The price one pays for a free trip to the theatre

I was taken to the theatre last night, to see Woman In Mind. It was a sensational production, and Noni Hazelhurst was fabulous in the lead. The rest of the cast were all familiar faces (with the exception of newcomer Sophie Ross, who was both radiant and delightful) and formed an ensemble that was strong to a person.

Problem is, and I know this is most ungracious, I was taken there by a firm as a client. "Where is the problem, you lucky ungrateful bastard?" I hear you ask.

The problem is, as I was saying, that you don't actually get to choose who from the law firms take you to these things, they do. And that means that almost without fail it is the pompous old partners who want to sit next to you over dinner and find out what work you can give them. The same ones who completely disingenuously ask about your personal life:

• where you are living (replying with Camperdown often elicits a briefly puzzled look before the mask of fake interest descends again, mostly as they try to work out where that is in relation to their mansion in Wahroonga or Bellevue Hill),
• how work is (this is their subtle way of finding out if you are busy enough to give them more work),
• how the dogs are (this is for the ones with good memories, who vainly try to act like they even care about dogs - almost none have any themselves, and if they do, they belong to the kids and the lawyer probably wouldn't recognise the dog much more than the kids they rarely see. There is nothing wrong with not having dogs or caring about them if you don't, but please don't pretend that my pugs are just the most adorable concept you wish you thought of yourself if the closest you come to canines is abusing an owner if it looks like his/her mutt may take a leak on your lawn),
• how the love life is (one for the bravest only, and they do get some points for being ballsy/tactless enough to go there in the face of the unknown. I derive some malicious glee from starting to answer the question with anything other than "fine", and then watching pure horror descend as they suddenly realise that I might be going through a divorce they weren't warned about and they just totally burnt themselves from getting any instructions from me ever again. I'm a bastard, but you knew that).

Some of them are great fun, some are even my friends, but I never get to sit with those ones. So every time I wonder why it is that I don't just go to the theatre with my friends, which would be much more fun. Or I could just think myself lucky that I even get the opportunity to have someone take me at all.

In the end I recommend you see it, as it was technically superb, funny and yet just incisive enough to leave one thinking, which is why we go to these things, isn't it. Just remember to take your friends with you.

The Wagon, or "I'm not having fun so neither can you"

That's right folks. Nothing from me for a week or 2, and then the action packed, fun-filled announcement that I am on the wagon for a while. I know that this is the equivalent of Terminator 4 starring Rick Moranis, but hey, nobody has a gun to your head. Hmm, unless they do, in which case, why the hell are you reading this? You're in deep shit.

I was recently (last weekend even) away with a bunch of friends and their respective dogs. I know, people without dogs think this is some weird beastiality club (don't they? they certainly don't get it), but it hardly ever gets like that. We just all own dogs, in fact we met through walking our dogs in the same park, we are all mates now, and go away together.

Soooo, this weekend had several memorable aspects. Firstly, when you get 14 people and 12 dogs together in self-catering cabins, certain things happen:

• cooking becomes a chance to whip up something loved by all, and even to show off a bit. For instance, for the first night there were 6 curries made by various people. Mine was a Lamb Sagwala, cos I know you are interested. There was a beef rendang, a lamb korma, a tuna curry, daal.... these were all homemade, and bloody yummy.
• Huge fry up for one brekky, including inter alia (sorry, the inner lawyer coming out) my homemade baked beans, which I thought were pretty good. Look, they were all eaten, so that is a start isn't it. If I don't tell you, who will? Blueberry pancakes for the other brekky. Sooo good.
• everyone eats too much. Der.
• We all drink too much. That is except for the friend who finds out 4 days before we all go that she is preggers, and hence instantly volunteers to be the group taxi for the next 9 months. she was stoked (at the taxi bit, she was actually pretty chuffed about the preggers bit).
• the dogs all get a bit hyper being stuck together in relatively small spaces at times. While they can run around all day, in the evening everyone congregates and so do their mutts. This can lead to problems, as the bigger more aggressive dogs tend to get short of temper, shall we say, and take it out on the smaller dogs. The pugs automatically qualify as the bottom of the food chain, having no teeth to speak of, not an aggressive bone in their body, and a complete inability to get away from anyone. I therefore spent a large proportion of the weekend with one eye on my beer/wine/cocktail/vodka/headache and the other on preventing the pugs having the living bejesus bitten out of them.
• Did I mention that everyone drinks too much?

For these reasons, actually pretty much numbers 3, 4 and 6 really, I have decided to go on the wagon for a while. Well, at least for 2 weeks until the Newtown Festival on the 12th. It will then be reviewed.

So far I am a pillar of virtue. I am back doing 10km a day on the bike. I walked 4km to the pub on Tuesday for trivia night (and back), and then proceeded to drink Lime & Sodas while my mates had beers. I resisted having a celebratory beer after we inflicted a 55 point (yes, that is 55 point) drubbing at basketball last night. I am a rock. I don't even feel any cravings for a drink yet. The problem is, every time I walk into my study, I see about 420 reminders of the fact that I am not knocking the neck off a lazy cabernet that evening. What hope do I have?