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I have always maintained that stories only happen to those who can tell them. Kate Mcghie can tell a story. And she can cook. She has a fascination with Morocco which has led her to 29 journey’s worth of adventures and stories and ideas about Moroccan food. Donkeys and spice sellers and children in olive jars listening to roof-top stories. The evening cooking class was indeed a culinary journey through Morocco.

Needless to say, I now have a tagine and I’m not afraid to use it.

And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts

The weekend before the play and we are finally in the theatre, treading the boards, tripping over electrical cords, negotiating new furniture and props, freezing in the wings and wondering whether we will actually succeed in pulling it all together on Tuesday for opening night.

<> is its French name, “Don’t Dress for Dinner” in English. There are six in
the cast. The story is that my husband, Bernard, and I are in our country house for the weekend and Bernard has invited his friend, Robert to come….I am delighted at this, because I am having an affair with Robert. But Bernard’s reason for inviting him is because he too is having an affair…with a model from Paris and so he wants her to come away for the weekend and has invited Robert to come to act
as Brigitte’s partner. Robert doesn’t want a bar of it because of his liaison with me, so he protests, but eventually is worn down and bullied into it. Bernard and I go off to get groceries and whie we are away ‘Brigitte’ arrives, but it is the wrong Brigitte…this one is the maid who is coming to work for the weekend. Robert gets them mixed up and tells the maid she has to pretend to be his lover…which she
agrees to for 500 francs extra. I then get all snippy to learn that my lover has a girlfriend and then Brigitte the model turns up and has to pretend to be the maid to fit in with Bernard and Robert’s mess. Then finally Brigitte the maid’s husband turns up and all…well virtually all is revealed.

Completely ludicrous farce. Fun to act, but with Act 1 lasting 80 minutes and Act 2, 45 minutes, it’s a lot of French farce for one small fish to retain…

I’d like a dog. I can’t have one. But now I have this little guy, sitting in my room, looking at me expectantly.

Dog on chair, Sal Cooper.

…you’re on a wine bottle label…

What could be more fitting for the hundredth entry on lyttel fish big pond, than a celebratory bubbly? It gives a whole new meaning to ‘…I’m all over that bottle of bubbles…’

To be honest, there’s not much more I can say about this. What should one say when presented with a bottle of wine with their picture on it?

Opening night is looming, Jacqueline has completely taken over my life with her flouncy and very melodramatic ways. There is a lot of rehearsing, a lot of practising of lines on the drive to and from school (I’m not even going to think about what the other drivers think…it IS impossible to be Jacqueline without a lot of gesturing and raised eyebrows…).

 A walk along the canal and back down the beach as the sun is setting. Calm, quiet, except for the cicadas. The crunch of autumn leaves underfoot. The end of another week.

Big day in the city. Cup of tea on pretty china. A children’s bookshop. William Kentridge. Bliss.

William Kentridge was born in South Africa and has conquered the world of stop-motion films of charcoal drawings. I spent almost 3 hours at ACMI this afternoon, mesmerised by moving images of charcoal on paper. William Kentridge is passionate about politics and society and weight and want, and yet has such a poetic and magical take on life. The hours and labour behind each of his films are not felt as each work takes on a life of its own and dances on the screen. He deals with weighty subject matter and yet, in the end, I feel that he is celebrating life and human nature. There are clever people walking amongst us. William Kentridge is one of them.

Gone.
It was a soft feeling
lingering on.
The soft scent of Summer
as it comes to a close.
A final chord,
hanging in the air.
One last look,
a wave.
Gone.

From the break of day and the bright spinal coil on the wall above my bed…

 Tonight I went to the Comedy Club late session. I have connections….well, one connection…and with a flash of the Comedy Festival fancy-pants ticket thing, we by-passed the very long queue down Swanston Street into the Hi Fi, where we were ushered into the performers’ bar. Very rock and roll. When it came time for the performance, we followed the other cool hipster comedy type people in through the performers’ entrance to a great seat right in front of the stage. Well, actually, not right in front, thankfully, because right in front tends to mean you are in the danger zone where live comedy is concerned…and when it is slapstick…there is no end to the water, prosthetic limbs, soft toys, and catapulting people that might come your way. We sat just over to the side of the front of the stage. Close, but not close enough to risk contact.

So you think you can slapstick was a degustation of the comedic talent on show in the festival…a variety show, if you will. Very, very funny. And MCed by Hannah Gadsby, a very very funny woman from Tasmania originally…there’s some pretty good things coming from Tasmania…James Boag beer, the Granny Smith apple, Princess Mary, amongst other things…but I digress…Hannah Gadsby. Very clever, very dry, very good.

Very late. Very tired. I reckon I could channel some of the slapstick into the French farce…it’s about timing…