Officially disguised as a Canadian
In 1990 I started at boarding school, aged 13. In what turned out to be eighteen months of living hell* interspersed with a life-long friendship or two, I learned the value of reinventing myself. I remember lying on my hostel bed a few weeks into the first term thinking that I could be anybody IContinue reading Reinvention
Rehearsals are underway for The French Kiss Off, a Confederation Theatre farce I am directing, written and produced by Alan Le Boeuf. I haven’t directed a farce in Canada before, so it’s a first. The cast numbers nine in total, which is fairly large, so I have an able team to help me including twoContinue reading Directing for the stage
In June 1994, my father died at the age of 41. In May this year I outlived him, but for psychological reasons I needed to celebrate my 42nd birthday to make it “official”. Well, I made it. Saturday 22 December was the big day and now I kind of feel like counting birthdays is noContinue reading I made it
Married eleven years today. Together for thirteen. Thank you, Husband.
I deactivated my main Twitter account today, after renaming it, downloading my data, and taking one of my existing spare accounts and setting it to the old name in order to preserve my “brand” (ugh). In early 2017 I did something similar with another Twitter account. That time though I didn’t ignore the siren song,Continue reading Goodbye Twitter
I recently navel-gazed about what it means to be funny. While I do believe in free speech, there has to be a limit on speaking freely when it hurts other people. The recent news about James Gunn and Roseanne Barr reminded me that I have some pretty twisted jokes on this site, some of whichContinue reading It’s just not funny anymore
I spend a lot of time on Twitter, for better or worse. It has negatively affected the volume of content I produce for this website in any event. Twitter is a cesspool and a goldmine rolled into one. I can barely scroll fast enough through American politics, only to be caught by surprise by anContinue reading What it means to be funny
Last year on Facebook, I engaged in a discussion with a friend about the fact that violent acts seem to be the norm to make people notice things, in place of that time-worn cliché of “rational discussion”. While my response does refer directly to South Africa, in hindsight it could apply elsewhere. Here it is,Continue reading On violence in South Africa
Many years ago, my family was on holiday at a cottage owned by an uncle. It was a seaside cottage, with no electricity. Light was provided by paraffin lamps, and cooking was done with bottled gas plugged into a gas oven. One evening, my brother and I, both recovering from chicken pox, were comparing ourContinue reading What Would You Do?
Two vastly different reasons for remembering the date today, and both have resonance. 14 August 1989: (Picture credit: Alex Jay on Twitter, but I’m not sure where he got it from, because it’s a photo of a frame from a public television broadcast.) State President PW Botha, the second-last apartheid-era leader of South Africa, theContinue reading 14 August