My so-called (bug) life

I’ve had several requests for an update on The Bug Situation, so herewith my report. I’ve broken it down by bug type for your ease.

Cockroaches
There have been no further sightings of cockroaches in my bedroom since the aforementioned Nightmare Bug Experience. Or in the rest of the house either for that matter. This is, I’m sure, largely due to the environmentally-friendly repellent papers I have bought and liberally distributed near doorways and windows.

Practical aromatherapy for the home

However, I did find one sleeping on my desk when I arrived at work last week – underneath my copy of In Style magazine (Angelina Jolie cover) but I persuaded one of the boys in the office to quietly get rid of it.

Locusts
Here is our pet locust…



…which has taken up residence on our bannister, and seems quite content to hang out there while Rachel watches Sex and the City reruns until the wee hours.

Mosquitoes
These are evil little swines, which wait until you’re just about to drop off to sleep before revealing their presence with that oh-so-irritating whine, right near your ear. Not sure if you can make it out, but here’s one I splattered earlier…



… with some satisfaction, although half the blood on the wall is probably mine. Nice.

Apart from that I’m doing quite well actually, in the bug department. (Famous last words.)

cx

Fans, furniture, film

I’m Your Man, the Leonard Coen movie I saw at the Chauvel on Friday, simply blew me away. What a talented man, and what an incredible bunch of people they assembled in one room to pay tribute to him – all my faves, Rufus Wainwright, Beth Orton, Antony, Jarvis, etc etc. I wanted to lay down in a darkened room and hear nothing for hours afterwards. Wow.

On Saturday Christina took me to Erkinsville (West again, damn that heat!) to a furniture auction house. This place was incredible – full of the most beautiful things for your home. I had to forcibly restrain myself from buying things, constantly reminding myself that I’ve decided not to ‘homebuild’ as I’m enjoying my new-found minimalism since ditching loads of stuff in the UK. I was totally ruthless in the week or so I had before moving out here, and got rid of things I’d had for years, so I don’t want to simply start all over again, and acquire loads of ‘stuff’. Even with books (which was the one thing I couldn’t bring myself to be ruthless with, and shamelessly boxed them all up for storage) I am going to make sure I pass them on once I’m done. (btw, I just finished ‘Perfume’ by Patrick Suskind, and am really looking forward to seeing how the hell they’ve managed to make it into a film! But I hear the lead in it is a young actor called Ben Whishaw, whom I saw as Hamlet at the Old Vic in 2004, and in Chekhov’s The Seagull at the National Theatre last year, and from his stage performances I think he’s perfect for the role of Grenouille.) Anyway, I didn’t make any bids on the furniture, but here’s a picture of some of the wonderful stuff they had – I’m sure I’ll be back!

Lovely 20th century furniture at auction

These summer months make me miss my annual tennis feast, but I’ve been combatting Wimbledon withdrawal symptoms by watching the Australian Open – seeing Federer kick everyone’s ass in Melbourne. What fun. It’ll be weird watching Wimbledon in the middle of the winter (well, Aussie winter is probably on a par with a London summer, so no change there!)

It’s unbearably hot here. Soooo muggy. There’s no point in opening the window because in will come warm, still air. I just got back from the cinema – saw a 30 minute film funded by the AFC which was beautiful – it was the cast and crew screening, my colleague Andrew knows the producer, and they got $200,000 to make this 30-minute film (about £80,000) – can you believe it?! Set in one small town in the Blue Mountains with a cast of about 6! But conditions of AFC funding mean you have to pay market rates for everything, including wages, so they still had to shoot on HD! But it did look beautiful – and I was impressed with the evident talent that had gone into making it. Am slowly trying to work my way into this crowd... Give me time.

The cinemas here are air conditioned, so they are freezing, which in my current overheated state makes me think cinemagoing might become a bit of an obsession over the next few weeks. Escapism in multiple senses.

cx

Cabaret, crackers and customised gnomes

Another week of the Sydney Festival! For those of you bored of hearing about this, there's only one more weekend, so hold on. February brings Chinese New Year, then in March it's the Mardi Gras, so there's plenty to look forward to.

Anyway, the next event I managed to go to (thankfully someone else queued from 6.30am for me this time, hurrah) was La Clique at the Famous Spiegeltent. I didn't realise what pedigree this space held, until I read that Marlene Dietrich herself sang on the stage in this very tent. So with awe and reverence I again stepped forth into the antique mirrored haven. Photography is not allowed, but check out the pics on www.spiegeltent.net for an idea. La Clique was fantastic - a mixture of cabaret, burlesque, vaudeville and the circus. I did have to turn my head away when the Norwegian guy managed to climb through a 10 inch tennis racquet (flashbacks of Cowburn's print-weekend coathanger trick with added gruesome double-jointedness!). But there was plenty of eye candy and nudity, which is always a bonus.

On Sunday I dragged Christina, Jasmine and Martin out West to see 'The World Famous' firework display, Crackers. This was an awesome experience, as we were surrounded by the fireworks rather than watching them from afar - and many of them exploded above us, which was quite unnerving. Plus there were people with fireworks attached to them (see pic) which was very Wicker Man, and eerie. Venturing to the 'inner west' as it's called was quite an experience. I hadn't realised how much we benefit from the sea breeze, those of us who live in the 'eastern suburbs'. The further West you go in Sydney the further away from the sea you are, so when I got off the train at 7.30pm out west, it was like walking into a sauna! No breeze at all to take the edge off the heat. I don't think it's a trip I'll be making often...

A moving firework-wearing person

Last night I went out with the Frenchies to a gallery opening in Surry Hills. The guy who is launching his gallery space gave 100 artists each a garden gnome, which they had to customise for the occasion. There were some really creative ideas - my favourite was a video of a skateboarding gnome, and one encased in marble. Here are some more, although a bit blurry as I still haven't got used to using this camera, sorry.

Some customised gnomes

Another gnome

Speaking of pics, I've made my flickr page private, but it's easy to see my pics. Just create an account for free and I'll permission you to see them. I just came across some problems with people linking to my page.

My local 2nd hand bookshop, Berkolow Books - it's fab

Ok, gotta go. Today's Australia Day, so it's a public holiday, yay! It's a celebration of the slaughter of indigenous peoples by settling white Europeans or something (or just a celebration of the 'discovery' of this terra nullis) so I'm off to a barbecue, then to watch a Leonard Coen tribute movie, and then to see a Japanese beat box band at the Sydney Festival. Not much on then.

cx

Aching abs

Yesterday I did my first pilates class since arriving in Australia, and I realised a couple of things.

1) Doing pilates after a 3 month break can almost kill you
2) Not exercising for 3 months can undo 3 years’ worth of regular exercise

Argh! My stomach feels like I’ve been punched by a heavyweight boxer. Basically, in October I went from cycling for 90 minutes a day, swimming for 30 minutes a day, and going to 1-2 pilates classes a week, to working my ass off 20 hours a day on the London Film Festival, living off canapés and Konditor and Cook, and then, after being offered the Sydney job, racing around trying to get rid of all my belongings, and having lots of booze at various leaving dos. So I arrived in my new home country, a stone heavier, with a load of summer clothes that don’t fit me any more, no bicycle, and it’s too hot to do anything but flollop on the sofa moaning about how hot it is.

Disaster.

So I thought, right, back into it girl, pilates for you. But the Aussies don’t do pilates like the Brits. Oh no. Here it’s like a military training camp. Pilates for soldiers. It was hard. And everyone else in the class pre-empted the next move! Is the routine the same every week? At Yogahome in Stoke Newington the movements were small and precise, the teacher constantly checking we were doing it properly. At Cook & Philip Park the movements are fast and repetitive, and if you're not careful the teacher will leave you behind!

So now I’m still wearing tight fitting clothes (and not out of choice) and am searching for a new pilates class.

cx

Karaoke and Contemporary dance

Another weekend, another dose of the Sydney Festival. But first, Jaya’s birthday celebrations on Friday at the Karaoke house near Hyde Park. We booked a room, Japanese-style, and much earnest belting out of cheesy pop songs ensued. Highlights were Craig and I paying tribute to Dolly Parton with ‘9-5’, the boys singing Britney, and Jaya and Trent duetting on the table. Quite surprised we didn’t get chucked out actually!

Ruci and Jaya at Karaoke


After Karaoke I had my first official night in King’s Cross, the seedier side of Sydney. It’s all a bit of a blur, but Jaya I made it home at the wholly reasonable hour of 4.30am, while the rest of the gang stayed out until after dawn. Time is an alien concept in the Cross, it seems.

The gang in some Kings X club


On Saturday, after wandering round town and checking out the Myer sale (more Elle Macpherson underwear!), I met up with Christina again, along with Lauren and Matt who I met on NYE, and we had a picnic in the Domain. Noite Brasil was held as part of the Sydney Festival - a night of brazilian music under the stars – it was so lovely dancing until 11pm on our picnic blankets, on a warm summer evening, with 20,000 other people. I love the Sydney Festival!

Picnic in the Domain at Noite Brasil


Sunday brought a numb bum, as I queued from 7am until 10am at the ‘Tix for next to Nix’ booth (Australian for ‘cheap standby tickets’). Managed to secure 2 tickets for the Batsheva Dance Company’s Mamootot. Ooh, I’m so proud of myself for trying all these new things. I lived in London for 7 years and never once ventured inside Sadler’s Wells, having a strange allergy to contemporary dance. Well now, along with shattering my prejudices of video art, I decided to give it a try. I’ve always felt very estranged by the world of contemporary dance – as if it’s a club I don’t belong to – something I felt I didn’t understand and felt sidelined by. Also it was never staged or presented in a way that suggested it would be accessible to me, or that I would be welcomed, so I avoided it. However, in the spirit of no cultural boundaries, I went to the carriageworks with a really open mind, thoroughly disposed to be thrilled and amazed.

The Carriageworks

My initial frustration when we left after the performance was tempered somewhat by talking it over with Matt, who knows a lot about dance and really enjoyed the performance. I suppose I was searching for narrative, and character, and felt frustrated by the lack of either. However as I started talking about it, and voicing my questions, I realised that I had been engaged with it – it did inspire emotion in me – I did question the meaning but in an intelligent way – and I didn’t feel stupid for not necessarily adoring the whole thing. Plus the performance did contain narrative and character, but that each audience member’s personal interpretation of the piece is just as important as the artist’s motivation behind devising it. The questions I was asking were my personal response, yet I was expecting hard and fast answers because of the art I’m used to engaging with. It’s a fascinating relationship between the audience and the dancers, and I can see that each time I venture to something like this I’m taking somewhat of a risk, because the dancing is so personal, but I wasn’t totally turned off by it, and would definitely try more.

The rest of the week has been really hard work – there’s so much to do at the moment on the festival and we’re all under a lot of pressure – I was up until 3am last night putting together a sponsorship proposal for a pitch to a telecommunications company who shall not be named (SFF confidentiality) and then spent the whole day today interviewing people for the first two positions in my team, so I’m pretty exhausted. As previously promised, I will update people on what I’m doing at work, but need to get some sleep now.

More pics on flickr by the way.

cx

Sydney sites

On Monday the SFF senior management team visited all the major venues used for the festival, so it was a great opportunity for me to finally be able to visualise these places that had until then felt purely hypothetical. Especially useful as I’m currently devising strategies as to how to fill them in June! The main venue for the festival is called the State Theatre. This is a stunning art deco theatre in the heart of Sydney, one of the oldest buildings in the city, with jaw-dropping ornate decorative ceilings and all the original gold features – including busts embedded in the walls of all the major composers and theatrical auteurs through the years.



I was really blown away by this venue. It seats 2000 and although it’s packed for all our major screenings, it’s hard to fill on a weekday afternoon, so there have been murmurings of dissent amongst new staff about remaining in this costly and fairly impractical venue. It’s really popular with the hardcore SFF membership though, many of whom have had the exact same seat for the past twenty-odd years, and see it as an annual social occasion. (Seriously, we get people ringing up saying ‘my seat is C31’ and stuff – it’s like they own the festival!) And when I visited it, I could see why it holds such a special place in people’s hearts. Everything about the building is awe-inspiring. The ladies room is called ‘the butterfly room’ and the gents is ‘the lodge’ – and they were really spacious social rooms, harking back to a time when they would have been like segregated areas for the interval, where people smoked cigars or powdered their noses, depending on which room they were in. I think in a city where everything is relatively contemporary, it was magical to be in a building that felt so historical, and for an era so fashionable.



We also visited the other cinema venues, and a great nightclub venue that we’re considering for the Festival club lounge – we want somewhere a little more flexible than a standard cinema screen, so we can hold cabaret-style screening events, and be a bit more creative with the event programming, perhaps having bands perform live scores to films etc. This venue seemed perfect, so I’ve been getting excited about the possibilities there, but need to rein myself in a bit as it’s not confirmed that we’re using it yet!

The Sydney Festival has taken over the city at the moment – it’s the annual summer arts festival, and lasts the whole of January. Everything from gigs to theatre, video art to performing art, and all sorts in between, happens all over the city. On Monday I saw an American singer-songwriter called Matt Ward, in the world famous Spiegeltent. This is a wonderful ancient tent that they put up in Hyde Park (no not that one, the other one!) which has stained glass round the tops of the walls, and mirrors on the beams. (I’ll take a picture inside next time…) He was really good – kind of angsty, Leonard Coen/Rufus Wainwright vibe. Molasses voice and tortured face…



The Spiegel tent with the Sydney tower in the background.

This week was also my housemate Jaya’s birthday, so we had a dinner party on Wednesday evening. Jaya has a wheat intolerance, which made it particularly interesting for Rachel and I to devise a menu! We made some fantastic goats cheese and eggplant stacks, with a yummy sauce, and I baked a rhubarb, blueberry and polenta cake, which was absolutely divine, despite the fact that I totally made it up as I went along (albeit with a little help from a similar Nigella recipe I found on the internet! God love her.) Anyway, it all went down well, along with the wine and good company. They are a really lovely group of friends, I feel very privileged that they’ve been so welcoming to random little me! Maybe the deserts I make have something to do with it. ;-)



I have both Sydney and London weather forecasts on my google homepage – so I can compare… Tomorrow it’s 33 degrees in Sydney and 12 in London. What am I doing??

cx

Visitors & Video Art

Happy Two Thousand and Heaven…

Happy new year to y’all. Hope you had a good one. Mine was fun – went kind of like this: BBQ (Champagne), another BBQ (Pimms), rooftop for fireworks (Mules), house party (more Mules, although ratio of vodka to ginger beer slightly less uneven than previous location), another house party… and then it gets a bit hazy after that. Was fun though, and met yet more lovely people, some of whom I think will become good friends.

Since then have been knuckling down to work and trying to start 2007 as I mean to go on. Will email more about work later (promise!), but will update you on some recent visitors first.

So for those of you who know her, the divine Kate Watt was in town this week, so I met her in a swanky Surry Hills restaurant for lunch, and we chatted about London vs Sydney, and all the lovely film industry types we know. It was great to see her, and it’s largely down to her that I now have this job, as it was she who told me about it, so I was v grateful. She’s gone back to London now though, but it was good to see her in her ‘hood’.



Then Dom stopped by again on his way back to London, and we had tea and cakes in a lovely Italian deli in Paddington (at Five Ways for those who know it). It was great to chat about my experiences here with someone who knows me well, and he made some very insightful observations about how I’m dealing with the relocation, so thanks Dom.



Today I met up with Christina, the graphic designer who worked in London on the LFF, who has happily decided to stick around in Sydney for a bit to see how things go here (ah the freedom of two passports, enjoyed by many Australians). More gratitude flowed, as Christina found me my room here through a friend of a friend she used to work with at the Historic Houses Trust. Thanks Christina!



We had breakfast in Bills – this is a Sydney institution. Apparently Bill cooks the best eggs in Sydney, but I had the corn fritters and Christina had the ricotta pancakes, so I guess I’m just going to have to go back there to try the eggs some other time! I’m v lucky as his Darlinghurst restaurant is literally about 30 seconds from my front door, and I’ve walked past the queues every Sunday morning since I got here, so it was good to finally sample his cuisine. It’s yum. PLUS, star-spot: Ralph Fiennes was also having brekky there, so it must be good. Ralph’s here for the Sydney Festival performing Beckett, which I might try to get standbys for later in January.

Then we wandered round the city in the muggy summer humidity, with Christina as my guide round the historic houses and galleries of Sydney. We also ventured through the botanical gardens which are lovely – I can see myself reading books under trees there for many a summer weekend. We took in the NSW Art Gallery, the Museum of Sydney, and the Museum of Contemporary Art. The first two were just brief visits but I really wanted to see the exhibition at the MCA on the history of video art (this has come from the Centre Pompidou for those who may have ventured to see it in Paris).

I’ve always found video art kind of inaccessible. The sort of thing that Stephen Cowburn goes to see for a whole day and talks about with knowledge, but which I feel is a bit exclusive and up its own arse. (The art, not you, Stephen!) So I though I should really give this exhibition a go, to educate myself, and hopefully erase my fears of video art, especially as it’s so close to the field I work in myself. Plus it was recommended by a new friend whom I trust, so I felt emboldened to check it out.

The exhibition is really fascinating, and I’m glad it’s on for another 6 weeks as I’ll definitely go back to take more of it in next time. Also I would like to read up on some of the artists, as the accompanying text for the exhibition does rely on a certain amount of prior knowledge which I simply don’t have. Some of the pieces confirmed my views of video art as pretentious alienating crap, but many surprised me with their power and humour (yes, humour!). So all in all I think it was an enlightening experience, and I think I’ll approach video art from a different perspective in future.

Ok this entry has been going on for too long now, I’ll write more about my favourite art pieces another time (bet you’re all really looking forward to that one :-) ) And I’ll take some pics to illustrate, as I’m getting used to this blog malarkey. Still can't italicise yet though. Am working on it...

cx