tell you that 2am is really not the time and you should probably stop doing whatever it is you’re doing and go to bed.
Pro: Making posh dinner, setting the table and then eating it alone while listening to Micheal Buble.
Con: Making posh dinner, setting the table and then eating it alone while listening to Micheal Buble.
Pro: Cooking whatever you want. Whenever you want. cauliflower cheese for dinner at 11pm? Yes please!
Con: Being alone at night in a dark house in the middle of a storm.
Con: Company is not simply a matter of walking into the next room and demanding someone come to a comedy show/the movies/tea shopping with you.
Pro: You can talk to yourself loudly and whenever you like.
Con: Talking to yourself in public looks less insane if there’s someone to follow you around and pretend you’re talking to them.
Con: Being really sick. And having no one to make you tea or soup or drive to the shops and buy drugs because you’re not actually capable of leaving the couch.
Con: Having no one to tell you that you are far too sick to go to uni and please go back to bed immediately or else.
Pro: If you want to listen to the same album four times in a row, that’s ok. No one will be irritated by this.
Pro: This applied doubly if said album happens to contain a lot of obscenities.
Con: During late night bouts of hypochondria, no one can tell you that the weird spot on your leg is a Quidditch related bruise and not the early stage of meningococcal and also you should probably get some therapy for the emotional scaring caused by watching that terrifying video about meningococcal in year 10.

It evens out really. My super talented and awesome brother is moving in next year. And even though I’m really looking forward to having him around…I’m kind of going to miss being alone.

Not a cleaning convention

2011-11-28T15:32:00.001+11:00

The man looks around the train at the haphazard rabble who have just got on. We’ve taken up all the free seats at one end of the carriage, trapping him and a young woman in our midst. He takes in our over exuberance, the piles of backpacks and (most importantly) the large stack of brooms. There are house brooms, cobweb brooms, a large red wooden one with a spray of sticks (nicknamed The Red Barron) and various Halloween-style witch's brooms. The man looks at us.
“Excuse me,” he says “But do you mind if I ask where you guys are going?”
“To a cleaning convention,” someone replies.
We all fall about laughing.

Astute reads may have guessed that this group of people are not, in fact, a collection of cleaning ladies and men. We are the Newcastle Quidditch Team and we are on our way to Sydney for the first major tournament ever to be held in Australia- The Quafl Cup.

Later in Sydney we crowd together to take a group photo.
“We’re not tourists!” yells Eli at any passers-by who care to listen.
“No,” I say “We’re an elite sports team.”
This provokes more laughter. We don’t look like a sports team. Which doesn’t change the fact that we are.

The next day, in the pouring rain we assemble on a field at The University of New South Wales. Technically speaking I don’t think we are allowed to be on this oval. (I mean what? We were totally in the correct and lawful place the whole day.)
It was never really decided what the Newcastle team would call ourselves. Officially we are The Hunter Horcruxes. Unofficially, Neville’s Bitches of Newcastle. But I think most people came to know us as WHAT?
The name Newcastle What had been raised several weeks earlier and discarded. Somehow it becomes our war cry. A member of the team would yell “NEWCASTLE!” and the rest of us would chorus, in reply, “WHAT?”
After a while people catch on and randoms start yelling the name of our home city at us to get the reaction.

There were many highlights during the day.
Rain dripping off my tea-cosy and into my hair while Bludger reefing the first game.
The moment the clouds first parted to reveal a chink of blue sky.
The Snitch climbing onto the second storey of the building and threatening to jump. The Seekers, taking this has a joke, going up the stairs to corner him.
The Snitch astounding everyone by actually jumping from the second storey, into a hedge and immediately leaping up unscathed.
The rather difficult to describe flying-thumbs-up-bro-fist that Oods made a thing, despite my instance the previous day that it would not (absolutely no way) become a thing.
Rachel trying to interact with the Tom Milsom look-alike, just so she could say she had.
Jenny trying to convince Hudson to use his long distance camera lens to take pictures of attractive players on other teams without their knowledge. Hudson refusing.
Ollie becoming the unofficial first aid man for the tournament.
Hudson chasing a rouge helium balloon across the field and catching it to much applause.
Oods and Hilary running behind our opposition's goal and Rick-Rolling them.

Our best game of the day is against The Australian National University. The game is close. The ball flies back and forth across the field. We sub on and off rapidly as each player gets tired or, in one case (Celeste), is elbowed in the face. I scream encouragement and support and sometimes just noise. At point I yell Jenny’s name at such a high pitch that I’m not even sure I’m yelling a word anymore. One of ANU’s Chasers is unstoppable. The only way to prevent her scoring is to ram her off the field as soon as she enters the Keeper’s zone. I’m not even on the field for very long and I manage to violently tackle her numerous times. When the snitch runs into the open the score is still close enough that anyone could win. Its all down to who catches him. Standing behind the goals, I’m more tense than I can ever remember being about team sport. The Snitch stumbles. Joe, our Seeker, acts fast and grabs the tag. All the emotion of the game comes crashing down on me and I realise I’m close to tears. We all rush at Joe, leaping on him like they do in football movies. For a moment, as the voiceover would say, we are invincible.

We don’t win the tournament. We win three of our five games but the large margin in our match against The University of Western Sydney pushes us into fourth place. No one really minds. We’re tired and sore. The day is almost over. We played well. That’s all that matters.

You know how sometimes you encounter someone and it occurs to you (often with very little justification) that you’ve got things in common. You want to walk right up to that person and say-
“Hi, I think maybe we should be friends.”
But you don’t of course. Because that isn’t how life works.
On the train home as we tell bad jokes and riddles to try and remain conscious, I realise that most of these people fall into that category. And without this weekend (and all the training that came before it) I might never have got to know them at all.

Quidditch has been almost unbelievably important to me this year and Quafl was no exception. I got to spend this weekend with an amazing group of people. No, we won’t sit around braiding each others hair and talking about our feelings. But sometimes we might end up at Ood’s place and play board games over enthusiastically. Or just smile when we pass each other at uni.
I’m really glad that I’ve got to meet them. And I’m proud to have played my little part in the team. Its been worth ever bruise.
Newcastle? WHAT!

Fifty thousand

2011-11-20T12:04:00.001+11:00

For previous updates on this project, click here.

November is a month of acceptance. If you want to look like a paedophile for charity, that’s ok. People will applaud you. Equally if you feel like locking yourself indoors, muttering insanely and giving social media constant updates on how many words you’ve written today, society will accept this.

I’m not officially doing NaNoWriMo. I started the month with 35,000 words and I’m pretty sure that’s cheating. But while all that extra support and camaraderie is floating around, I thought I might have a stab at cracking 50,000 words.

Wednesday 16th November
Starting word count- 38537
Minimum daily target- 39301
10:51am- I missed yesterday due to driving six hours to attend my brother’s formal. Now behind.
10:56am- Cheating slightly. During a previous six hour drive I wrote out-loud and recorded it on my mini-cassette recorder (because I’m a BAMF). Transcribing that.
11:06am- This is painful. I’m not even kidding. The reason it took me so long to commit to this piece of writing was a desperate fear that it would stop being fun.
11:08am- THIS IS JUST RAMBLING. I don’t care if its authentic and potentially interesting rambling. Its still rambling about the tea making process and I’m pretty sure that isn’t how you write a novel.
11:13am- “You put the teabag in the cup and you put in the sugar (if you have sugar) and the milk (if you have milk).” YES ALEX EVERYONE KNOWS HOW TO MAKE TEA YOU DON’T NEED TO SPELL IT OUT.
11:19am- Resisting a strong urge to head-desk and/or rage quit. Please, please, please let this paragraph not be as shithouse as it currently appears.
11:29am- So it turns out that if you ramble into a tape recorder and then transcribe it, it tends to come out sounding like someone is rambling into a tape recorder.
11:35am- This is the problem I have with writing like this. When you become fixated on word counts, the quality of the section doesn’t matter so much as the fact that it is 332 words long.
11:40am- My characters spend a slightly ridiculous amount of time smiling at each other.
12:00pm- Damp patch. Can the words “damp patch” ever be used in a non-sexual context?
12:17pm- Other things my characters do a lot- look at each other.
12:33pm- The strangest thing is that I have almost no recollection of writing some of this. I also don’t remember the section of driving I was doing while writing it. This is possibly bad.
1:13pm- This single bit (which I rather like) is over 800 words long. Which means I can leave the tea ranting out for now.
Final word count- 39430

Thursday 17th November
Starting word count- 39430
Minimum daily target- 40185
1:17pm- I’ve been dicking around on Tumblr all morning and I’m still in my pyjamas. I’m finding it difficult to regret either of these decisions.
1:23pm- A couple of things occurred to me yesterday. This isn’t going to be magically finished when I hit 50,000. If I want it to be finished I’m going to have to tackle the total shambles which is the first 15 pages or so.
1:34pm- Urban Dictionary tells me “let’s blow this popsicle stand” is a lame saying. Well I think Urban Dictory is lame. So THERE.
1:42pm- I’ve got distracted again by my new favourite procrastination technique- typing increasingly random things into Google in order to create a queue on Fuck Yeah Dead Cat Bounce.
2:16pm- The worst part of this is that I’ve painted myself into a corner by informing as many people as possible about my goal. That means if I don’t make it, I have to fess up.
2:23pm- Put the chocolate down, stop refreshing the window and write some words.
2:29pm- I’m tackling the beginning by the way. You may have noticed it is as painful as I thought it would be.
3:03pm- I need 85 more words. Just 85. I can do this.
3:11pm- Just considered adding in yesterday’s tea rant to push up the word count. Need to leave the house in 5 minutes.
3:19pm- DONE! Oh bugger. I’m going to be late.
3:20pm- Double bugger. I’m still wearing my pyjamas.
...
7:04pm- Just logged onto Twitter to find four lovely motivational replies to an earlier desperation tweet. What did people do before the internet?
7:08pm- Tomorrow I have to drive back to Newcastle. I then I have Quidditch training in the evening followed by possible team bonding. Tomorrow is not looking good for my word count. Going to try and get ahead.
7:43pm- What’s the name of that date rape drug? Pretty sure it starts with a r…STOP GETTING THE WRONG IDEA ABOUT MY NOVEL.
7:44pm- No Ritalin is for ADHD. Bugger it, Googling “date rape drugs.”
7:45pm- Rohypnol! That’s it.
8:01pm- I’ve written 1101 words today. That’s a lot. I am a zarking genius. (The delusions of grander are only going to get worse the closer we get to my target).
Final word Count- 40531

Saturday 19th November
Starting word count- 40531
Minimum daily target- 41348
11:52am- Yesterday went worse than expected on the word count front. I drove for six hours, went straight to Quidditch and then ended up playing tabletop RPGs until 4am and sleeping on someone’s couch. So no words.
11:54am- I’m pretty tempted to write a Paranoia game into the Mexican dinner party. That sentence is a pretty good indication of how epic this story is.
(Remember what I said about the delusions of grander?)
11:57am- I need to write 817 words a day now. It was 716. I’ve only missed two days and made my word count on every other day and yet I’ve gained 100 extra words?
12:17pm- The Doctor Who Children in Need sketch came out today, along with the Smithmas trailer and new videos from the Vlogbrothers, Alex and Liam. The internet is being extra specially distracting ok?
12:31pm- Rachel’s just sent me a link to a site where, if you write 100 words, you get a picture of a cat. I think this will be helpful.
12:41pm- I’ve had this shirt on for 30 hours now. I haven’t showered since Thursday night. Still no words for today. Give me a sec, I’m just having a “WHAT IS MY LIFE?!” moment.
1:07pm- I’ve had a shower, washed my hair, changed into nice clothes, put on a pot to make pasta for lunch and started playing Charlie’s album loudly. Feel like a human being again. Let’s do this shit.
1:52pm- I’m writing the “boring bits”. By which I mean “context”. I have many thousands of words of amusing dialogue. I'm filling it all the bits around the edges.
2:20pm- My internet just randomly turned itself off. Possibly an intervention.
3:25pm- My novel features a deaf character. With little knowledge of the logistic of being deaf I find this pretty hard to write. This isn’t helped by the fact that, when you look up ‘how to communicate with deaf people’ ask.com tells you to trim your moustache.
3:38pm- Couch or lounge? Serious question. I feel like I should have consistency rather than switching between the two. Alternatively, write less scenes involving couches.
4:16pm- How do you describe…you know when you make a sort of mouth with one hand. Sort of looks like a duck. And you can make it talk. Yeah, how do you describe that?
4:34pm- I’m teaching myself to sign Doctor Who (another indication of the quality of this piece of work). Some confusion as the whether it would be the medical kind of Doctor or the Doctorate kind.
4:58pm- I keep getting distracted by typing words into the sign language dictionary. Sign language is pretty great.
5:15pm- I’m actually enjoying myself. I stumbled past today’s target ages ago without even noticing. This is how writing is supposed to be.
5:32pm- I need 26 words to be at 42,000. I feel this important milestone is worth a little more effort.
5:35pm- BAM! Take that word count.
6:06pm- Just typed “musicals with lots of dancing in them” into Google.
6:08pm- I have listened to “This is Me” three times today.
6:11pm- The word count is back to 716 a day. Probably going to go dance around my living room now.

Final word count-

PS- Next weekend I'll be blogging from the first ever major Quidditch Tournament in Australia! If you're in Sydney you should definitely come along and watch. Details here.
PPS- Keep working on those riddles. I gather some people are having a bit of trouble. If you ask nicely there might be some more clues. Liking the Facebook page would be a good idea on this front.

Riddle me this

2011-11-13T10:36:00.001+11:00

To celebrate the end of the year (What? You’re not doing an Arts Degree and therefore still have stuff to do? Never mind. You can just pretend) we, at Adventures in TV-Land, have a special treat.

*drum roll*
I am very proud to present our first ever competition!
In case you were wondering this is something you should be excited about. I’ll give you a minute to get adequately excited. We good? Ok.

Below you will find ten cryptic clues. They have been written for your puzzling pleasure by the lovely Beth. Please give her a round of applause. Beth may now take a bow. The clues are really great. I am totally in awe of them. Not even kidding. When you work them out you will have a minor “THAT IS SO CLEVER!” moment. Guaranteed.

All these people are Australian comedians (with the exception of one who is more of a writer). I have short uninteresting anecdotes about each of them. A slightly nerdy knowledge of Australian comedy type things would be a major advantage right about now. That’s all the clues you’re getting.

All you have to do is unravel these conundrums and send an email to paper-bag-girl [at] hotmail.com with your answers. (Don’t leave answers in the comments. That’ll ruin the surprise for others). You have until the 1st of December.

Apart from glory and the people’s ovation forever, the winner will receive a mystery prize package.* The contents of the package, in the spirit of mysteries, is a surprise. I promise that it will be awesome. Cross my heart.

Are you ready for this? Have you considered the possibility this might be something you have to plan for? Yes? Ok.

1. Screaming Rubik's Cube

2. Double bass-ed comrade

3. Franklie familial

4. Hoarding bell-ringer

5. Infant expander representative

6. Hardly barren of charm

7. Bespeccled leg of recurring 3's

8. Where ceramics fear to tread

9. The Lois to Lumber-ley

10. The edge of devolution

Happy riddling.

*That will involve giving me a mailing address. Let me know if that’s not something you feel comfortable with. I’m willing to provide character references who can testify to my reliability as both a real person/not psychopath-weirdo-stalker and mail sender.

A beginners guide

2011-11-06T13:44:00.001+11:00

The pictures are not always relevant to the text.

This is my 100th post.

There are people coming to my blog all the time. I don’t mean that in an “I am a super-star blogger!” kind of way (I am not. I wish.) But it has occurred to me that, for new readers, there is now rather a lot to catch up on.

I don’t expect anyone to go back and read all 100 of those posts. I know there’s a few of you who have been with me long enough to have read the vast majority. You guys get bonus points. For the rest of you, I’ve made being in the loop a little easier.

Here, for your reading convenience, is a ten post introduction to Adventures in TV-Land. We hope you enjoy your stay with us.

Welcome
My first post, fittingly enough tells the story of how it all started. It also features the couch story. Couches are something of a running theme. This story is part of the reason why.

The scariest moment of my life
I find it rather hard to believe there are still people who haven’t heard me tell the Exploding Mouse Trap Wheel of Death story. Luckily, to help change that, I wrote it down.

A day in the life…
Sometimes I write these things called “day in the life posts.” This was the first one. It continues to baffle me why a blow-by-blow account of my tea drinking provides so much amusement.

Copping some flack
This is one of my favourite posts. It is partly responsible for“chocolate Hobnobs” being the most popular search term used to find my blog. Damn I love Hobnobs.

Not another day in the office
In which I get to play with a slapstick and throw shoes at Paul. This was a good day. For a while my blog was the top result when you Googled “Benedict’s a wanker clap.”

Ian
It is important that you know who Ian Simmons is. Both while reading this blog and talking to me in real life. This is because Ian is really seriously excellent.

Tell me something I don’t know
Sometimes I'll features interviews with people from TV-Land. This particular interview currently holds the honour of most read post of all time. The ABC featured it on their Twitter and Facebook page.

Name dropping
There’s going to be a slightly exciting thing soon which is kind of a follow-up to this. So reading it now is in your interest.

We
Sometimes this blog isn’t about TV-Land. Increasingly its about life. Because sometimes life is almost as unbelievable.

Thank-you
This seems like a rather fitting way to end this introduction. No matter how many of those 100 posts you’ve read (even if this is your first), this applies. I couldn’t have imagined, when I started this blog, what it would become. And it couldn’t have been anything without you guys.

The virtual void

2011-10-30T17:15:00.000+11:00

I have a confession to make- I spend a slightly terrifying amount of time composing tweets and status updates.

I regularly refer to myself as a social networking whore. Because I am. I rely on social media a lot more than I’d like to admit. But the relationship is something of a love/hate one. The idea that people not much younger than me will grow up not remembering a time before Facebook, terrifies me. I want, quite desperately, to know how social interaction worked before the internet. How did people make friends before the ability to stalk them existed? Did you just have to hope you ran into that person again at another party? And then have an actual conversation with them? And I know how silly that will sound to people not much older than me.

I’m torn between these things being an integral part of my existence and really hating that they are. I sometimes wonder what I could have achieved if I’ve devoted all that energy (and all those words) toward a more productive ends.

For me social networking is a type of writing. Just like other kinds of writing, I put together a collection of words designed to appeal to an audience. The difference is that online you get a reaction. Having a story published is a wonderful and amazing thing, but people won’t photocopy your story and post it to all their friends (that was a terrible retweet analogy). The internet provides instant gratification.

This year I live tweeted the census. It was the first time I’d filled out the census by myself and I was pretty excited. Because I’m that kind of person. I also live alone so, naturally, I took my excitement and pointless commentary to the internet. The strange thing is, I got a pretty positive response to that pointless exercise. I shouldn’t be encouraged to spend an evening in that manner. That’s ridiculous.

Sometimes, when talking about comedy, people ask if I write jokes outside the realms of GNW. I tend to answer that, apparently, my blog is funny sometimes. But no, I don’t actively set out to write comedy. That’s kind of a lie. I write jokes on Twitter. I want to amuse people.

Once I was retweeted by the official 30 Rock Twitter feed. I felt as though I’d justified my existence for that day. Which sounds insane but is probably something a lot of you can relate to. Recently Facebook decided to randomly change my settings so that the only person who could see my updates was my brother Fin. In the fortnight before I worked this out, there was almost no activity. No likes. No comments. Silence. This bothered me a hell of a lot more than it should have. Without retweets and replies and comments and likes, how do we know that there’s anyone on the other end of the line? Without those things we’re just a bunch of words floating aimlessly in the virtual void.

There’s an addictiveness to all this. To knowing that you made someone laugh or smile. Traditional types of writing don’t give you that. I’m not saying Twitter is BETTER. Hell no. I’m just saying it has this appeal that’s very difficult to break free of. I’ve always been rather shy. I know I’m pretty confident these days but in a lot of social situations I still find it difficult to relax. And you can’t be witty when you’re nervous. The internet lets you censor your identity. Hiding behind a computer screen you can be the funny, outgoing person that you are in your head.

But sometimes I just want to be me. In real life.

Phone tapping

2011-10-23T12:17:00.000+11:00

This semester I’ve been doing a subject called ‘Introduction to Journalism.’ Despite initial doubts I’ve enjoyed it a lot.

We’ve spent a lot of time discussing ethics in journalism and what journalists should and shouldn’t be allowed to do. I’ve found that I have something of a tendency to take the moral high-ground. Last week’s question was about whether a need to tell the truth should trump other concerns, like privacy. I had the desire to write 'NO' 250 times and submit that as my response. Journalists have a responsibility to not only inform the general populace but respect and protect them. My opinion on the phone hacking thing? That it is not cool. At all. Ever. Your counter argument is invalid.

Then I had an epiphany.

When it comes to comedy I don’t think anything is sacred. Or that it should be. If we start restricting what satire can touch on the grounds that people might get offended, it becomes impossible to know when to draw the line. The strength of comedy (and its power to actually make a difference in the world) lies in its ability to target the important things. The very nature of important things means people might get upset by that. Sometimes I won’t agree with a joke. That does not mean a comedian should not be allowed to make that joke. I will jump up and down in defence of this point.

It occurred to me that these are potentially two rather hypocritical opinions for one person to hold. Why is it that I believe journalists should have to stay firmly within an ethical code but that comedians should be allowed to push the limits of good taste and decency?

I’m sure I’m not the only person who falls into this moral grey area. In fact I’d be willing to bet that rather a large portion of my readers hold these opinions too. So let’s stop and think for a moment- why is journalism so different to comedy?

I have deep respect and admiration for what journalists do. I wouldn’t be doing a journalism course if I didn’t envisage some freelance in my future. Good journalism is a thing to be marvelled at. Unfortunately, not all journalism is good.

Maybe that is wherein lies the difference. We don’t often hear about bad comedy. Bad comedy dies a million horrible deaths in front of audiences who don’t laugh. It becomes clear very quickly when someone has gone too far (I saw a stand-up do this once. Half the audience walked out. It was awful). Bad journalism on the other hand, sells papers. I’m sure you could easily hazard a guess at how I feel about, say, The Sunday Telegraph. They used to publish Calvin and Hobbes. This is a good thing I have to say about them.

No comedian ever tapped someone’s phone. And then there’s the fact that, without sensationalist journalism, very few jokes would ever become controversial in the first place. See what I mean about taking the moral high-ground? Whenever I lay all my arguments on the table like this, I feel as though I’m trying to justify my opinions rather than actually plotting out the issue. Maybe this is all too subjective to ever really arrive at a conclusion?

I don’t have a definitive answer to this question. But it is one that’s been plaguing me rather a lot. Hey look! I’ve written a blog that I want to incite discussion! Never done that before. I’d love to hear what you think about all this.
Leave comments or head over to the Facebook page.

And now for something completely different...

2011-10-16T18:53:00.000+11:00

The Reg Mombassa artwork which inspired this story.

Today is something rather different to usual. Today I’m going to tell you a story.

It seems slightly self indulgent to post fiction to this blog. I’m not sure why. The only reason I’ve decided to go against this feeling now is the absence of better ideas. But some of my best posts have come from an absence of better ideas so I’m running with it.

This is the story which won The Heading North Short Story Prize last year. Its one of which I’m rather fond. I could give you any number of preambles to introduce it but I’m not going to. Share and enjoy.

DESERT WINDS AND GRASS SEEDS

The egg cell is the largest cell in the human body.
It’s the only cell visible with the naked eye. I wonder if you know that. I’ve certainly never told you, it isn’t the kind of thing we discuss. I try to remember if you did Biology when we were at school, but following that train of thought recalls words like ‘zygote’ and ‘embryo’ so I stop. We’re at a funeral for goodness sake. You don’t think about these kinds of things at a funeral.

I should be thinking about Debra, the lady who used to live next door when I was little. I used to go over to her place when the bustle of home got too much for mum or for me. I always liked her, though I never understood why she didn’t own any cats. I like cats. I shouldn’t be thinking about cats at Debra’s funeral because obviously she didn’t like them. Do you like cats? I’ve never asked. We’ve been married for a year and I’ve never asked you if you like cats. Oh god. We’re not ready for this are we? I know I’m not.
Panic rising. Breathe Kathy, breathe.

That guy up the front doesn’t seem to be breathing. I’m sure I’ve seen him somewhere before. Don’t stare! You’re at a funeral Kathy, a  funeral. Try and remember that. I glance sideways at you. You catch my sideways glance and smile. I smile back.
It’s nice to know that I still love you.

But there’s all kinds of love. I hope we’ve chanced upon the right kind of love to survive this. I haven’t even told you yet and already I’m scared about the next part. Can you see that in my smile?

We’re in a church. I should probably give praying a go while we’re here. Dear God, please do not let this tiny bubble of life be the end of my life as I know it. What the hell am I saying? Of course it’s going to be the end of life as we know it. It doesn’t matter what happens, how you react, how I react, how God decides to let the events play out. My life has already ended the way it was. I’m in denial and I’ve been denying it up ‘til now. There is no going back, even if I never told you, even if nothing ever happened, a teeny weeny part of myself has already changed.
The womb part for instance, that bit’s certainly different.

I’d rather pray at home anyway. I’ve already done it once or twice. First when I started to suspect something and again before yesterday’s doctor’s appointment. I went to the shade tree and just…sat there for a while, if that counts as praying. I’ve never been specifically religious but I can’t help but feel there’s someone else out there. I’m not really fussed whether it’s God or Budda or Allah or all three on some kind of roster. However the whole system works, I’ve never felt closer to it than when I sit under the shade tree.

I like the shade tree. It’s big and dark and cool. There’s something slightly ominous about the way the shadow it casts seems larger than the tree is capable of. I think its slightly sinister nature is just more evidence that some kind of god lives there. Even if it’s only a shade god I’m sitting with, it always makes me feel better.
I’ve never taken you there. Maybe I should.

I pick a hair off my cardigan. That’s how big the egg cell is you know- the width of a human hair. When I was younger I used the think that because they were  visible  one day I’d actually  see one. I didn’t and don’t suppose I ever will. It’s funny though, when I was a teenager I used to remember that each month I had the capacity for life.
Not that I consciously thought about it, but the knowledge hung around in the back of my head sometimes. Then I met you and all that went away.

I really wish I’d never done Biology. Science can explain away every little bit of magic in the world. Like love. I fell in love with you for all kinds of reasons. You smell nice. You only ever buy me orange flowers because it’s my favourite colour, even though orange isn’t a colour most flowers have a natural affinity with. You don’t drink unless it’s champagne, in which case you drink too much. I’ve always really, really liked your hair.

According to science I fell in love with you because your features are symmetrical and your armpit pheromones are complementary to mine. This makes you an excellent candidate to father my children. Frankly, I hope science is right.
Not-breathing-man is getting up to speak. He says his name is Paul. Apparently he and Debra were dancing partners. He seems pretty sad about her dying. I’m fairly sad about it too; she wasn’t even old or anything.
Right now the issue in my stomach, which is quite literally multiplying by the second, is at the forefront of my mind.

I suppose it’s fitting. I can’t believe it’s taking me the whole funeral to work this out, but I have life here at a commemoration of death. They always say that funerals are a celebration of life. So maybe I should stop worrying and celebrate my little piece. Unfortunately I’m still terrified of the whole thing. If this baby is a girl I think I’ll call it Debra. And if it’s a boy its middle name can be Debra and I take no responsibility for any flack it gets at school. I like that.

I glance at you again and smile.

What I learnt at TiNA

2011-10-09T14:42:00.001+11:00

The National Young Writers Festival 2011

These people are pretty great.

1- There’s a bottle opener on the end of can openers. This comes standard.
2- There are people in the world who are willing to throw Arthur Darvill to the
zombies.
3- How to solve cryptic crosswords.
4- Loud bearing emu. That is all.
5- Its surprisingly easy to walk with a pillow case on your head.
6- Princess Peach is relevant to almost all panels. Writers enjoy referencing her.
7- Insulting you from a moving vehicle is how the people of Newcastle like to welcome the TiNA community to their fine city. “Take off your floppy coat!” (yelled at my brother) being the best greeting heard this year. (We’re actually not sure if it might be a pick-up line).
8- Cupcake Espresso! Come on! Its a shop! They sells cupcakes! Om nom nom.
9- New Zealand shows count toward Australian content laws. What’s with that?
10- Oporto- they do chicken, not logic.
11- There are synagogues in Thailand.
12- There’s a sound proof booth in The Great Northern. Its for making phone calls. So it’s a phone booth. Its pretty genius.
13- Apparently people from Victoria greet each other by biting. They will be very offended if you don’t do the same.
14- Alternatively- Geoff Lemon and Geir O’Rourke are lacking in sanity. But I gather their team won the football or something so maybe they’re excused for making me bite them.
15- Lawrence Leung really can do card tricks. There is no TV magic involved.
16- I also learnt rather a lot I didn’t really need to know about that group from Saturday night. You know who you are.
17- There’s a Harry’s Café de Wheels in Newcastle. They sell pie late at night. It is good.
18- A Lucky Seven will not sell you Golden Gaytimes at 4am. In fact it will be closed.
19- Its is stupidly difficult to get home late at night on the long weekend (assuming you don’t live within walking distance of the CBD).
20- Sleeping in wet clothes is a very, very bad idea.
21- The carpet at Farrgo Villa is remarkable comfortable to sleep on. Even if you are wearing wet clothes.
22-If you wear wet clothes to bed you will get sick. Have I mentioned that its a bad idea?
23-If you get your car locked in a multistorey car park on a Saturday you can get it out for free on Sunday.
24-Putting faces to usernames (however briefly) is lovely.
25- People don’t always look like their Twitter profile. Especially if said picture is an inanimate object.
26- Meeting someone through a dating game show is awkward. Surprise!
27- Many people learnt that when I said “prepare for all atmospheric eventualities” I meant it. To quote Lizzy “I probably could have just saved time by wrapping myself in plastic.”
28- Newcastle’s spontaneous torrential downpours stop for no writer.
29- When I say I couldn’t spell to save my life I actually mean that, if I was tied to a chair by a psychopath who held a gun to my head and asked me to spell tero…ptery…phyro…those flying dinosaur things, I still wouldn’t be able to do it.
30- Writers take their tea very seriously.
31- When out at night it is best to avoid the gaze of locals.
32- Its is very difficult to get waffles on a public holiday.
33- Some churches have a sense of humour.
34- I am not very good at Paranoia (the game not the verb).
35-Remember how sometimes Facebook stalking can be used for good?
36- When you meet people for real you can then read their tweets in their voice. This is quite amusing.
37- IRL still wins over the internet.
38- CAN SOMEONE PLEASE JUST INVENT TELEPORTATION ALREADY?
39- Post TiNA plans should be as follows- “sleep for a week.” No more. No less.
40- Lying under a pool table listing to British radio comedy, while rather good, is not the same as sleeping.

I just have a lot of emotions!

2011-10-03T12:59:00.000+11:00

National Young Writers Festival 2011

Guest post by Lizzy King
7:30pm- I have a seat and a chocolate bar. Nothing can assail me.
7:37pm- Still waiting to start. Its just like a REAL wedding. The bride is always late. I hope no-one cries.
7:40pm- The Perfect Match theme/titles play.
7:41pm- “Hello and welcome to ‘The Host is a Little Bit Drunk.’”1
7:42pm- The writers and wives are singing ‘Can you Feel the Love Tonight’ backstage.
7:45pm- When Lawrence Leung met Sian Campbell- there seems to be a lot of cheese involved.
7:47pm- Sian pulls the old yawn and stretch technique.
7:48pm- I think Sian and Lawrence’s second date was in a bottle-o.2
7:50pm- Sian confesses to dragging people into trees regularly.
7:51pm- Someone heckles. Another heckler responds- “Oh god someone else is drunk!”
7:51pm- Is this Sian’s confession time? She admits to making out with someone in a prayer room in an airport.
7:53pm- Lawrence adds Sian on Facebook- live! The crowd cheers.
7:55pm- Lawrence’s brother calls and we shout at him.
7:56pm- When Matthew met Tim.
7:59pm- “Was there a romantic moment?” Extended pause.
8:00pm- Washing machines, comedy gold.
8:01pm- It appears that quite a few of the contestants were at the same game of ‘Never Have I Ever’ last night.3
8:02pm- Wait…I was there too. Now I remember.
8:03pm- Tim is running away to Canada- not because of the date apparently.
8:04pm- Sian and Lawrence interrupt with the excellent phrase “Spelling Bee Keeper.”
8:05pm- Alex is on screen! Oh! The little red man joke. I know it!4
8:06pm- When Alex met Luke. Sans Luke…oh.
8:07pm- Alex’s worst date would be Hitler. So anything would be better I suppose.
8:08pm- Alex- “The blog’s on the internet so I guess the relationship is forever now.”
Laura- “That’s the most romantic thing anyone’s said all night!”
8:09pm- The crowd chants to call Luke. It goes to voicemail. We leave an obnoxious message.
8:09pm- When Garth met Katie. Also Sans Katie.
8:12pm- Someone yells “Alex and Garth!”
8:12pm- It transpires that Katie and Garth live in the same suburb. Heckler- “So she can tram it down to west Garth!”
8:16pm- Garth was so excited to meet Katie it upset him. It appears he’s more smitten than Katie.
8:17pm- No wait, she has sent a message through Sian AND the power of video.
8:18pm- It would appear Garth and Katie have created their own secret code.
8:21pm- Lawrence has been unfaithful?
Sian- “Yeah, let’s get back to this- who is Gold Shirt?”
8:22pm- Alex has been unfaithful with someone’s beard?
8:24pm- Say ‘clear crowd favourite’ five times fast… “clear clown favour?”
8:25pm- There is general crowd “nawwwing.”
8:26pm- Re Garth- “WRITER GOTTA WIFE!”
8:27pm- Lawrence invites Sian to his show in Brisbane. Sian- “There are a lot of good trees in Brisbane.”
8:28pm- Tim and Matthew quote Australia’s Next Top Model. “I just have a lot of emotions!” “I didn’t come here to make friends!”
8:29pm- This crowd loves chanting PLUS ONE! PLUS ONE! What does it mean?!

Alex's footnotes!
1- Laura tripped while walking on stage. She later admitted she decided to play drunk because it was better than being uncoordinated.
2- Immediately before the event started 5 of the 6 contestants found ourselves in the nearest bottle shop.
3- Yeah... that was a thing that happened.
4- They showed the punch-line to my best joke. Just the punch line. To a whole room of people.

Its quite awkward because its in public and I’m not drunk

2011-10-01T18:42:00.002+10:00

National Young Writers Festival 2011

To paint a picture for those who weren’t there- Writer Wants a Wife was closely modelled on Perfect Match. Each “writer” sat behind a screen and asked questions of a series of potential “wives.” Based on their answers the writers then had to pick one contestant to go on a date with. We all on the same page now? Ok cool.

I begin the evening leaning against a fireplace with a pillow case over my head. To be clear, the pillow case does have an eye slit and a small mouth hole (which Lawrence manages successful to fit a straw through so he can finish his drink). The most amusing thing about our newfound state of abnormality is the people who keep walking up to us.
One slightly confused looking woman comes and stands on the periphery of our small circle. We all stare blankly at her (blank being the only kind of stare you can do with a pillow case on your head.)
“Am I…is this Writer Want a Wife?”
“Yep.”
Awkward pause.
“So I just go…find a seat?”
“Yeah.”
The woman leaves slightly hastily. Lawrence comments that she talked to us as though this situation was perfectly normal.

(I now pass you into the capable hands of my brother Fin for a running commentary)
6:21pm- Lex gets video interviewed and asked if she’s wearing underwear. Answer- undisclosed.
6:31pm- Everyone is growing either more excited (if audience) or mildly more apprehensive (if writer/wife).
6:33pm- Apparently the dress code for those participating involves the inclusion of at least one item of reflective clothing. Note- only three participates seem to have got the memo.
6:36pm- All participants seem to be being given free drinks. I’m quite sure the NYWF artist agreement does not cater for unexpected pregnancy.
6:39pm- The “writers” emerge looking like members of the Taliban.
6:41pm- Wait, the reflective clothing is just for the presenters, in true reality show style.
6:45pm- The strangeness begins.
6:47pm- Some interpretive dance from wife #1.
6:47pm- Innuendo promising to be the ongoing theme of the night.
6:49pm- Desperate Canberra…ian spontaneously joins the search for love.
6:54pm- Anecdotes about love ensure.
6:55pm- And misquoting (in harsh contexts).
7:00pm- Mass wedding to writer #1 suggested.
7:05pm- Heavy literary based sexual references.
7:09pm- On being given a compatibility of 11% success wife #1 proclaims “This is qualitative dammit!”
7:10pm- We all enjoy some dated Neighbours romance.
7:13pm- “What if you’re not dutch?”
“Then its just a bit racist.”
7:14pm- Freakishly popular man walks on stage. Crowd goes wild. Other wives are moderately intimidated.
7:16pm- Person with accents should be banned. Seems like an unfair advantage.
7:17pm- Lex has to choose between three men with facial hair (one lacking in other hair) and one with an Irish accent.
7:18pm- The first question is “You are asked to describe yourself to someone who has never met you before using mime. You are allowed to have three props. What would they be and why?’
7:19pm- Wife #1 ruins all chances by choosing a shot gun, a flower and another person for his mime.
7:24pm- Wife #2- “The scale model of Euro Disney serves to represent the mix of fun and lack of success which is my life.”
7:25pm- Lex spring her zombie book question- you’re only allowed to take one book to the end of the world (to make room for all the canned goods). What would it be and why?
7:26pm- It seems wife #3 can take his pick of women in the room.
7:27pm- Host Laura shows favouritism toward wife #2.
7:28pm- Laura- “You in the ironic jumper! Pipe down!”
7:29pm- Lex gets mood music and ten seconds to decide.
7:30pm- Lex and Luke (wife #2) make very civilised greeting.
7:31pm- Lex flirts with one of the wives she didn’t choose in front of the one she did.
7:32pm- The compatibility results give them 79%.

Aaaaand Alex is back.
7:42pm- Tim is now being grilled by his date. Ironically he is the only wife.
7:43pm- Tim’s perfect date would be “an adult version of the Magic Faraway Tree.”
7:44pm- Potential other names suggested for the event (to avid the heterosexual connotations) Writer Wants a Punt, Writer Wants a Significant Other, Writer Wants a Life.
7:49pm- Wife #1 is looking for “Someone strong with Viking characteristics.”
Lawrence- “Shit.” *leaves*
7:51pm- Wife #2 is looking for someone “who can spell onomatopoeia.”
Lawrence- “Shit.”
7:52pm- Lawrence is making approving noises about Sian’s bio. I’m cheering for her pretty hard.
7:54pm- This is intense!
7:56pm- Lawrence- “You have mutant super powers. What would they be and how would they help us on our date.”
Sian- “I’d be Storm because I think the Earth moving on a first date would be a pretty good sign.”
Massive cheer.
8:00pm- Down to the final question. I really want Sian to win. Nothing against the other two or anything.
8:01pm- The overenthusiastic crowd (of which Express and student medias are a fair percentage) just preformed an impromptu rendition of the coconut song.
8:05pm- Argh! Tie breaker! TENSION! Can you feel it internet? TENSION!
8:06pm- Lawrence- “There are no losers in this game. Only in life.”
8:07pm- SIAN HAS IT!
8:08pm- Quote of the night from Lawrence “Its quite awkward because its in public and I’m not drunk.”

After the room clears and various people make awkward encouraging comments, we are then handed a block of cheese, biscuits, fortune cookies, fake champagne and a picnic blanket. By picnic blanket I mean the doona cover which matches the pillow I was wearing earlier. Luke and I go and sit on this “blanket” under a streetlight on the foreshore. I did not actually make notes during the date. Because that wouldn’t be civil.

While I’m disclosing the details of my “love life” (insofar as being on a dating event like this counts) I may as well be honest. Depending on your definition, I haven’t really been on a whole lot of dates. The fact I have to include the “depending on your definition” clause tells you pretty much everything you need to know (which is nothing at all).

With my extensive experience in mind, I would say it went quite well. It was fun. That’s saying something ok. Just take a moment to picture this scenario. I’ve never met this guy before. I just picked him over three other guys based on the merits of his response to a series of stupid questions. We are now sitting on a doona cover eating cheese while a guy films us and says “Laugh more!” Correct. Someone is directing our date. It is at this stage that I point out that Lawrence and Sian are sitting in a tree and maybe he should go film them instead.

Along with cheese and “wine” we have been provided with a serious of helpful conversation starters. I use the term helpful very loosely. Though they start well (what book are you reading?) the tone quickly descends (Tell me about your most traumatic break-up?) until they become downright ridiculous (Do you like me?). As Luke points out it is rather like being on a date with autistic person.

Adding to the general atmosphere is a nearby wedding (there was an actual bride having photos taken in the near vicinity). The DJ of said wedding plays Big Butts, Can’t Touch This and All The Single Ladies in a row. If that isn’t mood music I don‘t know what it. In the middle of this we are called away individually to describe our date in one word. While Luke has his turn I go and talk to Sian and Lawrence. Following the trend of bizarre and slightly awkward situations, Lawrence proceedes to give me advice about wooing Luke. “Lawrence Leung once gave me dating advice while sitting in a tree” has been added to my anecdote list.

I feel as though maybe I’m giving this date a bad wrap. Have I ever told you that once, in a small notebook, I wrote the phrase “play incompetence for laughs” as a memo to myself? That is true. You are now privy to the secret behind this blog (and most of my life). Luke was lovely. We talked about books, The Internet, comedy and a whole bunch of other stuff. We had an actual discussion about the merits of Dead Cat Bounce (long term readers will appreciate this statement). I was a lot less awful than I was expecting the evening to be.

We eventually decided to head inside to the Going Down Swinging Launch. We dumped our “blanket” and the remaining cheese in the bin and cracked open our fortune cookies.
My fortune said “There is a single answer to every question; it is usually wrong.”
Interpret that as you wish.

For more dating awkwardness come along the debrief session on Sunday night. I gather there will be a lot of footage of people laughing awkwardly.

Load bearing emu

2011-10-01T01:47:00.000+10:00

National Young Writers Festival 2011

8:32am- Pick my way threw unconscious friends to turn the kettle on. That’s right. I have the kind of house where people fall asleep in the kitchen. I’m pretty cool.
9:15am- Continuing various discussions last night I finalise my Writer Want a Wife questions while watching my friend Rachel play pool.
Rachel- “Congradulations on your questions. I hope they find you love.”
9:54am- Heading into town to meet Lizzy and Sian for breakfast. Fin is inadvertently attempting to impale me with his camera tripod.
10:25am- While waiting for waffles to arrive we have various arguments/discussions about Doctor Who, Minecraft and the moon.
10:36am- Waffles arrive. Will probably not need to eat anything else all day. Damn good waffles.
10:47am- Sian and I decide we should go and try on wedding dresses. Just in case Writer Wants a Wife goes well. Best to be prepared.
11:06am- Doing a workshop about cryptic crosswords. I would very much like to be good at cryptic crosswords.
11:08am- I am never going to be good at cryptic crosswords.
11:49am- Last night’s exhaustion has just caught up and crass tackled me from behind. Must. Concentrate. On. Crosswords.
12:30pm- There is a giant crossword on the wall. With our newfound knowledge we decide to attempt it.
12:38pm- Totally get a clue. All by myself. I am a bone-fide genius people.
12:45pm- It occurs to us that we might actually be able to finish this whole crossword. Our collective excitement is quite large.
1:08pm- “That’s what’s holding us back. Our limited knowledge of sexually transmitted diseases.”
1:23pm- Bloody finish a zarking cryptic crossword. Holy zarquon’s singing fish. We are amazing.
2:10pm- Sitting at a table while people more talented than me draw pictures. Student media are cutting and pasting in a corner.
2:26pm- We may have just found William McBribe. Get excited.
2:37pm- Call off the man hunt! Man found!
2:56pm- Hey that’s right. This festival actually has fascinating things where you learn stuff hidden between all the fun and socialising.
3:06pm- Have I pimped Voiceworks lately? Voiceworks is amazing. Go buy some Voiceworks.
3:37pm- Fin and I are having nachos at Sproket while I try to use the wifi. It has occurred to me that my internet is actually portable. I could have bought it with me from home. Facepalm.
4:03pm- If you’re wandering around in search of a toilet, the ones at Sprocket are pretty great. This has been today’s top tip.
4:26pm- We’ve installed ourselves cross legged in front of the stage for Would You Rather. Feel like an over enthusiastic school child.

Following are a selection of choice quotes from Would You Rather. Feel free to play along at home.

On the panel-

Ben Jenkins (moderator), Geoff Lemon, Zoe Sanders, Lawrence Leung, Dominic Knight, Mark Sutton.

(Sorry if I’ve attributed any quotes wrong. There may be some flaws in my note taking process.)

Would you rather loose a finger (painlessly and medically) or always wear a cape?
GL- “What is a regulation sized cape?”
[The cape does not need to be worn while showering.]
GL- “Can you, hypothetically, construct a portable shower and wear it everywhere and not wear a cape?”
BJ- “You’ve discovered a clever loophole. But I’ll let you have it because the question now becomes, would you rather loose a finger or always be in the shower.”
ZS- [To GL] “I think you’re overestimating the sexual attractiveness of missing digits or limbs.”
GL- “Ironically it would be very hard to tie up a cape with a missing finger.”
LL- “There’s more things you can do with fingers than you can do with capes. I’ve never caped someone.”

Would you rather be able to back-flip on cue for the rest of your life or be Nelson Mandela’s pen pal for the rest of his?
DK-“Does it include moral back flips or just physical ones?”
[The audience is asked if anyone would like to come on stage and demonstrate a back flip]
LL- “Can anyone say public liability insurance?”
GL- “So you have to be medically entitled to a wheel chair before you can back flip a seating device?”
BJ- “No you cannot Skype Nelson Mandela!”

Would you rather have a friendly emu who you could ride around on, or play a real life Mario Kart tournament?
BJ- “It’s a loud bearing emu.”
LL- “Do I have to learn plumbing or Italian?”
DK- [on Mario Kart] “There’s got to be a Green Room.”
GL- “Can it talk?”
BJ- “No it can’t talk! This isn’t fucking Mario Kart!”
GL- “If I can’t walk and I’m riding the emu, can I back flip with the emu?”
BJ- “These don’t accumulate!”
ZS- “They would in Mario Kart!”
LL- “I want to go to Mario Kart but only if I can race against Nelson Mandela.”

Would you rather work at Hogwart for the rest of your life in a non-magical capacity, or be the next member of the Ocean’s team?
GL-”You are the most expendable character when some kind of flaming umbrella monster breaks out of the chamber of thingo.”
LL- “When you say ‘no magic’, does that include card tricks?”

Would you rather be Kim Kardashin’s ghost writer or the ghost of Christmas past?
BJ- “To clarify, you are only a ghost in one of these.”
MS- “The ghost of Christmas past is all ‘your childhood sucked! Goodbye!’”
[It is asked whether you would have to be the ghost of Christmas past from the Muppets. It is generally agreed that you could dress as a Muppet if you so desired.]
BJ- “For time immortal, the first thing anyone would ask you is ‘why are you dressed as a Muppet?’”

Would you rather talk to the animals but all the animals hate you or be able to control all the bees but the bees are quite lazy?
BJ- “You cannot produce royal jelly.”
GL- “I’m a possum! I’m in a tree!”
GL- “Why are the dogs misogynists?”
MS- “I think it would be interesting to know how a meerkat would insult me.”
LL- “This is why democracy doesn’t work!”

Would you rather drink a pint of fizzy urine or a pot of still?
ZS- “At least fizzy urine would be kind of refreshing.”
MS- “Is it chilled?”
GL- “Is there a little umbrella?”
MS- “Less urine. Better option.”
BJ-[Following a suggested audience question] “I think we might just take that as comment. I’ve always wanted to say that!”

You have a one-way time machine, would you go to the past or the future?
MS- “Would you go back to ancient Rome or would you go back to the time of ancient Rome but be in Newcastle?”
LL- “Do I speak Latin?”
BJ- “I’m sorry Lawrence but you can’t go back two minutes for no reason.”
ZS- “So I can take my iPhone?”
GL- “But if you loose your charger, you’re fucked.”
MS- “I don’t know what the future’s going to be like. There could be a new age of sexism and homophobia.”
BJ- “A renaissance!”
ZS- “You’re attracted to the prospect of bikes and orphans?”
DK- “You should move to Beijing.”

Not only did I go on a dating panel event and then a date, I plan to tell the internet about it.

Excitement coming soon!

Repopulating the world

2011-09-30T00:29:00.001+10:00

National Young Writers Festival

The meet and greet is populated by wonderful people. There is a very particular kind of joy which comes from being surrounded by so many talented and attractive people. Especially ones who you haven’t seen for a whole year. Resisting the urge to kidnap them permanently install them in your life is rather hard.

Before long we’ve mounted a minor manhunt to locate someone named William McBride. After seriously disturbing a man in a head scarf (who wasn’t William McBride) we talked to rather a lot of people who thought William McBribe must be a bushranger or a crime writer. We don’t think he is either. The search was abandoned without a result. (If you are, or know of, William McBride you should totally get in touch.)

We trail down Hunter Street in a disjointed rabble and get on a bus heading toward my house. By ‘us’ I mean my brother and I, Lizzy, Sian, Alex, Farrago and Tharunka. I am well acquainted with a very small number of these people. I’ve only just met a fair percentage. There are a couple whose names I don’t actually know yet. I should explain to anyone who has never been to TiNA- this is quite normal. It is actually the only time that I am willing to invite virtual strangers into my home.

They follow me into the dark suburbs of Newcastle and down my little street.
“You’re not going to harvest our organs are you?” says Scott (of Farrago).
It occurs to me that, had that been my aim, I have done rather an excellent job of leading unknowing innocents toward a death trap. Instead I welcome them into my house and fed them TARDIS pies. Same difference right?

I spent a happy few hours flitting between the group playing Sopio, the one playing pool and those debating the merits of daylight savings. I don’t think my house has ever contained this many people. After the student media people head back into town for their event, we retire to the lounge to play a rather fun game.

For those of you not at TiNA, here is said fun game, to occupy your time while we‘re all having an excellent time in Newcastle-
On small pieces of paper write the names of celebrities, historical figures and fictional characters who you would be willing to repopulate the world with. All the names go into a hat. Taking turns, each person draws three names from the hat. The first you repopulate the world with, the second you get to make out with before parting ways and the third is pushed to the zombie and certain death. This third person is removed from the hat completely. This game is emotionally taxing. And very amusing.

(I can now cross blogging at midnight off my bucket list.)

Paper flowers and chance meetings

2011-09-29T09:47:00.000+10:00

National Young Writers Festival 2011

Epic flowers of epicness.

We’re standing outside Staple Manor (this year is above a pharmacy in Hunter Street Mall). Ben Jenkins (festival co-director) and someone else (who’s name I didn’t catch) are throwing rocks at the windows to try and attract the attention of someone inside. One of the lessons I learnt last year is that the effectiveness of throwing rocks at windows is a movie fallacy of Mythbusters proportions.

The whole situation is a pretty definite signal that we’ve entered the mythical other world in which TiNA operates. Another definitive signal emerges from the darkness a moment later. Said signal is Lizzy. Lizzy and I have never met before. As I say to my brother Fin, in a high, excited voice- “This is Lizzy. My friend from The Internet.” Only at TiNA would randomly bumping into someone like this feel normal.

We then proceeded (having finally managed to ring someone upstairs) to traipse up an alleyway to a large red door. This door lead to a dreary, damp alleyway between buildings, the likes of which you tend to see in American movies about superheros. This effect was heightened by the rusty fire escape staircase we had to climb up at some danger to our lives. Pretty exciting.

Staple Manor, I am pleased to report, is beautiful. It’s a cavernous white space with wood panelled floors. During daylight hours you’ll even be able to enter via the front door! Win! Amid a bustle of last minute panic, a small cluster of volunteers sat on the floor and ripped up books. Don’t panic! They weren’t real books. They were Readers Digest Condensed Editions and it is widely acknowledged these were actually invented for literary based craft projects.

Tonight’s project was making flowers. This proved to be something of a challenge but one which we collectively rose to. Affixing them to the beams afterwards was tackled with slightly less success. All weekend, upon entering Staple Manor, you must now think “Look at those lovely paper flowers! Alex totally helped to make those!”

This was the best possible introduction to NYWF. The combination of chance meetings, minor disorganisation, quirky venues and slightly ridiculous (but very fun) activities is what the whole festival is all about.

Needless to say I’m pretty excited for the proper kick-off today. I’m still in my pyjamas. Mostly because the weather has turned cold and rainy and I now need to re-think my clothing choices. Which seems like a lot of effort. But there are TARDIS pies to be made, champagne to be bought and people to be seen. Excite!

PS- As part of Writer Wants a Wife tomorrow I've got to think of three questions to ask potential matches. Suggestions please?

Here’s a few people to follow if you want more NYWF awesome.
The lovely Lizzy- who’s blog is full of awesome. Blog, Twitter.
Geoff Lemon- the other official festival blogger. Blog, Twitter.
Alex- Tasmanian music blogger extraordinaire. Blog, Twitter.
Sian- my fellow Writer in want of a wife. Blog, Twitter.

Reporting live from bed

2011-09-28T10:13:00.000+10:00

National Young Writers Festival 11

And so it begins.

Across the country people are shoving their favourite tutus into suitcases, having last minute panic attacks and boarding trains, planes and automobiles1 on their way to sunny Newcastle.

That’s right people. Sunny. The weather forecast from my bed2 says that it is sunny with a light breeze and a small chance of rain.3 More importantly it is jeans and T-shirt weather. Or dresses and stockings. Light cardigans. That sort of thing. It’s cool in the evenings. Dress accordingly.4

As you can probably tell from the amount of footnotes (which translate as excited chatter in real life) I’m a little bit pumped. Yesterday, while op shopping in town with my friends, spent a lot of time skipping, jumping up and down and squealing ‘TiNA!’5 The centre of Newcastle has always been TiNA territory for me. Even though I now have a bunch of other memories which are set in and around there, I can’t see this changing.

Today, in preparation for the festivities, I have drastically overcommitted myself. I’m currently blogging in bed. I can’t really leave the house because I’m waiting for a very important delivery of Voiceworks magazines (which I’m babysitting for the lovely folk at Express Media). Then I need to clean my house, pick my brother up from the train, help pack artist show bags, pick Sian up from the plane, have dinner with my father, decide what to wear (loosely speaking) for the next few days and make TARDIS pies.6 I’d also rather like to try and squeeze a nap in somewhere today. I’ve spent the last few days camping.7 As a result I am conveniently exhausted before the festival has even kicked off. Go me!

With this in mind (and because it looks like overcommitting myself is not a habit I can break) I’ve decided I’m in favour of human cloning. Just as soon as it finishes inventing teleportation, science should get on that.

Its always rather difficult to tell what tone my blog posts will be read in. I’ve not really around the read it aloud for you and make sure you get it right.8 It would be easy for you to think I’m tired and stressed. Maybe a little over my head? But honestly I feel rather at home.
All of life should be more like TiNA.

1- And maybe the occasional bike. I wouldn’t put it past anyone.
2-Encompassing the medium square of sky I can see out my front window.
3- There is always a chance of rain. Think I’ve mentioned that.
4- Does anyone else think this is the kind of advice the daily weather report should include? Are you listening Graham Creed?
5- Often at the same time. I imagine this got quite annoying.
6- Hello new readers! My name is Alex and I make pies in the shape of police boxes.
7- Because fat fires, flooded mini-golf and emergency ponchos is what the cool people do with their holidays.
8- If anyone ever asked I would potentially be willing to stage an impromptu blog reading.

Too much of a good thing

2011-09-24T12:26:00.003+10:00

National Young Writers Festival 2011

The National YoungWriters Festival is on this week. I am excited about this.

Just thought Ishould mention that in case there are a couple of people in northern Africa whohaven’t heard yet.

I’m an officialblogger for the festival again this year, so prepare yourself for a barrage ofrapidly composed festival blogs, written on the hop and uploaded using whateverwifi is available! If you aren’t really interested you might want to pop outfor a bit. Come back sometime around the 9^th of October and see howwe're doing then.

For everyone else-the program, as per usual, is seriously jam-packed with awesome. No idea whereto start? Never fear. Alex is here to help.

Would You Rather?

The blurb for thisevent doesn’t tell you a lot. You could easily skip over it. DON’T. Look at thepeople on this panel. It’s like they’ve taken a bunch of the best guests,shoved them in a room and said ‘go for your life’. This will be extremelyentertaining. Take my word for it.

Writer Want a Wife

I’ve alwaysthought there should be one or two things The Internet doesn’t know about me.Like my love life. But rules are made for breaking right? With that in mind Iappear to have agreed to participate in a Dating Game Show. It'll be something like Perfect Match but with more references toclassic literature. Let’s be honest, I’ve got no idea what to expect. Excepthilarity. I think that’s pretty much guaranteed.

NYWF Saves Australian Television in an Hour

I know too muchabout a number of things. These things include (but are not limited to)pirates, the work of Douglas Adams, Matt Smith’s socks and Australiantelevision. My dedication to Australian television is probably the mostproductive. It might actually get me employed one day. It is therefore very much in my interest to help save it.

Comedy Writing- Tough Crowd

Apart from theamazing Lawrence Leung and Dominic Knight, this panel also features GenevieveFricker. I saw her play at thecomedy store early in the year in a showcase where the headline wasDead Cat Bounce. I will try and keep my fan-girling to a minimum.

The Big Top Ball

I bought thefinishing touches for my ball costume yesterday. Said touches are a whip and apair of black pants. You’re intrigued now aren’t you? I have a feeling that thecostumes this year will be top notch. So throw something together, come along and dance ‘til dawn. Orclosing time. Which ever comes first.

Spelling Bee

I almost didn’t goto the inaugural Spelling Bee in 2009 because, well I hate spelling. Spellingis not a good way to spend an evening. How very wrong I was. Who knew you couldget emotional involved in five syllable words? With any luck we might even getto play cheese or font (or a variation thereof). It’s the best pub game ever.

Thank-you

2011-09-19T10:18:00.000+10:00

Thank-you is a strange word.

Most of the time its so easy to say. We say it all the time. Thanks for holding that door open for me. Thanks for lending me this book. Thanks for letting my car go in front of your car. Thanks for saying nice things about my socks.

The weirdest thing about this word though is that when it matters the most it becomes surprisingly easy to forget it. When the gratitude reaches a certain level your brain shelves the whole “thank-you” idea until it can think of a better way to express those feelings. Because thank-you is totally inadequate.
Suddenly you realise that, not only have you not come up with a better idea, you haven’t actually done anything at all. And maybe the person in question isn’t even aware of how much you owe them.

So thank-you.

Yes. That preamble was actually directed at you guys. I realised recently that I’ve never mentioned how much you mean to me or how hugely I am in your debt. Does that sound weird? Maybe it does. All you do is read my blog and occasionally comment or tweet at me. But its actually rather a lot more than that.

Sometimes life is kind of awful and hard. (I wish I could tell you about some of the times life has been awful and hard but, even though we are friends, this is the internet and you never know who could be listening). On those days, when I want to give up, I find myself thinking about the people who read my blog.

I’m trying to work out a way to say this that doesn’t sound cheesy. There probably isn’t one. There are people out there who believe in me. Real, wonderful, amazing people who believe that I can do anything (within reason, I think even The Internet would have difficultly believing I could represent Australia at ice hockey, for example). You peeps have inspired me to be a braver, more confident, BETTER person. Sometimes you are the difference between “I think I shall stay at home and drink tea” and “No dammit I can DO this.” You’ve got a lot to do with the whole orange pants thing.

I love my real life friends. I’ve spent a lot of time lately appreciating how absurdly lucky I am to have found these people. And I love that they read my blog and then casually mention they liked a post. Those of you I met at a thing once- I love that The Internet means we’ll be better friend next time we catch up.

There are lots of readers who I don’t know. Lots of nameless, faceless people who only show up as a little blip on the stats page or the occasional like on the Facebook page. Thanks for giving me a little part of your time. Your blips make my day.

But there’s something very special about being friends with a total stranger. About someone stumbling across my blog (by whatever kind of accident) and deciding to come back. About finding someone, in the infinite void that is the virtual world, who shares all these things with you.

There are some of you I should have thanked a long time ago.
Lauretta- who I’ve known her for almost two years now. I’ve got a lot of face-to-face friends I haven’t known that long.
Beth- who has cheered me up any number of times when I have been sad (you probably don’t even know that Beth, but you have).
Lizzy- who’s blog is part of why I look forward to Mondays and who’s another reason TiNA is going to be so great.
Evan- who I think might succeed at comedy despite my rubbish advice.
And Britt- who, maybe one day, I will get to talk about Press Gang with.

Virtual hugs for all.

A beginners guide to NYWF

2011-09-12T13:30:00.000+10:00

National Young Writers Festival 2011

At my first festival in 2009, on a comedy panel.

Its almost that time of year again. The time when, for five gloriousday, geography isn’t so much of a barrier because everyone’s in the same place.Well ok, not everyone. But a lot of people.

I am talking, of course, about the unbridled celebration of awesomewhich is This is Not Art, and more specifically the National Young Writers Festival.

This shall be my third consecutive TiNA year. Which practically makes mea regular. Plus I’ve been a resident of Newcastle since February. Whichpractically makes me a local. With those slightly dubious credentials I wouldlike to offer some advice to those venturing into the NYWF fray for the firsttime.

First things first- if you haven’t booked accommodation GO AND DO ITNOW. The rest of this blog post can wait. The backpackers and youth hostels inNewcastle get packed so full of writerly, arty types they’re practicallyspilling out the windows. Seriously. Get in quick.

When thinking of travel I’d recommend considering the train. Its cheaperthan flying and you get a bunch of extra time to stare pensively out ofwindows. And read impressive looking books. Maybe even write. Plus you can getDevonshire tea which is one of the greatest things ever. Trains are cool.Countrylink plug over.

The weather here is ridiculous. Seriously. Since moving to Newcastle Ihave taken to carrying an umbrella with me everywhere. No matter howwonderfully sunny it is when you leave the house there is a distinct chance youwill return home considerably damper. On a similar note the temperature it wasyesterday is unlikely to bare any resemblance to the temperature it is today.As such, the former should have no impact on your clothing choice. Basicallyplan for all atmospheric eventualities.

When packing it is also vitally important to consider your ball costume.Yes! There is a BALL. Exciting right? This year’s theme is “Big Top.” This is aVery Good Theme which lends itself to novelty props, fake facial hair andgarish colour combinations. If you get desperate, Newcastle is equipped withsome pretty epic op shops. But you may not have time to ride the bus out toMayfield (where there are a number of excellent ones) so its best to comeprepared.

This is actually the first year when I’ve been properly excited aboutthe whole thing, as opposed to slightly petrified. If you’re lucky enough to beattending as an artist- rejoice! This means that, in a round about sort of way,the Australian tax payer shall be paying for your ginger beer. You’re probablygoing to feel drastically under-prepared and slightly under-informed. That’sfine. Just try and relax. It’ll be fun!

Last year one blogger described the festival (slightly bitterly) as “theMelbourne literary scene goes on holiday to Newcastle.” It is true that thefestival can seem a bit clicky. Look at it this way- last year I arrived at thefestival knowing basically no one. This year I’m deep enough in that click thatI probably need to start treading water. Jump in head first. You’ll have met(and then have temporarily forgotten the names of) an irrational number of festivalgoers before you know it.

Don’t worry if you don’t have any friends who’ll come with you. Friendsare definitely a thing you can pick up when you get here. The best way to makesome, in my experience, is to find a friendly looking stranger and go andintroduce yourself to them. NYWF provides a much higher success rate thanaverage because, simply by being in attendance, all friendly looking strangersare likely to have some of the same interests as you. Like awesome festivalsfor example.

I, for one, would love to be your friend.

See the full NYWF program here. Have a look at my events here. Or readmy posts from last year here. And get excited. You don’t need a hyerlink forthat.

And that's the good news

2011-09-04T11:28:00.000+10:00

An interview with Ian Simmons

You’re asked to describe Good News World to someone who has never seen the show before. Using mime. You’re allowed to have three props. What would they be and why?

A newspaper, a giant fruit bat costume and nipple tassles. Watch the show. You’ll see.

Apart from the obvious (like a complete change of format, content and style) what are the main differences between Good News Week and Good News World?

“Good News World” has better hair. But it’s not that big a change. The format is different, though not completely. The content & the style are the same. If “Good News Week” made you cough up your cocoa, chances are “Good News World” will do the same.

How hard was it switching writing styles? From the fairly short and sharp one-liners of Good News Week to the slightly more abstract style of writing sketches?

After 15 years of working in Australia’s most prolific one-liner factory, writing sketches is great fun. We get to write for more people, explore ideas that wouldn’t work in the “Good News Week” format, try all sorts of angles. It’s a different discipline and we’ve all written some unfilmable scripts, but it’s exciting to be trying something new. Having said that, the one-liners haven’t gone completely. We like writing them too much.

How difficult is it to decide which parts of the news have humorous potential and which parts are just...well news?

Most of the news has humorous potential, even death. Come on, a cockfight promoter killed by a rooster with a razor on its leg? Brilliant. As long as humans make the news, we shall be laughed at.

Any cryptic and unhelpful teasers about what we can expect?

Explosions, dancing boys, novelty ears, Lego asylum-seekers & hot Canberra nights. And Randy.

What’s the most bizarre thing you’ve done in your career in TV?

When I worked as an assistant director on “A Country Practice”, I had to get a tetanus shot after being bitten by Fatso the wombat.

We also did an episode where a camel was shot by a tranquiliser dart. Strangely, the sound department didn’t have that particular effect in their library, so I went into a booth & made “camel being hit by tranquiliser dart” sounds. Sadly, while my work was used, I was not credited.

Do you have any random anecdotes? Bonus points if it features a couch.

When Kevin Rudd was still Prime Minister, he was a guest on “Good News Week”. I was keen for him to do our couch segment, but apparently Kevin’s office didn’t think footage of the PM appearing to receive psychotherapy from Paul McDermott was the right look. I’d still like to get Ruddy on the couch one day. In the nicest possible way, of course.

Newspapers- discuss.

Reading too many will melt your brain. Reading none will keep you stupid. And while I love an iPad as much as the next wanker in the Apple Store queue at 3am, I hope newspapers never disappear.

Favourite-
Muppet- Fozzie Bear, one of my earliest comedy influences.
Colour- Peter O’Toole’s eyes, “Lawrence Of Arabia”
Sound- The Flower Duet, “Lakmé”
Letter of the alphabet- Ω
Accent- Sophia Vergara, “Modern Family”
Biscuit- All of them
Number between 7 and 45- 26: perfectly in the middle. It suits my OCD sense of symmetry.

Good News World starts this Monday 9:30pm on Channel Ten.

Conceptual pants

2011-08-28T15:14:00.000+10:00

The pants in question

Early last year at Saint Vinnies in Grafton I found a pair of bright orange jeans. At first I pulled them off the rack to laugh at them. Because they were such an outrageous colour. But I feel in love with them instead. The cut was loose and kind of old fashioned but they fit me. They were Ralph Lauren too. There is a 'labels' rack at Vinnies but the old ladies tend to shelve items from Millers and Suzanne Grae there. Sooner or later someone will explain what ‘labels’ actually mean. That will be a sad day. The out-dated designer jeans cost me $4.

The thing about these jeans though was that they were more than just outrageously coloured leg-wear. These pants were conceptual. I loved the idea of being the kind of person who wore orange pants. I could never really work out what kind of person that was but that wasn’t really important. I wore the pants and pretended that I knew. And sometimes that I was.

Last week while running late for uni I found myself having a minor wardrobe crisis. I was sick of my jeans and didn’t have time to go to the effort of stockings. Riffling through my cupboard in search of alternatives I found my orange pants. I hadn’t worn them for ages.

Walking across uni to class I realised something. The slightly clashing combination of orange and purple wasn’t much of a step up from the turquoise tights I’d been wearing the day before. The slight feeling of ridiculousness that had always overhung me on days when I pulled these on was gone. My pants weren’t conceptual anymore. Suddenly they were just pants. Because, without realising it, I’d become that thing I’d spent so much time contemplating.

I am the kind of person who wears orange pants.

Maybe this seems like a pointless rant about clothing. But its rather a lot deeper than that. I’ve always believed that confidence is an act. No-one is naturally confident. You get that way through practice. If you pretend to be on top of the situation then other people will believe that you are. Sooner or later you even start to believe yourself.

Some things I’m quiet good at. I’m now quite good at sending random stabs in the dark via email and bracing myself for rejection. I’m quiet good at starting conversations with friendly looking randoms (although it still makes me awfully nervous). I’ve learnt how to politely tell someone I’ve forgotten their name. I’m even learning to make small talk with check-out chicks.

But there are lots of other things I can’t do yet. I’m still terrified of stupid things like loneliness. There’s still a little part of me that, when someone looks me up and down while I’m wearing my orange pants, worries that they’re judging me.

At the moment I feel as though I’m ahead of myself. As though I’ve become this elusive person I’ve been aiming for too quickly and large sections of my identity are jogging to catch up.

As always, I’m basically making it up as I go along.

We

2011-08-21T14:13:00.000+10:00

On Sunday we go to the movies. We walk single-file down car park ramps and I feel as though maybe we could be the last people on earth. I love those moments. When you can, just for a little while, be totally oblivious to the turn of the world. Its nice to think that everything could stop or something horrible could happen and you’d be totally unaware for just a little bit longer. Tonight there are three of us in this post-apocalyptic car park. Usually I’m alone when I feel like this.

On Monday we power-walk from a lecture through the dark forest, rubbing our arms and complaining about the cold. We loose ourselves for a couple of hours in Dungeons and Dragons and another universe that could almost be real. It doesn’t matter that we’re really sitting around a cramped table under fluorescent lights. There are more important things than that.

We get terribly lost in the backstreets of Newcastle on Thursday night while trying to find checkpoints in a scavenger hunt. We decide spontaneous social outings are good ones and also that we’ll plan better for next year. The contradiction doesn’t occur to me until the morning. I come home with a green bucket, a glow-stick and two plastic cups in the back seat of my car.

Friday the whole uni is celebrating something. It doesn’t really matter what it is. Its one of those days that somehow steals extra hours and makes them last forever. We make cup-cakes and give them to friends and semi-friends and strangers at the uni bar. We overstay our welcome (and the amount of food we collectively paid for) at McDonalds. I go to bed early, even though it feels awfully late.

On Sunday we’re in the same room as Dylan Moran. Even if it is rather a large room. We prepare by buying books and eating ice-cream and whirling in collective excitement. I laugh until the muscles ache and only half of that is thanks to the comedian the night was all about.

I leave the house on Wednesday morning planning to be home by two. At two I’m deeply engaged in a circular discussion which lasts hours and hours and, like a whirlpool, pulls people into it. We go bowling in the evening and I’m still wearing the jumper I threw on in frustration early that morning. I would have dressed better if I’d known how the day would pan out. My outfit rather fails to do it justice.

On Friday we race wind-up daleks on my pool table. The little metallic figures judder across the green felt and I’m struck for a moment by how nice life is. We make Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters and decide the recipe needs perfecting and the olive is easily the worst part. My house-warming and my friends manage literally to raise the temperature of my cold little house.

On Saturday morning I find myself lying on a foldout lounge which has ended up in my kitchen. My friends and I are all piled on top of each other and we are listening to the Hitchhiker radio series. Its the sort of moment I want to catch and save for later. You don’t get to be that happy very often.

Suddenly it’s Wednesday again and I find myself trudging through the rain back toward a house which seems dreadfully cold and lonely by comparison. Usually the prospect of Wednesday night television would make me smile. Suddenly its a lot less worthwhile than chocolate and sushi and bowling and watching Rent all the way through even though it was really late, everyone else had drifted off and we weren’t taking in the plot anymore.

It occurs to me, refreshing various social networks and listening to the clicking of my gas heater, that I’m suffering Real Life withdrawal. This has happened to me before but usually it occurs after something big. Like The Young Endeavour or TiNA. Rare, magical times when life isn’t quiet real at all. The last two weeks were perfectly ordinary. There is no real reason that life couldn’t be like that all the time (expect that I would need to learn to live on significantly less sleep).

To most of the people who read my blog I only exist on The Internet. I’m the impression of a person that’s made up of words. But there are so many things that aren’t words. So many moments from the past few weeks struck me because of how far they were from text. They were visual, physical, wonderful moments.

Happiness is a very difficult thing to articulate.

Kind of unbelievable

2011-08-14T15:37:00.001+10:00

An interview with Lawrence Leung

How does someone get a job going to Scottish castles, holding séances and doing magic tricks?
I used sneaky Jedi hypnosis, but I like to tell people that if you have an interesting enough idea and a unique take on it, someone someday will give you a shot at it.

You’re asked to describe Unbelievable to someone who’s never seen the show before. Using mime. You’re allowed to have three props, what would they be and why?
A long white sheet to put over myself with eyes cut out of it. A mirror to stand in front of to see whether I can tell it’s just me with a sheet over my head or a ghost before me. A Polaroid camera to objectively record the moment to make sure that what I am seeing is true and as fun as I imagine it to be.

I usually ask people what the strangest thing they’ve done in the name of television is. Considering you seem to have done rather a lot of bizarre things during your TV career, I thought I’d ask for your top three.
3) From Episode 6 of Unbelievable: The episode was called “The Experiment” and was very risky, both ethically and for its difficulty level. We only had one shot at it and one week to film it all in. The unknowing star of the episode was a very rational computer scientist who we filmed with hidden cameras (with the consent of his family) to create a bizarre Truman Show-styled experiment. Via various psychology principles I had discussed across the series and various elaborate set-ups of devious trickery, I wanted to give this unwitting chap the most “unbelievable” week of his life to test the limits of belief. The challenge was: could one turn a sceptic into a believer? It certainly didn’t go as planned as he seemed to rationalise every event as coincidence… until the very end. Full credit to the filmmaking team including props builders and magicians who were biting their nails for the whole week hoping all the pieces would fall into place for this very bizarre episode. The big thanks to our “lucky” sceptic Andy for being such a wonderful sport, for enjoying the experience and for not suing me.

2) From Episode 1 of Unbelievable: Sitting in car, trying to conduct an interview with a man who was driving BLINDFOLDED and speeding through the streets of Las Vegas. He had coins gaffer-taped over his eyes (it was our film crew’s tape!). The vehicle was a hire car, so there’s no fancy remote controls. He wasn’t from Las Vegas so didn’t memorise the route. He said he is not a psychic and has no supernatural powers… but never told me how he did it.

1) From Episode 4 of Choose Your Own Adventure: Jumping out of an aeroplane whilst solving the Rubik’s Cube in freefall. I had about 52 seconds to solve it before engaging the parachute. I did it in 49 seconds.

Both Unbelievable and Choose Your Own Adventure were inspired by your stand-up shows. What was the process of developing those jokes into episodes of TV?
Choose Your Own Adventure was based on a couple of my live shows and Unbelievable was based on a show I wrote in 2003 called Skeptic. They were quite successful stage shows which gave me the confidence of knowing that people might enjoy their themes in a televisual setting.

The problem is TV shows are very different from live performances. My stand up shows are told mostly in “past tense” about things that have happened to me, whereas the TV episodes flow in an immediate “present tense” which is about taking the audience on a journey with me, moment by moment. For this reason, it requires a lot of research and planning into what direction each mini-documentary could go and, goddamn it, they never go according to plan. Occasionally, a social experiment that looks like a brilliant idea on paper ends up on the cutting room floor after it is a bit underwhelming on the shoot. Fortunately, there are also those serendipitous instances where some minor thing might evolve on location to become the focus of an episode.
Each episode (for better or worse) has always been quite organic in the development process. Good comedy is sometimes found in mistakes.

Where did you find all those experts, enthusiasts and, for want of a better word, nut jobs?
I don’t consider any of my interviewees “nutjobs”. We are all “enthusiasts” about something. I guess the difference is that the occupations that I am interested are often on the fringes or about obscure topics that most people aren’t familiar with. It wasn’t difficult finding any of these people because I am familiar with most of their work from ghosthunting parapsychologist Richard Wiseman to arch-skeptic James Randi to lie detection expert Paul Ekman. Sometimes I feel like a curious butterfly collector that assembles this fascinating menagerie of characters. Perhaps l am the nutjob.

Were there any moments when you almost believed the unbelievable?
I’m still searching.

If you were abducted by aliens, how do you think you’d react?
I’d be pretty excited actually.

Can you show us a magic trick?
Think of any random number between one and ten. Now. Hold it. Don’t change your mind. Now, scroll to the bottom of the screen.

Would you like to share a random anecdote? Bonus points if it features a couch.
I was recently interviewing an eminent malaria researcher in the jungles of Vanuatu for an ad campaign that promoted science and knowledge. We sat on a big red IKEA couch in the middle of this beautiful traditional village surrounded by chickens. We donated the couch to the locals after the shoot.

Rubik cubes. Discuss.
Things you didn’t know about the Rubik’s Cube… the 3D puzzle has 43 quintillion possible configurations, has been responsible for divorces, crashing the economy of Hungry and had it’s own cheesy cartoon series. At the time of writing, the fastest speedcuber in the world is Melbourne schoolkid Feliks Zemdegs who holds the world record of 6.77 seconds.

Favourite-
Muppet- Animal
Colour- I think it’s Prussian Blue because it was the shortest pencil from my 72 Derwent Watercolour pencil set.
Sound- Music
Letter of the alphabet- Q
Accent- The Circumflex
Biscuit- Butternut snaps
Number between 7 and 45- 33

MAGIC TRICK:
• You were thinking of the number 7.
• For a better piece of magic go to my Mindreader Test here.

50 things Alex has learnt at university.

2011-08-07T14:30:00.001+10:00

1- Soft serve sundaes do not count as dinner, no matter how much extra stuff you add to them.
2- Always take a whisk to a party.
3- If you drive for long enough you will find a McDonalds.
4- Monty Python is relevant to all subjects. No exception.
5- The later in the afternoon the tutorial is, the more likely it is to contain people too lazy to get their head around the registration system.
6- People queuing for a free barbeque will not necessarily know the occasion the barbeque is celebrating.
7- Attending a lecture will not automatically make you learn. You actually have to listen.
8- 9am is not a civilized hour for anything.
9- The 11pm P plate curfew should be taken into account during the early stages of planning. Not at 10:45.
10- Spontaneity is always good idea.
11- Randomly introducing yourself to strangers has about a 60/40 success rate.
12- Midnight is a perfectly reasonable bedtime. In fact it is early.
13- It is possible for a path to be uphill in both directions.
14- No one has ever read a whole Shakespeare play in a week. Anyone who says they have is lying.
15- You cannot absorb information by lying on your textbooks.
16- Within the limits of reason and legality, everything is worth trying once.
17- Super-fast three-point turns are a valuable life skill.
18- Majoring in writing does not make blogging a legitimate substitute for studying.
19- If you’ve ever wondered who still uses Power Point you have never attended university.
20- When preparing to go out of an evening it is worth considering whether or not the clothes you are wearing are comfortable to sleep in.
21- Academic essays on Elizabethan poetry should not contain sexual references.
22- Anything is an acceptable topic for research at a tertiary level.
23- It is possible to guess what discipline a group of students are studying by observing their clothing choice.
24- The world is a very small place.
25- You can spend large amounts of money buying books and feel bitter about it.
26- Practice is the key to mastering all skills.
27- The answer to the question “should I have more tea?” is always yes.
28- Similarly, when someone offers you tea it is pointless to try and resist.
29- If you eat giant lolly-pop for lunch you will fell ill.
30- The more ridiculous the activity sounds the more you should consider participating in it.
31- If someone is not willing to discuss the zombie apocalypse at reasonable length it is unlikely we will become firm friends.
32- Nerds have more fun.
33- Living on campus isn’t for everyone. The internet connection, however, is pretty damned impressive.
34- When playing musical comedy in communal areas it is important to remember that housemates will invariably enter during the really bad bit.
35- On lonely nights the internet is both your greatest ally and worst enemy.
36- When you have a pool table in your living room, learning to play suddenly becomes a priority.
37- The less your social life consists of the more likely you are to live-tweet your existence.
38- Without decent recording abilities it is impossible to maintain both a social life and a television addiction.
39- Channel Ten’s online media player is a fetid heap of dingo’s kidneys.
40- Menial household maintenance can be incredibly satisfying.
41- A slow cooker is your friend.
42- The percentage of people likely to understand a specific reference is significantly higher than it was at high school.
43- Lectures are more enjoyable when you have someone to poke you occasionally and make sure you’re conscious.
44- An Arts Degree is mostly about reading.
45- People from Coffs Harbour think Grafton is a hole despite only having ever been to the McDonalds.
46- People who are not from Coffs Harbour or Grafton do not really appreciate loud arguments about both towns respective merits (or lack there of).
47- K-Mart. Amazing.
48- Anything bought in an op-shop is automatically better than anything bought elsewhere.
49- Spaghetti with vegemite, butter and cheese. Try it.
50- Very little of being at university is actually about university.

What do you mean you play Quidditch?

2011-07-31T16:00:00.001+10:00

That's right. I play Quidditch- easily the best sport ever invented. Its ok to be jealous.

Five of The Weasley Jumpers and our new banner at finals night.

How does that work?
Muggle Quidditch basically works the same as the game in the books. There’s three Chasers on each team who’s job it is to try and get the Quaffle (we play with a small red soccer ball) through one of the three hoops at either end of the field. The Keepers try and stop people scoring goals. The Beaters (two per team) try and stop everyone doing what they’re meant to do. And the Seeker does the snitch thing.

But you can’t fly?
No. No we can’t fly. This is the part most people seem to have difficulty getting their head around. We run around the field with a broom stick between our legs. Its like flying but with less chance of falling from a great height.

What’s your team?
I’m captain of a team called The Weasley Jumpers- officially the best dressed team in the Newcastle Quidditch League (our uniform is an eclectic selection of op-shop clothing in gloriously clashing red and green.) We are yet to win a game but are “arguably the most endearingly popular team”. This season we will probably continue to loose spectacularly and with pizzazz.

How many other teams are there?
There were 14 teams in the League last season. Yes, that is rather a lot. I think I’ve mentioned that Quidditch is really awesome and excellent.

How big’s the field?
We usually play on a soccer pitch. So the short answer is big. There’s a pretty serious amount of running involved. To dispel any doubts you have about the athletic nature of Quidditch let me quote a fellow player who, during our very first game, was heard breathlessly screaming- "THIS IS WORSE THAN SOCCER!"

So do the beaters have bats?
No. There’s two small soccer balls which act as bludgers. The beaters throw these at players, dodge-ball style. If you get hit you drop any balls you happen to be carrying and run back and touch your goal. This is where the big field causes the most angst.

How does the snitch work?
The snitch is a person wearing a gold vest with a tag attached to the back. They’re allowed to leave the field but the Seekers aren’t. Depending on the agility of the snitch and how annoying they feel like being, some of them actually run off into any nearby bushes. They can also swerve in and out of the rest of the game to try and cause maximum collisions. After about 20 minutes of play, if the snitch hasn’t been caught, they have to stay on the field permanently. They get caught pretty fast after that.

What’s the point though? Whoever catches the snitch automatically wins?
Aha! No. See Muggle Quidditch has remedied that fatal flaw in the original game. The Snitch is only worth 30 points instead of 150. Which means that sometimes the team that catches the snitch still looses. Its happened a few times this season.

Any injuries?
Quidditch is definitely not a non-contact sport. There has been blood on at least one occasion. During the finals the other night I witnessed several major pile-ups, a head butting and a serious mid-air collision. In another game, when I was subbing, a broom got snapped. Like a proper, heavy duty plastic broom. Snapped clean in half. Plus there’s all kinds of broom inflicted bruises which come basically as standard. I’ve been blugered in the face. It’s a serious game.

Why Quidditch though? What’s so great about it?
A friend sent me this great article recently which pretty much sums it up. No one can look coordinated on a broom. So it doesn’t matter if you run like a salmon on drugs and have the hand-eye coordination of a blind turtle. Quidditch puts everyone on an even playing field. You don’t need to be a hardcore Potter-nerd or any good at sport. Quidditch is a sport for the masses.

I want to play Quidditch now.
Qudditch, it seems, is taking off in Australia. There’s leagues popping up all over the place- I know there’s a couple in Sydney and Brisbane. Basically if you see a poster at uni for Quidditch GO AND JOIN. It was, without exaggeration, the best decision I made this year.

This season we’ll be playing on Thursdays from 6pm at Jesmond Park (Newcastle). If happen to be in the area- come along. You should like The Weasley Jumpers on Facebook. We’re pretty groovy.
Also if you'd like a copy of my new Quidditch inspired zine (paper bag girl and the magical cure for lonliness) email me and I'll post one direct to your door!

Meet Miranda

2011-07-24T13:49:00.000+10:00

This post is an update on the project I talked about here.

The word count as of this morning.

Something really exciting happened to me this week.

I was home on uni holidays and it was dinner time. Mum was serving up around me. I was sitting on one side of the dinning room table transfixed. I only needed 25 more words…17 more…6 more. One. One more word. With a tiny inconspicuous ping something very, very exciting happened- I hit 25 000 words.

No matter what way you look at it that’s a lot. Why was it so exciting? A novel is between 50 and 80 thousand words. 25 000 is a pretty big milestone. That’s halfway. This thing I’m writing, which I’ve technically been writing for longer than this blog, is halfway to a quantity of words which would make it a novel.

I worked out the other day that to finish it by 2012 all I have to do is write 166 words a day. Right now that’s a devastatingly achievable number. There is a very real chance that by the end of this year I’ll have written enough words to fill the pages of a book.

I’ve dreamt of seeing my name in print since I was little. I’ve pictured a book all of my own more times than you can imagine. But the thing with those sort of fantasies is that you never really believe they’ll come true. They’re like…fiction. Nice to loose yourself in for a while but not something in which you should invest too much happiness.

Suddenly I’ve realised that this long held elusive dream is actually achievable. Like not just “yeah I could probably pull that off” achievable but “HOLY ZARQUON’S SINGING FISH ALEX! This is a thing you might actually do!” Somehow I find that rather terrifying.

To better explain how I feel about this I’m going to hand you over to Miranda. Miranda is the protagonist of this thing I’m writing. She’s also the very best imaginary friend I could ever wish for. You should probably all know at this stage that I’m one of those people who talks about characters like they exist in the real world. More than once I’ve gone to tell an anecdote about “a friend” before realising I can’t do that because Miranda might be a friend but she isn’t real. People get institutionalised for behaving like that.

Having said that, Miranda is the reason this story might become a reality. She’s the first character I feel like I can write for that long. Also, as the previous paragraph shows, I desperately want her to be real. The only way I can do that is if I find a way to send her story out into the real world. When people read it she’ll exist to them as well. That’s my ultimate dream.

So here for your reading pleasure are 51 of those 25 000 plus words. I haven’t picked this part because its cryptic or (hopefully) intriguing or because it tells you absolutely nothing about the plot. I picked it because the way Miranda feels about Un-named Plot Point A is exactly how I feel about this thing. This thing that might just become a novel.

The whole thing feels like a house of cards, if I place anything on it (even importance) it might all come crashing down. I almost like it being a secret. A weird, impossible, improbable secret. Until I get further proof I reserve the right to believe I might have dreamt it.

Almost something else

2011-07-17T14:34:00.002+10:00

Its like a Where's Wally. But with Alex and a pointy sculpture.

“You remind me of my aunt.”
“Is that a compliment?”
The woman looks at me.
“Yeeeah.”
It obviously isn’t. I take another sip of champagne and go and find someone else to talk to.

I’m standing in a crowed white gallery in central Sydney. There’s a large pointy looking sculpture in the centre of the room which I’ve spent most of the evening eyeing suspiciously. I once brained myself on a sculpture. It really hurt. I plan to avoid ever doing it again.
I’m here for the launch of a new magazine. Despite the excellent champagne and equally nice company I feel rather out of place.

I’ve been asked a few times this year whether people assume I’m older or younger than I really am. The answer, inevitably, is older but I don’t really think that’s because I look like someone’s aunt (not that it can hurt). I think it’s the situations in which I find myself. Take this one for example. I appear to be the only person here who isn’t writing a thesis or has just finished one.

Someone does, eventually, ask me how old I am.
“Nineteen,” I say “Almost twenty.”
I want to go and beat my head against that sculpture. Its such an awfully juvenile way to respond. I almost always answer questions about my age in this way. Its as though being one year older might make people respect me more. It might make me feel more at home in these foreign situations. It might make me appear more grown-up.

Later that night, staring at a dark, strange ceiling I find myself wondering when I’ll stop being ‘almost‘. It occurres to me, quiet suddenly, that maybe that age is twenty.

I’d been quiet terrified of turning twenty. Its such an awfully big number. Twenty, as people inevitably pointed out to me, is old. Its half of forty. That is old Alex. Do you know that you are old now?

The funny thing about birthdays is that, in reality, they don’t mean a lot. Basically you have all the same problems you did the day before. The same nice bits and the same bad bits. Its just that suddenly your age is a different number. And, when you think about it like that, twenty happens to be a rather nice number.

I’ve spent a lot of my life being almost something else. I’ve decided that this is the age I’m going to stop doing that.

Now I’m twenty. Just twenty. Pleased to meet you.

Faster than light

2011-07-10T12:59:00.000+10:00

"Nothing travels faster than the speed of light with the possible exception of bad news, which obeys its own special laws."

Long term readers, real life friends and some casual acquaintances will have heard me talk about TiNA. And when I say “talk” I mean “rave loudly and at length.” For those who are unaware, here’s the background-

TiNA stands for This is Not Art and is a festival held in Newcastle every October. Under the big shiny TiNA umbrella fall five smaller festivals- Critical Animals, Sound Summit, Electro Fringe, The Crack Theatre Festival and The National Young Writers Festival. Once a year people from all over Australia congregate in one place to network, discuss the state of the world and generally have a really fantastic time.

I’ve attended TiNA (specifically for the NYWF) for two years now. This year will be my third year…would be my third year…could be…might be…SHOULD be.
Why the tense crisis? TiNA is under threat. The Newcastle City Council has decided not to continue funding the festival which means, with only a couple of months til go-time, they need to find $18, 000.

That’s a lot of money by anyone’s standards. Exactly why the council has chosen to actively condemn something that brings millions to their economy is beyond me. Newcastle was listed in Lonely Planet’s Top Ten Cities of the World last year. The big question, of course, was why? Well, TiNA got a specific mention.

Personally the National Young Writers Festival means a hell of a lot to me.
It played a fairly decisive role in my university preferences. I’m not saying TiNA is the only reason I now call Newcastle home but it is one of them. When I first moved down for uni it was also the main thing that stopped me getting horribly lost (as regularly anyway). Every time I had to go somewhere I would realise I’d been there before for a festival event. During O Week I went to a barbeque for St Vinnies which happened to be held in the same place I once went to the beginning of a rather bizarre zombie march (which was abandoned shortly afterwards in favour of a spelling bee).

For anyone’s who’s never been to TiNA its kind of hard to describe the atmosphere. People welcome you into their discussions. I made friends with reckless abandon and only later realised that they could be “important connections”. It’s kind of amazing that you can fit that many memories in five days. To give you some idea, you can read the posts I wrote as an official blogger at last year's festival here.

I’ve been looking forward to TiNA all year. The idea that it might not happen is devastating. I’m not using that word lightly. I’m actually properly upset about this.

But why am I telling you? I wish I was massively independently wealthy and could pull out my cheque book and say “how much do you need?” But I can’t. I don't even own a cheque book. So I’m doing what I can do- spreading the word.

What can you do? You can donate here. Even a couple of dollars would help. Drop a few coins in the virtual tin. And spread the word.

I was really hoping to see some of you at TiNA this year. Lets hope there’s a festival for us to go to.

Anonymity

2011-07-03T12:45:00.000+10:00

If you follow my blog in Google reader you’ll notice that this post was written “by alex.” That’s because when I established this account, all that time ago, I still believed in maintaining some kind of anonymity on the internet.

I remember the day I went into account settings and clicked the little box that said “display full name.” That seemed like a big deal at the time. So why did I do it? I realised I wanted this blog to be associated with me. I wanted it to come up when someone typed me into Google. I was (and am) proud to put my name to it.

But that doesn't explain everything I do online. When I created a Tumblr is seemed like a good idea to make alexandraneillextraordinaire my username. That's my full name right there. Attached to something rather ridiculous and connected by nothing more than one click to the most insane online thing for which I'm responsible.

Recently someone told me that my Facebook profile didn’t have much information on it. I almost laughed at him. Yes it is true that you couldn’t learn a great deal from stalking my info page but everything you could ever want to know about me (and a lot of stuff you really don’t need to know) is available on the internet for all to see. All you have to do is a bit of digging.

How do I feel about this situation? I don’t really know. It means that there are people out there in the world who know all sorts of things about me but I’m not even aware that they exist.

There are some advantages. As a writer I now have a profile. If I was to release a book tomorrow there are people who would buy it or, at the very least, be interested. And not my immediate family and friends either. Random people. Out there in the world. That isn’t something that I could have achieved offline.

I genuinely think the way we use the internet is changing. Right now admitting to having met people online is akin to admitting you have some kind of weird fetish (as far as people’s reactions go). I think, in twenty years, that won’t be the case at all. I don’t think it’ll be the case in five years. Geography and friendship aren’t friends in real life. At least with the internet they’re on speaking terms.

There’s also the minor fact that I’m an over-sharer in real life. I’m constantly telling stories. I did a quiz the other day in which one of the questions was “How much do people know about you?” to which I had to answer “Everything. My life is an open book.”
Its different though isn’t it? Realising you’ve told someone this story before is quite different to the having a conversation interjected with-
“I know. I read your blog.”

It has occurred to me that perhaps I’ve become too blasé about all this and maybe there’s someone walking around in one of the more obscure states of America with my identity. I’ve only got one thing to say to that person-
Good luck to you.

Instead of telepathy

2011-06-26T13:14:00.002+10:00

The borrowed chair in question.

Imagine coming home at 10pm to find that two slightly insane young women had not only set up camp in your living room they’d also set up an office. I imagine that would be slightly disconcerting. Especially given that, after a brief exchange of pleasantries they ask if they could perhaps borrow one of your chairs? Just for the day? It’d come back intact?

That is how Rosie and I (what you didn’t recognise Rosie and I from that description? Have you been paying no attention at all?) began Write Across Sydney, late on Wednesday evening. We followed this with an early morning trip to Dan Murphy’s (there is really only so many reasons to be at a discount liquor retailer at 9am buying cases of very cheap wine, they probably assumed we were young and stylish alcoholics) and getting lost (seriously Sydney, get better sign posting).

The rest of the day ran remarkably smoothly. Surprisingly so. People came and seemed to enjoy themselves. Guests arrived on time and left rather pleased with their thankyou booze (if any of the guests are reading this- I really hope that wine wasn’t totally awful. You can always cook with it).

Rather than simply relating the day which would be boring for those who were there and unfair for those who weren’t, I thought I’d give you all some homework. Despite its advances technology is yet to enable multimedia and hyperlink sharing via telepathy. Here, therefore, are the hyperlinks for the sessions which I attended.

For those at my workshop (and everyone else for that matter) the greatest short story of all time can be read online here. Markheim by Robert Louis Stevenson is a masterpiece. If you’d like to do it justice and read it in book form it can often be found as “and other stories” in editions of “The strange case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde.” Officially its part of the “and other tales” in “The Merry Men and Other Tales.” Keep an eye out next time you're trolling second hand book stores.

You can find the latest issue of Meanjin here which contains the pretty awesome essay which Elmo Keep read for us while sitting in the stolen chair on the lawn. Also Penguin Plays Rough which Pip Smith read from is here and the staggering pretty new magazine Seizure here.

Some of the stories Elmo talked about during her interview about Hungry Beast are here and here. There’s also a fairly cool opportunity from Zapruder's currently open. More info here.

If you haven’t watched The Future Machine written by and staring Matt Okine from our comedy panel you should get on that. You can also read the interview I did with him here. You should make time to watch The Jesters written by Angus Fitzsimons and Kevin Brampton. That way, the next time they ask a room full of people if anyone's ever seen it, someone can put their hand up.

Simply by reading this post (and ten points if you’ve waded through all those hyperlinks to read this far) you’re clicked one of the things from the blogging panel (that’s right, I was on it). The lovely Michelle blogs here. She’s reading a book from every year since 1900. One a week. In chronological order. Now that is blogging with commitment. Also you should check out Georgia who vlogs here. If you’ve got no idea what vlogging is (where have you BEEN) start with this and this. Then contact me for further instructions.

Check out Curtis Brown here and Pippa Masson here. During Pippa’s talk I also discovered something that scares me as much as stand-up. Want to know what it is? “A book a year.” Which is what professional authors are expected to output. The very thought makes me want to reach for a paper bag.

Finally there’s a diligent team of people working away to produce something very exciting. They started work during Write Across Sydney and on Friday the big reveal will take place. The theme of this secret thing (I hope they won’t mind me telling you) is television. It is therefore relevant to your interests. Follow their progress and get updates here.

That’s it. Thanks to everyone who came to Write Across Sydney and those of you who were there in spirit. Also you should all know that Rosie is Awesome. Note the capital A.

To wrap the whole thing up there will be National Young Writers Month closing parties all across the country. That means there’s one near you. Check out Twitter and the Favebook group for more information as it comes to hand.

I’m organising my launch in Grafton (of all places) because I happen to like it there. Details here.

Over and out.

A barrel of nuts

2011-06-20T09:47:00.000+10:00

Things I’ve learnt about the production of television...

Its all about the sandwiches.
Not kidding. I’m pretty sure if you took the free sandwiches out of television production the whole machine would grind to a grumpy halt. You’d have massive class action on your hands. Those people have a lot to deal with. Don’t touch their free food stuffs.

Duct tape can do anything.
I know this is a fact of life but TV takes this philosophy to levels most dads would never dream of. You know the couch on GNW? That thing is (I’m not joking) about 80% duct tape. Most of the black patches are actually duct tape. The back of the chair actually isn’t supposed to sit at that angle. Ever wondered why the guests don’t lean back on it? Guess what’s holding it on? The sound proof booth? Is actually a flat sheet of plastic. The patterns on the front of the desks? Yep. Duct tape.

Time is an illusion.
Nothing will ever run on time. This is more or less a given. As far as I can tell production schedules and shotting timetables are works of optimistic fiction.

There aren’t a lot of windows.
You know how sift workers get all kinds of weird illnesses because they don’t see sunlight for days on end? I’m pretty sure someone should be studying this in TV peeps. I’m not saying the people who work in television have weird illnesses, I’m just saying that when I work at GNW I do it on a pretty seriously casual basis. And some days I didn’t see a lot of sunlight.

Studios obey their own special laws.
The studio is like its own little ecosystem. You can’t plan what you’re going to wear based on the climate outside because this shall bear absolutely no resemblance to the climate inside the television studio. Also the temperate inside the studio in the morning might be completely different come the afternoon. Don’t even get me started on the air quality.

Logic (or lack there of)
Some of the stories I’ve heard. Seriously. Apparently back in the original run of GNW they decided to film a special in Perth. The logic of that is fairly bind-bendy in itself. The only way to make this trip viable was to film two specials. One which would air nationally as per normal and one which would be specific to the local WA station. Cue tales of total carnage and shotting at 2am. There are lot more stories like this. They seem to occur with alarming frequency. Trying to think your way into this situation from the point of view of an ordinary, non-television person actually hurts your brain. I can only imagine these things make some kind of sense to someone at the time.

Despite all the insanity the people who work in television are genuinely passionate about what they do. It takes a fair amount of commitment and dedication to climb into a barrel of nuts. And stay there.

Six degrees

2011-06-12T19:03:00.001+10:00

I stole these badges from a party I went to.
Then I lost one of these at a different party.
Social life FTW.

Six degrees of separation (apart from being a genuine scientific fact with an algorithm and stuff1) is one of my favourite games.

For anyone who’s unaware, the idea is that every single person in the world can be linked together by six connections. So you know someone who once had dinner with someone who’s sister’s uncle’s best friend had an ex-girlfriend who once met Obama at a party. Or whatever.

The scientific reasoning behind this is that it can help to track the spread of disease. In the real world mostly it just pleases the fangirls.2

There are only six people between you and that one person you would give your left arm to meet. THEORETICALLY all you have to do is work out the connections.
Yes, obviously it’s a lot more complicated than that but shut up! You’re ruining the fantasy.

I do, it is true, have something of an unfair advantage when it comes to this game. Namely during my time in TV-Land I’ve had any number of encounters which provide excellent connections. The comedy world is very small. I could probably find a path to any comedian in the world just by using Ian as a starting point.

The other day I worked out what is my new favourite connection. Apart from being pretty awesome, its impossible to debunk it by saving “Yeah but you’ve written for GNW!” Its got nothing to do with that. Six degrees does not discriminate.

I’ve interviewed Kirsten Drysdale3 who worked with Chris Luben on Hungry Beast who (according to this video) knows Liam Dryden from Chameleon Circuit. And do you know who else is in Chameleon Circuit? Charlie McDonnel4.

As part of National Young Writers Month we’re running a day-long mini-festival at the NSW Writers Centre on the 23rd of June. Coming to this event will increase your six degrees credentials by any number of points. Least of which because it means you can come and say hello to me5.

Kirsten6 and Elmo Keep from Hungry Beast will be there. And Matt Okine is coming. And so’s Tim Pye who’s got a damned impressive IMB entry.

AND if you’re one of those people who turn off the TV and read books and stuff we’ve got a bunch of people to get excited about on that front as well. Its going to be a full day of serious fun and, if you’re geographically convenient, I’m going to have to insist that you come.

Details here. Facebook event here. You should defiantly use it to invite everyone you know. Or just email nywm.nsw@gmail.com to reserve a spot.

1- I don’t really know what an algorithm is. If you asked me to define it I would probably wave my arms and mutter something about numbers while wearing a pained expression.

2- That and for playing Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.

3- I originally interacted with Kirsten via the forums on the Hungry Beast website. No TV jiggery pokery involved.

4- If you don’t know who Charlie McDonnel is there is a high chance you are not a women between the ages of 15-30. But seeing as most of my readers seem to fall into that category...CHARLIE!

5- Seriously. If you come to this thing you are morally obliged to come and say hi. Whenever a reader contacts me my first reaction is “OMG DO YOU WANT TO BE IRL FRIENDS!” I really am that sad and pathetic. Not intimidating at all. Come say hi.*

6- Listen up fan-girls- the Hungry Beast peeps are coming. That means that, by attending, you not only get a day of awesome but you too can claim the Charlie McDonnell (or Alex Day if you’re that way inclined) six degrees connection.

*If I find out you were there and didn’t say hi I shall track you down and lynch your kitten. Or berate you over the internet. One of those two things will definitely happen.

THIS POST HAS BEEN A SHAMELESS PLUG FOR WRITE ACROSS SYDNEY .

Terror and flawed logic

2011-06-05T17:06:00.000+10:00

On the subject of things that scare me...

Last year when I was on the Young Endeavour a guy called Matt gave me some advice.

He said that what I should do is sit down and work out what it is that scares me. Have a little dig around inside my soul and discover what I’m really, properly afraid of.
And then do that.

Matt’s afraid of highs and drowning. So he took up rock climbing and joined the navy.
I’ve tried really hard to live my life by this rule since. To do the things that scare me.
It has served me well so far. Now there’s a little voice in my head that, when a situation arises which causes terror of one kind or another to rise, says ‘You know you have to do it now right?’

But there’s still one big thing on that list. Something I’m still too afraid to do- stand-up.

People often ask me if I do, or are considering, stand-up. As someone who writes comedy people tend to assume its one or the other. People spend so much time assuming things.

The idea of performing my own jokes is, without exaggeration, almost the most terrifying thing I can possibly imagine.

About a year ago, while I was doing a block with GNW, I got up the courage to open a word document with the intention of committing to paper some of the half jokes floating around my head. When I tried to type these fragments out I began shaking so hard that I couldn’t use the keyboard. Seriously. The very thought sent me into a moderate panic.

But here’s what I don’t understand- it shouldn’t scare me.

I love public speaking. I’ve even written speeches that were funny. My high school debating exploits began with my performance at the Grafton City Eisteddfod in year 8.

The topic was ‘when I grow up’ and I wrote a speech about never wanting to grow up and why, by extension, five year olds have it easy. It featured mental images of me in tutus and likened the belief in fairies and Santa to religion. People laughed. In fact people laughed a lot and I won a small crappy trophy for best prepared speech.

Plus writing jokes makes me happy. Sitting alone with a newspaper article and a computer is one of my favourite ways to spend time. I look forward to those rare days.

So let’s recap. I love speaking in public. I love writing jokes. Stand-up comedy makes me want to run away and hide under the blankets.

Here’s the difference though. During a speech being funny is optional. Its ok to be a little bit funny. And if something which could have been a joke falls flat, you can always pretend that it wasn’t so much a joke as a witty remark. It wasn’t supposed to make you laugh, what are you talking about?

Basically I want to try stand-up simply because it terrifies me.
I can't help thinking that logic might be seriously flawed.

Know where your towel is

2011-05-29T15:48:00.000+10:00

Last Chance to See is easily the most under-appreciated Adams book- get a copy
Also- towels make handy train blankets.

Last year, in a script read for GNW this happened-
“Its like that bit in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.” said Marty (the director) “When those people ship all the useless people off their planet.”
“Golgafrinchans.” I said, under my breath.
“And they put them all on a big ship. Like all the people they don’t really need.”
“Telephone sanitisers, used car salesmen, retired television executives.”
I’m barely moving my mouth.
I have to try very, very hard to not utter the phrase “giant mutant star-goat.”
“You should watch out,” said Ian, looking at me in amusement “Alex is a bit of a fan.”

I love a lot of things (I wonder sometimes if I have something of an obsessive personality) but if I were to go on a games show where you had to have a special topic, mine would be Hitchhiker. Careful readers may have guessed I was a bit of a fan. Note the swear words.
Belgium.

I was given the books for Christmas when I was about fourteen. That was one of the happiest summer holidays I can remember. I can’t tell you why I love these books but if you haven’t read them yet, your life is not complete.

May 25th each year, for those who were not aware, is Towel Day. Yes its a thing. The idea is that you carry a towel with you all day in memory of the great Douglas Adams.

For the uninitiated this is what The Guide has to say about towels. In the last year and a half, I’ve often found myself away from home. During my gap year adventures I discovered that Douglas was right. If you arrive to stay somewhere with a towel, your hosts will immediately assume you to be incredibly organised. You remembered to pack a towel. Just in case. You are clearly on top of this whole situation.

There is a very simple reason why Adams, of all the authors in the world, gets his own holiday. His books have influenced the lives of millions. There’s a story about an old women who was dying alone in a nursing home but firmly believed that she was safe- because she knew where her towel was. There is something irrationally comforting about clutching a towel. When I was slightly lost in the bowels of Central Station on Wednesday I found myself clinging to mine.

I used to walk into exams with the words DON’T PANIC written in large friendly letters on my hand. My box of Hitchhiker CDs is positioned within reach so I can play one (usually at random) on the nights I can’t sleep. During times of adverse stress my brain tends to find a Hitchhiker quote to relate to every occasion and then scream it at me. I think this is supposed to calm me down.

In Ian’s office there’s a sign I made him as a thankyou present last year. It’s yellow and blue, slightly messy and says “BEWARE OF THE LEOPARD.” There’s a similar, if less elaborate, version on the door to my room. The phrase is an obscure Hitchhiker reference but, more importantly, its my favourite joke of all time.

One day I hope to own a disused lavatory with a similar sign on the door in which I can put a locked filing cabinet.

Thankyou Douglas. Wish you were here.

Life

2011-05-22T17:27:00.000+10:00

A real castle which I've actually been to.

My life, it must be said, is mostly pretty dull.

This blog is evidence of that. I spend my Sundays writing blog posts.
I don’t know what normal people do on Sundays but I don’t think that is it.

My social life, as it currently stands, revolves around Qudditch. For those of you who weren’t aware, I somehow got myself made captain of a Quidditch team. The Weasley Jumpers and I do terribly exciting things like op shopping and going out to slightly dodgy restaurants.

Most of the time I sit in my little room and stare at the computer. Every now and again I break the monotony by going to make tea or quietly despairing at the state of my existence.

Once in a blue moon I get an email from one of my readers. Actually that sentence creates an unrealistic view of how often this has happened. It has happened three times (Lizzy, Jessica and Evan- hello!) These emails don’t really feel like they’re addressed to me. The tone suggests these emails were meant to go to someone far more busy and important and exciting than me. I’m not any of those things.

In real life I feel extremely weird telling too many TV-Land anecdotes. I tend to do it when I’m nervous or I want to impress someone. I feel as though these stories give a false impression of the way I spend most of my days. On my blog I feel weird telling any stories which do not relate to TV-Land because I feel as though that’s what you’re here to read. And yet it still creates this false impression of excitement, adventure and really wild things.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my life. My life is pretty excellent. I think the sudden desire to tell you about it might come from a recent addiction to vlogging. Plus I've realised this blog makes me seem like something other than nerdy, clumsy and socially awkward.

Here therefore are the abridged version of some of my other (far less exciting) anecdotes.

“I was in the UK at Christmas year before last. You know how they make snowmen in movies by rolling a ball of snow across more snow and it gets bigger? That actually works.”

(It does. Try it.)

“I got lost in Marrickville once. For five hours.”
(I know right? Riveting.)

“I once played Connect Four at two in the morning.”

(Oh…you’ve heard that one.)

“Once beccamarsh and I went to a castle. And we had a light sabre fight on a parapet while wearing cloaks.”
(Ok. This one doesn't count. It was pretty epic.)

“Last week I got bludgered in the face.”
(The team we played last week- zarking bad ass)

Name dropping

2011-05-15T13:49:00.002+10:00

These are my feet.
They are in no way relevant to this post.

In which Alex tells a number of short, uninteresting anecdotes which happen to feature moderately well known personalities.

Tom Ballard
I met Tom Ballard very briefly at the Heywire dinner. He was hosting and, in the foyer when everyone was mingling, all the Heywire peeps were shuffled past to shake his hand. He actually follows me on Twitter which makes me think he might have read one of my Heywire blogs. I find this odd.

Amanda Keller
I once had a conversation with Amanda Keller in the kitchen at the ABC. It was after the 2008 finale and, due to a combination of exhaustion, stress and pyrotechnics fumes1, I felt like I was on the deck of a ship. By which I mean the floor was rocking underneath me. I’m quite sure I made very little sense but Amanda was really lovely. She told me to do whatever I wanted while I was young.

Hamish Blake
I was sitting in the practically empty Green Room playing with my phone and I could hear someone talking. I thought ‘That sounds like Hamish Blake.’ I looked up to see Hamish Blake on his phone on the other side of the room. That was very weird.

Marieke Hardy
About a year ago Marieke Hardy tweeted about Robert Louis Stevenson. If Robert Louis Stevenson wasn’t seriously dead, I would be a fan girl. I replied to this tweet, saying something about having crushes on old dead people. And that is how Marieke Hardy came to follow me on Twitter. Later that day I won a $10 Big W voucher while playing bingo at the RSL club. That was a good day.

Arj Barker
I walked past Arj Barker in the corridor outside the Green Room once. End anecdote.

Danny Bhoy
During my second day of work experience I was casually spinning around on my chair, staring at the ceiling and hoping inspiration would strike me. Immediately outside the office I was in, Danny Bhoy was standing in the middle of the floor staring at the ceiling. He stayed there for a really long time. I found this quite disconcerting.

The Umbilical Brothers
My mother once had a conversation with Dave and The Umbilical Brothers about child birth. She also discussed carbs and potato bake with Will Anderson. My mum’s pretty cool.

Jimeoin
You know those times when you’re staring into space, totally unaware of what it is you’re actually staring at? And you come out of your own little world to realise you’ve been staring slightly creepily at a person? I did that in the Green Room once. Except I was staring blankly into another room where Jimeoin was changing his shirt.

I've got a lot more of these. If you found this post in any way entertaining or interesting (as opposed to slightly self indulgent) let me know and I might do a follow up.

The full story of the time we went to the 2008 finale will feature in an upcoming post.*

*And by upcoming I mean sometime in the next year. Probably. If I haven’t done it in six months or something you should probably remind me.

Don't send your mum flowers! Write her a blog post instead.

2011-05-08T11:37:00.000+10:00

I’m a sucker for cards.

Scattered all across the country are the sentimental offerings I’ve written between variously decorated sheets of cardboard. At birthdays and Christmas I write a variety of soppy and subtly embarrassing messages to the people around me.

It’s sort of inspired by a tradition in Japan. At New Year the Japanese send cards to everyone who’s helped them during the previous year. To all the people who’ve been kind or friendly. To workmates, friends, family and all those peripheral people that most of us never think twice about. The traditional greeting they use, roughly translated, goes something like this-
“Thankyou for all the kindness you have showed to me this year. I look forward to further kindnesses in the future.”

And that’s kind of what I do. I thank people for all the things I owe them for and anticipate the things we’ll share in the future. It sounds corny, and it almost certainly is, but I think its important too.

I’ve been thinking lately how incredibly lucky I am. This is a message to my family.
And more specifically, my mum.

I’ve often thought, when it comes to comedy, how weird it must be for some people to invite their mother to a show. Most of us harbour a certain shame when it comes to laughing at more adult jokes. There are some DVDs you wouldn’t watch with your parents. But when you’re the one performing in and writing those DVDs its got to be slightly inevitable. The same goes for quite a lot of novels.

We had cousins staying with us over Christmas. It was one of those times you when you suddenly see yourself through someone else‘s eyes. I realised that not only do my parents let me blast Tim Minchin at the house in general, they actually know quite a lot of the words. I can’t remember the last time I squirmed while watching something with them. And you know what? I’m incredibly lucky to have that. My mum and dad would support me not matter what I did.

When I was in Year 8 my mum told me it was ok if I failed and dropped down a maths class. If I was finding the top class too difficult this was for the best. This was one of many moments when people widened their eyes at me and said- “I wish I had your mum.” They were always proud of me for doing well but they’d have been equally proud if I’d only done ok. They didn’t even mind when I bombed the maths exam is Year 10 (for the record I dropped maths in Year 11 and am now barely able to count).

So thanks mum.

For tolerating my regularly ridiculous dreams and letting me believe that they are possible. For not telling me, when I was organising my overly ambitious work experience, that it was a bad idea. For coming with me to Sydney and helping me work out which bus to catch. For never telling me, even though everyone else did, that writing wasn’t a real career. That with my marks I could do anything. Thankyou for never asking me to reconsider.

Thanks for driving me all over the countryside in the ridiculously long period before I got my Ps. For financing my gap year adventures (I promise, one day, I’ll get a proper job.) For answering all my text messages about what I could cook with turkey mince, where you find noodles in Woolworths and all those times I was just lonely. Thanks for not getting too cross when I didn’t help you carry the groceries up the stairs because I was writing. And for tolerating my vagueness all the other times my mind was somewhere else.

Thanks for being the voice of reason when I needed it and spurring me on when reason didn’t really come into the situation. Thanks for reading me mind. And for secretly reading my blog.

Happy Mothers Day.

An offer you can't refuse

2011-05-02T18:11:00.000+10:00

Exciting news- I’m the NSW Ambassador for National Young Writer Month.

This is a role I am sharing with the lovely Rosie.* I know. Exciting. What’s that? You don’t think you can really get excited until I’ve defined this NYWM thing for you? Ok.

Basically young people register to the website and set their own writing goals to achieve during the month of June. By registering you get support, inspiration and a community of people to help you along the way. All that for nothing. It’s a pretty good deal. Plus there are a bunch of awesome and exciting events planned right across Australia.

Me having this job means a couple of things. It means that I keep posting late because I’m sending emails and making phone calls and organising overly ambitious events (June 23rd- if you’re in Sydney save the date). To make up for that it means you can read more of my ramblings (and those of cool and awesome people like Rosie) over at the NYWM blog.

But it means something else too. When we did the survey Sinead left this comment-
“Reading what you have to say, it sort of inspires me to get back into [writing] stuff. Give it a bit of a whirl…”
That comment was amazingly touching. It still gives me tingles a bit.

So here’s my challenge to you- join National Young Writers Month. You don’t have to be a novelist or a playwright or a poet. You don’t even need to consider yourself a “writer.” You can do all kinds of things- non-fiction, reviews, blogging, letter writing. Anyone can put pen to paper and create something.

My role as Ambassador is to support people and help them achieve their goals. I am, therefore, offering a very special offer to you, my lovely blog readers. Register to the website. Set a goal (if you‘re stuck about what your goal could be, get in touch). Then let me know what it is.
I will personally harass you until you’ve achieved it.
Nagging emails straight from yours truly. Surely that’s an offer you can’t refuse?

I hope you choose to join me on this wonderful journey of writing and discovery.
Or something.
End post.

*Rosie shall henceforth be added to the list of people I annoyingly refer to by first name only just to confuse everyone who isn’t reading every single post with meticulous care and making notes.

PS- I went to see Dead Cat Bounce on Saturday. Got my photo taken with them. It was amazing. Thought you’d all like to know.

The end of the world is nigh

2011-04-25T14:52:00.000+10:00

TUESDAY 4TH APRIL
10:37AM- I get the Debate topic as I’m in the final stages of an essay about sonnets. First thoughts? An obscure Hitchhiker Guide to the Galaxy reference. This is a good start.
10:45AM- Can’t say I’ve ever written jokes while walking before. Am power walking to uni with a piece of paper in one hand and a pen in the other, scribbling down ideas.
10:46AM- Probably convince several people of my insanity by muttering “THIS IS THE END OF THE WORLD!” as I walk.
10:51AM- I wish I could say these notes were actually written in short hand rather than just looking like they are.
11:03AM- Writing jokes in a lecture on Medieval History. This makes me a bit sad really. Gone is 2010 when I could pretend to be a proper writer for a day. Back to ridiculous multitasking.
11:40AM- I’ve written a page and a half of jokes. This is good. The zero knowledge I have gained about the crusades is possibly not.
12:45PM- Walk home very fast, make tea and fling myself in front of the computer to frantically type out what I’ve written.
12:50PM- Does Antarctica have penguins? I know one of the poles doesn’t have any penguins. Is it Antarctica?
1:01PM- How do you spell brimstone?
1:47PM- Writing jokes about natural disasters. I’m sure there’s a thick black line of good taste around here somewhere but I’m not really sure where it is.
3:45PM- Another walk to class with paper in hand. What is my life.
4:05PM- Made it to the tute. On time. Despite the desire to write myself a note saying “Alex is excused from this lesson. Australian comedy needs her.”
4:15PM- There’s a girl behind me wearing a shirt with Che Guevara on it. I’m very tempted to turn around and tell her that Che was a bit of a homophobe. I’m not sure how that’d go as a method of introduction.
4:52PM- Another fast walk home. I would have liked to have my stuff sent away by now.
5:13PM- Click send. I know I got some good stuff in there but I don’t really feel like I gave it my all. Stupid uni.

WEDNESDAY 5TH
8:36AM- More stuff. Midday deadline. I’ve got a lecture from 9 til 11. Excellent.
8:45AM- Walk very quickly to uni via a printer to print material so I can work on it during the lecture. Make mental note to seriously consider buying a printer.
8:59AM- Arrive at lecture alive. This is something of a feat considering I walked here with my head in the pages of stuff. I’m prone to near death experiences on good days.
9:05AM- One of my new friends ask what I’m doing. I show him my crumpled and scribbled on printed pages and tell him I’m writing for the Debate. He asks if he can touch it.
9:33AM- This lecture is far too interesting. Not getting enough work done.
10:54AM- “Where are you going?”
“To meet my midday deadline.” *runs out of lecture theatre*
11:34AM- I suppose that an hour of frantic writing is probably equivalent to two hours of spasmodic writing. Isn’t it?
11:54AM- Thing is that I’m doing an Art Degree so I can write. It seems ridiculous that my Arts Degree is getting in the way of writing.
12:00AM- Sent.

Bear suits and microwaves

2011-04-17T14:06:00.004+10:00

An interview with Matt Okine, co-creator and star of web-series The Future Machine.

You are asked to describe The Future Machine to someone who has never seen it. Using mime. You are allowed to have three props, what would they be and why?
A beer bottle, a watch, and a German Microwave.

The beer bottle would be used to demonstrate the two main characters love of beer, and that they live in an apartment that is littered with empty bottles.

You need the watch because it’s a time machine.

The microwave would signify the most active ingredient necessary to build a Future Machine. It needs to be German because Germans don’t mess around, and you can trust it’ll be efficient. The last thing you need when you’re banging about in a US Government TV studio in 1969, trying to film a ‘moon landing’, is for your time machine to break.

What are the main differences between making a web series and traditional television
production?
The freedom. We funded the show, so we can do what we want. With TV, a lot more people are gambling on the success of your show, and I think that wears off onto the creativity. More investors means less creative freedom.

How do you attract an audience? Do you rely on word of mouth?
That was our biggest rookie error. People throw the word ‘viral’ around all the time. Advertisers are always talking about ‘filming virals’, but – unfortunately - most ‘virals’ lie dormant for their entire life. There’s this idea that as soon as you put something on the internet, people are going to feel compelled to share it, but it simply doesn’t work like that. A web-series isn’t a one-off 40-second clip of a person hitting their nuts. It’s a show that requires an investment from the viewer, like any show you see on TV. Nothing will ever beat word of mouth, but you also have to think smart when it comes to generating other forms of advertising and marketing. Get on forums that have members interested in the topic of your show. Hand out flyers around areas that cater to your target demographic. Our most successful marketing tool has been a “Missing Finger” pole- poster. Any time we put them up, our ‘daily views’ double.

If you’d had a million dollars at your disposal how do you think the show would
have been different?
I don’t think you ever have enough money when you’re making a production. Your ideas just get more extravagant, and everyone’s ego on set gets bigger, but throwing money at a piece of paper doesn’t produce a better script, and I wouldn’t have changed the cast.

Maybe we would’ve filmed it in a studio over two weeks, instead of in a warehouse under the flight path over one week. And we could’ve paid everyone a bit better. But the real difference would’ve been in advertising. They say your marketing budget should be equal to your production budget, and not the 10% that ours was. Yikes!

What was the strangest thing you found yourself doing during production?
Sitting in a green suit – hair parted - speaking in a terribly bad accident, with an angry cat in my lap trying to scratch my face off.
(Note to script writers: NEVER write a scene involving animals)

Also – recreating the famous pottery scene from Ghost with Andy Ryan (who played TOM). I guess you don’t really know someone until you’re in each other’s clay-coated arms swinging around under a spotlight.

Would you like to share a random anecdote? Bonus points if it features a couch.
One night, I slept-walked in my lounge room and pee’d all over my couch.

The internet. Friend or foe?
Friend, friend, friend! Dear god I love the internet. Sure there’s a lot of crap out there, but it’s still a blessing to anyone wanting to create. It’s beautiful to think that no matter what sort of topic your art focuses on, there are people all over the world who share the same interest. It’s just a matter of getting it infront of them! To think – without the internet – you wouldn’t be reading this fully sick interview.

Your time machine has developed a strange fault which means you can only travel
back in time and meet infamous dictators? Who would you visit first?
Hitler. I would kick him in the nut.

To be completely honest, I’m not very down on my basic dictator knowledge. If that ever happened, I’d probably just have a garage sale and hopefully sell the time machine for a cheeky ‘fiddy’.

If someone wanted to buy a bear suit where’s the best place to look?
Ebay! It was such a bargain. Delivered straight from China to my doorstep for mad- cheap. I can’t tell you how great it is to have two Bear suits. I don’t know when I’ll ever need them again, but I will definitely be the coolest person at the next “Pedo bear” dress up party.

Microwaves. Discuss.
They will probably kill you. But they heat meals so quick! I guess you have to decide if you want to save that time now and die 20 years earlier, or live 20 years longer, but spend it waiting for your fried rice to reheat on the stove.

Favourite-
Muppet? Kermit. I love the way he says his own name.
Colour? Red.
Sound? Soda water fizzing over lime and ice.
Letter of the alphabet? I quite like cursive F’s.
Accent? British – when combined with hip-hop.
Biscuit? I prefer cake. But if I must choose, I’d say Waterthins (with cheese and dips).
Number between 7 and 45? Definitely 12

The Future Machine is available on the internets for you to view at your leisure. How convenient.

On location from the Bellingen Readers and Writers Festival

2011-04-10T09:41:00.000+10:00

Blogging will be the death of me.

Here I am in picturesque little Bellingen at the inaugural Bellingen Readers and Writers Festival. The day is sunny, the view is exquisite and I’m frantically clacking away at my keyboard and mentally cataloguing potential wifi opportunities.

The Bellingen Readers and Writers Festival, it has to be said, has class. The whole town is somehow cinematic (and I don’t just mean it’d be the perfect place to set a zombie movie, which it would.) Memorial Hall, which plays host to the main events, is a pretty little old fashioned theatre, locked in a charming state of disrepair. The stage that’s been set up is decorated like a ye olde sitting room, complete with Persian rug, big squashy arm chairs and a typewriter perched on a high cupboard. It could easily, without any alteration, be used to perform an impromptu rendition of The Real Inspector Hound. Its pretty damn cool.

If it had absolutely nothing else going for it, I would come back to the BRWF just for the decor. It does however, have a pretty impressive raft of other positive attributes.

I was actually invited to attend this festival. I didn’t have to fill out an application or harass anyone via email or anything. The invitation came out of Words for the Future which was such a success that it was decided to have some sort of event within the main festival and would I, by any chance, be interested in hosting it?

The reality of hosting a panel was terrifying. My writers festival strategy is basically to not panic, turn up early and hope someone else knows what’s going on. Suddenly, I was the person in charge of panicking. Last week my kitchen played host to a number of practice panels. I sat at the table asking questions to an imaginary line of panellists, playing off an imaginary audience and leaving pauses for imaginary answers. These panels went quite well.

There is obviously a risk involved in devoting a session at a festival to a group of young people. You don’t often get that much inexperience on stage at once. I think, while we were waiting to start, several people assumed we were some hooligans who'd hijacked the stage. They were terrified, I was terrified, the audience (at the beginning at least) was empty. But you know what? They were great. We talked about the future- of young people, of writing, of the world. The audience asked more questions than they did at lots of the “proper” sessions. My guests sparkled wittily. We survived.

In the afternoon something very exciting happened. On a panel about writing in the digital age, I got to be a blogger. Blogging is such a huge part of my writing identity these days. I might not have a shiny book to clutch on my lap but scattered across Australia are a lovely collection of people who come to read my, occasionally nonsensical, ramblings. So it’s nice to be able to talk about that, to discuss social networking and the internet and all those other things that devour far too much of my time.

An audience member asked a questions during that panel. She said that if ebooks were going to reduce writer royalties to an almost unnoticeable blip on a bank statement, was there any point in writing at all? I let my fellow panellists answer that (they were much more knowledgeable in the area of ebooks, royalties and contracts than me) but I couldn’t help thinking it was a silly questions. I’d kind of love for blogging to be a tiny blip instead of, as is inevitably the reality, no blip at all. I’d love to be one of the fortunate few who somehow earn money out of what the greater community view as a narcissistic and pointless hobby. That’d be great. But it isn’t the reason why I write.

I write for me. Mostly. I write because my brain is so full of words that it would explode if I didn’t put them somewhere. I write because I have stories to tell. I write because I love writing more than anything else in the whole world (including, dare I say it, Doctor Who, second hand bookshops and musical comedy). I don’t care if blogging never earns me a single cent. I write because I love it.

And because its how I am.

That is not a joke. That is an irrelevant piece of your thoughts.

2011-04-03T13:11:00.002+10:00

Further exploration of my sanity...
(A throw back to a post I did in November. 'Cause I'm cool like that.)

So Word wasn’t being kind to me. It was lulling me into a false sense of security, waiting until I hadn’t saved for a significant amount of time and then pouncing. Like some kind of big cat. One with no elegance or redeeming features.

“The server understood the request but refused to fulfil it”? Seriously?

Well this isn’t going all that well is it?

Confirmed- not only does GNW still have a fax machine, they actually use it.

So I did, for a moment there, think that what I needed was more information. Then I realised I was about to type “Spanish prostitutes fluoro jacket police” into Google. That could have been interesting.

Deary me. I do wonder about this job sometimes.

Which sounds better- “enormous bosoms” or “massive breasts”? Choices, choices.

Now in the corridor is a large amount of curly blue cabling. Also there’s a picnic basket tied up with ocky straps. That’s been there for a while now.

Corridor addition- a series of very large flat packages. All very big and thin but different sizes and shapes. There’s about seven of them, all pilled against the wall.

Helped an extra for a mardi gra scene in Rescue Special Ops. He was lost so I showed him to the gate and told him how to work the buzzer. Made me feel slightly important.

I love the clack clack sound my keyboard makes when I’m typing. Especially when I’m typing really fast. You know what would make typing faster? Less capital letters and punctuation marks.

Love the sound of scripts sliding off the photocopier.

Beware the exclamation mark.

So today I’ve had ideas for an article about comedy writing, a children’s television show and a poem about exclamation marks.
(Note- I cannot remember a single one of these ideas.)

Do know what the ironic thing is? I’m writing about energy drinks while quietly falling asleep at the desk.

Equates. Is equates a word that would be suitable to my purposes?

When the prostitute rang police, she was naked, screaming and locked in a cupboard. I find this image more than slightly amusing. Certainly slightly more amusing than I should.

That is not a joke. That is an irrelevant piece of your thoughts.

In which Alex gets emotional while talking about Tim Minchin

2011-03-27T18:00:00.001+11:00

I want you to put your hand on your chest. Put your palm on that flat part just below your neck so you can faintly feel your heart beating. Right there is a strange mystical cavity. An inexplicable empty space where our body puts all the feelings we can’t understand or explain. You might not get this right now but next time you have one of those weird, confusing moments you’ll know what I mean.

That mystical cavity has never felt so full for such a long time as it did when I saw Tim Minchin at the Sydney Opera House last week.

It made me realise what a massive role Tim has played in my life. Every one of his songs means something to me. They’ve played so constantly during important moments in my life. I remember crying my guts out to Drowned under a doona in Spain. I’ve played The Fence many times in a row to ward off the homesickness over the last month. I’ve sung loudly about hating faggots in the car park of McDonalds in Armidale. At New Year we yelled our way through Phil Doust so that all people walking past could hear us.

I have a vivid memory of hearing Dark Side for the first time. I caught the second half of the song on Sideshow and I thought it was kind of weird. Then I watched the whole episode and saw the song from the beginning. And that was when I realised how totally wonderful it was. This moment is important because it’s the first instant of Tim worship I can remember.

When we were in Year 10 beccamarsh bough the DVD of So Live. Instead of studying for our School Certificate exams we watched the DVD and then all the extras. For the rest of the week, while everyone else huddled in circles and compared maths formulae, we learnt all the actions to So Rock. Its taken me a very long time to be able to listen to it in public without doing those actions.

You Grew on Me is what love means to me. Its messy and complicated and inconvenient. It doesn’t make sense all the time and its often more hassle than its worth. In my humble opinion this is one of the greatest love songs ever written. I plan to play it at my wedding (seriously). Alternatively (and taking into account how far I am currently from getting married) I’ll play it loudly in my flat while wearing a second hand wedding dress when I turn forty. In the meantime I’ll search for a word that means “that creepy-upy kind of love.”

I studied Not Perfect for the HSC and over saturated my brain with the lyrics. It’s a song about belonging. The unconditional kind of belonging that’s so deeply imbedded that we take for granted. When Tim played it the other night I cried. I’d started crying before he’d even started playing. This song, ironically, is perfect. There’s not much else I can say.

When we were in Year 12 we saw Tim live. He played Ready for This? at the town hall in Bangalow. It was the weekend before our half yearlies (noticing a pattern developing?) but we had to go. There isn’t a lot to do in Bangalow after about three in the afternoon and as a result we were about five hours early for that gig. We stood outside the hall and got increasingly hysterical. It wasn’t until about twenty minutes before the doors opened that we realised we’d been queuing in the wrong place. Luckily everyone else had queued behind us. That was one of our first big adventures. The whole thing is documented in a small comic called “beccamarsh and alex go to TIM (bringer of tea).” Neither of us can remember what the brackets mean.

You wouldn’t think The Pope Song would be a warm and fuzzy one would you? But as some of you may remember, when it was released last year I was at GNW. I'll always hear this song as if it was echoing off the high ceilings of the GNW-TV offices at 8am. That was a wonderful, magical moment when I looked at my life, sitting in an office writing jokes to a chorus of obscenities, and felt as though I might wake up any moment.

Last July we got Tim’s newsletter. Tickets for his new show were going on sale. I honestly can’t remember how we managed to get ourselves so organised but we booked tickets to that show. In pre-sale. More than six months early. Planning anything that far ahead was terrifying. Yet every cent and every moment of anticipation was worth it at 8pm last Thursday.

Rock N Roll Nerd is different now isn’t it? After seeing Tim play this song with an orchestra. In front of 2000 people. At the Opera House. It’s a different song. That cavity’s all full of confusing proud and fuzzy things. Less than a decade ago Tim was playing at pubs in Perth. Look at him now.

White Wine in the Sun is all sad and happy at the same time. I’ve never really understood what it does to me. Its full of memories of Christmas and laugher around sagging tables. Of my pa doing the Jabberwocky with a German accent and singing carols loudly and late at night. Of early morning swims in the ocean and endless games of Charades. Then there’s ghosts of Christmas futures. When I’m 21 or 31 and Christmas comes around and I find myself nine thousand miles from home...and that’s the moment I properly bawled the other night.

If university has taught me one thing so far its that Tim Minchin is the twenty first century’s answer to Shakespeare.

The man’s a genius.

The ABC are broadcasting the concert live tonight at 8:30. Get yourself to a TV. And consider the possibility this might be something you have to plan for.
I want to hear your Tim stories. What moments in your lives has he defined?

My contribution to popular culture

2011-03-19T18:00:00.001+11:00

Guest post by Rohan Gardiner1

My name is Rohan Gardiner.
I work for Good News Week.

Day 1 – Pandas
My first day working for Good News Week was incidentally my Birthday.
It was one of those really average Sydney City days that was sunny, but not hot.
Through the miracle of a shower, breakfast and a bus ride, I was at FOX Studios.

At the gatehouse, I got to announce myself as “Rohan Gardiner – Good News Week.”
I was then led to Studio 53A. GNW.
Here, I met the head writer, Ian Simmons.
To perfectly capture Ian’s character, you need to imagine the most stereotypical comedy writer you can muster2. Bam, that’s him.
He then led me to what would be known as “the office”.
The office smelt of smoke and rubbing alcohol.
A poster-clad fibro and concrete room with a distinct ‘basement’ feel to it, hidden at the back of FOX.
Covering every horizontal surface were props from the show.
I was going to like it here.

The first newspaper story I got was about panda babies at Adelaide Zoo.
Now! To write the best comedy ever! And prove myself so that adolescent males everywhere will be looked upon a little better by the six forty-somethings3 that worked here.
Another intern, Liz, showed up shortly after I’d got the panda story.
She seemed nice.

An hour and two jokes later, my future in comedy writing was looking bleak.
I consoled Liz for ideas.
She suggested I write a line from the article and then write something in response to it.
+2 jokes.

With my two-hour deadline just 10 minutes away, I’d written roughly a page of jokes.
None of them very funny, but one might make it into the script.

Second story – Plants that produce petrol.
Five years of Primary school poo jokes immediately left my brain.
The next two hours passed slowly, with another page of average jokes appearing.

After that, we got the bus back to the hotel, and I concluded that maybe being funny for a living was simply boring.

Day 2 – Carbon
When I got to the office on the second of my five-day internship, I found a story about cyclists on my desk.
Apparently they’ve invented a bracket to hold a camera to your bike to film ignorant drivers. Not a camera, a bracket to hold one.

Ah well, some tight lycra jokes later I got a story on Gillard’s new Carbon Tax. (Oh boy!)
Plenty of jokes here about various apparel bursting into flames.

After three hours of staring blankly at five pages of news regarding our beloved PM, and another page of jokes, I was allowed to go.

Day 3 – Paul
By now, I’m starting to dislike it here, sitting in a chair at a computer, reading news, and writing bad comedy. It’s just an effort4.
I managed to sneak a solution to this, and that was Facebook.
Yes, I know what you’re all thinking...
“Dude, you’re working for GOOD NEWS WEEK, and you go on FACEBOOK?!”
Well, you come here and try it and not succumb to the temptation of a stable internet connection5.

Stories of the day: Robot fish and a Googleable story called ‘the pub-stare’.
Another page for each. You’ve got to give me points for consistency.

At midday, however, something amazing happened.
We were called to a conference room to read over the FIRST DRAFT of the script for the show.
And guess who was there? PAUL.
It was amazing to finally meet someone you’ve only seen in a pixel-box.
Even if "meeting someone" here means being introduced by first name and the phrase 'he’s the intern'.

We read over the scripts, and it turns out I got a couple of jokes in.
I went home that night feeling like I'd achieved something.

Day 4 – Last-minute jokes
This was the last day I would be writing jokes.
Stories: Pedestrian version of road rage, and plants being used as bomb detectors.

This day was an attempt to get any more we could milk out of the week, and then slap it into the next draft.

At half-past midday, we met in the conference room again, read over the scripts, and went home.
Only two of my jokes made it through.

Day 5 – My contribution to popular culture
Got to FOX early today6.
Why?
‘CAUSE WE’RE FILMING, BAYBEE.

I waited in a room full of couches, and then got invited into the filming studio.
I got to be one of the guests on the show during the rehearsal, and it was so much fun!
Aaaaand then...
The balloons came out.
I should probably explain this.
You see, since about age 5, I’ve been scared of balloons. (Har-har, get over it.)
So this new game on the show involved popping balloons with darts6.
And guess who was playing the game?
Me.

After a frightening twenty minutes, however, we sat back down and got on with the rehearsal.
By the end of the show, I got one joke into the final draft.
Admittedly, I was a little let down, but hey – one is better than nothing7.

At the end of recording, I returned to the room full of couches. Here, I met the guests and hosts, and got them all to sign a copy of the script!
Life goal complete.

That night, we left the studio, my week of excitement over.
Incidentally, the night we left was Mardi gras.
And to quote a line from the show: "so gay I cried sequins.”
I can’t remember who said that8, or for what reason, but it just seems applicable here.

That night back at the Hotel, I could still hear the music pumping. It was energizing.

Day 6 – Home
Today we drove home.
As we passed FOX for what I knew would be the last time for ages, if not ever, I couldn’t help but feel saddened. Sure, the writing was boring as hell9, but I was going to really miss it10.

Well there it is.
My contribution to popular culture.

Alex's notes-
1- Rohan won the internship as part of Words for the Future. He's cool.
2- I'm interested to know what image this conjures. No really, I am. I can't decide if I think its accurate or not.
3- Actual age of GNW employees not disclosed.
4- Alex maintains that sitting in the dark writing bad comedy is, in fact, THE GREATEST JOB IN THE WORLD.
5- But I'll admit this bit is true.
6- For anyone who didn't get that memo, GNW now films at Fox. I know? Exciting right?
6b- The ads on the channel Ten media player are the most annoying thing ever. Discuss.
7- Please note- one is actually pretty damn good.
8- It was Paul. For the record.
9- In a good way.
10- I really need to go and visit soon. I miss it too.

Dreams and fantasies...

2011-03-11T15:11:00.000+11:00

Can you tell us what your dream writing gig would be? Is there a particular show you would like (or would have liked) to write for?
Jess

There’s a short answer to that question- Doctor Who. But that wouldn’t make a very good post so I’ll give you the long version.

In lots of ways GNW is a dream job. You get all the joys of writing without most of the pain. Its fun. And I would love, one day, to do something like that full time. I can’t tell you how much. Writing jokes is really pretty awesome. I genuinely love Good News Week and I still miss Sideshow terribly. So that’s one answer.

I’d really like to write my own shows. That’s defiantly a dream. At last count I have the basic premise for two sitcoms and a drama. Plus there’s a few things that I think are begging to be adapted into a script. I’ve always dreamt of writing a mini-series. I’d really love to tell you all about these plans but I can’t. Sorry. I can tell you that at least one of them has almost zero chance of ever getting made. If you’re a powerful TV person who’d like to commission them off me, get in touch.

At the end of the day however, if there’s one show in the world that I dream about writing for, its Doctor Who. I’ve been known to use the phrase “this show is my life” and mean it without irony. I love a lot of television about no one means as much to me as The Doctor. I can’t think of many things that make me as excited as the upcoming pirate episode or will cause as much pain as the mid season finale in series six inevitably will. (For those of you who have no interest in Who that sentence was my permission to stop reading and close the tab. For everyone else- OH MY GOD SERIES SIX ARGH!)

It’s been said by much greater people before me but it really is the best show in the world. I did for a while have the argument with myself that if I was offered the gig, hypothetically, would I take it? Because a show is different once you’ve seen how it works. But then I realised that, of zarking bloody course I’d have to say yes (hypothetically). How could I not? Plus I love all the nerdy behind the scene TV stuff. Like when Charlie visited the set of Smithmas, he was disappointed that the cloud machine was made out of door knobs. I can not tell me how happy those door knobs made me. (Non-Who people aren’t still reading are they?)

So what would I write? That is a carefully guarded secret. I do have an episode sketched out in my head. I’ve devised the concept, basic plot and even written the pre-credit sequence (though I’ve never been brave enough to put it on paper). I’ll give you one clue- it’s a Doctor meets a famous historical figure kind of episode. Does that sound sad? No, its sounds like the makings of a spec-script. Which is a perfectly reasonable and very real thing.

My ultimate television dream is a lot smaller than that though. I want to go to a script read for Doctor Who. That would make my little nerdy dreams come true.

I appear to have done some sort of weird blog swap this week. In that I kind of feel like this post should be on my other blog and visa versa. How ‘bout you just read both posts. Please and thank you.

Tell me something I don't know

2011-03-06T13:03:00.004+11:00

An interview with Kirsten Drysdale of Hungry Beast

What were you doing before you got the job on Hungry Beast?

I had just returned from South America where I’d spent eight months relieving the continent of its surplus of supa-panchos (delicious giant hotdogs topped with crushed potato crisps) and was training through a painful injury to get my arse back into shape for the Australian Hockey League (I used to play for the Queensland Scorchers). I was also finding it soul-crushingly difficult to find work in Brisbane, and after running out of savings and mum-and-dad favours had to apply for the dole the same week I sent in my application for Project Next. (I ended up briefly getting my old job back as a researcher/writer for a production company that specialised in museums and exhibitions before getting a spot on the show.) I don’t want to get all Oprah on you, but this was a valuable life lesson about how really horrible times always pass… Have a rainbow!

What was your audition video about?

It was called “Soul Savers 101” and was an spoof instructional DVD for the insidious Christian evangelists who prowl university college corridors looking for lonely and vulnerable first year students to baptise in blow-up baby pools.

You’re asked to explain Hungry Beast to someone who has never seen the show. Using mime. You are allowed to have three props. What would they be and why?

The internet*, a television and a blender. Many reasons. 1. Our (somewhat chaotic) format and style is heavily influenced by the internet browsing experience. 2. We aim to bring stories about and from the new digital/connected world of the web to trusty traditional television. 3. Actually I would cheat and use the person I was explaining this to as a fourth prop and put them in the blender too, to show that we still find room for deeply human stories. *No, I’m not sure what a prop of the internet would look like either… it would probably be some sort of cat though.

What’s a normal day at the office like? Is there such a thing?

No. I don’t care what Nick McD says, it is not normal to see a colleague walk past your desk wearing nothing but a flesh-toned G-string with butchers’ choice cuts marked all over his body. See here:

What’s the most surreal thing you’ve had to do in the course of your Beastly duties?

Piggy-back attacking Marc Fennell while a grown man ran past engulfed in flames:

Ever been injured?

No but I’ve been inured…

What’s your favourite thing about working in TV-Land?

Having amazing people to collaborate with who can help mould a nebulous idea into a visual format.

Least favourite?

Being reminded by Twitter trolls that my voice is “nasal and bogan”. (North Queensland REPRESENT!)

Do you have any TV-Land stories which involve couches?

Yes, but they are all between me and my therapist.

Instead, I will tell you about the time I got to meet Margaret & David in the make-up room and David was giving Margaret shit about her new haircut and she countered by telling him that he didn’t even have any hair SO THERE!

Are there free sandwiches?
Sometimes, but they won’t cut the crusts off for us.

Can you give us any extremely cryptic and unhelpful teasers about the new series?

ECAH ESIDPOE WLII VEHA A METHE. EKPE NA EEY TOU ORF DAB ESA CETRRSEAU.

Vaginas. Discuss.
Do your flaps hang low? Do they wobble to and fro? Can you tie them in a knot? Can you tie them in a bow? Can you throw them over your shoulder like a regimental soldier? Do your Flaps. Hang. Low?

Does your clit hang out? Is your pudenda rather stout? Is your vulva not real ‘neat’? Can you touch it with your feet? Are you an outie not an innie and don’t think that should be a sin-ny? Does your Clit. Hang. Out?

(If you answered ‘yes’ to any of these questions, please take a closed-legged photograph of your cooch and send a copy to the Australian Classification Board.)

Favourite-

Muppet? Miss Piggy
Colour? Gin sparkle
Sound? A hockey ball hitting the steel backboard of a goal box
Letter of the alphabet? P (This is also the best letter to use if you are having a costume party.)
Accent? Argentine
Biscuit? As long as there’s cheese on it.
Number between 7 and 45? 19

Hungry Beast returns to our screens on Wednesday 23rd March. Get excited.

Tell me a joke

2011-02-27T21:16:00.003+11:00

Hey guess what? Its our birthday.

‘But Alex!’ I hear you cry, ‘It isn’t my birthday! Furthermore I seriously doubt that any significant percentage of your readers would have their birthday today either.’
So what the hell am I talking about?

Simple. Its my blog’s birthday. Its been a whole year since I started writing Adventures in TV-Land. A whole year ago I fumbled my way into the very first post. Now, 365 days later, I’ve somehow written 58 of them. And more than that, there are people who read them. I’m no longer sitting down on Sunday to write into a vacuum. I’m talking to you guys. You guys are awesome.

So this week is something different. I’m not going to say special because I’m not sure it is. It’s a video. Of me. Telling a joke. This was inspired by a few things. Beth told me that I have a very distinct voice in her head (which is the biggest compliment you can give a writer) but that it probably sounds nothing like my own. Which got me thinking.

I didn’t write this joke. But it is one of my favourites. Its also the one I tell when someone demands I tell them a joke. At least the times the person demanding it is someone I like enough to humour them. It’s the only foolproof joke I know. I’m yet to meet someone who doesn’t like it.

So this is my birthday present to you, dear readers. You’ll laugh. Everyone does.

PS- Our ask box remains 100% untested. Hint hint. PLUS we now have a Facebook page! Join for up to the minute news and random facts.

Ian

2011-02-18T15:23:00.002+11:00

“Well she’s not going to be making fucking tea or pealing fucking oranges.”

That was my introduction to Ian Simmons, via my uncle. I can’t actually confirm that Ian said anything of the sort but that was how it reached me. I was going to do work experience at GNW-TV on the condition that I pulled my weight. There would be no menial labour involved. I was going to do what every other intern did.

I was slightly afraid of Ian before I met him. All I knew was that he was the Head Writer, which sounded mysterious and vaguely threatening. Plus I had a second hand paraphrased (or invented) quote of him swearing about oranges.

Television is full of mentor figures. Lynda Day has Mr Sullivan, complete with his crosswords and that spectacular white suit he wears in Day Dreams. Horatio Hornblower has Captain (and then Admiral) Pelew, who constantly shoves him in the right direction, smiling knowingly when his back is turned. I love those characters, even more so now I know they can exist in real life.

Ian treated my like I was any other intern. I’m yet to see any other intern behave quite the way I did, following him around and asking an almost constant stream of questions. Being treated like an adult is a very big deal when you aren’t. I was thrown in the deep end big time and, despite swallowing quite a lot of water, I managed something akin to swimming. It made me realise that a world existed outside the small brick confides of school. For the first time in my life, I felt like I could do anything.

The Monday after work experience I had double Agriculture. When I was in Year 10 (as I then was) I had a teacher who was…slightly sexist. He wouldn’t let the girls use shovels and that kind of thing. On this particular Monday this attitude was thrown into sharp relief. That was the hardest thing about it all. Because not all the world is like TV-Land and not everyone is like Ian. Who’ll only treat you like an idiot when you behave like one and acknowledges that fifteen year olds are people too.

I think Ian recognised potential that I didn’t even know I had. I wouldn’t be where I was now if I wasn’t for his help and advice and endless patience. Ian is the person I emailed when my friends all ganged up on me for doing too well at school and when I had my first story published. He was the first person who ever told me I was a writer. On the days I want to give up, sometimes Ian’s name in my inbox is the thing that reminds that I‘m banging me head against walls for a reason.

He knows all this, because every now and again (usually around Christmas) I feel the need to tell him. I’m not sure why. I suppose because I’m occasionally overtaken by the weight of it all. By how insanely, incomprehensibly lucky I am. And because Lynda never openly thanked Mr Sullivan. Neither did Hornblower acknowledge Pelew with anything other than humbled smiles.

101 words of awesome

2011-02-13T17:42:00.001+11:00

Jack and I on the first day at Heywire

So this is less of a post and more of a reference material. The other night in the wee early hours Jack Piggott and I sat down to write a list of 101 awesome words. It turned into two complete lists, such was the quantity of awesome. I'm going to set up the list as a page so it'll be a permanent fixture.

Speaking of permanent fixtures- we've now got an ask box. I've had a couple of people tell me we should do that survey thing again- it was fun, good stuff happened. I don't think I can throw a heap of questions at you every couple of months but we can keep that participation going. So go on- ask me something.

Without further adieu here are my 101 words for you to drop into conversations. Enjoy.
1. Pagoda
2. Kumquat
3. Yoicks
4. Fondle
5. Discombobulate
6. Totalitarianism
7. Disembowelled
8. Keelhauled
9. Crump
10. Parapet
11. Zloty
12. Exquisite
13. Marooned
14. Ecstatic
15. Quell
16. Exude
17. Tumbler
18. Tintinnabulation
19. Infinity
20. Vestibule
21. Articulate
22. Plosive
23. Pinnacle
24. Spoon
25. Opaque
26. Cornea
27. Bivouacked
28. Arachnid
29. Gobbledegook
30. Specific
31. Bastardise
32. Doppelganger
33. Fascinator
34. Fornicate
35. Fallacious
36. Random
37. Solemn
38. Glee
39. Effeminate
40. Dandy
41. Quote
42. Xenophobe
43. Zest
44. Pith
45. Onomatopoeia
46. Circumlocution
47. Brassiere
48. Rectory
49. Brasserie
50. Indicative
51. Misconstrued
52. Voyeurism
53. Quintessential
54. Repertoire
55. Grope
56. Cliché
57. Folly
58. Conquer
59. Foster
60. Tenacious
61. Limerick
62. Glean
63. Velocity
64. Glockenspiel
65. Assonance
66. Forthwith
67. Conniption
68. Palindrome
69. Poignant
70. Centrifuge
71. Nifty
72. Arabesque
73. Mystic
74. Cacophony
75. Alopecia
76. Opine
77. Plethora
78. Alphabet
79. Affectation
80. Forsooth
81. Thus
82. Noir
83. Fezzed
84. Catholicism
85. Allele
86. Masochist
87. Chump
88. Normality
89. Distain
90. Stifle
91. Narcissism
92. Epitaph
93. Ludicrous
94. Zygote
95. Void
96. Buggery
97. Improbability
98. Ventilation
99. Inexplicable
100. Humbug
101. Pantaloon

The last word

2011-02-11T19:18:00.003+11:00

Heywire 2011

Based on looks alone I think the 2011 Heywire team could have won anyone over last night. We were dressed to the nines for the gala dinner and ready to blow the socks off anyone who crossed our path. I'm scouring the internet (I possibly use the word scouring loosely)for pictures so the world can see how awesome everyone looked but to no avail. Oh well, imagination it is then.

The gala dinner in Old Parliament house is a way to neatly wrap up the forum. Everyone that's been involved gets to come together and eat nice food and talk a lot. Because some of the Heywire winners were under eighteen there was colour coded wrist bands- green for the young-uns and black for the older peeps. What I loved was that EVERYONE had to wear one. In the interests of even footing and equality even the older MPs had their over 18 wrist bands on. I thought that was really cool.

The night itself was amazing. The speeches were amazing. Janet, Jarrad and Dana, hats off to you. Our guest speaker Stella was awesome. Everyone was awesome. The food was awesome, the little foam cows on our tables, the people we got to sit next to, our MCs (Tom Ballard and the lovely Natalie). Awesome awesome awesome. We networked and plugged our ideas and shared stories. I came home with a bag full of business cards.
And if we proved one thing last night it's that country kids can nutbush. Our education system serves us well there. And for anyone who's never nutbushed for the entire track- its pretty hard work.

We trickled reluctantly out of parliament house at midnight to the spectacular view of new parliament house, lit up like a Christmas tree. In one hand we all clutched our framed certificates and in the other our foam cows. We sang all the way home on the bus. I think I need to learn some more main stream songs. Its all well and good being able to sing "if you really loved me" all the way through but it's not exactly karaoke is it?

It was one of those nights when bed seems like the most painful option. So we had origami lessons with Claire and chatted. Jack and I found ourselves sitting outside making a list of excellent words. As people drifted past and came to join our table we quizzed them on their favourite words. Everyone has one. There's a tip if you want a conversation starer. So now Connect Four isn't the weirdest thing I've done at 2am.

Going to bed sucked. Saying goodnight and being unable to follow it with "see you in the morning" was pretty hard. So we put it off to the last possible moment. Somehow I've survived all day on less than three hours sleep. And I'm still conscious. I'm rather proud of that actually.

The coda to the whole thing came as I was juddering about in the skies above Grafton in the teeny Rex plane. I don't think I've ever seen that decent clearly. There's so much more forest when you see it from the air. It made me realise that we really are patches of civilisation in the wilderness. And that's a huge part of what the country is about. You can ride your bike to a place where you can pretend to be the only person on Earth. There will always be more trees than buildings. And more grass than concrete.

And I'll always be proud to say that's where I'm from.

Spread the word

2011-02-10T14:46:00.002+11:00

Heywire 2011

You won't hear much from me today because honestly, I don't have time. We did our presentations this morning and I wish I could tell you everything that happened in that room. It was more than amazing. I think you'll hear more about the products of today. And you can say you heard it here first.

But to keep you occupied while we're ripping up the dance floor tonight at old Parliament house check out the blog we set up for our issue. Spread the word.
http://united-regional-students.blogspot.com/

A day in the life of a Heywirer

2011-02-09T22:19:00.003+11:00

Heywire 2011

6:30am- Am woken from a Heywire themed dream. Pretty sure we were changing the world.
6:45am- Have moderate argument with my hair. Slightly regret my stubbornness in regard to hair straighteners and travelling.
6:51am- Spent five minutes trying to get my name tag straight. This takes longer than any other part of getting ready. Cover new Heywire shirt in punctures.
7:15am- Over breakfast we talk Mighty Boosh and I dazzle Sophie with my encyclopedic knowledge of Matt Smith's sock collection.
8:00am- On the bus to Parliament. Only half an hour behind schedule.
8:04am- Stuck in traffic.
8:22am- We've arrived. There's a lot of live tweeting going on. I'm offline blogging using paper and pen. That should count.
8:33am- So apparently our giant foam letters and Parliament house have to be separated by a road.
8:44am- Parliament House looks better with giant green letters. They should be a permanent installation.
8:48am- Telling my exploding mousetrap wheel of death story to an ABC lady in the shadow of Parliament House. As if the story needed more surreal.
9:03am- Australia's capital was designed almost entirely by Americans. Discuss.
9:09am- How to build a Parliament House. First demolish any hills present on the proposed site.
9:11am- Guide-"And out the front we have a lovely mosaic"
Bryce- "Renee's grandfather actually designed that. When she said her grandfather had a mosaic here we thought we'd have to go through the corridors looking for it. As we're coming in she says 'oh its that one there.'"
9:37am- Yet another fascinating guide. This lady's amazing.
10:30am- The Heywire morning tea is like being inside a news bulletin.
10:35am- Obviously I should be over the whole "Oh my god! People from the TV exist in real life!" I'm not.
10:36am- Look! Its Peter Garrett!
10:45am- I just shook hands with Barnaby Joyce.
10:56am- The toilets have instructions for using the automatic sensor taps. Not even shopping centres have that. A reflection on our politicians?
11:11am- We're doing Bush Telegraph. Live radio. Huzzah.
11:20am- Just had to talk about my story about the school farm live on air. Surprise!
11:34am- I hope you're all listening to this radio. Its awesome. I think you'll be able to podcast it. Do that.
11:46am- Been suddenly overwhelmed by the amazing nature of the people in this room. Slightly emotional.
11:59am- We're going to change the world.
12:31pm- I just told the women from Headspace about Matt Smith's Socks. In my defence she asked me about Tumblr. I take that back. There is no excuse. Shame.
12:54pm- Listening to the youngest MP dude. A testament to the fact that age is no barrier.
1:15pm- Demonstrating our coordination skills now by chucking mints.
1:46pm- Having all our worldly possetions impounded. Not even allowed to write during question time apparently.
2:44pm- Question time in summery- Julia Gillard waved at us, they yelled a lot and we had to leave just as everyone was getting into it.
2:50pm- We stop to look at the mosaic but move off before our foam letters are escorted from the premises.
2:55pm- We're now clogging up the car park. No sign of the bus.

The remainder of the afternoon was spent being far too busy to even blog offline. But we're really excited about our issues presentations tomorrow. You'll here more about this. Its going to be huge.