You decide.

Thanks to my auntie Louise for this one.

Goodness me, how terribly original. A Melbourne magazine running a feature on Barry Humphries in which he shares his thoughts on a city he hasn't lived in for over twenty years. Honestly, for a magazine which purports to understand how Melbourne ticks, you'd think you'd be able to lay your hands on someone a little more relevant, more interesting, more... resident. Not to mention that the continuing deification of Humphries and his ilk by publications such as yours makes readers under the age of thirty feel like they don't even exist. If your intention with Melbourne magazine is merely to provide a vehicle for advertisers to sell expensive watches to cashed-up baby boomers, fine. But please don't pretend to offer us anything different.

I didn't get the prize.

So... if you have any of these items, and would like to be immortalised in the program of Just Pretending's production of City of Angels, please let me know.

• Guns. We need three. 1940s style revolvers. No automatics. (perhaps we can pick up Victoria Police's surplus);
• A shoulder holster for one of the guns;
• 2 belt holsters for the other two guns; and
• 2 truncheons (ooer, constable, got the handcuffs? etc).

Inquire within: peter AT glutbusters DOT com.

I have been frightfully busy at the moment, directing a musical for the theatre company I have (with a few others). I love musicals, but they're a shitload of work to direct.

Not to worry, the bulk of work will be over soon and I will be able to tell all about:

• my Grandmother's 90th birthday party, at which I found out that she was once engaged to be married before she decided it wouldn't work, reneged, and has ever since denied the engagement altogether;
• how much I love being from an Italian family when they do things like hold a surprise party for my young cousin who has leukemia, and about 400 people turn up to a church hall to eat a donated spit roast, pay ridiculous amounts of money for a crap North Melbourne jumper, and dance to bad cover versions of Santana's "Black Magic Woman";
• my seemingly neverending quest to recover my copy of The Latham Diaries (hardcover) from the person I lent it to and subsequently forgot. The only lead I have, after a couple of email broadcasts, is that it was recently seen amongst the debris in my aforementioned grandmother's retirement community bedsit; and
• the fact that my tennis game has gone to shit and I haven't won a singles in three weeks.

Won't that be fun for everyone?

UPDATE: I have located my Latham Diaries. I will place it next to my recently reclaimed Dark Victory in the "Rage Building" section of my library.

This is a photo from a South African court room after the white blokes pictured were cleared of the murder of a black farmhand. They were fined $1740 for assault. They are relieved, yes. But it's the level look of suspicion from the guy in the centre that the money's on for mine. He reckons that justice hasn't been done, but there's not a damn thing he can do about it. And so it goes.